George Gissing - In the Year of Jubilee

To this epistle, delivered by post, Mr. Lord made no answer.

Horace flattered himself that he had gained a victory. There was nothing like ‘firmness,’ and that evening, about nine, he went to De Crespigny Park. As usual, he had to ring the bell two or three times before any one came; the lively notes of a piano sounded from the drawing-room, intimating, no doubt, that Mrs. Peachey had guests. The door at length opened, and he bade the servant let Miss. Fanny know that he was here; he would wait in the dining-room.

It was not yet dark, but objects could only just be distinguished; the gloom supplied Horace with a suggestion at which he laughed to himself. He had laid down his hat and cane, when a voice surprised him.

‘Who’s that?’ asked some one from the back of the room.

‘Oh, are you there, Mr. Peachey?—I’ve come to see Fanny. I didn’t care to go among the people.’

‘All right. We’d better light the gas.’

With annoyance, Horace saw the master of the house come forward, and strike a match. Remains of dinner were still on the table. The two exchanged glances.

‘How is your father?’ Peachey inquired. He had a dull, depressed look, and moved languidly to draw down the blind.

‘Oh, he isn’t quite up to the mark. But it’s nothing serious, I think.’

‘Miss. Lord quite well?—We haven’t seen much of her lately.’

‘I don’t know why, I’m sure.—Nobody can depend upon her very much.’

‘Well, I’ll leave you,’ said the other, with a dreary look about the room. ‘The table ought to have been cleared by now—but that’s nothing new.’

‘Confounded servants,’ muttered Horace.

‘Oh yes, the servants,’ was Peachey’s ironical reply.

As soon as he was left alone, Horace turned out the gas. Then he stood near the door, trembling with amorous anticipation. But minutes went by; his impatience grew intolerable; he stamped, and twisted his fingers together. Then of a sudden the door opened.

‘Why, it’s dark, there’s nobody here.’

Fanny discovered her mistake. She was seized and lifted off her feet.

‘Oh! Do you want to eat me? I’ll hit you as hard as I can, I will! You’re spoiling my dress?’

The last remonstrance was in a note that Horace did not venture to disregard.

‘Strike a light, silly! I know you’ve done something to my dress.’

Horace pleaded abjectly to be forgiven, and that the room might remain shadowed; but Fanny was disturbed in temper.

‘If you don’t light the gas, I’ll go at once.’

‘I haven’t any matches, darling.’

‘Oh, just like you! You never have anything. I thought every man carried matches.’

She broke from him, and ran out. Wretched in the fear that she might not return, Horace waited on the threshold. In the drawing-room some one was singing ‘The Maid of the Mill.’ It came to an end, and there sounded voices, which the tormented listener strove to recognise. For at least ten minutes he waited, and was all but frantic, when the girl made her appearance, coming downstairs.

‘Never do that again,’ she said viciously. ‘I’ve had to unfasten my things, and put them straight. What a nuisance you are!’

He stood cowed before her, limp and tremulous.

‘There, light the gas. Why couldn’t you come into the drawing-room, like other people do?’

‘Who is there?’ asked the young man, when he had obeyed her.

‘Go and see for yourself.’

‘Don’t be angry, Fanny.’ He followed 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.