In the Year of Jubilee. George Gissing
her, like a dog, as she walked round the table to look at herself in the mirror over the fireplace. ‘It was only because I’m so fond of you.’
‘Oh, what a silly you are!’ she laughed, seating herself on the arm of an easy-chair. ‘Go ahead! What’s the latest?’
‘Well, for one thing, I’ve had a very clear understanding with the gov’nor about my independence. I showed him that I meant having my own way, and he might bully as much as he liked.’
It was not thus that Horace would naturally have spoken, not thus that he thought of his father. Fanny had subdued him to her own level, poisoned him with the desires excited by her presence. And he knew his baseness; he was not ignorant of the girl’s ignoble nature. Only the fury of a virgin passion enabled him to talk, and sometimes think, as though he were in love with ideal purity.
‘I didn’t think you had the pluck,’ said Fanny, swinging one of her feet as she tittered.
‘That shows you haven’t done me justice.’
‘And you’re going to stay out late at night?’
‘As late as I like,’ Horace answered, crossing his arms.
‘Then where will you take me to-morrow?’
It happened that Horace was in funds just now; he had received his quarter’s salary. Board and lodging were no expense to him; he provided his own clothing, but, with this exception, had to meet no serious claim. So, in reply to Fanny’s characteristic question, he jingled coins.
‘Wherever you like.—“Dorothy,” “Ruddigore—“’
Delighted with his assent, she became more gracious, permitted a modest caress, and presently allowed herself to be drawn on to her lover’s knee. She was passive, unconcerned; no second year graduate of the pavement could have preserved a completer equanimity; it did not appear that her pulse quickened ever so slightly, nor had her eyelid the suspicion of a droop. She hummed ‘Queen of my Heart,’ and grew absent in speculative thought, whilst Horace burned and panted at the proximity of her white flesh.
‘Oh, how I do love you, Fanny!’
She trod playfully on his toe.
‘You haven’t told the old gentleman yet?’
‘I—I’m thinking about it. But, Fanny, suppose he was to—to refuse to do anything for us. Would it make any difference? There are lots of people who marry on a hundred and fifty a year—oh lots!’
The maiden arched her brows, and puckered her lips. Hitherto it had been taken for granted that Mr. Lord would be ready with subsidy; Horace, in a large, vague way, had hinted that assurance long ago. Fanny’s disinclination to plight her troth—she still deemed herself absolutely free—had alone interfered between the young man and a definite project of marriage.
‘What kind of people?’ she asked coldly.
‘Oh—respectable, educated people, like ourselves.’
‘And live in apartments? Thank you; I don’t quite see myself. There isn’t a bit of hurry, dear boy. Wait a bit.’ She began to sing ‘Wait till the clouds roll by.’
‘If you thought as much of me as I do of you—’
Tired of her position, Fanny jumped up and took a spoonful of sweet jelly from a dish on the table.
‘Have some?’
‘Come here again. I’ve something more to tell you. Something very important.’
She could only be prevailed upon to take a seat near him. Horace, beset with doubts as to his prudence, but unable to keep the secret, began to recount the story of his meeting with Mrs. Damerel, whom he had now seen for the second time. Fanny’s curiosity, instantly awakened, grew eager as he proceeded. She questioned with skill and pertinacity, and elicited many more details than Nancy Lord had been able to gather.
‘You’ll promise me not to say a word to any one?’ pleaded Horace.
‘I won’t open my lips. But you’re quite sure she’s as old as you say?’
‘Old enough to be my mother, I assure you.’
The girl’s suspicions were not wholly set at rest, but she made no further display of them.
‘Now just think what an advantage it might be to you, to know her,’ Horace pursued. ‘She’d introduce you at once to fashionable society, really tip-top people. How would you like that?’
‘Not bad,’ was the judicial reply.
‘She must have no end of money, and who knows what she might do for me!’
‘It’s a jolly queer thing,’ mused the maiden.
‘There’s no denying that. We must keep it close, whatever we do.’
‘You haven’t told anybody else?’
‘Not a soul!’ Horace lied stoutly.
They were surprised by the sudden opening of the door; a servant appeared to clear the table. Fanny reprimanded her for neglecting to knock.
‘We may as well go into the drawing-room. There’s nobody particular. Only Mrs. Middlemist, and Mr. Crewe, and—’
In the hall they encountered Crewe himself, who stood there conversing with Beatrice. A few words were exchanged by the two men, and Horace followed his enchantress into the drawing-room, where he found, seated in conversation with Mrs. Peachey, two persons whom he had occasionally met here. One of them, Mrs. Middlemist, was a stout, coarse, high-coloured woman, with fingers much bejewelled. Until a year or two ago she had adorned the private bar of a public-house kept by her husband; retired from this honourable post, she now devoted herself to society and the domestic virtues. The other guest, Mrs. Murch by name, proclaimed herself, at a glance, of less prosperous condition, though no less sumptuously arrayed. Her face had a hungry, spiteful, leering expression; she spoke in a shrill, peevish tone, and wriggled nervously on her chair. In eleven years of married life, Mrs. Murch had borne six children, all of whom died before they were six months old. She lived apart from her husband, who had something to do with the manufacture of an Infants’ Food.
Fanny was requested to sing. She sat down at the piano, rattled a prelude, and gave forth an echo of the music-halls:
‘It’s all up with poor Tommy now. I shall never more be happy, I vow. It’s just a week to-day Since my Sairey went away, And it’s all up with poor Tommy now.’
Mrs. Middlemist, who prided herself upon serious vocal powers, remarked that comic singing should be confined to men.
‘You haven’t a bad voice, my dear, if you would only take pains with it. Now sing us “For Ever and for Ever.”’
This song being the speaker’s peculiar glory, she was of course requested to sing it herself, and, after entreaty, consented. Her eyes turned upward, her fat figure rolling from side to side, her mouth very wide open, Mrs. Middlemist did full justice to the erotic passion of this great lyric:
‘Perchawnce if we ‘ad never met, We ‘ad been spared this mad regret, This hendless striving to forget—For hever—hand—for he-e-e-ver!’
Mrs. Murch let her head droop sentimentally. Horace glanced at Fanny, who, however, seemed absorbed in reflections as unsentimental as could be.
In the meanwhile, on a garden seat under the calm but misty sky, sat Luckworth Crewe and Beatrice French. Crewe smoked a cigar placidly; Beatrice was laying before him the suggestion of her great commercial scheme, already confided to Fanny.
‘How does it strike you?’ she asked at length.
‘Not bad, old chap. There’s something in it, if you’re clever enough to carry it through. And I shouldn’t wonder if you are.’ ‘Will you help to set it going?’
‘Can’t help with money,’ Crewe replied.
‘Very well; will you help in other ways? Practical hints, and so on?’
‘Of