Ten Degrees Backward. Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
is all you know, Master Reggie; twisting things about till you don't know whether you are standing on your head or on your heels."
"Yes, I do know; neither at the present moment. I have you there, Ponty."
But my feeble attempts at humour were as much lost upon Ponty as they were upon Annabel. "I call it flying in the face of Providence to adopt children when you haven't got any," she persisted; "if the rector had been meant to have children he'd have had them, without going and borrowing other folks' leavings. That's what I say. I don't hold with adopting, I never did. Why, there was a woman at Poppenhall when I was a girl, who went and adopted a boy because she'd no children of her own, and when he grew up he murdered her."
This was Ponty at her best. I began to enjoy myself.
"This is interesting," I exclaimed; "but why did he murder her?"
"A judgment on her, I suppose, for adopting him."
"A severe punishment for a kindly action," I remarked. "I hope the young Wildacres will not live to murder Mr. Blathwayte."
"I'm sure I hope so too, but you never can tell with strangers. You don't know what's in them, as you might say, like you do with those that you've had from their birth."
"And even those give shocks sometimes to their upbringers," I added, lighting a cigarette. "I know you don't mind my smoking, Ponty."
"Not for a moment, as far as I'm concerned, Master Reggie; but for your own sake I doubt you smoke too much. I don't hold with making a chimney of your throat, I never did, it's agen nature."
"But think of the relief to my overstrained nerves, Ponty."
"Overstrained fiddlesticks, Master Reggie, if you'd excuse my saying so! Why, what have you got to overstrain your nerves, I should like to know?"
"There's trouble in the forget-me-not bed," I answered solemnly.
Ponty's bright brown eyes twinkled. She and I had laughed together at Annabel ever since I could remember. "Oh, she's found it out, has she, Master Reggie? I knew there'd be trouble when I saw Cutler planting them so far apart, but he wouldn't listen to me. The other servants are foolish not to take my advice, for I knew Miss Annabel before some of them were born or thought of. She must have her own way, and she must have it done in her own way, or there's no peace for anybody."
"That being the case, you see my urgent need for the soothing effects of tobacco."
But Ponty shook her head. "I should try and get soothed in some other way, if I was you, Master Reggie: say with a peppermint drop or an Albert biscuit. Why, there was once a man at Poppenhall when my father was a lad——"
"I knew there was," I murmured. I felt that there was a judgment impending, and I would not have missed it for worlds.
"Who smoked and smoked till his throat was all lined with soot, like a kitchen-chimney," continued Ponty; "and one day a spark went down his throat from his pipe and set fire to the soot, and he was burned to death in a few minutes. You see, the fire being inside him, no one could get at it to put it out."
"How very shocking! But why didn't the soot choke him before he had time to get it on fire? I should have thought an accumulation of soot in the throat was a most unwholesome thing, apart from the danger of fire."
"It was a judgment upon him, that's all I can say, and it isn't for us to dictate whether Providence shall punish evildoers by choking or by burning."
"Certainly not," I replied. "I am the last person to take it upon myself to dictate to Providence."
"But smoking or no smoking, it's a fair treat to see you and Miss Annabel at home again," said Ponty with a most gracious smile; "for when all's said and done the house don't seem like the house without you. For my part, I don't hold with so much gadding about; I never did; but you and Miss Annabel was always set on having your own way, and I doubt always will be."
"Set on having Annabel's way, you mean," I amended.
"Just so, Master Reggie; from the time you were a little boy Miss Annabel always made up your mind for you, and I doubt if she'll ever get out of the habit now. But it's a pity! For though I'm the last to say a word against Miss Annabel, me having nursed her ever since she was a month old, and the most beautiful baby you ever saw, with a complexion like wax, still she's a bit too wilful, and you and your poor papa always having given way to her has made her worse. It doesn't do to be too self-willed."
"But I'm not," I pleaded.
"No; more's the pity! It would be a sight better for Miss Annabel if you were. I don't hold with folks always getting their own way, especially women. I remember a well-to-do woman at Poppenhall when I was a girl who was that set on marrying a particular man as never was, and nothing else would do to content her. And they lived on at her house after they were married, her being a woman of means. He caught the fever from drinking the water out of her well, the well not having been cleaned out for years and most unhealthy, and died just a month after their wedding-day, which I hold was a judgment on her for being so set on marrying that particular man."
"But any other man might have got the fever from the insanitary well," I suggested.
"But no other man ever did. Which is a lesson to us all not to be too set on having our own way, nor to let other people be too set either. I doubt that trouble will come some day from your being so under the thumb of Miss Annabel; I do indeed; and I'm sure I'm sorry in my heart for Cutler when the things in the garden don't come exactly as she meant them to."
"I'm sorry for him, too," I added. And I really was.
"No, I don't hold with folks as have beautiful houses spending half their time away from them. It isn't right to leave fine houses and beautiful furniture with only a lot of ignorant young housemaids to keep them all clean. It's agen nature. Of course I see after them to the best of my power, but I'm not what I was, and they are more so. I remember a gentleman living near Poppenhall, when my father was a lad, who was always leaving his beautiful house with only servants to look after it, and spending months and months in foreign parts, and the consequence was that once when he was away the house was struck by lightning!"
"But I don't see what the difference his absence could make to the lightning," I ventured to suggest.
But Ponty would have none of my casuistry. "It made all the difference, Master Reggie; for the house was never struck as long as he was at home. It was just a judgment upon him for leaving it."
That was the charm of Ponty: she could always wriggle with grace and dignity out of her own statements. Had she only been a man this gift would assuredly have raised her to eminence in Parliament, and would have made her a shining ornament of any Ministry.
After a little more improving conversation with my old nurse I strolled downstairs and out of doors, where I found Annabel talking to a chastened Cutler by the forget-me-not bed.
"Come for a stroll round the garden," I said, slipping my arm into hers, "and let us see if the vine has flourished and the pomegranates have budded, as they did in the Song of Solomon."
"I don't see how we can do that," replied Annabel, "considering that it is too early for grapes, and we have no pomegranates. As a matter of fact, I don't believe pomegranates ever do grow in England. Do you know whether they do?"
"No, I don't, and I don't want to. I only know that vines and pomegranates and all the other glorious things of the Song of Songs seem to be in the air when spring begins. It is a Song of Spring."
"It always seems to me a very peculiar sort of song," remarked Annabel; "and I don't understand it and don't pretend to. I remember Uncle William once expounding it at prayers for the sake of the servants, but I doubt if they were much the wiser for his exposition. I know I wasn't."
"I should have been," I exclaimed fervently. "It must have been a liberal education to hear him. And to think that it was wasted upon you and the servants, when I—who alone could have appreciated it—was not there!"
"It