Self-Assessment
A Promptoberfest story
© 2024 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  tegerio

Prompt: deficiency


"I have acted so despicably!" she cried, taking a seat upon the embroidered settee in the drawing room. The calico femme shook her mass of rag curls as she hung her head miserably, the virtual picture of despondency.

“My dear Clarissa,” Mr. Carlton said in a commiserating tone, “you do yourself a disservice.” The gray tabby removed a linen pawkerchief bearing his coat of arms from a pocket of his jacket and solicitously offered it to Clarissa. “Pray, tell me what is troubling you that causes you to make such a declaration.”

She dabbed at her eyes a moment before replying. "I have prided myself on being a woman of discernment, and that pride has included valuing myself on my abilities – the which, I see now, have both been sorely lacking.” Her paws wrung the pawkerchief as her tail swished in a most agitated fashion across the back of her dress. “If I had been in love, I could not have been more blind. Yet here it was not love, but vanity, foolish pride, that has undone me.” Her ears laid back as she added, “My sister’s generous openness I have disdained, while I have gratified my vanity by feeding it upon mistrust.”

Mr. Carlton’s ears flicked in perplexity, and he took a seat in a chair facing the settee. He leaned forward with an expression of deep interest. “And it was I who was the target of your mistrust.” She nodded and he asked, “What else, dear Clarissa, has your self-reflection revealed to your gaze?”

“That – that I have been prejudiced and ignorant, mistaking Mr. Archer’s infatuation as preferment, and your seeming neglect from our very first encounter at the Ramsdale’s ball as offense.” She lowered her head still further, her tail now hanging slackly. “Until this moment, I did not truly know myself.”

There was a long moment’s silence as Mr. Carlton contemplated the calico’s words. “If I understand you clearly, my dear Clarissa,” he said slowly, measuring his words as carefully as a scientist measures his reagents, “I pose you the following question: Has the contemplation of your mind, your motivations and your actions, led you to the conclusion that you hold some affection for me?” His tone of voice engendered a slightly raised, questioning tone upon the last word, the hopeful note mirroring the equally hopeful expression on his face.

Clarissa met his gaze, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “It does, Mr. Carlton. It-It does.”

The young calico suddenly became aware of two strong paws enveloping her own, and she blinked away her tears to see that Mr. Carlton was on his knees at her feet, clasping her paws in his. “Oh, Clarissa,” he said, “I have longed to hear that there is some room in your heart for me. I have loved you since we met, and I have prayed that you might feel as I do.”

“Oh, I do, dearest Stephen, I do,” Clarissa said, and the calico blushed as Carlton leaned down and his lips brushed against her knuckles.

He paused, and looked up at her again. “There is – there is but one more thing.” At her questioning look, he turned at the waist and from beneath the table beside his chair he pulled forth a curious object, a cylinder perhaps a foot high and a foot across, and open at the top. It was crafted of fine porcelain and decorated with Greek figures in the style of the famous Mr. Wedgewood’s internationally acclaimed workshops.

Mr. Carlton looked from the cylinder to meet Clarissa’s gaze again. The gray tabby paused for but a heartbeat before he spoke.

“I want to see you shit in this bin.”



end