When precisely I began to speculate _why_ I was despatched into this
world so minute and different I cannot say. Pretty early, I fancy,
though few opportunities for comparison were afforded me, and for some
time I supposed that all young children were of my stature. There was
Adam Waggett, it is true, the bumpkin son of a village friend of Mrs
Ballard's. But he was some years older than I. He would be invited to
tea in the kitchen, and was never at rest unless stuffing himself out
with bread-and-dripping or dough-cake--victuals naturally odious to me;
or pestering me with his coarse fooling and curiosity. He was to prove
useful in due season; but in those days I had a distaste for him almost
as deep-rooted as that for "Hoppy," the village idiot--though I saw poor
Hoppy only once.
Whatever the reason may be, except in extremely desperate moments, I do
not remember much regretting that I was not of the common size. Still,
the realization was gradually borne in on me that I was a disappointment
and mischance to my parents. Yet I never dared to let fall a question
which was to be often in my young thoughts: "Tell me, mamma, are you
_sorry_ that your little daughter is a Midget?" But then, does any one
ask questions like that until they cannot be answered?
Still, cross-examine her I did occasionally.
"Where did I come from, mamma?"
"Why, my dear, I am your mother."
"Just," I replied, "like Pollie's mother is _her_ mother?"
She cast a glance at me from eyes that appeared to be very small, unless
for that instant it was mine that I saw reflected there.
"Yes, my dear," she replied at length. "We come and we go." She seemed
tired with the heat of the day, so I sate quietly, holding her finger,
until she was recovered.
Only, perhaps, on account of my size was there any occasion for me to
be thoroughly ashamed of myself. Otherwise I was, if anything, a rather
precocious child. I could walk a step or two at eleven months, and began
to talk before the Christmas following the first anniversary of my
birthday, August 30th. I learned my letters from the big black capitals
in the Book of Genesis; and to count and cipher from a beautiful little
Abacus strung with beads of silver and garnets. The usual ailments came
my way, but were light come, light go. I was remarkably sinewy and
muscular, strong in the chest, and never suffered from snuffling colds
or from chilblains, though shoes and gloves have always been a
difficulty.
I can perfectly recall my childish figure as I stood with endless
satisfaction surveying my reflection in a looking-glass on the Christmas
morning after my ninth birthday. My frock was of a fine puffed scarlet,
my slippers loose at heel, to match. My hair, demurely parted in the
middle, hung straight on my narrow shoulders (though I had already
learned to plait it) and so framed my face; the eyebrows faintly arched
(eyebrows darker and crookeder now); the nose in proportion; the lips
rather narrow, and of a lively red.
My features wore a penetrating expression in that reflection because my
keen look was searching them pretty close. But if it was a sharp look,
it was not, I think, a bold or defiant; and then I smiled, as if to say,
"So this is to be my companion, then?"
It was winter, and frost was on the window that day. I enjoyed the crisp
air, for I was packed warm in lamb's-wool underneath. There I stood, my
father's round red face beaming on one side of the table, my mother's
smiling but enigmatic, scrutinizing my reflection on the other, and
myself tippeting this way and that--a veritable miniature of Vanity.
Who should be ushered at this moment into the room, where we were so
happy, but my godmother, Miss Fenne, come to bring my father and mother
her Christmas greetings and me a little catechism sewn up in a pink silk
cover. She was a bent-up old lady and a rapid talker, with a voice
which, though small, jangled every nerve in my body, like a pencil on a
slate. Being my godmother, she took great liberties in counselling my
parents on the proper way of "managing" me. The only time, indeed, I
ever heard my father utter an oath was when Miss Fenne was just beyond
hearing. She peered across at me on this Christmas morning like a bird
at a scorpion: "Caroline, Caroline," she cried, "for shame! The Shrimp!
You will turn the child's head."
_Shrimp!_ I had seen the loathsome, doubled-up creatures (in their
boiled state) on a kitchen plate. My blood turned to vinegar; and in
rage and shame I fell all of a heap on the table, hiding from her sight
my face and my hands as best I could under my clothes, and wishing that
I might vanish away from the world altogether.
My father's voice boomed out in protest; my mother took me into her arms
to soothe and scold me; but long after the ruffled old lady had taken
her departure I brooded on this affront. "Away, away!" a voice seemed to
cry within; and I listened to it as if under a spell. All that day I
nursed my wounded vanity, and the same evening, after candle light, I
found myself for a moment alone in the kitchen. Pollie had gone to the
wood-shed to fetch kindling, leaving the door into the garden ajar. The
night air touched my cheek. Half beside myself with desire of I know not
what, I sprang out from the doorstep into an inch or so of snow, and
picking myself up, ran off into the darkness under the huge sky.
It was bitterly cold. Frost had crusted the virgin surface of the snow.
My light footsteps can hardly have shattered its upper crystals. I ran
on and on into the ghostly world, into this stiff, marvelous, gloating
scene of frozen vegetation beneath that immense vacancy. A kind of
stupor must have spread over my young mind. It seemed I was transported
out of myself under the stars, in the mute presence of the Watchman of
Heaven. I stood there lost in wonder in the grey, luminous gloom.
But my escapade was brief and humiliating. The shock of the cold, the
excitement, quickly exhausted me. I threw myself down and covered my
face with my hands, trying in vain to stifle my sobs. What was my
longing? Where its satisfaction? Soft as wool a drowsiness stole over my
senses that might swiftly have wafted me off on the last voyage of
discovery. But I had been missed. A few minutes' search, and Pollie
discovered me lying there by the frozen cabbage stalks. The woeful Maenad
was carried back into the kitchen again--a hot bath, a hot posset, and a
few anxious and thankful tears.
The wonder is, that, being an only child, and a sore problem when any
question of discipline or punishment arose, I was not utterly spoiled.
One person at least came very near to doing so, my grandfather, Monsieur
Pierre de Ronvel. To be exact, he was my step-grandfather, for my
mother's charming mother, with her ringlets and crinoline, after my real
grandfather's death, had married a second time. He crossed the English
Channel to visit my parents when I was in my tenth year--a tall, stiff,
jerky man, with a sallow face, speckled fur-like hair that stood in a
little wall round his forehead, and the liveliest black eyes. His
manners were a felicity to watch even at my age. You would have supposed
he had come _courting_ my mother; and he took a great fancy to me. He
was extremely fond of salad, I remember: and I very proud of my mustard
and cress--which I could gather for him myself with one of my own
table-knives. So copiously he talked, with such a medley of joys and
zests and surprises on his face, that I vowed soon to be mistress of my
stepmother tongue. He could also conjure away reels and thimbles, even
spoons and forks, with a skill that precluded my becoming a materialist
for ever after. I _worshipped_ my grandfather--and yet without a vestige
of fear.
To him, indeed--though I think he was himself of a secular turn of
mind--I owe the story of my birthday saint, St Rosa of Lima in Peru, the
only saint, I believe, of the New World. With myself pinnacled on his
angular knee, and devouring like a sweetmeat every broken English word
as it slipped from his tongue, he told me how pious an infant my Saint
had been; how, when her mother, to beautify her, had twined flowers in
her hair, she had _pinned_ them to her skull; how she had rubbed
quicklime on her fair cheeks to disenchant her lovers ("_ses
pretendants_"), and how it was only veritable showers of roses from
heaven that had at last persuaded Pope Clement to make her a saint.
"Perhaps, _bon papa_," said I, "I shall dig and sow too when I am grown
up, like St Rosa, to support _my_ mamma and papa when _they_ are very
old. Do you think I shall make enough money? Papa has a very good
appetite?" He stared at me, as if in consternation.
"_Dieu vous en garde, ma p'tite_," he cried; and violently blew his
nose.
So closely I took St Rosa's story to heart that, one day, after bidding
my beauty a wistful farewell in the glass, I rubbed my cheek too, but
with the blue flowers of the--_brook_lime. It stained them a little,
but soon washed off. In my case a needless precaution; my _pretendants_
have been few.
It was a mournful day when my grandfather returned to France never to be
seen by me again. Yet he was to remember me always; and at last when I
myself had forgotten even my faith in his fidelity. Nearly all my
personal furnishings and belongings were gifts of his from France, and
many of them of his own making. There was my four-post bed, for
instance; with a flowered silk canopy, a carved tester and half a dozen
changes of linen and valance. There were chairs to match, a wardrobe,
silk mats from Persia, a cheval glass, and clothes and finery in
abundance, china and cutlery, top-boots and sabots. Even a silver-hooped
bath-tub and a crystal toilet set, and scores of articles besides for
use or ornament, which it would be tedious to mention. My grandfather
had my measurements to a nicety, and as the years went by he sagaciously
allowed for growth.
I learned to tell the time from an eight-day clock which played a sacred
tune at matins and vespers; and later, he sent me a watch, the least bit
too large for me to be quite comfortable, but an exquisite piece of
workmanship. As my birthdays (and his) drew near, I could scarcely sleep
for thinking what fresh entrancing novelty the festive morning would
bring. The only one of his gifts--by no means the least ingenious--which
never, after the first flush of excitement, gave me much pleasure, was a
two-chambered thatched summer-house, set up on a pole, and reached by a
wide, shallow ladder. The roof opened, so that on very hot days a block
of ice could be laid within, the water from its slow melting running out
by a gutter. But I loved sunshine. This was a plaything that
ridiculously amused chance visitors; it attracted flies; I felt silly up
in it: and gladly resigned it to the tits, starlings, and sparrows to
quarrel over as they pleased.
My really useful furniture--of plain old Sheraton design--was set out in
my bedroom. In one half of the room slept Pollie, a placid but, before
her marriage, rather slow-witted creature about six years my senior. The
other half was mine and had been made proportionate to my needs by a
cabinet-maker from London. My father had had a low stone balcony built
on beyond my window. This was fenced with fine trellis work to screen it
from the colder winds. With its few extremely dwarf trees set along in
green Nankin tubs, and the view it commanded, I could enjoy this eyrie
for hours--never wearied of it in my youth, nor shall if I live to be a
hundred.
I linger over these early recollections, simply because they are such
very happy things to possess. And now for out-of-doors.
Either because my mother was shy of me, or because she thought vulgar
attention would be bad for me, she seldom took me far abroad. Now and
then Pollie carried me down to the village to tea with _her_ mother, and
once or twice I was taken to church. The last occasion, however,
narrowly escaped being a catastrophe, and the experiment was not
repeated. Instead, we usually held a short evening service, on Sundays,
in the house, when my father read the lessons, "like a miner prophet,"
as I wrote and told Miss Fenne. He certainly dug away at the texts till
the words glittered for me like lumps of coal. On week-days more people
were likely to be about, and in general I was secluded. A mistake, I
think. But fortunately our high, plain house stood up in a delightful
garden, sloping this way and that towards orchard and wood, with a
fine-turfed lawn, few "cultivated" flowers, and ample drifts of shade.
If Kent is the garden of England, then this was the garden of Kent.
I was forbidden to be alone in it. But Pollie would sometimes weary of
her charge (in which I encouraged her) and when out of sight of the
windows she would stray off to gossip with the gardener or with some
friend from the village, leaving me to myself. To judge from the tales
which I have read or have been told about children, I must have been old
for my age. But perhaps the workings of the mind and heart of a girl in
her teens are not of general interest. Let me be brief. A stream of
water ran on the southern side all the length of the garden, under a
high, rocky bank (its boundary) which was densely overhung with ash and
willow, and hedges of brier and bramble looped with bindweed,
goose-grass, and traveller's joy. On the nearer bank of this stream
which had been left to its wild, I would sit among the mossy rocks and
stones and search the green tops of my ambush as if in quest of
Paradise.
When the sun's rays beat down too fiercely on my head I would make
myself an umbrella of wild angelica or water parsnip.
Caring little for playthings, and having my smallest books with me
chiefly for silent company, I would fall into a daydream in a world that
in my solitude became my own. In this fantastic and still world I forgot
the misadventure of my birth, which had now really begun to burden me,
forgot pride, vanity, and chagrin; and was at peace. There I had many
proportionate friends, few enemies. An old carrion crow, that sulked out
a black existence in this beauty, now and then alarmed me with his
attentions; but he was easily scared off. The lesser and least of living
things seemed to accept me as one of themselves. Nor (perhaps because I
never killed them) had I any silly distaste for the caterpillars,
centipedes, and satiny black slugs. Mistress Snail would stoop out at me
like a foster-mother. Even the midges, which to his frenzy would swarm
round my father's head like swifts round a steeple, left me entirely
unmolested. Either I was too dry a prey, or they misliked the flavour of
my blood.
My eyes dazzled in colours. The smallest of the marvels of flowers and
flies and beetles and pebbles, and the radiance that washed over them,
would fill me with a mute, pent-up rapture almost unendurable.
Butterflies would settle quietly on the hot stones beside me as if to
match their raiment against mine. If I proffered my hand, with quivering
wings and horns they would uncoil their delicate tongues and quaff from
it drops of dew or water. A solemn grasshopper would occasionally
straddle across my palm, and with patience I made quite an old friend of
a harvest mouse. They weigh only two to the half-penny. This sharp-nosed
furry morsel would creep swiftly along to share my crumbs and snuggle
itself to sleep in my lap. By-and-by, I suppose, it took to itself a
wife; I saw it no more. Bees would rest there, the panniers of their
thighs laden with pollen: and now and then a wasp, his jaws full of wood
or meat. When sunbeetles or ants drew near, they would seem to pause at
my whisper, as if hearkening. As if in their remote silence pondering
and sharing the world with me. All childish fancy, no doubt; for I
proved far less successful with the humans.
But how, it may be asked, seeing that there must have been a shrill
piping of birds and brawling of water among the stones, how could
Mademoiselle's delicate ear endure _that_ racket? Perhaps it is because
the birds being loose in the hollow of space, it carried away into its
vacancy their cries. It is, too, the harsh, rather than the shrill, that
frets me. As for the noise of the water, it was so full and limpid, yet
made up of such infinitely entangled chimings and drummings, that it
would lull me into a kind of trance, until to a strange eye I must have
appeared like a lifeless waxen mammet on my stone.
What may wholly have been another childish fancy was that apart from the
silvery darting flies and the rainbow-coloured motes in the sunbeams,
fine and airy invisible shapes seemed to haunt and hover around me when
all was still. Most of my fellow creatures to my young nose had an odour
a good deal denser than the fainter scented flowers, and I can fancy
such a fog, if intensified, would be distressing to beings so bodiless
and rare. Whereas the air I disturbed and infected with my presence can
have been of but shallow volume.
Fairies I never saw--I had a kind of fear and distaste for them even in
books. Nor for that matter--perhaps because the stream here was too
tumbling and opaque--a kingfisher. But whatever other company may have
been mine, I had the clouds and the water and the insects and the
stones--while pimpernel, mousetail, tormentil, the wild strawberry, the
feathery grasses seemed to have been made expressly for my delight.
Ego-centric Midget that I was!