Monks’ House + 

XLIV + 

Thus then I came of age, though not on St. Rosa’s day. However dramatic and memorable, I grant it was not a courteous method of acknowledging Lord Chiltern’s courtesy. In the good old days the drunken dwarf would have been jovially tossed from hand to hand. From mind to mind was my much milder penalty. And yet this poor little contretemps was of a sort that required “hushing up”; so it kept tongues wagging for many a day. It was little comfort that Percy shared my disgrace, and even Susan, for “giving way.” + 

She it was who had lifted my body from the table and carried it up into darkness and quiet. In the half light of my bedroom I remember I opened my eyes for a moment⁠—eyes which refused to stay still in their sockets, but were yet capable of noticing that the left hand which clasped mine had lost its ring. I tried to point it out to her. She was crying. + 

Philippina sober was awakened the next morning by the fingers of Mrs. Monnerie herself. She must have withdrawn the kindly sheet from my face, and, with nightmare still babbling on my lips, I looked up into the familiar features, a little grey and anxious, but creased up into every appearance of goodwill. + 

“Not so excessively unwisely, then,” she rallied me, “and only the least little thought too well. We have been quite anxious about Bébé, haven’t we, Fleming?” + 

“Quite, madam. A little indigestion, that’s all.” + 

“Yes, yes; a little indigestion, that’s all,” Mrs. Monnerie agreed: “and I am sure Poppet doesn’t want those tiresome doctors with their horrid physic.” + 

I sat up, blinking from one to the other. “I think it was the green stuff,” I muttered, tongue and throat as dry as paper. I could scarcely see out of my eyes for the racking stabs of pain beneath my skull. + 

“Yes, yes,” was the soothing response. “But you mustn’t agitate yourself, silly child. Don’t open your eyes like that. The heat of the room, the excitement, some little obstinate dainty. Now, one of those darling little pills, and a cooling draught, perhaps. Thank you, Fleming.” + 

The door closed, we were left alone. Mrs. Monnerie’s scrutiny drifted away. Their shutters all but closed down on the black-brown pupils. My head pined for its pillows, my shoulders for some vestige of defence, but pined in vain. For the first time I felt afraid of Mrs. Monnerie. She was thinking so densely and heavily. + 

Yet, as if out of a cloud of pure absentmindedness, dropped softly her next remark. “Does pretty Pusskin remember what she said to Miss Bowater?⁠ ⁠… No?⁠ ⁠… Well, then, if she can’t, it’s quite certain nobody else can⁠—or wishes to. I inquired merely because the poor thing, who has been really nobly devoting herself to her duties, seems so hurt. Well, it shall be a little lesson⁠—to us all. Though one swallow does not make a summer, my child, one hornet can make things extremely unpleasant. Not that I⁠—” A vast shrug of the shoulders completed the sentence. “A little talk and tact will soon set that right; and I am perfectly satisfied, perfectly satisfied with things as they are. So that’s settled. Some day you must tell me a little more about your family history. Meanwhile, rest and quiet. No more excitement, no more company, and no more”⁠—she bent low over me with wagging head⁠—“no more green stuff. And then”⁠—her eyes rested on me with a peculiar zest rather than with any actual animosity⁠—“then we must see what can be done for you.” + 

There came a tap⁠—and Percy showed in the doorway. + 

“I thought, Aunt Alice, I thought⁠—” he began, but at sight of the morose, heavy countenance lifted up to him, he shut his mouth. + 

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Monnerie, “thank you, Sir Galahad; you did nothing of the kind.” + 

Whereupon her nephew wheeled himself out of the room so swiftly that I could not detect what kind of exotics he was carrying in a little posy in his hand. + 

So the invalid, now a burden on the mind of her caretaker many times her own weight, was exiled forever from No. 2. Poor Fleming, sniffier and more disgusted than ever, was deputed to carry me off to the smaller of Mrs. Monnerie’s country retreats, a long, low-roofed, shallow-staired house lying in the green under the downs at Croomham. There I was to vegetate for a time and repent of my sins. + 

Percy’s fiery syrup took longer to withdraw its sweet influences than might have been foreseen. Indeed, whenever I think of him, its effects are faintly renewed, though not, I trust, to the detriment of my style! None too strong physically, the Miss M. that sat up at her latticed window at Monk’s House during those few last interminable August days, was very busy with her thoughts. As she looked down for hours together on the gnarled, thick-leafed old mulberry-tree in the corner of the lawn that swept up to the very stones of the house, and on the walled, sun-drugged garden beyond, she was forever debating that old, old problem; what could be done by herself with herself? + 

The doves crooned; the cawing rooks flapped black into the blue above the neighbouring woods; the earth drowsed on. It was a scene of peace and decay. But I seemed to have lost the charm that could have made it mine. I was an Ishmael. And worse⁠—I was still a prisoner. No criminal at death’s door can have brooded more laboriously on his chances of escape. No wonder the voices of childhood had whispered, Away! + 

There came a long night of rain. I lay listening to the whisper and clucking of its waters. Far away the lapwings called: Ee-ooeet! Ee-ooeet! What follies I had been guilty of. How wilily circumstance had connived at them. Yet I was no true penitent. My heart was empty, so parched up that neither love nor remorse had any place in it. Revenge seemed far sweeter. Driven into this corner, I sent a desperate word to Sir W. It remained unanswered, and this friend followed the rest into the wilderness of my ingratitude. + 

But that brought me no relief. For of all the sins I have ever committed, envy and hatred seem to me the most unpleasant to practise. I was to learn also that “he who sows hatred shall gather rue,” and “bed with thistles.” With eyes at last as anxious as Jezebel’s, I resumed my watch at the window. But even if Percy had ridden from London solely to order Fleming to throw me down, she would not have “demeaned” herself to set hands on me. She might be bold, but she, too, was fastidious. + 

Then Fleming herself one afternoon softly and suddenly vanished away⁠—on her summer’s holiday. Poor thing; so acute was the chronic indigestion caused by her obstinate little dainty that she did not even bid me goodbye. + 

She left me in charge of the housekeeper, Mrs. French, a stout, flushed, horse-faced woman, who now and then came in and bawled good-humouredly at me as if I were deaf, but otherwise ignored me altogether. I now spent most of my time in the garden, listlessly wandering out of sight of the windows (and gardeners), along its lank-flowered, rose-petalled walks, hating its beauty. Or I would sit where I could hear the water-drops in a well. The very thought of company was detestable. I sat there half-dead, without book or needle, with scarcely a thought in my head. In my library days at No. 2 I had become a perfect slave to pleasures of the intellect. But now dyspepsia had set in there too. + 

My nights were pestered with dreams and my days with their vanishing spectres; and I had no Pollie to tell me what they forecast. I suppose one must be more miserable and hunted in mind even than I was, never to be a little sentimental when alone. I would lean over the cold mouth of the well, just able to discern in the cold mirror of water, far beneath, the face I was almost astonished to find reflected there. “Shall I come too?” I would morbidly whisper, and dart away. + 

Still, just as with a weed in winter, life was beginning to renew the sap within me; and Monk’s House was not only drowsy with age but gentle with whispers. Once at least in every twenty-four hours I would make a pilgrimage to its wrought-iron gates beside the square white lodge, to gloat out between the metal floriations at the dusty country lane beyond⁠—with its swallows and wagtails and dragonflies beneath the heat-parched tranquil elms. A slim, stilted greyhound on one such visit stalked out from the lodge. Quite unaware of his company, I turned about suddenly and stared clean down his arched throat⁠—white teeth and lolling tongue. It was as if I had glanced into the jaws of destiny. He turned his head, whiningly yawned, and stalked back into the shade. + 

A day or two afterwards I made the acquaintance of the lodge-keeper’s daughter, a child named Rose, about five years of age, with a mop of copper-coloured curls bound up with a pale blue bow. At first glimpse of me she had hopped back as if on springs into the house. A moment after, her white-aproned mother appeared in the porch, and with a pleasant nod at me bade the child smile at the pretty little lady. Finger in mouth, Rose wriggled and stared. In a few days she grew accustomed to my small figure. And though I would sometimes discover her saucer-blue eyes fixed on me with a peculiar intensity, we almost came to be friends. She was not a very bright little girl; yet I found myself wooing her with all the arts I knew⁠—in a scarcely conscious attempt, I suppose, to creep back by this small lane into the world’s and my own esteem. + 

I made her wristlets of little flowers, hacked her out cockle boats from the acorns, told her half-forgotten stories, and once had to trespass into the kitchen at the back of the lodge to tell her mother that she was fallen asleep. Was it mere fancy that read in the scared face she twisted round on the pretty little lady from over her saucepan, “Avaunt, Evil Eye!”? I had become abominably self-conscious. + 

XLV + 

One such afternoon Rose and I were sitting quietly together in the sunshine on the green grass bank when a smart, short step sounded in the lane, and who should come springily pacing out of the country through the gates but Adam Waggett⁠—red hands, black boots, and Londonish billycock hat all complete. Adam must have been born in a fit of astonishment; and when he dies, so he will enter Paradise. He halted abruptly, a ring of shifting sunshine through the leaves playing on his purple face, and, after one long glance of theatrical astonishment, he burst into his familiar guffaw. + 

This time the roar of him in the open air was nothing but a pleasure, and the mere sound and sight of him set Rose off laughing, too. Her pink mouth was as clustered about with milk-teeth as a fragment of honeycomb is with cells. + 

“Well, there I never, miss,” he said at last, with a slow, friendly wink at the child, “Where shall us three meet again, I wonder.” He flicked the dust off his black button boots with his pocket-handkerchief, mopped his high, bald forehead, and then positively exploded into fragments of information⁠—like my father’s fireworks on Guy Fawkes’ Day. + 

He talked of young Mr. Percy’s “goings-on,” of the august Mr. Marvell, of life at No. 2. “That Miss Bowater, now, she’s a bit of all right, she’s toffee, she is.” But, his hat! there had been a row. And the captain, too. Not that there was anything in that; “just a bit of silly jealousy; like the women!” He could make a better guess than that. He didn’t know what “the old lady” would do without that Miss Bowater⁠—the old lady whose carriage would in a few days be rolling in between these very gates. And then⁠—he began whistling a Highland Reel. + 

The country air had evidently got into his head. Hand over hand he was swarming up the ladder of success. His joie de vivre gleamed at every pore. And I?⁠—I just sat there, passively drinking in this kitchen-talk, without attempting to stop him. After all, he was out of my past; we were children of Israel in a strange land; and that hot face, with its violent pantomime, and hair-plastered temples, was as good as a play. + 

He was once more settling his hat on his head and opening his mouth in preparation for a last bray of farewell, when suddenly in the sunny afternoon hush a peculiar, melancholy, whining cry rose over the treetops, and slowly stilled away. As if shot from a bow, Rose’s greyhound leapt out of the lodge and was gone. With head twisted over his shoulder, Adam stood listening. Somewhere⁠—where? when?⁠—that sound had stirred the shadows of my imagination. The day seemed to gather itself about me, as if in a plot. + 

In the silence that followed I heard the dust-muffled grinding of heavy wheels approaching, and the low, refreshing talk of homely, Kentish, country voices. Adam stepped to the gate. I clutched Rose’s soft, cool fingers. And spongily, ponderously, there, beyond the bars, debouched into view a huge-shouldered, mole-coloured elephant, its trunk sagging towards the dust, its small, lash-fringed eye gleaming in the sun, its bald, stumpy, tufted tail stiff and still behind it. + 

On and on, one after another, in the elm-shaded beams of the first of evening, the outlandish animals, the wheeled dens, the gaudy, piled-up vans of pasteboard scenery, the horses and ponies and riffraff of a travelling circus wound into, and out of, view before my eyes. It was as if the lane itself were moving, and all the rest of the world, with Rose and myself clutched hand in hand on our green bank, had remained stark still. Probably the staring child supposed that this was one of my fairytales come true. My own mind was humming with a thought far more fantastic. Ever and again a swarthy face had glanced in on our quiet garden. The lion had glared into Africa beyond my head. But I was partly screened from view by Rose, and it was a woman, and she all but the last of the dusty, bedraggled company, that alone caught a full, clear sight of me. + 

One flash of eye to eye⁠—we knew each other. She was the bird-eyed, ear-ringed gipsy of my railway journey with Pollie from Lyndsey to Beechwood. Even more hawklike, bonier, striding along now like a man in the dust and heat in her dingy coloured petticoats and great boots, with one steel-grey dart of remembrance, she swallowed me up, like flame a moth. Her mouth relaxed into a foxy smile while her gaze tightened on me. She turned herself about and shrilled out a strange word or two to someone who had gone before. A sudden alarm leapt up in me. In an instant I had whisked into hiding, and found myself, half-suffocated with excitement, peeping out of a bush in watch for what was to happen next. + 

So swift had been my disappearance she seemed doubtful of her own senses. A cage of leopards, with a fair-skinned, gold-haired girl in white stockings lolling asleep on the chained-up tailboard, trundled by; and then my gipsy was joined by a thickset, scowling man. His face was bold and square, and far more lowering than that of the famous pugilist, Mr. Sayers⁠—to whose coloured portrait I had become almost romantically attached in the library at No. 2. This dangerous-looking individual filled me with a tremulous excitement and admiration. If, as in a dream, my past seemed to have been waiting for that solitary elephant; then my future was all of a simmer with him. + 

He drew his thick hand out of his stomach-pocket and scratched his cheek. The afternoon hung so quiet that I heard the rasp of his finger nail against his sprouting beard. He turned to mutter a sullen word or two at the woman beside him. Then, more civilly, and with a jerk of his squat thumb in my direction, he addressed himself to Adam. Adam listened, his red ears erect on either side of his hat. But his only answer was so violent a wag of his head that it seemed in danger of toppling off his body. Softly I laughed to myself. The woman yelped at him. The man bade her ferociously “shut her gob.” Adam clanged-to the gates. They moved on. Beast, cage, and men were vanished like a daydream. A fitful breeze rustled the dry elm-leaves. The swifts coursed on in the shade. + 

When the last faint murmur had died away, I came out from behind my bush. “A country circus,” I remarked unconcernedly. “What did the man want, Adam?” + 

“That hairy cat frowned at Rosie,” whispered the child, turning from me to catch at Adam’s coattails. “Not eat Rosie?” + 

Adam bent himself double, and with an almost motherly tenderness stroked her bright red hair. He straightened himself up, spat modestly in the dust, and, with face still mottled by our recent experience, expressed the opinion that the man was “one of them low blackguards⁠—excusing plain English, miss⁠—who’d steal your chickens out of the very saucepan.” As for the woman⁠—words failed him. + 

I waited until his small, round eye had rolled back in my direction. “Yes, Adam,” I said, “but what did he say? You mean she told him about me?” + 

“Well, miss, to speak equal-like, that was about the size of it. The old liar said she had seen you before, that you were⁠—well, there you are!⁠—a gold mine, a⁠—a blessed gold mine. Her very words nearabout.” At that, in an insuppressible gush of happiness I laughed out with him, like a flageolet in a concourse of bassoons. + 

“But he didn’t see me, Adam. I took good care of that.” + 

“That’s just,” said Adam, with a tug at his black cravat, “what’s going to give the pair of them a mighty unpleasant afternoon.” + 

I dismissed him, smiled at the whimpering greyhound, smiled at Rose, whose shyness at me had unaccountably whelmed over her again, and followed in Adam’s wake towards the house. But not to enter it. “A blessed”⁠—oh, most blessed “Gold Mine!” The word so sang in me that the whole garden⁠—espaliered wall, and bird, and flower⁠—leapt into life and beauty before my eyes. Then my prayer (what prayer?) had been answered. I squared my shoulders, shuddered⁠—a Lazarus come to life. Away I went, and seating myself in a sunny corner, a few paces from a hive of bees, plucked a nectarine, and surrendered myself to the intoxication of an idea. Not “Your Master is dead,” but “Your mistress is come to life again!” I whispered to the bees. And if I had been wearing a scarlet garter I would have tied it round their skep. + 

Money! Money!⁠—a few even of my handfuls of that, and I was free. I would teach “them” a lesson. I would redeem myself. Ah, if only I had had a fraction of Fanny’s courage, should I so long have remained wilting and festering at No. 2? The sweet, sharp juices of the clumsy fruit quenched my thirst. To and fro swept the bees along their airy highway. A spiked tree of late-blooming bugloss streamed its blue and purple into my eyes. A year ago, the very thought of exhibiting myself for filthy (or any kind of) lucre would have filled me with unspeakable shame. But what else had I been doing those long, dragging months? What had Miss M. hired herself out to be but a pot of caviar to the gourmets? Puffed up with conceit and complacency, I had been merely feeding on the world’s contempt sauced up as flattery. Nonsensical child. + 

“Ah, I can make honey, too,” I nodded at the bees; whereupon a wasp pounced out of nowhere upon my oozy fruit, and I thrust it away into the weeds. But how refreshing a draught is the thought of action, how comforting the first returning trickle of self-esteem. My body sank into motionlessness. The shadows lengthened. The August sun slid down the sky. + 

Dusk was abroad in the colder garden, and the last bee home, when, with plans resolved on, I stretched my stiffened limbs and made my way into the house. Excellent augury⁠—so easy had been my daily habits that no one had noticed my absence. Supper was awaiting me. I was ravenous. Up and down I stumped, gnawing my biscuit and sipping my sweet country milk. I had suddenly realized what the world meant to Fanny⁠—an oyster for her sword. Somewhere I have read that every man of genius hides a woman in his breast. Well, perhaps in mine a man was now stirring⁠—the man that had occupied my Aunt Kitilda’s skirts. It was high time. + 

A moon just past its quarter was sinking in the heavens and silvering the jessamine at my window. My bosom swelled with longing at the breath of the slow night airs. Monk’s House⁠—I, too, had my ghosts and would face them down, would vanquish fate with the very weapons it had forged for my discomfiture. In that sheltered half-light I stood myself before a down-tilted looking-glass. If I had been malshapen, limbless, contorted, I would have drowned myself in mud rather than feed man’s hunger for the monstrous and obscene. No, I was a beautiful thing, even if God had been idly at play when He had shaped me, and had then flung away the mould; even if to Mrs. Monnerie I was nothing much better than a disreputable marionette. So I boasted myself. Percy’s Chartreuse had been mere whey compared with the fleeting glimpse of a tame circus elephant. + 

I tossed out on to the floor the old Lyndsey finery which some homesick impulse had persuaded me to bring away in my trunk. Seated there with busy needle under the window, sewing in every gewgaw and scrap of tinsel and finery I could lay hands on, I prepared for the morrow. How happy I was. Bats in the dewy dusk-light cast faint, flitting shadows on the casements. A large dark moth hawked to and fro above my head. It seemed I could spend eternity in this gentle ardent busyness. To think that God had given me what might have been so dreadful a thing as solitude, but which in reality, while my thoughts and fingers were thus placidly occupied, could be so sweet. When at length I leaned out on the cold sill, my work done, wrists and shoulders aching with fatigue, Croomham clock struck two. The moon was set. But there, as if in my own happy mind, away to the East shone Orion. Why, Sirius, then, must be in hiding under that quiet shoulder of the downs. A dwindling meteor silvered across space; I breathed a wish, shivered, and drew in. + 

And there came that night a curious dream. I dreamt that I was a great soldier, and had won an enormous unparalleled battle. Glaring light streamed obliquely across a flat plain, humped and hummocked with the bodies of the dead lying in disorder. I was standing in arrogant reverie alone, a few paces distant⁠—though leagues away in being⁠—from a group of other officers, who were looking at me. And I suffered the streaming light to fall upon me, as I gazed into my joy and triumph with a kind of severe nonchalance. But though my face under my three-cornered hat can have expressed only calmness and resolution, I knew in my heart that my thoughts were merely a thin wisp of smoke above the crater of a suppressed volcano. Lest I should be detected in this weakness, I turned out of the glare, and without premeditation, began to step lightly and abstractedly from huddling mound to mound. And, as these heaps of the dead increased in size in the gloom after the white western light was gone, so I diminished, until I was but a kind of infinitesimal will-o’-the-wisp gliding from peak to peak of an infernal mausoleum of which every eye, though dead, was watching me. But there was one Eye.⁠ ⁠… + 

And that is all of the dream that I could remember. For then I awoke, looking into the dark. A pencil ray of moonlight was creeping across my bed. Peace unutterable. Over my drowsy eyes once more the clouds descended, and once more I fell asleep. + 

XLVI + 

Next day, after a long lying-in-wait, I intercepted Adam Waggett and beckoned him into the shrubbery. First I questioned him. A bill of the circus, he told me, had already been left at the lodge. Its tents and booths and Aunt Sallies were even now being pitched in a meadow three or four miles distant and this side the neighbouring town. So far, so good. I told him my plan. He could do nothing but look at me like a fish, with his little black eyes, as I sat on a tree stump and marshalled my instructions. + 

But my first crucial battle had been fought with Adam Waggett in the garden at Lyndsey. He had neither the courage nor even the cowardice to gainsay me. After a tedious siege of his sluggish wits, greed for the reward I promised him, the assurance that if we were discovered the guilt should rest on me, and maybe some soupçon of old sake’s sake won him over. The branches of the trees swayed and creaked above us in the sunshine; and at last, looking down on me with a wry face, Adam promised to do my bidding. + 

Six had but just struck that evening when there came the rap of his knuckles on my bedroom door. He found me impatiently striding up and down in a scintillating bodice and skirts of scarlet, lemon, and silver⁠—as gay and gaudy an object as the waxen Russian Princess I had seen in one of Mrs. Monnerie’s cabinets. My flaxen hair was plaited German-wise, and tied in two thumping pigtails with a green ribbon; I stood and looked at him. He fumblingly folded his hands in front of him as he stood and looked back at me. I was quivering like a flame in a lamp. And never have I been so much flattered as by the silly, stupefied stare on his face. + 

How I was to be carried to the circus had been one of our most difficult problems. This cunning creature had routed out from some lumber-room in the old house a capacious old cage⁠—now rusty, but stout and solidly made⁠—that must once have housed the aged Chakka. + 

“There, miss,” he whispered triumphantly; “that’s the ticket, and right to a hinch.” + 

I confess I winced at his “ticket.” But Adam had cushioned and padded it for me, and had hooded it over with a stout piece of sacking, leaving the ring free. Apart from our furtive preparations, evening quiet pervaded the house. The maids were out sweethearting, he explained. Mrs. French had retired as usual to her own sitting-room; Fortune seemed to be smiling upon me. + 

“Then, Adam,” I whispered, “the time has come. Jerk me as little as possible; and if questions are asked, you are taking the cage to be mended, you understand? And when we get there, see no one but the man or the woman who spoke to you at the gates.” + 

“Well, miss, it’s a rum go,” said Adam, eyeing me with a grotesque grimace of anxiety. + 

I looked up at him from the floor of the cage. “The rummer the go is, Adam, the quicker we ought to be about it.” + 

He lowered the wiry dome over my head; I bunched in my skirts; and with the twist of a few hooks I was secure. The faint squeak of his boots told me that he had stolen to the door to listen. + 

“All serene,” he whispered hoarsely through the sacking. I felt myself lifted up and up. We were on our way. Then, like flies, a cloud of misgivings settled upon my mind. As best I could I drove them away, and to give myself confidence began to count. A shrill false whistling broke the silence. Adam was approaching the lodge; a mocking screech of its gates, and we were through. After that, apart from the occasional beat of hoofs or shoes, a country “good night,” or a husky cough of encouragement from Adam, I heard nothing more. The gloom deepened. The heat was oppressive; I became a little seasick, and pressing my mouth to a small slit between the bars, sucked in what fresh air I could. + 

Midway on our journey Adam climbed over a stile to rest a while, and, pushing back a corner of the sacking, he asked me how I did. + 

“Fine, Adam,” said I, panting. “We are getting along famously.” + 

The fields were sweet and dusky. It was a clear evening, and refreshingly cool. + 

“You may smoke a pipe, Adam, if you wish,” I called softly. And while he puffed, and I listened to the chirping of a cricket, he told me of a young housemaid that was always chaffing and ridiculing him at No. 2. “It may be that she has taken a passing fancy to you,” said I, looking up into the silent oak tree under which we were sitting. “On the other hand, you may deserve it. What is she like, Adam?” + 

“Black eyebrows,” said Adam. “Shows her teeth when she laughs. But that’s no reason why she should make a fool of a fellow.” + 

“The real question is, is she a nice modest girl?” said I, and my bangles jangled as I raised my hand to my hair. “Come, Adam, there’s no time to waste; are you ready?” + 

He grunted, his mind still far away. “She’s a fair sneak,” he said, rapping his pipe-bowl on a stone. And so, up and on. + 

Time seemed to have ceased to be, in this jolting monotony, unbroken except by an occasional giddying swing of my universe as Adam transferred the cage from hand to hand. Swelteringly hot without, but a little cold within, I was startled by a faraway blare of music. I clutched tight the slender bars; the music ceased, and out of the quiet that followed rose the moaning roar of a wild beast. + 

My tongue pressed itself against my teeth; the sacking trembled, and a faint luminousness began to creep through its hempen strands. Shouting and screaming, catcalls and laughter swelled near. And now by the medley of smells and voices, and the glint of naked lights floating in on me, I realized that we had reached our goal. + 

Adam came to a standstill. “Where’s the boss?” The tones were thick and muffled. A feeble smile swept over my face: I discovered I was holding my breath. + 

A few paces now, the din distanced a little and the glare diminished. Then sounded another voice hoarse and violent, high above my head. + 

The cage bumped to the ground. And I heard Adam cringingly explain: “I’ve got a bird here for you, mister.” + 

“A bird,” rang the jeer, “who wants your bloody bird? Be off.” + 

“Ay, but it won’t be a bloody bird,” gasped Adam cajolingly, “when you’ve seen her pretty feathers.” + 

At this, apparently, recollection of Adam’s face or voice returned to the showman. He remained silent while with palsied fingers Adam unlatched my bolts and bars. Bent almost double and half-stifled, I sat there in sight, my clothes spread brightly out about me. The cool air swirled in, and for a while my eyes dazzled at the bubbling blaze of a naphtha lamp suspended from the pole of the tent above the crisscross green-bladed grass at my feet. I lifted my head. + 

There stood Adam, in his black tailcoat rubbing his arm; and there the showman. Still to the tips of my fingers, I sat motionless, gazing up into the hard, high-boned, narrow-browed face with its small restless eyes voraciously taking me in. Fortunately the choked beating of my heart was too small a sound for his ear; and he was the first to withdraw from the encounter. + 

“My God,” he muttered, and spat into a corner of the canvas booth⁠—with its one dripping lamp, its rough table and chair, and a few oddments of his trade. + 

“And what, my handsome young lady,” he went on in a low, carneying tone, and fidgeting with his hands, “what might be your little imbroglio?” + 

In a gush, presence of mind returned to me, and fear passed away. I quietly listened to myself explaining without any concealment precisely what was my little imbroglio. He burst out laughing. + 

“Stage-struck, eh? There’s a young lady now! Well, who’s to blame ’ee?” + 

He asked me my age, my name, where I came from, if I could dance, sing, ride; and stared so roundly at me that I seemed to see my garish colours reflected in the metallic grey of his eyes. + 

All this was on his side of the bargain. Now came mine. I folded tight my hands in my lap, glanced up at the flaming lamp. How much would he pay me? + 

It was as if a shutter had descended over his face. “Drat me,” said he, “when a young lady comes selling anything, she asks her price.” + 

So I asked mine⁠—fifteen guineas for four nights’ hire.⁠ ⁠… To look at that human animal you might have supposed the actual guineas had lodged in his throat. It may be that Shylock’s was a more modest bargain. I cannot say. + 

At first thought it had seemed to me a monstrous sum, but at that time I was ignorant of what a really fine midget fetched. It was but half my old quarterly allowance, with £2 over for Adam. I should need every penny of it. And I had not come selling my soul without having first decided on its value. The showman fumed and blustered. But I sat close on Chakka’s abandoned stage, perfectly still, making no answer; finding, moreover, in Adam an unexpected stronghold, for the wider gawked his frightened eyes at the showman’s noise and gesticulations, the more resolved I became. With a last dreadful oath, the showman all but kicked a hole in my cage. + 

“Take me away, Adam,” I cried quaveringly; “we are wasting this gentleman’s time.” + 

I smiled to myself, in spite of the cold tremors that were shaking me all over; with every nerve and sinew of his corpulent body he was coveting me: and with a curse he at last accepted my terms. I shrugged my shoulders, but still refused to stir a finger until our contract had been written down in black and white. Maybe some tiny lovebird of courage roosts beneath every human skull, maybe my mother’s fine French blood had rilled to the surface. However that may be, there could be no turning back. + 

He drew out a stump of pencil and a dirty envelope. “That, my fine cock,” he said to Adam, as he wrote, “that’s a woman; and you make no mistake about it. To hell with your fine ladies.” + 

It remains, if not the most delicate, certainly one of the most substantial compliments I ever earned in my life. + 

“That’s that,” he pretended to groan, presenting me with his scrawl. “Ask a shark for a stamp, and if ruined I must be⁠—ruined I am.” + 

I leapt to my feet, shook out my tumbled finery, smiled into his stooping face, and tucked the contract into my bodice. “Thank you, sir,” I said, “and I promise you shan’t be ruined if I can help it.” Whereupon Adam became exceedingly merry, the danger now over. + 

Such are the facts concerning this little transaction, so far as I can recall them; yet I confess to being a little incredulous. Have I, perhaps, gilded my side of the bargaining? If so, I am sure my showman would be the last person to quarrel with me. I am inclined to think he had taken a fancy to me. Anyhow I had won⁠—what is, perhaps, even better⁠—his respect. And though the pay came late, when it was no longer needed, and though it was the blackest money that ever touched my fingers, it came. And if anybody was the defaulter, it was I. + 

There was no time to lose. My gipsy woman was sent for from the shooting gallery. I shook hands with her; she shook hands with Adam, who was then told to go about his business and to return to the tent when the circus was over. The three of us, showman, woman, and I, conferred together, and with extreme cordiality agreed what should be my little part in the performance. The booth in which we had made our bargain was hastily prepared for my “reception.” Its table was to be my dais. A loose flap of canvas was hung to one side of it to screen me off from prying eyes when I was not on show. My only dangerous rival, it appeared, was the Spotted Boy. + 

There followed a deafening pealing of pan-pipes, drumming of drum, and yelling of voices. In that monstrous din I was past thinking, just being; and I bridled to myself like a schoolgirl caught in a delicious naughtiness, to hear the fine things⁠—the charms and marvels⁠—which my showman was bawling about me. Then one by one, at first a little owlishly, the Great Public, at the charge of 6d. per adult and half price for children (or “full-growns under three foot”) were admitted to the presence of the “Signorina Donna Angélique, the Fairy Princess of Andalusia in Spain.” So at any rate declares the printed handbill. + 

In the attitude of Madame Recamier in the picture, I reclined on a lustrous spread of crimson satin and rabbit-skin draped over a small lump of wood for bolster to give support to my elbow. And out of my paint and powder, from amid this oasis⁠—and with repeated warnings “not to touch” screamed by my gipsy⁠—I met as pleasantly and steadily as I could the eyes of the grinning, smirking, awestruck faces⁠—townsfolk and village folk, all agape and all sound Kentish stock. + 

“That isn’t real, she’s a doll,” lisped a crêpe-bonneted little girl who with skimpy legs dangling out of her petticoat had been hoisted up under her armpits for a clearer view. I let a little pause come, then turned my head on my hand and smiled, leaned over and eased my tinselled slipper. An audible sigh, sweet as incense, went up under the hollow of the booth. I looked on softly from face to face⁠—another dream. Some captive beast mewed and brushed against the sides of a cage drawn up a yard or two from where I lay. The lamp poured flame and smoke. The canvas quietly flapped, and was still. Wild ramped the merry-go-round with its bells and hootings; and the pan-pipes sobbed their liquid decoy. The Signorina’s first reception was over. + 

News of her spread like wildfire. I could hear the showman bellowing at the press of people. His guineas were fructifying. And a peculiar rapturous gravity spread over me. When one’s very self is wrapt in the ordeal of the passing moment, is lost like that, out of time and space, it seems, well⁠—another presence had stolen into my mind, had taken possession. I cannot explain. But in this, it may be, all men are equal, whatever their lot. So, I suppose, a flower breaks out of the bud, and butterflies put off the mask of the chrysalis, and rainbows mount the skies. But I must try not to rhapsodize. All I know is that even in that low self-surrender, some tiny spark of life in me could not be content to let my body remain a mere mute stock for the ignorant wonder of those curious eyes. + 

The actual impulse, however, came from a young woman who, when next the people had streamed in, chanced to be standing close beside me. She was a weak-looking thing, yet reminded me in a sorrowful fashion of Fanny. Caught back by her melancholy, empty eyes, I seemed to lose myself in their darkness; to realize that she, too, was in trouble. I craned up from my wooden bolster and whispered in her hair: “Patience, patience. There shall be a happy issue, my dear, out of all your afflictions.” + 

Only she herself and a weedy, sallow young man in her company could have heard these words. A glint of fright and desperation sprang into her large-pupilled eyes. But I smiled, and we exchanged kindness. She moistened her lips, turned from me, and clutching at the young man’s arm, edged her way out of the throng and vanished. + 

“And what sort be this un?” roared an ox-faced, red-haired man from the back. “This un” hung on his shoulder, tiptoe, fair, young, and blowsy. + 

“She’ll coin you money,” I cried pleasantly, “and spend it. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” + 

“And him, and him? the toad!” cried the girl half-angrily at the shout of merriment that had shaken the tent. + 

“Why, pretty maid,” piped I, “the nearer the wine the sweeter the cork; the plumper the pig the fatter the pork.” The yell that followed was a better advertisement than drum or pan-pipes. The showman had discovered an oracle! For the next half-hour my booth was a mass of “Sixpennies”⁠—the squirming Threepennies were told to wait. It filled and emptied again and again like a black bottle in the Dog Days. And when the spirit moved me, I singled out a telltale face and told its fortune⁠—not less shrewdly on the whole, I think, than Mrs. Ballard’s Book of Fate. + 

But it was a strangely exhausting experience. I was inexpressibly relieved when it was over; when the tent-flap descended for the last time, and I could rest from my labours, puffed up, no doubt, with far too rich a conceit of myself, but immeasurably grateful and happy. Comparative quiet descended on the meadows. From a neighbouring tent broke shattering bursts of music, clapping and thumping, the fretful growling of the beasts, the elephant’s trumpeting, the firing of guns, whoops, caterwauling, and the jangling of harness. The Grand Circus was in progress, and fantasy made a picture for me of every sound. + 

Presently my showman reappeared, leading in a pacing, smooth-skinned, cinnamon-and-milk-dappled pony, bridled and saddled with silver and scarlet, his silky mane daintily plaited, his tail a sweeping plume. He stood, I should guess, about half a hand higher than my childhood’s Mopsa⁠—the prettiest pygmy creature, though obviously morose and unsettled in temper. I took a good long look at his pink Albino eye. But a knack once acquired is quickly recovered. I mounted him. The stirrup was adjusted, one of my German plaits was dandled over my shoulder, and after a leisurely turn or two in the open, I nodded that the highborn Angélique was ready. + 

The showman, leering avariciously at me out of his shifty eyes, led us on towards the huge ballooning tent, its pennon fluttering darkly against the stars. I believe if in that spirituous moment he had muttered, “Fly with me, fairest!” all cares forgotten, I’d have been gone. He held his peace. + 

The brass band within wrenched and blared into the tune of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Chafing, pawing, snorting, my steed, with its rider, paused in the entry. Then with a last smirk of encouragement from the gipsy woman, the rein was loosed, I bowed my head, and the next moment, as if in a floating vat of light, I found myself cantering well-nigh soundlessly round the ring, its circumference thronged tier above tier in the smoke-laden air with ghost-white rings of faces. + 

I smiled fixedly, tossing my fingers. A piebald clown came wambling in to meet me, struck his hand on his foolish heart, and fell flat in the tan. Love at first sight. Over his prostrate body we ambled, the ill-tempered little beast naggling at its bit, and doing his utmost to unseat me. The music ceased. The cloud of witnesses loured. Come Night, come Nero, I didn’t care! Edging the furious little creature into the centre of the ring, I mastered him, wheeled him, in a series of obeisances⁠—North, South, East, West. A hurricane⁠—such as even Mr. Bowater can never have outridden⁠—a hurricane of applause burst bounds and all but swept me out of the saddle. “Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye!” sang cornet and trombone. With a toss, I swept my plaits starwards, brandished my whip at the faces, and galloped out into the night. + 

My début was over. I confess it⁠—the very memory of it carries me away even now. And even now I would maintain that it was at least a little more successful than that other less professional début which poor Mr. Crimble and Lady Pollacke had left unacclaimed in Beechwood High Street. + 

XLVII + 

My showman, his hard face sleek with sweat, insisted on counting out three huge platelike crown pieces into my lap⁠—for a douceur. I brushed them off on to the ground. “Only to clinch the bargain,” he said. His teeth grinned at me as if he would gladly have swallowed me whole. + 

“Pick up the money,” said I coldly, determined once and for all to keep him in his place. “It’s early days yet.” But when my back was turned, covetous Adam took charge of it. + 

While we trudged along homeward⁠—for in the deserted night the cage was unnecessary, until I was too tired to go further⁠—I listened to the coins clanking softly together in Adam’s pocket. It was an intoxicating lullaby. But such are the revulsions of success, for hours and hours that night I lay sleepless. Once I got up and put my hand in where the crowns were, to assure myself I was awake. But the dream which visited me⁠—between the watches of remorse⁠—I shall keep to myself. + 

With next day’s sun, the Signorina had become the talk of the countryside, and Adam’s vacant face must have stood him in good stead. She had been such “a draw,” he told me, that the showman had decided to stay two more nights on the same pitch: which was fortunate for us both. Especially as on the third afternoon heavy rain fell, converting the green field into a morass. With evening the clouds lifted, and a fulling moon glazed the puddles, and dimmed the glowworm lamps. Impulse is a capricious master. I did my best, for even when intuition fails my sex, there’s obstinacy to fall back upon; but all that I had formerly achieved with ease had to be forced out of me that night with endless effort. The Oracle was unwilling. When a genteel yet foxy looking man, with whiskers and a high stiff collar under his chin, sneakishly invited me to tell his fortune, and I replied that “Prudent chickens roost high,” the thrust was a little too deft. My audience was amused, but nobody laughed. + 

He seemed to be well known, and the green look he cast me proved that the truth is not always palatable or discreet. Unseduced by the lumps of sugar which I had pilfered for him, my peevish mount jibbed and bucked and all but flung the Princess of Andalusia into the sodden ring. He succeeded in giving a painful wrench to her wrist, which doubled the applause. + 

A strange thing happened to me, too, that night. When for the second or third time the crowd was flocking in to view me, my eyes chanced to fall on a figure standing in the clouded light a little apart. He was dressed in a high-peaked hat and a long and seemingly brown cassock-like garment, with buttoned tunic and silver-buckled leather belt. Spurs were on his boots, a light whip in his hand. Aloof, his head a little bowed down, his face in profile, he stood there, framed in the opening, dusky, level-featured, deep-eyed⁠—a Stranger. + 

What in me rushed as if on wings into his silent company? A passionate longing beyond words burned in me. I seemed to be carried away into a boundless wilderness⁠—stunted trees, salt in the air, a low, enormous stretch of night sky, space; and this man, master of soul and solitude. + 

He never heeded me; raised not an eyelid to glance into my tent. If he had, what then? I was a nothing. When next, after the press of people, I looked, he was gone; I saw him no more. Yet the girlish remembrance remains, consoling this superannuated heart like a goblet of flowers in that secret chamber of the mind we call the imagination. + 

The fall from that giddy moment into this practical world was abrupt. Sulky, tired with the rain and the cumbersome cage and the showman’s insults, on our arrival at Monk’s House Adam was completely unnerved when he found our usual entry locked and bolted. + 

He gibbered at me like a mountebank in the windy moonlight, his conical head blotting out half the cloud-wracked sky. These gallivantings were as much as his place was worth. He would wring the showman’s neck. He had a nail in his shoe. He had been respectable all his life; and what was I going to do about it? A nice kettle of fish. Oh, yes, he had had “a lick or two of the old lady’s tongue” already, and he didn’t want another. What’s more, there was the mealymouthed Marvell to reckon with. + 

Once free of the cage, I faced him and desired to know whether he would be happier if I wrote at once to Mrs. Monnerie and absolved him there and then. “Look at yourself in your own mind,” I bade him. “What a sight is a coward!” And I fixed him with none too friendly an eye under the moon. + 

His clumsiness in opening a window disturbed Mrs. French. She came to the head of the staircase and leaned over, while we crouched in a recess beneath. But while the beams of the candle she carried were too feeble to pierce the well of darkness between us, by twisting round my head I could see every movement and changing expression of the shape above me⁠—the frilled, red-flannel dressing-gown, the shawl over her head, and her inflamed peering face surmounted with a “front” of hair in pins. She was talking to herself in peculiar guttural mutterings. But soon, either because she was too sleepy or too indolent to search further, she withdrew again; and Adam and I were free to creep up the glooming shallow staircase into safety. + 

Last but not least, when I came to undress, I found that my grandfather’s little watch was gone. In a fever I tumbled my clothes over again and again. Then I sat down and in memory went over the events of the evening, and came at last to the thief. There was no doubt of him⁠—a small-headed, puny man, who almost with tears in his eyes had besought me to give him one of my buttons to take home to his crippled little daughter. He had pressed close: my thoughts had been far away. I confess this loss unnerved me⁠—a haggard face looked out of my glass. I scrambled into bed, and sought refuge as quickly as possible from these heartburnings. + 

After such depressing experiences Adam’s resolution was at an even lower ebb next morning. We met together under the sunny whispering pine-trees. I wheedled, argued, adjured him in vain. Almost at my wits’ end at last, I solemnly warned him that if we failed the showman the following evening, he would assuredly have the law against us. “A pretty pair we shall look, Adam, standing up there in the dock⁠—with the black cap and the wigs and the policemen and everything. And not a penny for our pains.” + 

He squinted at me in unfeigned alarm at this; the lump in his throat went up and down; and though possibly I had painted the picture in rather sombre colours, this settled the matter. I hope it taught Adam to fight shy ever afterwards of adventuresses. It certainly taught this adventuress that the mind may be “subdued to what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.” I cast a look of hatred after the weak, silly man as he disappeared between the trees. + 

The circus, so the showman had warned me, was moving on that day to another market town, Whippington⁠—six miles or so from its present pitch, though not more than four miles further away from Croomham. This would mean a long and wearisome trudge for us the next evening, as I found on consulting an immense map of Kent. Yet my heart sighed with delight at the discovery that, as the dove flies, we should be a full five miles nearer to Beechwood. If this little church on the map was St. Peter’s, and this faint shading the woody contour of the Hill, why, then, that square dot was Wanderslore. I sprawled over the outspread county with sublime content. My very “last appearance” was at hand; liberty but a few hollow hours away. + 

It is true I had promised my showman to think over his invitation to me to sign on as a permanent member of his troupe of clowns, acrobats, wild beasts, and monstrosities. He had engaged in return to pay me in full, “with a bit over,” at the close of the last performance. But I had merely laughed and nodded. Not that I was in any true sense ashamed of what I had done. Not ashamed. + 

But you cannot swallow your pride and your niceness without any discomfort. I was conscious of a hardening of the skin, of a grimness stealing over my mouth, and of a tendency to stare at the world rather more boldly than modesty should. At least, so it seemed. In reality it may have been that Life was merely scraping off the “cream.” Quite a wholesome experience. + 

On the practical side, all was well. Two pounds to Adam, which I had promised to make three if he earned it, would leave me with thirteen or twelve pounds odd, apart from my clumsy “douceur.” I thirsted for my wages. With that sum⁠—two five-pound notes and say, four half-sovereigns⁠—sewn up, if possible, in my petticoat, I should once more be my own mistress; and I asked no more for the moment. The future must take care of itself. On one thing I was utterly resolved⁠—never, never to return to Monk’s House, or to No. 2⁠—to that old squalid luxury, dissembling and humiliation. + 

No: my Monnerie days were over; even though it had taken a full pound of their servile honey to secrete this ounce of rebellious wax. + 

How oddly chance events knit themselves together. That very morning I had received a belated and re-addressed letter which smote like sunbeams on my hopes and plans. It was from Mrs. Bowater:⁠— + 

“Dear Miss M.⁠—I send this line to say that I am still in the land of the living. I have buried my poor husband but have hopes some day of bringing him home. England is England when all’s said and done, and I can’t say I much approve of foreign parts. It’s a fine town and not what you might call foreign to look at the buildings, but moist and flat and the streets like a draughtboard. And the thought of the cattle upsets me. Everything topsy-turvy too with Spring coming along and breaking out and we here on the brink of September. It has been an afflicting time though considering all things he made a peaceful end, with a smile on his face as you would hardly consider possible. + 

“The next fortnight will see me on board the steamer again, which I can scarcely support the thought of, though, please God, I shall see it through. I have spent many days alone here and the strangeness of it all and the foreign faces bring up memories which are happier forgotten. But I’m often thinking what fine things you must be doing in that fine place. Not as I think riches will buy everything in this world⁠—and a mercy too⁠—or that I’m not anxious at times you don’t come to harm with that delicate frame and all. Wrap up warm, miss, be watchful of your victuals and keep early hours. Such being so, I’m still hoping when I come home, if I’m spared, you may be of a mind to come to Beechwood Hill again and maybe settle down. + 

“I may say that I had my suspicions for some time that that young Mr. Anon was consumptive in the lungs. But from what I gathered he isn’t, only suffering from a stomach cough⁠—bad cooking and exposing himself in all weathers. I will say nothing nearer. I shall be easier off as money goes, but you and me needn’t think of that. Fanny doesn’t write much and which I didn’t much expect. She is of an age now which must reap as it has sown, though even allowing for the accident of birth, as they say, a mother’s a mother till the end of the chapter. I must now close. May the Lord bless you, miss, wherever you may be. + 

Surely this letter was a good omen. It cheered me, and yet it was disquieting, too. That afternoon I spent in the garden, wandering irresolutely up and down under the blue sky, and fretting at the impenetrable wall of time that separated me from the longed-for hour of freedom. On a sunny stone near a foresty bed of asparagus I sat down at last, tired, and a little dispirited. I was angry with myself for the last night’s failure, and for a kind of weakness that had come over me. Yet how different a creature was here today from that of only a week ago. From the darkened soil the stalks sprang up, stiffened and green with rain. A snail reared up her horns beneath my stone. An azure butterfly alighted on my knee, slowly fanning its turquoise wings, patterned with a delicate narrow black band on the one side, and spots of black and orange like a paisley shawl beneath. Between silver-knobbed antennae its furry perplexed face and shining eyes looked out at me, sharing my warmth. I watched it idly. How long we had been strangers. And surely the closer one looked at anything that was not of man’s making.⁠ ⁠… My thoughts drifted away. I began daydreaming again. + 

And it seemed that life was a thing that had neither any plan nor any purpose; that I was sunk, as if in a bog, in ignorance of why or where or who I truly was. The days melted on, to be lost or remembered, the Spring into Summer, and then Winter and death. What was the meaning of it all⁠—this enormous ocean of time and space in which I was lost? Never else than a stranger. That couldn’t be true of the men and women who really keep the world’s pot boiling. All I could pray for was to sit like this for a while, undisturbed and at peace with my own heart. Peace⁠—did I so much as know the meaning of the word? How dingy a patchwork I had made of everything. And how customary were becoming these little passing fits of repining and remorse. The one sole thing that comforted me⁠—apart from my blue butterfly⁠—was an echo in my head of those clapping hands, whoops and catcalls⁠—and the white staring faces in the glare. And a few months ago this would have seemed an incredible degradation. + 

There stole into memory that last evening at Wanderslore. What would he think of me now? I had done worse than forget him, had learned in one single instant that forever and ever, however dearly I liked and valued him and delighted in his company, I could not be “in love” with him. I hid my face in my hands. Yet a curious quiet wish for his company sprang up in me. How stiff-necked and affected I had been. Love was nothing but cheating. Let me but confess, explain, ask forgiveness, unburden myself. Those hollow temples, that jutting jaw, the way he stooped on his hands and coughed. My great-aunt, Kitilda, had died in her youth of consumption. A sudden dread, like a skeleton out of the sky, stood up in my mind. There was no time to delay. Tomorrow night, Adam or no Adam, I would set off to find him: all would be well. + 

As if in response to my thought, a shadow stole over the stones beside me. I looked up and⁠—aghast⁠—saw Fanny. + 

XLVIII + 

Her head was turned away from me, a striped parasol leaned over her shoulder. With a faintly defiant tilt of her beautiful head, as if exclaiming, “See, Strangeness, I come!” she stepped firmly on over the turf. A breath of some delicate indoor perfume was wafted across to my nostrils. I clung to my stone, watching her. + 

Simply because it seemed a meanness to play the spy on her in her solitude, I called her name. But her start of surprise was mere feigning. The silk of her parasol encircled her shoulders like an immense nimbus. Her eyes dwelt on me, as if gathering up the strands of an unpleasing memory. + 

“Ah, Midgetina,” she called softly, “it is you, is it, on your little stone? Are you better?” The very voice seemed conscious of its own cadences. “What a delicious old garden. The contrast!” + 

The contrast. With a cold gathering apprehension at my heart I glanced around me. Why was it that of all people only Fanny could so shrink me up like this into my body? And there floated back to remembrance the vast, dazzling room, the flower-clotted table, and, in that hideous vertigo, a face frenzied with disgust and rage, a hand flung out to cast me off. But I entered her trap none the less. + 

“Contrast, Fanny?” + 

“No, no, now, my dear! Not quite so disingenuous as all that, please. You can’t have quite forgotten the last time we met.” + 

“There was nothing in that, Fanny. Only that the midge was drunk. You should see the wasps over there in the nectarines.” + 

“Only?” she echoed lightly, raising her eyebrows. “I am not sure that everyone would put it quite like that. You couldn’t see yourself, you see. They call you little Miss Cassandra now. Woe! Woe! you know. Mrs. Monnerie asked me if I thought you were⁠—you know⁠—‘all there,’ as they say.” + 

“I don’t care what they say.” + 

“If I weren’t an old friend,” she returned with crooked lip, “you might be made to care. I have brought the money you were kind enough to lend me; I’ll give it you when I have unpacked⁠—tomorrow night.” + 

My body sank into a stillness that might well have betrayed its mind’s confusion to a close observer. Had she lingered satirically, meaningly, on those two last words? “I don’t want the money, Fanny: aren’t you generous enough to accept a gift?” + 

“Well,” said she, “it needs a good deal of generosity sometimes. Surely, a gift depends upon the spirit in which it is given. That last little message, now⁠—was that, shall we say, an acceptable gift?” Her tones lost their silkiness. “See here, Midgetina,” she went on harshly, “you and I are going to talk all this out. But I’m thirsty. I hate this spawning sun. Where are the nectarines?” + 

Much against my will I turned my back on her, and led her off to the beehives. + 

“One for you,” she said, stooping forward, balancing the sheeny toe of her shoe on the brown mould, “and the rest for me. Catch!” She dropped a wasp-bitten, pulpy fruit into my hands. “Now then. It’s shadier here. No eavesdroppers. Just you and me and God. Please sit down?” + 

There was no choice. Down I sat; and she on a low wooden seat opposite me in the shade, her folded parasol beside her, the leaf-hung wall behind. She bit daintily into the juicy nectarine poised between finger and thumb, and watched me with a peculiar fixed smile, as if of admiration, on her pale face. + 

“Tell me, pretty Binbin,” she began again, “what is the name of that spiked red and blue and violet thing behind your back? It colours the edges of your delicate china cheeks. Most becoming!” + 

It was viper’s bugloss⁠—a stray, I told her, shifting my head uneasily beneath her scrutiny. + 

“Ah, yes, viper’s bugloss. Personally I prefer the common variety. Though no doubt that may stray, too. But fie, fie! You naughty thing,” she sprang up and plucked another nectarine, “you have been blacking your eyebrows. I shouldn’t have dreamt it of you. What would mother say?” + 

“Listen, Fanny,” I said, pronouncing the words as best I could with a tongue that seemed to be sticking to the roof of my mouth; “I am tired of the garden. What do you really want to say to me? I don’t much care for your⁠—your fun.” + 

“And I just beginning to enjoy it! There’s contrariness!⁠—To say? Well, now, a good deal, my dear. I thought of writing. But it’s better⁠—safer to talk. The first thing is this. While you have been malingering down here I have had to face the whole Monnerie orchestra. It hasn’t been playing quite in tune; and you know why. That lovesick Susan, now, and her nice young man. But since you seem to be quite yourself again⁠—more of yourself than ever, in fact: listen.” I gazed, almost hypnotized, through the sunshine into her shady face. + 

“What I am going to suggest,” she went on smoothly, “concerns only you and me. If you and I are to go on living in the same house⁠—which heaven forbid⁠—I give you fair warning that we shall have nothing more to do with one another than is absolutely inevitable. I am not so forgiving as I ought to be, Midgetina, and insults rankle. Treachery, still more.” The low voice trembled. + 

“Oh, yes, you may roll your innocent little eyes and look as harmless as a Chinese god, but answer me this: Am I a hypocrite? Am I? And while you are thinking it over, hadn’t you better tumble that absurd little pumpkin off your knee? It’s staining your charming frock.” + 

“I never said you were a hypocrite,” I choked. + 

“No?” The light gleamed on the whites of her eyes as they roved to and fro. “Then I say, you are. Fair to face, false to back. Who first trapped me out stargazing in the small hours, then played informer? Who wheedled her way on with her mincing humbug⁠—poof! naivete!⁠—and set my own mother against me? Who told someone⁠—you know who⁠—that I was not to be trusted, and far better cast-off? Who stuffed that lackadaisical idiot of a Sukie Monnerie with all those old horrors? Who warned that miserable little piece of deformity that I might come⁠—borrowing? Who hoped to betray me by sending an envelope through the post packed with mousey bits of paper? Who made me a guy, a laughingstock and poisoned⁠—Oh, it’s a long score, Miss M. When I think of it all, what I’ve endured⁠—well, honestly when a wasp crawls out of my jam, I remind myself that it’s stinged.” + 

The light smouldering eyes held me fast. “You mean, I suppose, Fanny, that you’d just kill it,” I mumbled, looking up into her distorted face. “I don’t think I should much mind even that. But it’s no use. It would take hours to answer your questions. You have only put them your own way. They may sound true. But in your heart you know they are false. Why should you bother to hurt me? You know⁠—you know how idiotically I loved you.” + 

“Loved me, false, kill,” echoed Fanny scornfully, with a leer which transformed her beauty into a mere vulgar grimace. “Is there any end to the deceits of the little gaby? Do you really suppose that to be loved is a new experience for me; that I’m not smeared with it wherever I go; that I care a snap of my fingers whether I’m loved or not; that I couldn’t win through without that? Is that what you suppose? Well, then, here’s one more secret. Open your ears. I am going to marry Percy Maudlen. Yes, that weed of a creature. You may remember my little prophecy when he brought his Aunt Alice’s manikin some lollipops. Well, the grace of God is too leisurely, and since you and I are both, I suppose, of the same sex, I tell you I care no more for him than that⁠—” She flung the nectarine stone at the beehive. “And I defy you, defy you to utter a word. I am glad I was born what I am. All your pretty little triumphs, first to last, what are they?⁠—accidents and insults. Isn’t half the world kicking down the faces of those beneath them on the ladder? I have had to fight for a place. And I tell you this: I am going to teach these supercilious money-smelling ladies a lesson. I am going to climb till I can sneer down on them. And Mrs. Monnerie is going to help me. She doesn’t care a jot for God or man. But she enjoys intelligence, and loves a fighter. Is that candour? Is it now?” + 

“I detest Percy Maudlen,” I replied faintly. “And as for sneering, that only makes another wall. Oh, Fanny, do listen to yourself, to what you are. I swear I’m not the sneak you think me. I’d help you, if I could, to my last breath. Indeed, I would. Yes, and soon I can.” + 

“Thank you: and I’d rather suffocate than accept your help⁠—now. Listen to myself, indeed! That’s just the pious hypocrite all over. Well, declarations of love you know quite enough about for your⁠—for your age. Now you shall hear one of a different kind. I tell you, Midgetina, I hate you: I can’t endure the sight or sound or creep or thought of you any longer. Why? Because of your unspeakable masquerade. You play the pygmy; pygmy you are: carried about, cosseted, smirked at, fattened on nightingales’ tongues⁠—the last, though, you’ll ever eat. But where have you come from? What are you in your past⁠—in your mind? I ask you that: a thing more everywhere, more thief-like, more detestable than a conscience. Look at me, as we sit here now. I am the monstrosity. You see it, you think it, you hate even to touch me. From first moment to last you have secretly despised me⁠—me! I’m not accusing you. You weren’t your own maker. As often as not you don’t know what you are saying. You are just an automaton. But these last nights I have lain awake and thought of it all. It came on me as if my life had been nothing but a filthy, aimless nightmare; and chiefly because of you. I’ve worked, I’ve thought, I’ve contrived and forced my way. Oh, that house, the wranglings, the sermons. Did I make myself what I am, ask to be born? No, it’s all a devilish plot. And I say this, that while things are as they are, and this life is life, and this world my world, I refuse to be watched and taunted and goaded and defamed.” + 

Her face stooped closer, fascinating, chilling me like a cold cloud with its bright, hunted, malevolent stare. She stretched out a hand and wrung my shoulder. “Listen, I say. Come out of that trance! I loathe you, you holy imp. You haunt me!” + 

My eyes shut. I sat shivering, empty of self, listening, as if lost in a fog in a place desperately strange to me; and only a distant sea breaking and chafing on its stones far below. Then once more I became conscious of the steady and resolute droning of the bees; felt the breathing of actuality on my hair, on my cheek. My eyes opened on a garden sucked dry of colour and reality, and sought her out. She had left me, was standing a few paces distant now, looking back, as if dazed, her lips pale, her eyes dark-ringed. + 

“Perhaps you didn’t quite hear all that, Midgetina. You led me on. You force things out of me till I am sick. But some day, when you are as desperate as I have been, it will come back to you. Then you’ll know what it is to be human. But there can’t be any misunderstanding left now, can there?” + 

I shook my head. “No, Fanny. I shall know you hate me.” + 

“And I am free?” + 

What could she mean? I nodded. + 

She turned, pushed up her parasol. “What a talk! But better done with.” + 

“Yes, Fanny,” said I obediently. “Much better done with.” + 

She gave me an odd glance out of the corner of her eye. “The queer thing is,” she went on, “what I wanted to say was something quite, quite different. To give you a friendly word of warning, entirely on your own account.⁠ ⁠… You have a rival, Midgetina.” + 

The words glided away into silence. The doves crooned on the housetop. The sky was empty above the distant hills. I did not stir, and am thankful I had the cowardice to ask no questions. + 

“Her name is Angélique. She lives in a Castle in Spain”; sighed the calm, silky voice, with the odd break or rasp in it I knew so well. “Oh, I agree a circus-rider is nothing better than a mongrel, a pariah, worse probably. Yet this one has her little advantages. As Midgets go, she beats you by at least four inches, and rides, sings, dances, tells fortunes. Quite a little Woman of the World. The only really troublesome thing about it is that she makes you jiltable, my dear. They are so very seductive, these flounced up, painted things. No principle! And, oh, my dear; all this just as dear Mrs. Monnerie has set her heart on finding her Queen Bee a nice little adequate drone for a husband!” + 

It was her last taunt. It was over. I had heard the worst. The arrow I had been waiting for had sprung true to its mark. Its barb was sticking there in my side. And yet, as I mutely looked up at her, I knew there was a word between us which neither could utter. The empty air had swallowed up the sound of our voices. Its enormous looking-glass remained placid and indifferent. It was as if all that we had said, or, for that matter, suffered, was of no account, simply because we were not alone. For the first instant in the intimacy of my love and hatred, Fanny seemed to be just any young woman standing there, spiteful, meaningless. The virtue had gone out of her. She made up her mouth, glanced uneasily over her shoulder and turned away. + 

We were never again to be alone together, except in remembrance. + 

I sat on in the garden till the last thin ray of sunlight was gone. Then, in dread that my enemy might be looking down from the windows of the house, I slipped and shuffled from bush to bush in the dusk, and so at last made my way into the house, and climbed the dark polished staircase. As, stealthily, I passed a bedroom door ajar, my look pierced through the crevice. It was a long, stretching, shallow room, and at the end of it, in the crystal quiet, stood Fanny, her arms laid on the chimneypiece, her shoulder blades sticking out of her muslin gown, her face hidden in her hands. + 

Why did I not venture in to speak to her? I had never seen a figure so desolate and forsaken. Could things ever be so far gone as to say No to that? I hesitated; turned away: she would think I had come only to beg for mercy. + 

For hours I sat dully brooding. What a trap I was in. In my rummagings in the Monnerie library I had once chanced on a few yellow cardboard-covered novels tucked away in a cupboard, and had paddled in one or two of them. Now I realized that my life also was nothing but “a Shocker.” So people actually suffered and endured the horrible things written about in cheap, common books. + 

One by one I faced Fanny’s charges in my mind. None was true, yet none was wholly false. And none was of any consequence beside the fact that she execrated the very self in me of which I could not be conscious. And what would she do? What did all those covert threats and insinuations mean? A “husband”⁠—why had that such a dreadful power to wound me? I heard my teeth begin to chatter again. There was no defence, no refuge anywhere. If I could get no quiet, I should go mad. I looked up from my stool. It was dark. It was a scene made for me. I could watch the miserable little occupant of its stage roving to and fro like one of my showman’s cowed, mangy beasts. + 

The thought of the day still ahead of me, through which I must somehow press on, keep alive, half stupefied me with dread. We can shut our eyes and our mouths and our hearts; why cannot we stop thinking? The awful passive order of life: its mechanicalness. All that I could see was the blank white face of its clock⁠—but no more of the wheels than of the Winder. No haste, no intervention, no stretching-out beyond one’s finger tips. So the world wore away; life decayed; the dunghill smoked. Mrs. Monnerie there; stepping into her brougham, ebony cane in hand, Marvell at her elbow; Mrs. Bowater languishing on board ship, limp head in stiff frilling; Sir Walter dumb; the showman cursing his wretched men; the bills being posted, the implacable future mutely yawning, the past unutterable. Everything in its orbit. Was there no help, no refuge? + 

The door opened and the skimpy little country girl who waited on me in Fleming’s absence, brought in my supper. She bobbed me a scared curtsey, and withdrew. Then she, too, had been poisoned against me. I flung myself down on the floor, crushing my hands against my ears. Yet, through all this dazed helplessness, in one resolve I never faltered. I would keep my word to the showman, and this night that was now in my room should be the last I would spend alive in Monk’s House. Fanny must do her worst. Thoughts of her, of my unhappy love and of her cruelty, could bring no good. Yet I thought of her no less. Her very presence in the house lurked in the air, in the silence, like an apparition’s. + 

Still stretched on the floor, I woke to find the September constellations faintly silvering the pale blue crystal of the Northern Lights; and the earth sighing as if for refuge from the rising moon. My fears and troubles had fallen to rest beneath my dreams, and I prepared myself for the morrow’s flight. + 

XLIX + 

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 common-sense, 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, overact 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 Angélique 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 Angélique 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 hothouse flowers that decorated the window-recess. Susan sat 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. + 

Mrs. Monnerie slowly turned her head. “Another headache?” + 

“No, I’m perfectly well, thank you. But, whatever I may have said, I don’t approve of that poor creature showing herself for⁠—for money. She is selling herself. It must be because there’s no other way out.” + 

Finger and thumb outstretched above the cringing little dog, Fanny was steadily watching me. With a jerk of my whole body I turned on her. “You agreed with me, Fanny, didn’t you, in the garden yesterday afternoon?” + 

Placidly drooped her lids: “Trust, Plum, trust!” + 

“What!” croaked Mrs. Monnerie, “you, Miss Bowater! Guilty of that silly punctilio! She was merely humouring you, child. It will be a most valuable experience. You shall be perfectly protected. Pride, eh? Or is it jealousy? Now what would you say if I promise to try and ransom the poor creature?⁠—buy her out? pension her off? Would that be a nice charitable little thing to do? She might make you quite a pleasant companion.” + 

“Ah, Mrs. Monnerie, please let me buy her out. Let me be the intermediary!” I found myself, hands clasped in lap, yearningly stooping towards her, just like a passionate young lady in a novel. + 

She replied ominously, knitting her thick, dark eyebrows. “And how’s that to be done, pray, if you sulk here at home?” + 

“I think, Aunt Alice, it’s an excellent plan,” cried Susan, “much, much more considerate. She could write. Think of all those horrible people! The poor thing may have been kidnapped, forced to do her silly tricks like one of those wretched, little barbered-up French poodles. Anyhow, I don’t suppose she’s there⁠—or anywhere else, for that matter⁠—for fun!” + 

Even Susan’s sympathy had its sting. + 

“Thank you, Susan,” was Mrs. Monnerie’s acid retort. “Your delicate soul can always be counted on. But advice, my child, is much the more valuable when asked for.” + 

“Of course I mustn’t interfere, Mrs. Monnerie,” interposed Fanny sweetly; “but wouldn’t it perhaps be as well for you to see the poor thing first? She mayn’t be quite⁠—quite a proper kind of person, may she? At least that’s what the newspapers seem to suggest. Not, of course, that Miss M. wouldn’t soon teach her better manners.” + 

Mrs. Monnerie’s head wagged gently in time to her shoe. “H’m. There’s something in that, Miss Worldly-Wise. Reports don’t seem to flatter her. But still, I like my own way best. Poppet must come and see. After all, she should be the better judge.” + 

Never before had Mrs. Monnerie so closely resembled a puffed-out tawny owl. + 

I looked at her fixedly: shook my head. “No: no judge,” I spluttered. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Monnerie, but I won’t go.” + 

There was no misdoubting her anger now. The brows forked. The loose-skinned hands twitched. She lifted herself in her chair. “Won’t,” she said. “You vex me, child. And pray don’t wriggle at me in that hysterical fashion. You are beside yourself; trembling like a mouse. You have been mooning alone too much, I can see. Run away and nurse that silly head, and at the same time thank heaven that you have more time and less need of the luxury than someone else we know of. It may be a low life, but it needs courage. I’ll say that for her.” + 

She swept her hands to her knees over her silken lap, and turned upon Susan. + 