My eyes were fixed on the fire, but the picture conjured up was dark even amidst the red-hot coals. "And he? did he die too? At least his jealousy was broken away."
"And I'm not so sure of that," said Mrs Bowater. "It's like the men to go on wanting, even when it comes to scrabbling at a grave. And there's a trashy sort of creature, though well-set-up enough from the outside, that a spark will put in a blaze. I've no doubt he was that kind."
I thought of my own sparks, but questioned on: "Then there's nothing else but—but her ghost there now?"
"Lor, ghosts, miss, it's an hour, I see, when bed's the proper place for you and me. I look to be scared by that kind of gentry when they come true."
"You don't believe, then, in Destroyers, Mrs Bowater?"
"Miss, it's those queer books you are reading," was the evasive reply. "'Destroyers'! Why, wasn't it cruel enough to drive that poor feather-brained creature into a noose!"
Candle and I and drowsing cinders kept company until St Peter's bell had told only the sleepless that midnight was over the world. It seemed to my young mind that there was not a day, scarcely an hour, I lived, but that Life was unfolding itself in ever new and ravishing disguises. I had not begun to be in the least tired or afraid of it. Smallest of bubbles I might be, tossing on the great waters, but I reflected the universe. What need of courage when no danger was apparent? Surely one need not mind being different if that difference added to one's share in the wonderful Banquet. Even Wanderslore's story was only of what happened when the tangle was so harshly knotted that no mortal fingers could unravel it. And though my own private existence now had Mrs Monnerie—and all that she might do and mean and be—to cope with, as well as my stranger who was yet another queer story and as yet mine alone, these complications were enticing. One must just keep control of them; that was all. At which I thought a little unsteadily of Fanny's "pin," and remembered that that pin was helping to keep her and Mr Crimble from being torn apart.
He had seemed so peering a guest at Brunswick House. Mrs Monnerie hadn't so much as glanced at him when he had commented on Mrs Browning's poems. There seemed to be a shadow over whatever he did. It was as though there could be a sadness in the very coursing of one's blood. How thankful I felt that mine hadn't been a really flattering reply to Mrs Monnerie's question. She was extremely arrogant, even for a younger daughter of a lord. On the other hand, though, of course, the sheer novelty of me had had something to do with it, she had certainly singled me out afterwards to know what I thought, and in thoughts there is no particular size, only effusiveness—no, piercingness. I smiled to myself at the word, pitied my godmother for living so sequestered a life, and wondered how and why it was that my father and mother had so obstinately shut me away from the world. If only Fanny was coming home—what a difference she would find in her fretful Midge! And with that, I discovered that my feet were cold and that my headache had ached itself away.