Ten Degrees Backward

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

"No; but there was them as did. And you let 'em, and never interfered."

I felt I was a little boy again, being scolded by Ponty in the sunny old nursery for some childish misdemeanour. It was a peaceful feeling and somehow seemed to rest and soothe my weary and wounded heart.

"But I did interfere," I said: "I always interfered if I thought any one was interfering with her ladyship. Surely no husband ever let his wife have more of her own way than I did."

Ponty looked me up and down with scorn, as I lolled on the chintz-covered window-seat. "And what good would your interfering do as long as Miss Annabel was there, I should like to know? Mark my words, Master Reggie: the King of England couldn't hold his own against Miss Annabel; let alone a pretty young girl like her present ladyship. I knew what would happen as soon as you told me Miss Annabel was going to stay on here after you married. There's no throwing dust in my eyes! I knew Miss Annabel before you were born, and I knew her Papa too; and I know what they're like when they're set on moulding people. I should pity the Pope of Rome hisself if he was being moulded by Miss Annabel."

I agreed with her there.

"And if you ask me, Master Reggie" (I hadn't asked her, but that was neither here nor there), "I should say that the dreadful trouble was far more Miss Annabel's fault than Mr. Wildacre's, though I know some do say as it was all his doing: and I dare say it was partly his doing too, as more than one can play at 'Oranges and Lemons.' But to put a young girl under Miss Annabel's thumb, as you may say (for when all's said and done her ladyship is only a young girl), to my mind it was like throwing Daniel into the den of lions; and unfortunately it didn't turn out so well."

"I apparently was not successful in the role of the angel who shut the lions' mouths," I said bitterly.

"Not you, Master Reggie! You haven't yet got it in you to stand up against Miss Annabel, and never had: any more than your poor Mamma had it in her to stand up against Sir John. Some folks can stand up and some folks can't, and there's no blame either ways, it happening just as you're made. There was a man at Poppenhall who married three times, and his third wife was the only one of the three as ever stood up to him. And nine weeks to the day from his third marriage he was laid to rest in Poppenhall Churchyard. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and the wreaths were something beautiful."

"I suppose he couldn't stand being stood up to after all those years," I suggested.

"No more than Sir John could have stood it, or Miss Annabel. Folks isn't used to it, if they've had too much of the other thing: and that's where the judgment comes in of letting them get like that. It stands to reason that the Almighty didn't send folks into this world to be always having their own way at the expense of other folks's: and they shouldn't be given it. What was sauce for you was sauce for Miss Annabel, as I've told your poor Mamma over and over again when you were both children. But nobody but her Papa could stand up to Miss Annabel even then; and it isn't likely that they'll begin now."