CHAPTER IV

SHE

Behold me installed in Dayton Manor House, and brought here for the express purpose (so Charles has written me word) of my being studied, that it may be seen whether I am worthy to be, on some august future occasion—­possibly—­a member (Oh, so much to mumble!) of this great family.  Had I known it when I was leaving home, I should have countermanded the cording of my boxes.  If you please, I do the packing, and not the cording.  I must practise being polite, or I shall be horrifying these good people.

I am mortally offended.  I am very very angry.  I shall show temper.  Indeed, I have shown it.  Mr. Pollingray must and does think me a goose.  Dear sir, and I think you are justified.  If any one pretends to guess how, I have names to suit that person.  I am a ninny, an ape, and mind I call myself these bad things because I deserve worse.  I am flighty, I believe I am heartless.  Charles is away, and I suffer no pangs.  The truth is, I fancied myself so exceedingly penetrating, and it was my vanity looking in a glass.  I saw something that answered to my nods and howd’ye-do’s and—­but I am ashamed, and so penitent I might begin making a collection of beetles.  I cannot lift up my head.

Mr. Pollingray is such a different man from the one I had imagined!  What that one was, I have now quite forgotten.  I remember too clearly what the wretched guesser was.  I have been three weeks at Dayton, and if my sisters know me when I return to the vicarage, they are not foolish virgins.  For my part, I know that I shall always hate Mrs. Romer Pattlecombe, and that I am unjust to the good woman, but I do hate her, and I think the stories shocking, and wonder intensely what it was that I could have found in them to laugh at.  I shall never laugh again for many years.  Perhaps, when I am an old woman, I may.  I wish the time had come.  All young people seem to me so helplessly silly.  I am one of them for the present, and have no hope that I can appear to be anything else.  The young are a crowd—­a shoal of small fry.  Their elders are the select of the world.

On the morning of the day when I was to leave home for Dayton, a distance of eight miles, I looked out of my window while dressing—­as early as halfpast seven—­and I saw Mr. Pollingray’s groom on horseback, leading up and down the walk a darling little, round, plump, black cob that made my heart leap with an immense bound of longing to be on it and away across the downs.  And then the maid came to my door with a letter: 

’Mr. Pollingray, in return for her considerate good behaviour and saving of trouble to him officially, begs his goddaughter to accept the accompanying little animal:  height 14 h., age 31 years; hunts, is sure-footed, and likely to be the best jumper in the county.’