In most of the novels I have read, the heroine simply basks in such a proposal, even though scarcely her finger-tips are warmed by its rays. For my part, this letter, far from making me happy or even complacent, produced nothing but a feeling of fretfulness and shame. Thrusting it back into its envelope, I listened a while as if an eavesdropper might have overheard my silent reading of it—as if I must hide. Then, with eyes fixed on my small coffeepot, I sank into a low, empty reverie.
The world had not been so tender to my feelings as to refrain from introducing me to General Tom Thumb and Miss Mercy Lavinia Bump Warren.
"A pair of them! how quaint! how romantic! how touching!" I saw myself—gossamer veil, dwarfed orange-blossom, and gypsophila bouquet, all complete. Perhaps Mr. Pellew—perhaps even Miss Fenne's bishop, would officiate. Possibly Percy would be persuaded to "give me away." And what a gay little sniggling note in the Morning Post.
I came out of these sardonic thoughts with cold hands and a sneer on my lips, and the thought that I had seen quite as conspicuously paired human mates even though their size was beyond reproach. Thank goodness, when I read my letter again, slightly better feelings prevailed. After all, the merest cinder of love would have made my darkness light. I shouldn't have cared for a thousand "touching's" then. I was still myself, a light-headed, light-hearted, young woman, for all my troubles and follies. If I had loved him, the rest of the world—much truer and sweeter within than it looks from without—would have vanished like a puff of smoke. But not even love's ashes were in my heart, except, perhaps, those in which Fanny had scrawled her name.
I beat about, bruising wings and breast, hating life, hating the friend who had suddenly slammed-to another door in my gilded cage. "You can never, never go back to Wanderslore now," muttered my romantic heart. Friends we could have remained—only the closer for adversity. Now all that was over; and two human beings who might have been a refuge and reconciliation to one another, amused—as well as amusing—observers of the world at large, had been by this one piece of foolish excess divided for ever. I simply couldn't bear to look ridiculous in my own eyes.
My other letter was from Sir W. P. He had seen the Harrises. Those foxy tortoises had advanced a ridiculous £1 19s. 7d. of my September allowance—the price of a pair of Monnerie bedroom slippers! It was enclosed—and Sir Walter begged me not to worry. Might he be my bank? Would I be so kind as to break it as soon as ever I wished? Meanwhile he would be making further inquires into my affairs.
Perhaps because Sir W. P. was a business man, he was less persuasive with his pen than with his tongue. I thought he was merely humouring me, fell into a violent rage, and tore up not only his letter, but—noodle that I was—the Harris Order too—into the tiniest pieces, and heaped them up, like a soufflé, on my tray. Mr Anon's I locked up in my old money-box, with the nightgown and the Miss Austen. Both letters wore like acid into my mind. From that day on—except for a few half-stifled or excited hours—they were never out of remembrance.
Even the most valuable and expensive pet may become a vexation if it is continually showing ill-temper and fractiousness. Mrs Monnerie merely puckered her lips or shrugged her shoulders at my outbursts of vanity and insolence. But drops of water will wear away a stone. From being Court Favourite I gradually sank to being Court Fool. In sheer ennui and desperation I waggled my bells and brandished my bladder. A cat may look at a Queen, but it should, I am sure, make faces only at her Ladies-in-waiting.
Fanny inherited yet another sinecure; and it was not envy on my side that helped her to shine in it, though I had my fits of jealousy. She was determined to please; and when Fanny made up her mind, circumstances seemed just to fawn at her feet. Life became a continuous game of chess, the moves of which at times kept me awake and brooding in a far from wholesome fashion in my bed. Pawn of pawns, and one at the point of being sacrificed, I could only squint at the board. Indeed, I deliberately shut my eyes to my own insignificance, strutted about, sulked, sharpened my tongue like a serpent, and became a perfect pest to myself when alone. Yet I knew in my heart that those whom I hoped to wound merely laughed at me behind my back, that I was once more proving to the world that the smaller one is the greater is one's vanity.