PAGE 10
Fanny McDermot
by
“What do you mean, Caroline?”
“Oh, nothing, only them as hangs out false colours must expect others to do the same by them. I suppose there’s no more a Mr. Stafford than a Mrs. Stafford.”
“Hush, my baby,” said Fanny to the infant, stirred by her tremor.
“I want to have my wages paid to-day,” continued Caroline, “as I am expecting to leave.”
Fanny took out her purse, and paid the girl’s demand. Caroline eyed it narrowly; there were but a few shillings left in it, and she changed the assault she had meditated, from the purse to a richer spoil.
“It’s always rulable,” she said, “when a girl lives in such a house as this, and serves the like of you, that she shall have extra pay, for risking character and so forth. I see your purse is rather consumptive, and I am willing to take up with your silk gown, spotted with pink and trimmed with gimp.”
“Oh hush, my baby!” cried Fanny to the child, who, opening her eyes on the distressed countenance of her mother, was crying as even such young children will, from the instinct of sympathy.”The gown hangs in the closet,” she replied steadily, “take it and go.”
Caroline took it, and while she was deliberately folding it, she said, half consolingly, half impertinently, “It an’t worth while grieving for nothing in this world, for it’s a kind of confused place. Why it always comes to this sooner or later. Your fine gentleman likes variety! You’ll be as handsome as ever again if you’ll leave off sighing and crying, and you may get as much of a husband as Stafford, and as good.”
“Leave me, pray leave me,” cried Fanny; and when Caroline shut the door, she threw herself on the bed with her baby, saying, amidst tears and shiverings.”Oh, has it come to this? deserted; lost! Am I such a thing that I cannot answer that cruel, bad girl? Oh God, have mercy! He will not hear me, for I only come to him when I have none other to go to. Hush, my baby. I wish we were in the grave together. Come, now—hush—do.” She wiped away her tears, and catching up the child, rushed, half distracted, up and down the room, attempting to smile and play to it; and the poor little thing cried and smiled alternately.
The following are some extracts from the hapless letter which Caroline had brought back to her:
“Oh, Nugent Stafford, am I never, never to see you again! It is two months since you were here; two months! it seems two years; and yet when you were last here, and spoke those icy, cruel, insulting words, I thought it would be better never to see you again than to see you so. But come once more, and tell me if I deserved them from you.
“Remember, I was thirteen years old, an innocent, loving child—loving, but with little to love—when you first stole my heart. Did you then mean this ruin? God knows—you know—I don’t. Did you plot it then? to steal away my innocence, when I should be no longer a child? You say you never promised to marry me, and you say that I knew what was before me. No, you never said one word of marrying me; but did you not swear to love, and cherish me so long as you lived? And did you not tell me, over and over again, that that was all that marriage was in God’s sight? Did you not say that I did not love you half as well as you loved me, and again and again reproach me with it? Were you not angry, so angry as to frighten me, because I would not desert my dear, good, old, faithful aunt, to go with you? And how have I loved you? I have given up my innocence for you, my good name, and the favour of God. I have loved only you, never have had a thought beyond you. I wore only the fine things to please you; and truly now I hate to look on them, for they were, in your eyes, the price of what I never sold, but gave.