The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby

"The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a charming short story that explores themes of societal expectations, personal growth, and the pursuit of happiness. The narrative centers around the titular character, Miss Ponsonby, a woman of refined background who finds herself trapped in a monotonous life. As she grapples with her sense of duty and the constraints of her social status, unexpected encounters lead her to discover the joys of self-expression and the importance of embracing one's desires. With Montgomery's signature wit and poignant insight, the story invites readers to reflect on the complexities of identity and fulfillment in a changing world.

• Short story

								
We hadn't been very long in Glenboro before we managed to get
acquainted with Miss Ponsonby. It did not come about in the ordinary
course of receiving and returning calls, for Miss Ponsonby never
called on anybody; neither did we meet her at any of the Glenboro
social functions, for Miss Ponsonby never went anywhere except to
church, and very seldom there. Her father wouldn't let her. No, it
simply happened because her window was right across the alleyway from
ours. The Ponsonby house was next to us, on the right, and between us
were only a fence, a hedge of box, and a sprawly acacia tree that
shaded Miss Ponsonby's window, where she always sat sewing--patchwork,
as I'm alive--when she wasn't working around the house. Patchwork
seemed to be Miss Ponsonby's sole and only dissipation of any kind.

We guessed her age to be forty-five at least, but we found out
afterward that we were mistaken. She was only thirty-five. She was
tall and thin and pale, one of those drab-tinted persons who look as
if they had never felt a rosy emotion in their lives. She had any
amount of silky, fawn-coloured hair, always combed straight back from
her face, and pinned in a big, tight bun just above her neck--the last
style in the world for any woman with Miss Ponsonby's nose to adopt.
But then I doubt if Miss Ponsonby had any idea what her nose was
really like. I don't believe she ever looked at herself critically in
a mirror in her life. Her features were rather nice, and her
expression tamely sweet; her eyes were big, timid, china-blue orbs
that looked as if she had been badly scared when she was little and
had never got over it; she never wore anything but black, and, to
crown all, her first name was Alicia.

Miss Ponsonby sat and sewed at her window for hours at a time, but she
never looked our way, partly, I suppose, from habit induced by
modesty, since the former occupants of our room had been two gay
young bachelors, whose names Jerry and I found out all over our
window-panes with a diamond.

Jerry and I sat a great deal at ours, laughing and talking, but Miss
Ponsonby never lifted her head or eyes. Jerry couldn't stand it long;
she declared it got on her nerves; besides, she felt sorry to see a
fellow creature wasting so many precious moments of a fleeting
lifetime at patchwork. So one afternoon she hailed Miss Ponsonby with
a cheerful "hello," and Miss Ponsonby actually looked over and said
"good afternoon," as prim as an eighteen-hundred-and-forty fashion
plate.

Then Jerry, whose name is Geraldine only in the family Bible, talked
to her about the weather. Jerry can talk interestingly about anything.
In five minutes she had performed a miracle--she had made Miss
Ponsonby laugh. In five minutes more she was leaning half out of the
window showing Miss Ponsonby a new, white, fluffy, frivolous, chiffony
waist of hers, and Miss Ponsonby was leaning halfway out of hers
looking at it eagerly. At the end of a quarter of an hour they were
exchanging confidences about their favourite books. Jerry was a
confirmed Kiplingomaniac, but Miss Ponsonby adored Laura Jean Libbey.
She said sorrowfully she supposed she ought not to read novels at all
since her father disapproved. We found out later on that Mr.
Ponsonby's way of expressing disapproval was to burn any he got hold
of, and storm at his daughter about them like the confirmed old crank
he was. Poor Miss Ponsonby had to keep her Laura Jeans locked up in
her trunk, and it wasn't often she got a new one.

From that day dated our friendship with Miss Ponsonby, a curious
friendship, only carried on from window to window. We never saw Miss
Ponsonby anywhere else; we asked her to come over but she said her
father didn't allow her to visit anybody. Miss Ponsonby was one of
those meek women who are ruled by whomsoever happens to be nearest
them, and woe be unto them if that nearest happen to be a tyrant. Her
meekness fairly infuriated Jerry.

But we liked Miss Ponsonby and we pitied her. She confided to us that
she was very lonely and that she wrote poetry. We never asked to see
the poetry, although I think she would have liked to show it. But, as
Jerry says, there are limits.

We told Miss Ponsonby all about our dances and picnics and beaus and
pretty dresses; she was never tired of hearing of them; we smuggled
new library novels--Jerry got our cook to buy them--and boxes of
chocolates, from our window to hers; we sat there on moonlit nights
and communed with her while other girls down the street were
entertaining callers on their verandahs; we did everything we could
for her except to call her Alicia, although she begged us to do so.
But it never came easily to our tongues; we thought she must have been
born and christened Miss Ponsonby; "Alicia" was something her mother
could only have dreamed about her.

We thought we knew all about Miss Ponsonby's past; but even pale,
drab, china-blue women can have their secrets and keep them. It was a
full half year before we discovered Miss Ponsonby's.

       *       *       *       *       *

In October, Stephen Shaw came home from the west to visit his father
and mother after an absence of fifteen years. Jerry and I met him at a
party at his brother-in-law's. We knew he was a bachelor of forty-five
or so and had made heaps of money in the lumber business, so we
expected to find him short and round and bald, with bulgy blue eyes
and a double chin. On the contrary, he was a tall, handsome man with
clear-cut features, laughing black eyes like a boy's, and iron-grey
hair. That iron-grey hair nearly finished Jerry; she thinks there is
nothing so distinguished and she had the escape of her life from
falling in love with Stephen Shaw.

He was as gay as the youngest, danced splendidly, went everywhere, and
took all the Glenboro girls about impartially. It was rumoured that he
had come east to look for a wife but he didn't seem to be in any
particular hurry to find her.

One evening he called on Jerry; that is to say, he did ask for both of
us, but within ten minutes Jerry had him mewed up in the cosy corner
to the exclusion of all the rest of the world. I felt that I was a
huge crowd, so I obligingly decamped upstairs and sat down by my
window to "muse," as Miss Ponsonby would have said.

It was a glorious moonlight night, with just a hint of October frost
in the air--enough to give sparkle and tang. After a few moments I
became aware that Miss Ponsonby was also "musing" at her window in the
shadow of the acacia tree. In that dim light she looked quite pretty.
It was suddenly borne in upon me for the first time that, when Miss
Ponsonby was young, she must have been very pretty, with that delicate
elusive fashion of beauty which fades so early if the life is not kept
in it by love and tenderness. It seemed odd, somehow, to think of Miss
Ponsonby as young and pretty. She seemed so essentially middle-aged
and faded.

"Lovely night, Miss Ponsonby," I said brilliantly.

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