PAGE 21
Fanny McDermot
by
“Bless me, yes, fifty. There’s Vandam, and Vandewater, and”—
“Oh, stop there—it’s one of those. Are they near together?”
“As near as east and west—one is one side of the city, and one the other.” And he passed briskly on.
Poor Fanny sat down, and repeated to herself the names till she was more at a loss than ever. The passers-by looked curiously at her, and two or three addressing insolent words to her, she could endure it no longer, and she went slowly, falteringly on. Her head throbbed violently, and she felt that her lips were parched, and her pulse beating quick and hard. Her baby began to cry for food, and seeing some upright boards resting against a house, she crept under them to be sheltered from observation while she supplied her child’s wants. There were two little girls there before her, eating merrily and voraciously from an alms-basket.
“Oh, my baby!” said Fanny aloud, “I am afraid this is the last time you will find any milk in your mother’s breast.”
The little beggar-girls looked at her pitifully, and offered her bread and meat.
“Oh, thank you,” she said, “but I cannot eat. If you would only get me a drink of cold water.”
“Oh, that we can as easy as not,” said one of them; and fishing up a broken teacup from the bottom of her basket, she ran to a pump and filled it, and again and again filled it, as Fanny drank it, or poured it on her burning, throbbing head.
“It’s beginning to rain,” said one of the girls, “and I guess we had all better go home. You look sick—we’ll carry your baby for you, if your home is our way.”
” My home! No, thank you; my home is not your way.”
The children went off slowly, looking back and talking in a low tone, and feeling as they had never quite felt before.
It was early in February, and the days of course were short. The weather had been soft and bright, but as the evening approached, the sky became clouded and a chilling rain began. Fanny crept out of her place of shelter, after most anxiously wrapping up her baby, and at first, stimulated by the fever, walked rapidly on. Now and then she sat down, where an arched doorway offered a shelter, and remained half oblivious, till urged on again by her baby’s cries.
It was eleven o’clock, when she was passing before a brilliantly lighted house. There was music within, and a line of carriages without. A gentleman was at this moment alighting from his carriage. Fanny shrunk back, and leaned against the area-railing till he should pass. He sprung quickly up the step to avoid the dropping eaves, and when in the doorway, turned to say, “Be punctual, at one o’clock.” Fanny looked up: the light from the bright gas lamps beside the door shone in the speaker’s face.”Oh, mercy, it is he!” she exclaimed, and darting forward, mounted the step. It was he! Sydney! He left the door ajar as he entered, and Fanny followed in; and as she entered, she saw Sydney turn the landing of the staircase. Above, was the mingled din of voices and music. Fanny instinctively shrunk from proceeding. Through an open door she saw the ruddy glow of the fire in the ladies’ cloak-room. It was vacant.”I might warm my poor baby there,” she thought, “and it’s possible,—it is possible I may speak with him when he comes down,”—and she obeyed the impulse to enter. Her reason was now too weak to aid her, or she would not have placed herself in a position so exposed to observation and suspicion. When she had entered, she saw, to her great relief, a screen that divided a small portion of the room from the rest. She crept behind it, and seated herself on a cushion that had been placed there for the convenience of the ladies changing their shoes.