“Now, let me see,” she went on, “there’s hot water in your basin, miss—I heard the carriage on the hill; a pair of slippers to ease your feet, in case in the hurry of packing they’d been forgot; and your strawberries and cream are out there icing themselves on the tray. So we shan’t be no time, though disturbing news has come from Mr. Bowater, his leg not mending as it might have been foreseen—but that can wait.”
An unfamiliar Miss M. brushed her hair in front of me in the familiar looking-glass. It was not that her Monnerie raiment was particularly flattering, or she, indeed, pleasanter to look at—rather the contrary: and I gazed long and earnestly into the glass. But art has furtive and bewitching fingers. While in my homemade clothes I had looked just myself, in these I looked like one or other of my guardian angels, or perhaps, as an unprejudiced Fleming would have expressed it—the perfect lady. How gradual must have been the change in me to have passed thus unnoticed. But I didn’t want to think. I felt dulled and dispirited. Even Mrs. Bowater had not been so entranced to see me as I had anticipated. It was tiresome to be disappointed. I rummaged in a bottom drawer, got out an old gown, made a grimace at myself in my mind, and sat down to Fanny’s letter. But then again, what are externals? Who was this cool-tempered Miss M. who was now scanning the once heartrending handwriting?
“Dear Midgetina—When this will reach you, I don’t know. But somehow I cannot, or rather I can, imagine you the cynosure of the complete peerage, and prefer that my poor little letter should not uprear its modest head in the midst of all that Granjer. You may not agree—but if a few weeks of a High Life that may possibly continue into infinity has made no difference to you, then Fanny is not among the prophets.
“We have not met since—we parted. But did you ever know a ‘dead past’ bury itself with such ingratiating rapidity? Have you in your sublime passion for Nature ever watched a Sexton Beetle? But, mind you, I have helped. The further all that slips away, the less I can see I was to blame for it. What’s in your blood needs little help from outside. Cynical it may sound; but imagine the situation if I had married him! What could existence have been but a Nightmare-Life-in-Death? (Vide S. T. Coleridge). Now the Dream continues—for us both.
“Oh, yes, I can see your little face needling up at this. But you must remember, dear Midgetina, that you will never, never be able to see things in a truly human perspective. Few people, of course, try to. You do. But though your view may be delicate as gossamer and clear as a glass marble, it can’t be full-size. Boil a thing down, it isn’t the same. What remains has the virtues of an essence, but not the volume of its origin. This sounds horribly school-booky; but I am quite convinced you are too concentrated. And I being what I am, only the full volume can be my salvation. Enough. The text is as good as the sermon—far better, in fact.
“Now I am going to be still more callous. My own little private worries have come right—been made to. I’m tit for tat, that is, and wiser for it beyond words. Some day, when Society has taught you all its lessons, I will explain further. Anyhow, first I send you back £3 of what I owe you. And thank you. Next I want you to find out from Mrs. Mummery (as mother calls her—or did), if among her distinguished acquaintance she knows anyone with one or two, or at most three, small and adorable children who need an excellent governess. Things have made it undesirable for me to stay on here much longer. It shall be I who give notice, or, shall we say, terminate the engagement.
“Be an angel, then. First, wake up. Candidly, to think me better than I am is more grossly unfair than if I thought you taller than you are. Next, sweet cynosure, find me a sinecure. Don’t trouble about salary. (You wouldn’t, you positive acorn of quixoticism, not if I owed you half a million.) But remember: Wanted by the end of August at latest, a Lady, wealthy, amiable, with two Cherubic Doves in family, boys preferred. The simple, naked fact being that after this last bout of life’s fitful fever, I pine for a nap.
“Of course mother can see this letter if she wishes to, and you don’t mind. But personally I should prefer to have the bird actually fluttering in my hand before she contemplates it in the bush.
“I said pine just now. Do you ever find a word suddenly so crammed with meaning that at any moment it threatens to explode? Well, Midgetina, them’s my sentiments. Penitent I shall never be, until I take the veil. But I have once or twice lately awoke in a kind of glassy darkness—beyond all moonshine—alone. Then, if I hadn’t been born just thick-ribbed, unmeltable ice—well. … Vulgar, vulgar Fanny!
“Fare thee well, Midgetina. ‘One cried, “God bless us,” and “Amen,” the other.’ Prostituted though he may have been for scholastic purposes, W. S. knew something of Life.
What was the alluring and horrifying charm for me of Fanny’s letters? This one set my mind, as always, wandering off into a maze. There was a sour taste in it, and yet—it was all really and truly Fanny. I could see her unhappy eyes glittering through the mask. She saw herself—perhaps more plainly than one should. “Vulgar Fanny.” As for its effect on me; it was as if I had fallen into a bed of nettles, and she herself, picking me up, had scoffed,
