A Little Folly Read Online Free PDF Page B

that Miss Rose was any trouble: indeed, it was the very aim and desire of her life not to be so, as she was constantly asserting. An early attempt on the part of the Tresilians to acknowledge their relationship, and soften the sting of dependence by calling her Aunt, had been quite rejected by her aggressive humility; and though she had the dignity of the housekeeping keys, and the chaperonage of Kate, she could never sufficiently declare herself unworthy of them.
    ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Tresilian,’ she answered, ‘and it is a great nuisance in me, I know, to be so particular where I can claim absolutely no right to consideration – but may I ask to what specifically your question refers?’
    ‘Bonaparte,’ said Mr Tresilian, drinking his wine, and raising his heavy eyes a little at its quality. ‘What to do with him. Hang, burn, or drown. Or all three.’
    ‘My dear sir,’ Miss Rose said, with her little squeezed cough of self-deprecation, ‘to consult my opinion on a matter of national moment is so very inapposite that I could almost bring myself to protest at it – if it were not for my consciousness that the enquiry is meant as a token of polite attention, but I hope I am very far from expecting any such tokens, or considering them my right in the least. If ever I did lapse into such unwarranted vanity, I hope I should drop myself in the river directly.’
    ‘Dear Miss Rose, I wish you wouldn’t speak of the river so,’ said Kate.
    ‘My dear Miss Tresilian, if you wish it, then of course I shall not do so. Anything other than a complete acquiescence would be shockingly unbecoming of my position. I hope indeed I should accept any prohibition of my speech without a murmur – even if it were an injunction to absolute silence,’ said Miss Rose, in her most frozen and petrified manner, accompanying her speech with the penitential half-closing of her eyes, which suggested that even the power of sight she regarded as a presumption in a being such as herself.
    ‘Well, ma’am, Bonaparte and the war and all of that is poor dull stuff, I’m sure you will agree,’ Valentine said. ‘Take a glass of wine, if you please, and think no more of it.’
    ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Carnell, but your inviting me to take a glass of wine is an attention that I cannot with good conscience allow myself freely to accept, even at the risk of rewarding your condescension with ingratitude,’ murmured Miss Rose, with a little drawing-in of her thin, tissuey form, as if to take up less room on her chair. ‘I stand in a position of dependence, quite as much as a child to a parent, and I hope I shall never forget to refer any such question to my benefactor: indeed, the moment I do forget, I hope I may drop myself off a cliff.’
    ‘Drink the wine or not, as you choose, ma’am,’ said Mr Tresilian, with the bluff patience that never seemed to fail him. ‘I’d advise it, for it’s good and heady. You have made a proper start on the cellars, Valentine.’
    ‘I hope I have,’ said Valentine, colouring a little, ‘for they have done little enough before now to justify their existence – which I take to be the fostering of conviviality and general enjoyment.’
    But Miss Rose’s determination to be ignored and slighted was not yet satisfied; and there must be a good deal more fuss about her taking a glass of wine, and her insisting that she did not expect such a privilege, before the matter was done, Miss Rose in this demonstrating the peculiar talent of those who proclaim their absence of self-esteem for getting a lot of attention by pretending they never get any.
    The dinner passed pleasantly enough; but it was large and rich, neither Valentine nor Louisa being at all experienced in the planning of such things, and both of them inclined to liberality; and the wines in particular took their toll of Valentine. Louisa was just hesitating over that awkward responsibility of the hostess, of rising and inviting the ladies to