Little Miss Muffet
Aster Digg-Tooter has never been almost dead, has never had a terrible tragedy befall her unexpectedly, has never gone hungry beyond the nice sort of hunger that makes dinner taste better. She has lived a very bland, flavourless sort of life. If she were cleverer it might occur to her that her tragedy is that she has no tragedy, but mercifully this irony escapes her entirely.
Sat on her tuffet
Well, there was the winter where she and Adair had ended up with mild pneumonia, and had required so much wild cherry tea that their father had joked he expected them to grow a good crop of berries when the weather turned. But no, there had never been any real worry about them, in fact the only concern expressed had been Basil's that nobody would pay attention to him because he wasn't coughing and complaining of tiredness. That incident certainly doesn't rate up with the sort of Proper Tragical Things that Aster is seeking in her personal history.
eating her curds and whey
And sometimes Aster feels like perhaps, were another Adventure to pop up unexpectedly, she'd be left at home like Fredegar Bolger and Rose Cotton had been once upon a time. But Fredegar had had adventures of his own, awfully romantic ones with prisons and rebellions and everything. And Rose, well, Aster's not so dim that she doesn't see what a lot of people think of Rose nowtimes. Aster thinks it would be hateful to be disliked for so many years for such a stupid thing.
along came a spider
Aster sometimes dreams of talking to Rose, saying is it terribly difficult, being nice to people who want to slap your face and make you cry?, but Aster wouldn't ask because she already knows the answer. It's not so difficult, after a while. A bit like dancing, really. Aster's always had a skill for dancing, she's been told that all her life. She knows it's her best talent.
and sat down beside her
She'd ask Rose do you ever wish that people's hearts did sensible things?, except she knows the answer to that one as well. Don't you wish that people loved you more? - Aster heard little Ruby ask her mother that, once, and Rose had answered Duckling, everybody I want to love me does so, so I don't much think about the rest. So Aster knows the answer Rose would give to that, as well.
and frightened
One question that Aster will ask Rose eventually is isn't Sammie supposed to have writing in his blood? which might seem saucy as anything, especially considering gossip, but it's half-genuine and half-teasing and Aster thinks that Rose probably won't mind. But, oh! Sammie's poems can be painful sometimes, and it's all she can do not to bury her face in her apron and run home giggling. Honestly, rust with callistephus with nonpluss... it's enough to make her swat him over the head, or fall in love with him.
Miss Muffet
But sometimes Aster's heart does wish that other people had more sense, so after a prickle-eyed night of reading Flora's big plant books, Aster had given Sammie a poem of her own, that rhymed larkspur with transfer and prefer and deter. Sammie just gave her an indulgent smile and said 'for me, Aster? How lovely!', and endured Daisy's teasing and kissy-kissy noises for the next half-hour before ducking her in the millpond. Aster wonders if he'd have noticed the words more if her handwriting wasn't so neat and pretty.
Away.
Aster, because she is quiet and docile and placid and stupid, gains admittance to places others are not privvy to. Aster hears conversations and sees confrontations. She was sitting by the window of the Bag End study with her sewing one rainy Tuesday when Sam and Frodo discussed their big Red Book with all the whithertos and whyfores of their adventure in it.
"Folk are going to wonder where this 'Rosie' person came from when they get to the end, you know."
"I... I don't like putting her in more than I absolutely need to, Sam. It's not a story she deserves to be thrown into."
"Same's true for all of us, and therefore none of us. We already get those right queer stories that Aragorn finds so amusin', the love-poems that ladies of the court write about you and me. Imagine what they'll say if they get wind of this ending you wrote in here and still won't fix after so many years, they'll cry foul and say that the writer made our Rosie up so's that nobody would say we were close like that, just to be the nice little wife."
"Let them say what they like, I don't care."
"Rosie might." And Sam's voice had sounded dark.
As far as Aster knows, Rose doesn't care, but Aster imagines that this is probably wholly due to Rose's nature and would not be the typical reaction of one caught in the situation.
She can't help being who she is. Much as she wants to and often as she tries, she can't create a tortured past or an interesting affliction to spice up the pale-eyed reflection that blinks back at her in the mirror, for she's already lived those comfortable and stuffy years behind her and can't go back to fiddle with them. She never asked Sammie Gardner to love her best, though it seems sometimes that this has all she's ever wanted in her whole life. Perhaps the writer made me up just to be the nice little wife, Aster muses to the darkness of the night-time, because she can't imagine that there are Adventures (or even just plain ordinary lower-case adventures) in her future any more than there are in her past.
So Miss Muffet has gone
But... would the writer bother to give her mild pneumonia, that didn't threaten her or require some dashing hero (if Sammie with his pants dirt-crusted at the knees and beetles in his pockets could ever be such a character) to brave storm and lightning to bring her medicine? Would the writer bestow a peripheral character, a wife-to-be, with such an obnoxious brother as Basil, or a mother quite so daffy as Aster's own?
To live under a hill
And after all, the lady who was once upon a time named Rose Cotton does an awful lot of things that never got written into songs and stories. Perhaps Aster will have a fate like that, to be unknown to any but herself and those who share her tale. That doesn't seem so terrible, really.
And if she's not gone
Maybe the characters in stories move and dance when their books are shut, like Aster had believed dolls to do in empty rooms when she was very young. Maybe they have secret adventures that the writer never gets to see and hear about. Maybe there are little girls in every margin on every page of every fairytale, little girls that nobody reading the story likes very much but who laugh and think and breathe all the same. It's not so bad, to be one of those little girls. In fact, in a lot of ways it's better. Maybe best. Better than best, perhaps.
She lives there still.
She'll tell herself that every day until habit turns into truth. Nobody's ever bothered to teach Aster very much (except Delphinium, who did it out of loathing and contempt and a burning corrosive envy that made Aster shrink in fear), because she's too dull to be worth the effort, so she's learnt to self-school her mind in whatever subjects need learning. It takes time, but once the lesson's taught it's not forgotten.
And perhaps one day she'll learn to like dancing on the edges.
~
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