When next Fanny and I met, it was in the cool grey-green summery
drawing-room at Monk's House, and Mrs Monnerie and Susan shared tea with
us. One covert glance at Mrs Monnerie's face had reassured me. That
strange mask was as vigilant and secretive, but as serene, as when it
had first smiled on me in the mauves and gildings of Brunswick House.
She had set her world right again and was at peace with mankind. As
complacently as ever she stretched me out her finger. She had not even
taken the trouble to forgive me for my little "scene"; had let it perish
of its own insignificance. Oh, I thought, if I could be as life-size as
that! I did not learn till many days afterwards, however, that she had
had news of me from France. _Good_ news, which Sir W., trusting in my
patience and commonsense, had kept back from me until he could deliver
it in person and we could enjoy it together.
Only one topic of conversation was ours that afternoon--that "amazing
Prodigy of Nature," the Spanish Princess; Mrs Monnerie's one regret that
she herself had not discovered a star of such ineffably minute
magnitude. Yet her teasing and sarcasm were so nimble and good-humoured;
she insinuated so pleasantly her little drolleries and innuendoes; that
even if Miss M. had had true cause for envy and malice, she could have
taken no offence. Far from it.
I looked out of the long open windows at the dipping, flittering
wagtails on the lawn; shrugged my shoulders; made little mouths at her
with every appearance of wounded vanity. Did she really think, I
inquired earnestly, that that shameless creature was as lovely as the
showman's bills made her out to be? Mightn't it all be a cheat, a trick?
Didn't they always exaggerate--just to make money? The more jovially she
enjoyed my discomfiture, nodding her head, swaying in her chair, the
more I enjoyed my duplicity. The real danger was that I should be a
little too clever, over-act my part, and arouse her suspicions.
"Ah, you little know, you little know," I muttered to myself, sharply
conscious the while of the still, threatening presence of Fanny. But she
meant to let me go--that was enough. It was to be good riddance to bad
rubbish. There was nothing to fear from her--yet. Her eyes lightly
dwelling on me over her Chelsea teacup, she sat drinking us in. Well,
she should never taunt me with not having played up to her conception of
me.
"Well, well," Mrs Monnerie concluded, "all it means, my dear, is that
you are not quite such a rarity as we supposed. Who is? There's nothing
unique in this old world; though character, even bad character, never
fails to make its mark. Ask Mr Pellew."
"But, surely, Mrs Monnerie," said I, "it isn't character to sell
yourself at twopence a look."
"Mere scruples, Poppet," she retorted. "Think of it. If only you could
have pocketed that pretty little fastidiousness of yours, the newspapers
would now be ringing with your fame. And the fortune! You are too
pernickety. Aren't we all of us on show? And aren't nine out of ten of
us striving to be more on show than we are entitled to be? If man's
first disobedience and the rest of it doesn't mean that, then what, I
ask you, Mademoiselle _Bas Bleu_, was the sour old Puritan so concerned
about? Assist me, Susan, if I stumble."
"I wish I could, Aunt Alice," said Susan sweetly, cutting the cake. "You
must ask Miss Bowater."
"_Please_, Miss Monnerie," drawled Fanny.
"Whether or not," said Mrs Monnerie crisply, "I beseech you, children,
don't quarrel about it. There is our beloved Sovereign on her throne;
and there the last innocent little victim in its cradle; and there's the
old sun waggishly illuminating the whole creaking stage. Blind beggar
and dog, Toby, artists, authors, parsons, statesmen--heart and
everything else, or everything else but heart, on sleeve--and all on
show--every one of them--at _something_ a look. No, my dear, there's
only one private life, the next: and, according to some accounts, that
will be more public than ever. And so twirls the Merry-go-Round."
Her voice relapsed, as it were, into herself again, and she drew in her
lips. She looked about her as if in faint surprise; and in returning to
its usual expression, it seemed to me that her countenance had paused an
instant in an exceedingly melancholy condition. Perhaps she had caught
the glint of sympathy in my eye.
"But isn't that all choice, Mrs Monnerie?" I leaned forward to ask. "And
aren't some people what one might call conspicuous, simply because they
are really and truly, as it were, superior to other people? I don't mean
better--just superior."
"I _think_, Mrs Monnerie," murmured Fanny deprecatingly, "she's
referring to that '_ad infinitum_' jingle--about the fleas, you know. Or
was it Dr Watts, Midgetina?"
"Never mind about Dr Watts," said Mrs Monnerie flatly. "The point from
which we have strayed, my dear, is that even if you were not born great,
you were born exquisite; and now here's this Angelique rigmarole----"
Her face creased up into its old good-humoured facetiousness: "Was it
three inches, Miss Bowater?"
"Four, Mrs Monnerie," lipped Fanny suavely.
"Four! pooh! Still, that's what they say; half a head or more, my dear,
more exquisite! Perfect nonsense, of course. It's physically impossible.
These Radical newspapers! And the absinthe, too." Her small black-brown
eyes roamed round a little emptily. Absinthe! was that a Fanny story?
"But there, my child," she added easily, "you shall see for yourself. We
dine with the Padgwick-Steggals; and then go on together. So that's
settled. It will be my first travelling circus since I was a child. Most
amusing: if the lion doesn't get out, and there's none of those horrible
accidents on the trapeze one goes in hope to see. By the way, Miss
Bowater, your letter was posted?"
"Oh, yes, Mrs Monnerie--this afternoon; but, as you know, I was a little
doubtful about the address." She hastened to pass me a plate of
button-sized ratafias; and Mrs Monnerie slowly turned a smiling but not
quite ingenuous face aside.
"What a curious experience the circus will be for you, Midgetina," Fanny
was murmuring softly, glancing back over her shoulder towards the
tea-table. "Personally, I believe the Signorina Angelique and the rest
of it is only one of those horrible twisted up prodigies with all the
bones out of place. Mightn't it, Mrs Monnerie, be a sort of shock, you
know, for Miss M.? She's still a little pale and peaky."
"She shall come, I say, and see for herself," replied Mrs Monnerie
petulantly.
There was a pause. Mrs Monnerie gazed vacantly at the tiers of hot-house
flowers that decorated the window-recess. Susan sate with a little
forked frown between her brows. She never seemed to derive the least
enjoyment from this amiable, harmless midget-baiting. Not at any rate
one hundredth part as much as I did. Fanny set Plum begging for yet
another ratafia. And then, after a long, deep breath, my skin all
"gooseflesh," I looked straight across at my old friend.
"I don't think, Mrs Monnerie," I said, "if you don't mind--I don't think
I really _wish_ to go."
As if Joshua had spoken, the world stood still.