... “This is quite a large bottle, Pikey.”
The eyes of the Dragon glistened ... as if she didn’t know the size of the bottle!
... “You must do your share.” The tumbler was replenished.
That which slept in the royal vintage was known only to the Genie whose happy task it was to stage manage this tiny fragment of the human comedy. For the little Catkin lady, after a second modest recourse to the glass, also began to sit up and take notice. She, too, began to look at the world with other eyes.
Suppose one was little Miss Rabbit opposite? How must the world appear when you wear cheap clothes and you carry your own luggage and you have all suburbia upon your eyebrows? Rather nice eyes, though, by the way. What was the book she was studying? Part of some very difficult examination evidently, to judge by the way the poor hunted little mouse was biting her pencil....
Governess, obviously ... of sorts. What must it be like to get one’s living as a governess? How must it seem to be bored and bullied and snubbed by total strangers for the sake of a few pounds a year? Still in some ways even that mode of life might offer advantages. At any rate one might be able to call one’s soul—one’s real soul—one’s own. If you were an obscure little governess whom nobody cared twopence about, you could do as you liked in the big things, even if the small things did as they liked with you.
There must have been a powerful Genius lurking in that famous bottle, for the ears of Lady Elfreda had begun to tingle with resentment. She remembered that she was an unmarried daughter of a cynical father and a selfish mother. Four of her sisters had been sacrificed on the altar of money. And if the present journey into an unknown country meant anything it was her turn now.
With a pang that was almost agony she searched for and read again her mother’s letter.
Castle Carabbas,
Friday.