In happier circumstances, the next morning's post might have reassured
me. Two letters straddled my breakfast tray, for I always had this meal
in my own room. One of them was from Wanderslore--a long, crooked,
roundabout letter, that seemed to taunt, upbraid, and entreat me, turn
and turn about. It ended with a proposal of marriage.
In most of the novels I have read, the heroine simply basks in such a
proposal, even though scarcely her finger-tips are warmed by its rays.
For my part, this letter, far from making me happy or even complacent,
produced nothing but a feeling of fretfulness and shame. Thrusting it
back into its envelope, I listened a while as if an eavesdropper might
have overheard my silent reading of it--as if I must hide. Then, with
eyes fixed on my small coffeepot, I sank into a low, empty reverie.
The world had not been so tender to my feelings as to refrain from
introducing me to General Tom Thumb and Miss Mercy Lavinia Bump Warren.
"A pair of them! how quaint! how romantic! how _touching_!" I saw
myself--gossamer veil, dwarfed orange-blossom, and gypsophila bouquet,
all complete. Perhaps Mr. Pellew--perhaps even Miss Fenne's bishop,
would officiate. Possibly Percy would be persuaded to "give me away."
And what a gay little sniggling note in the _Morning Post_.
I came out of these sardonic thoughts with cold hands and a sneer on my
lips, and the thought that I had seen quite as conspicuously paired
human mates even though their size was beyond reproach. Thank goodness,
when I read my letter again, slightly better feelings prevailed. After
all, the merest cinder of love would have made my darkness light. I
shouldn't have cared for a thousand "touching's" then. I was still
myself, a light-headed, light-hearted, young woman, for all my troubles
and follies. If I had loved him, the rest of the world--much truer and
sweeter within than it looks from without--would have vanished like a
puff of smoke. But not even love's ashes were in my heart, except,
perhaps, those in which Fanny had scrawled her name.
I beat about, bruising wings and breast, hating life, hating the friend
who had suddenly slammed-to another door in my gilded cage. "You can
never, never go back to Wanderslore now," muttered my romantic heart.
Friends we could have remained--only the closer for adversity. Now all
that was over; and two human beings who might have been a refuge and
reconciliation to one another, amused--as well as amusing--observers of
the world at large, had been by this one piece of foolish excess divided
for ever. I simply couldn't bear to look ridiculous in my own eyes.
My other letter was from Sir W. P. He had seen the Harrises. Those foxy
tortoises had advanced a ridiculous L1 19s. 7d. of my September
allowance--the price of a pair of Monnerie bedroom slippers! It was
enclosed--and Sir Walter begged me not to worry. Might he be my bank?
Would I be so kind as to break it as soon as ever I wished? Meanwhile he
would be making further inquires into my affairs.
Perhaps because Sir W. P. was a business man, he was less persuasive
with his pen than with his tongue. I thought he was merely humouring me,
fell into a violent rage, and tore up not only his letter, but--noodle
that I was--the Harris Order too--into the tiniest pieces, and heaped
them up, like a souffle, on my tray. Mr Anon's I locked up in my old
money-box, with the nightgown and the Miss Austen. Both letters wore
like acid into my mind. From that day on--except for a few half-stifled
or excited hours--they were never out of remembrance.
Even the most valuable and expensive pet may become a vexation if it is
continually showing ill-temper and fractiousness. Mrs Monnerie merely
puckered her lips or shrugged her shoulders at my outbursts of vanity
and insolence. But drops of water will wear away a stone. From being
Court Favourite I gradually sank to being Court Fool. In sheer ennui and
desperation I waggled my bells and brandished my bladder. A cat may look
at a Queen, but it should, I am sure, make faces only at her
Ladies-in-waiting.
Fanny inherited yet another sinecure; and it was not envy on my side
that helped her to shine in it, though I had my fits of jealousy. She
was determined to please; and when Fanny made up her mind, circumstances
seemed just to fawn at her feet. Life became a continuous game of chess,
the moves of which at times kept me awake and brooding in a far from
wholesome fashion in my bed. Pawn of pawns, and one at the point of
being sacrificed, I could only squint at the board. Indeed, I
deliberately shut my eyes to my own insignificance, strutted about,
sulked, sharpened my tongue like a serpent, and became a perfect pest to
myself when alone. Yet I knew in my heart that those whom I hoped to
wound merely laughed at me behind my back, that I was once more proving
to the world that the smaller one is the greater is one's vanity.
In the midst of this nightmare, by a curious coincidence rose like a
Jack-in-the-box from out of my past the queerest of phantoms--and proved
himself real.
I was sullenly stewing in my thoughts in the library one morning over a
book which to this day I never weary of reading; Gilbert White's
_Natural History of Selborne_. It was the nearest I could get to the
country. The whim took me to try and become a little better acquainted
with "William Markwick, Esq., F.L.S.," who had himself seen the _sphinx
stellatarum_ inserting its proboscis into the nectary of a flower while
"keeping constantly on the wing." There seemed to be something in
common, just then, between myself and the _Sphinx_.
I pressed my wainscot bell. After an unusual delay in a drastically
regulated household, the door behind me gently opened. I began simpering
directions over my shoulder in the Percy way with servants--and
presently realized that all was not quite as it should be. I turned to
look, and saw thrust in at the doorway an apparently bodiless,
protuberant head, with black, buttony eyes on either side a long, long
nose. Then the remainder of this figure squeezed reluctantly in. It was
Adam Waggett.
Guy Fawkes himself, caught lantern in hand among his powder barrels,
must have looked like Adam Waggett at this moment. For a while I could
only return his stare from the midst of a vortex of memories. When at
last I found my tongue and inquired peremptorily how he came there, and
what he was doing in the house, he broke into a long, gurgling,
strangulated guffaw of laughter. I was already in a sour temper--in
spite of the sweetness of Selborne. As a boy he had been my acute
aversion; and here he was a grown man and as doltish and ludicrous as
when he had roared at me in the moonlight from outside the kitchen
window at Stonecote. His stupidity and disrespect made me almost
inarticulate with rage.
Maybe the foolish creature, feeling as strange as a cat in a new house,
was only expressing his joy and affection at sight of a familiar face.
But I had no time to consider motives. In a fever of apprehension that
his noise might be overheard, my one thought now was to bring him to his
senses. I shook my fists at him! and stamped my foot on the Turkey
carpet--as if in snow. He watched me in a stupefaction of admiration,
but at length his face solemnified, and he realized that my angry
gestures were not intended for his amusement.
His mouth stood open, he shook his head, and, unless my eyes deceived
me, set back his immense ears.
"Beg pardon, miss, I'm sure," he stuttered, "it was the sc-hock, and you
inside the book there, and the old times like; and even though they was
telling me that there was such a--such a young lady in the house.... But
I won't utter a word, miss, not me. Only," he stared round at the closed
door and lowered his voice to an even huskier whisper, "except to tell
you that Pollie's doing very nicely, and whenever I sees her--well,
miss, that thunderstorm and the old cow!"
At this his features gathered together for another outburst, which I
succeeded in stifling only by warning him that so long as he remained at
Mrs Monnerie's he must completely forget the old cow and the
thunderstorm, and never address me in company, or even glance in my
direction if we happened to be together in the same room.
"Mrs Monnerie would be extremely angry, Adam, to hear you laughing in
the library; and I am anxious that you should be a credit to Lyndsey in
your new situation."
"But you rang, miss--at least the library did," he replied, now
thoroughly contrite, "and Mr Marvell said, 'You go along, there,
Waggett, second door right, first staircase,' so I come."
"Yes," I said, "but it was a mistake. A mistake, you understand. Now go
away; and remember!"
A few minutes afterwards, Marvell himself discreetly entered the room;
merely, as it would appear, to adjust the angles of a copy of the
_Spectator_ that lay on the table.
"It's very close this morning," I remarked, with as much dignity as I
could muster.
"It is indeed, miss," said Marvell, stooping sedately to examine my
bell-push. He rose and brushed his fingers.
"They say, miss, the electricity gets into the wires, when thunder's in
the air. A wonderful invention, but not, as I am told, entirely
independent of changes in the weather. I hope, miss, you haven't been
disturbed...."
When Susan, even paler and quieter than usual, presently looked into the
library, she found its occupant still on the floor and brooding over the
browns and greys, the roses and ochres, of a complete congregation of
_Sphingidae_. She stooped over me, sprawling in so ungainly a fashion
across my book.
"Moths, this morning? What a very learned person you will become." Her
voice was a little flat, yet tender; but I was still in the sulks, and
made no answer.
"I suppose," she began again, as if listlessly, and straying over to the
window, "I suppose it is very pleasant for you, seeing so much of your
friend, Miss Bowater?"
Caution whispered a warning, and I tried to wriggle out of an answer by
remarking that Fanny's mother was the kindest woman in the whole world.
"Where is she now?"
"In Buenos Ayres."
"Really? How curious family traits are. The very moment I saw Miss
Bowater I was quite certain that she was intended for an adventurous
life; and didn't you say that her father was an officer in the merchant
service? What is he like?"
"Mr Bowater? He died--out there, only a week or two ago."
"How very, very sad," breathed Susan. "And for Miss Bowater. I never
even guessed from her manner that she was in trouble of that kind. And
that, I suppose, shows a sort of courage. You were perfectly right; she
is lovely and clever. The face a little hard, don't you think, but
_very_ clever. She seems to be prepared for what Aunt Alice is going to
say long before she says it. And I, you know, sometimes don't notice
even the sting till--till the buzzing is over." She paused. "And you
were able to make a real friend of her?"
Susan had not the patience to wait until I could sort out an answer to
this question. "I don't want to be intrusive," she went on hurriedly,
"to--to ask horrid questions; but is it true, you dear thing, that you
may some day be leaving us?"
"Leaving you?" I echoed, my thoughts crouching together like chicks
under a hen.
The reply came softly and reluctantly in that great cistern of air.
"Why, I understood--to be married."
I leant heavily on my hands, seeing not the plumes and colours of the
Sphinxes that swam up at me from the page, but, as if in a mist between
them and me, the softly smiling face of Fanny. At last I managed to
overcome the slight physical sickness that had swept over me. "Susan"; I
said, "if a friend betrayed the very soul out of your body, what would
you do? where would you go?"
"Betray! I, my dear?" and she broke into a confused explanation.
It was a remark of Percy's she had been referring to, a silly, trivial
remark, not, she was sure, intended maliciously. Why, every one teased
every one. Didn't she know it? And especially about the things that were
most personal, "and, well, sacred." It was nothing. Just that; and she
should not have repeated it.
"Tell me exactly, please," said I.
"Well, Aunt Alice was talking of marriage; and Miss Bowater smiled. And
Aunt Alice--you know her mocking way--asked how, at her age--Miss
Bowater's--she had learned to look at the same time both charming and
cynical. 'Don't forget, my dear,' they were her very words, 'that the
cynicism wears the longer.' But Miss Bowater laughed, and changed the
subject by asking if she could do anything for your headache. It was the
afternoon, you remember, when you were lying down. That was all."
"And Mr Maudlen?"
The fair cheek reddened. "Oh, Percy made a joke--about you. Just one of
his usual horrid jokes. My dear"--she came and knelt down beside me and
laid her gentle hand on my shoulder; "don't look so--so awful. It's only
how things go."