Chapter Forty-Nine
When next Fanny and I met, it was in the cool grey-green summery drawing-room at Monk's House, and Mrs Monnerie and Susan shared tea with us. One covert glance at Mrs Monnerie's face had reassured me. That strange mask was as vigilant and secretive, but as serene, as when it had first smiled on me in the mauves and gildings of Brunswick House. She had set her world right again and was at peace with mankind. As complacently as ever she stretched me out her finger. She had not even taken the trouble to forgive me for my little "scene"; had let it perish of its own insignificance. Oh, I thought, if I could be as life-size as that! I did not learn till many days afterwards, however, that she had had news of me from France. Good news, which Sir W., trusting in my patience and commonsense, had kept back from me until he could deliver it in person and we could enjoy it together.
Only one topic of conversation was ours that afternoon—that "amazing Prodigy of Nature," the Spanish Princess; Mrs Monnerie's one regret that she herself had not discovered a star of such ineffably minute magnitude. Yet her teasing and sarcasm were so nimble and good-humoured; she insinuated so pleasantly her little drolleries and innuendoes; that even if Miss M. had had true cause for envy and malice, she could have taken no offence. Far from it.
I looked out of the long open windows at the dipping, flittering wagtails on the lawn; shrugged my shoulders; made little mouths at her with every appearance of wounded vanity. Did she really think, I inquired earnestly, that that shameless creature was as lovely as the showman's bills made her out to be? Mightn't it all be a cheat, a trick? Didn't they always exaggerate—just to make money? The more jovially she enjoyed my discomfiture, nodding her head, swaying in her chair, the more I enjoyed my duplicity. The real danger was that I should be a little too clever, over-act my part, and arouse her suspicions.
"Ah, you little know, you little know," I muttered to myself, sharply conscious the while of the still, threatening presence of Fanny. But she meant to let me go—that was enough. It was to be good riddance to bad rubbish. There was nothing to fear from her—yet. Her eyes lightly dwelling on me over her Chelsea teacup, she sat drinking us in. Well, she should never taunt me with not having played up to her conception of me.
"Well, well," Mrs Monnerie concluded, "all it means, my dear, is that you are not quite such a rarity as we supposed. Who is? There's nothing unique in this old world; though character, even bad character, never fails to make its mark. Ask Mr Pellew."
"But, surely, Mrs Monnerie," said I, "it isn't character to sell yourself at twopence a look."
"Mere scruples, Poppet," she retorted. "Think of it. If only you could have pocketed that pretty little fastidiousness of yours, the newspapers would now be ringing with your fame. And the fortune! You are too pernickety. Aren't we all of us on show? And aren't nine out of ten of us striving to be more on show than we are entitled to be? If man's first disobedience and the rest of it doesn't mean that, then what, I ask you, Mademoiselle Bas Bleu, was the sour old Puritan so concerned about? Assist me, Susan, if I stumble."