THE MAGNETIC GIRL
CHAPTER I.
A MAN
It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to anyone. I really hardly know how to begin to tell about it. I was doing my hair before the looking-glass in my bedroom—and I could not help noticing that it was rather a curious colour, though my eyes were nearly blinded by tears of rage, and something else. The rage was because Lilian and Audrey and Eveleen and Doris, and mother too, had been saying all the nasty things they could to me. The something else was because Benjamin Morgan had asked me to be his wife.
There—it’s out! My first proposal of marriage—my very, very first! and that it should have come from him! It made me go hot all over with shame and disgust and a most singular variety of feelings.
They had been teasing me about him for ever so long; congratulating me—of course, with the most biting sarcasm—on having made a conquest at last. I am twenty-three, and nearly twenty-four, and no man ever paid me the least attention—until Mr Morgan began. And I wished he had not; because they made the most dreadful fun of him, and teased me more than they had ever done before—which is saying more than words can describe—on account of his being a hunchback. At least, he’s not exactly a hunchback, though they say he is: but I do like to be accurate, and I don’t care who laughs at me, and I’m quite sure that it’s only one shoulder which is a little higher than the other. There’s no denying that he is rather short for a man. His nurse dropped him when he was a baby. For years they never thought that he would live. If it were not for that there would be nothing against him. He has a nice face,—no one can say that there is anything the matter with that; with big black eyes, and the sweetest smile, and the pleasantest voice. He was the most thoughtful person I ever met. As generous as could be. He never said disagreeable things about anyone. I never saw him impatient, or out of temper. Though he had a way, sometimes, of making you understand that he was hurt by something which had been said or done, which made you feel that you were a perfect wretch.
If he had not been crooked! They never ceased to laugh at me because of “Crooked Ben,”—as they loved to call him. It got to such a state that I grew to hate the sight of him. At the mere mention of his name I would go hot all over;—they were always dragging him in by the head and ears! Persisting—in season and out of season!—in telling me how glad they were that I had some sort of an admirer at last, even if it wasn’t a very straight one. That made me so wild that I would declare that he was no admirer of mine, though I could not help but suspect the contrary. Then, of course, they would go on worse than ever, saying that having a lover like that was almost like having two: because he had two such different sides to him that no one would suppose that the one belonged to the other; and that when he was my husband I might call one side of him by one name, and the other by another. I have not the very best of tempers, and when they talked like that I would fly into such rages; vowing and declaring that nothing on earth would ever induce me to have anything to do with him, and that nothing was further from his mind than the idea of asking me, since I had given him no sort of encouragement, but, on the contrary, had given him clearly to understand that I did not desire even his acquaintance.
And now, in spite of all my vows and declarations, he had actually made me a proposal of marriage. If they ever came to hear of it I might as well go into a lunatic asylum at once; because they would certainly end by driving me there.
And yet I was not so sure as I should have liked to have been that I was beside myself with indignation at the mere notion of his audacity. Though, of course, I was wild. But, I suppose, the fact is, if you never have had a proposal from anyone, in a kind of a way it is interesting to have an offer from anyone or anything,—even from, in a manner of speaking, a monkey on a stick. If only just to know what it sounds like and how it’s done.
Everything was against Mr Morgan from the very start;—I will own that. When he met me I was in a red-hot rage. If a king on his throne had asked me to be his wife I should have felt like scratching him. Mother had just been telling me that I was getting dowdier and dowdier, and uglier and uglier every day, and if that sort of remark makes anyone feel like sugar and spice and all that’s nice, then all I can say is that it doesn’t me. I had really gone out to get something in High Street. But the thought of what a dreary waste my life actually was made me turn away from shops in disgust, and seek the solitude of Kensington Gardens. I had scarcely gone fifty yards along the Broad Walk when I all but ran against Mr Morgan. The sight of him made me madder than ever. He just looked at me. When he was near I used to have a horrid feeling that he understood me almost as well as I did myself; and that he more than suspected that I was an ugly duckling in my way almost as much as he was in his. It made me wild, the idea of being bracketed, in any sense whatever, with him.
I noticed what a shiny top-hat he had on,—I never saw anyone who wore more beautiful top-hats; his taste was excellent; he was always faultlessly dressed. I was filled with a vindictive desire to knock off his hat with my parasol, and kick it; I did so feel like kicking someone. There can be no real doubt that I have both a bad temper and savage instincts. But so far was he from realising what was passing through my mind that he gave me what was unmistakably a look of sympathy;—there is nothing I hate so much as being sympathised with. The thought that he was doing so made me wilder than ever. But before I had a chance of snubbing him he began—