第62章

We buried Dolly in the country under the yew tree.A friend of mine who plays the fiddle came down on purpose to assist.We buried her in the hot spring sunshine, while the birds from shady nooks sang joyously of life and love.And our chief mourner cried real tears, just for all the world as though it were not the fate of dolls, sooner or later, to get broken--the little fragile things, made for an hour, to be dressed and kissed; then, paintless and stript, to be thrown aside on the nursery floor.Poor little dolls! I wonder do they take themselves seriously, not knowing the springs that stir their sawdust bosoms are but clockwork, not seeing the wires to which they dance? Poor little marionettes! do they talk together, Iwonder, when the lights of the booth are out?

You, little sister doll, were the heroine.You lived in the white-washed cottage, all honeysuckle and clematis without--earwiggy and damp within, maybe.How pretty you always looked in your simple, neatly-fitting print dress.How good you were! How nobly you bore your poverty.How patient you were under your many wrongs.

You never harboured an evil thought, a revengeful wish--never, little doll? Were there never moments when you longed to play the wicked woman's part, live in a room with many doors, be-clad in furs and jewels, with lovers galore at your feet? In those long winter evenings? the household work is done--the greasy dishes washed, the floor scrubbed; the excellent child is asleep in the corner; the one-and-elevenpenny lamp sheds its dismal light on the darned table-cloth; you sit, busy at your coarse sewing, waiting for Hero Dick, knowing--guessing, at least, where he is--! Yes, dear, Iremember your fine speeches, when you told her, in stirring language the gallery cheered to the echo, what you thought of her and of such women as she; when, lifting your hand to heaven, you declared you were happier in your attic, working your fingers to the bone, than she in her gilded salon--I think "gilded salon" was the term, was it not?--furnished by sin.But speaking of yourself, weak little sister doll, not of your fine speeches, the gallery listening, did you not, in your secret heart, envy her? Did you never, before blowing out the one candle, stand for a minute in front of the cracked glass, and think to yourself that you, too, would look well in low-cut dresses from Paris, the diamonds flashing on your white smooth skin? Did you never, toiling home through the mud, bearing your bundle of needlework, feel bitter with the wages of virtue, as she splashed you, passing by in her carriage? Alone, over your cup of weak tea, did you never feel tempted to pay the price for champagne suppers, and gaiety, and admiration? Ah, yes, it is easy for folks who have had their good time, to prepare copybooks for weary little inkstained fingers, longing for play.The fine maxims sound such cant when we are in that mood, do they not? You, too, were young and handsome: did the author of the play think you were never hungry for the good things of life? Did he think that reading tracts to crotchety old women was joy to a full-blooded girl in her twenties? Why should SHE have all the love, and all the laughter?

How fortunate that the villain, the Wicked Baronet, never opened the cottage door at that moment, eh, dear! He always came when you were strong, when you felt that you could denounce him, and scorn his temptations.Would that the villain came to all of us at such time;then we would all, perhaps, be heroes and heroines.

Ah well, it was only a play: it is over now.You and I, little tired dolls, lying here side by side, waiting to know our next part, we can look back and laugh.Where is she, this wicked dolly, that made such a stir on our tiny stage? Ah, here you are, Madam; Ithought you could not be far; they have thrown us all into this corner together.But how changed you are, Dolly: your paint rubbed off, your golden hair worn to a wisp.No wonder; it was a trying part you had to play.How tired you must have grown of the glare and the glitter! And even hope was denied you.The peace you so longed for you knew you had lost the power to enjoy.Like the girl bewitched in the fairy tale, you knew you must dance ever faster and faster, with limbs growing palsied, with face growing ashen, and hair growing grey, till Death should come to release you; and your only prayer was he might come ere your dancing grew comic.

Like the smell of the roses to Nancy, hawking them through the hot streets, must the stifling atmosphere of love have been to you.The song of passion, how monotonous in your ears, sung now by the young and now by the old; now shouted, now whined, now shrieked; but ever the one strident tune.Do you remember when first you heard it?

You dreamt it the morning hymn of Heaven.You came to think it the dance music of Hell, ground from a cracked hurdy-gurdy, lent out by the Devil on hire.

An evil race we must have seemed to you, Dolly Faustine, as to some Old Bailey lawyer.You saw but one side of us.You lived in a world upside down, where the leaves and the blossoms were hidden, and only the roots saw your day.You imagined the worm-beslimed fibres the plant, and all things beautiful you deemed cant.

Chivalry, love, honour! how you laughed at the lying words.You knew the truth--as you thought: aye, half the truth.We were swine while your spell was upon us, Daughter of Circe, and you, not knowing your island secret, deemed it our natural shape.