H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ James Hancock was not as old to his sister as he appeared to the rest of the world, though she knew his age to a day and had quoted it as an argument against his marriage; she did not appreciate the fact that he looked every day of his age, and even perhaps a few days over.
It is a pathetic and sometimes beautiful—and sometimes ugly—fact that we are blind to much in the people we live with and grow up with. Joan sees Darby very much as she saw him thirty years ago, and to Miss Hancock her younger brother was her younger brother; and her younger brother, to a woman, is never old. ”

“ I always take father with me to the dentist's as far as the door, for fear I'd run away. Once I'm in I don't care a bit; it's the going in is the dreadful part."
"I know," said Leavesley, reaching for his hat. "It's like facing the music, the overture is the worst part."
"I don't think you'd call it music," said Miss Lambert, "if you heard me at the dentist's when he's working that drill thing—ugh! Come."
They left the studio.
The prospect of having Miss Lambert all alone to himself in a cab made the heart of Mr Leavesley palpitate, mixed emotions filled his soul. ”

“ Miss Hancock paused.
"Oh, father doesn't mind; every one has called me Fanny since I was so high."
"Yes, but, my dear girl, you are no longer a child. Fathers are indulgent, and sometimes blind to what the world thinks; consider, when you come to marry, when you come to have a husband——"
"Oh, I hope it'll be a long time before I come to that," said Fanny, in a tone of voice as if general service or the workhouse were the topic of discussion. ”

“ Mr Hancock seized a spoon and attacked the formidable structure before him.
"I hope I'll never grow old," sighed Miss Lambert, as Hermann approached them with a huge dish of fantastic-looking cakes—cakes crusted with sugar and chocolate, Moscow Gâteaux simply sodden with rum, and Merangues filled with cream rich as Devonshire could make it.
"We must all grow old," said Hancock, staring with ghastly eyes at these atrocities. "But why do you specially fear age? Age has its beauties, it must come to us all." ”

“ She waited a little and knocked again; this time came footsteps and the sound of bars coming down and bolts being unshot, the door opened two inches on the chain, and the same pale blue eye and undecided-coloured fringe that had appeared to Mr Bevan, appeared to the now incensed Miss Hancock.
Just as the rabbit peeping from its burrow sees the stoat and recognises its old ancestral enemy, so Susannah, in Miss Hancock, beheld the Foe of herself and all her tribe.
"Is Miss Lambert at home?" asked the visitor sharply. ”

“ Go and say to Fanny 'marry me.' I do want to see her settled, she's not like me, that can rough it, and she's just the girl to fling herself away on some rubbish."
"I will see," said Mr Bevan. "I frankly confess that Miss Lambert—of course, this is between you and me—that Miss Lambert has made me think a good deal about her, but these things are not done in a moment."
"Aren't they? I tell you love-making is just like making pancakes, if you don't do them quick they're done for. You just remember this, that many a man has proposed to a girl the first time he's met her and been accepted. ”

“ Whew! does no one ever clean this place? Ha! what are you doing sweeping under the couch? Pull out that couch. Mercy!!!"
Under the couch there was a heap of miscellaneous things—empty cigarette tins, an empty beer bottle, an empty whisky bottle, half a pack of cards, a dress tie, a glove, "The Three Musketeers," and an old waistcoat—and dust, mounds of dust.
Miss Hancock looked at this. Like the coster who looked back along the City road to see the way strewn with cabbages, lettuces, and onions which had leaked from his faulty barrow, language was quite inadequate to express her feelings. ”

“ On the lawn, under the starlit night after dinner, Bevan had his fiancée for a moment alone. They sat in creaky basket-work chairs a good yard apart from each other. The moon was rising over the hills and deep, dark woods of Sussex, the air was warm and perfumed: it was an ideal night for love-making.
"When I left you I had some dinner at the Nord," said Mr Bevan, tipping the ash off his cigar. "The worst dinner I've ever had, I think. ”

“ Hey, Bridgewater!"
"I hope you enjoyed it," said Miss Hancock in a perfunctory tone, glancing at Fanny, who was seated in a huge rocking-chair, the only really comfortable chair in the room, and then at Bridgewater, who had taken his seat on the ottoman.
"Pretty well, thanks," said Fanny, speaking in a languid tone. She had assumed very much the air of a fine lady all of a sudden: she was not going to be patronised by a solicitor's daughter, and she had divined in Patience Hancock an enemy. "The Zoo is very much like the world: there is much to laugh at and much to endure. ”

“ If you've met Fanny Lambert once, you have met her for ever. Does she like you?—I don't ask you do you like her, for, of course, you do."
"I think—she does."
"You mustn't think—women hate men that think, they like them to be sure. If a man was only bold enough he could marry any woman on earth." ”

“ Men never suspect a woman of being a flirt till they're flirted with and done for. Fanny's the worst description of flirt—oh, I've told her so to her face—for she doesn't mean it; she just leads men on with her sweetness, and doesn't see they're breaking their hearts for her. She's a regular trap bated with sugar. How did you escape, Mr Bevan? You're the only man, I guess, who ever did."
"I haven't the pleasure—er—of Miss Lambert's acquaintance," said Charles, rather stiffly. ”

“ Isn't life too short for fighting and divisions? Sure, there's a rose as big as a red cabbage, but you should see the roses at my house in Highgate—and where did you meet Miss Pursehouse?"
"Oh," said Charles. "I've known her for some time."
"We met her in Paris, Fanny—that's my daughter—and me met her in Paris. Fanny doesn't care for her much, and wouldn't come with me; but there's never a woman in the world that really cares for another woman, unless the other woman is as ugly as sin and a hundred. ”

“ The worries of life were weighing on Miss Lambert; James Hancock's unanswered letter was not the least of these. She had laughed on receiving it, then she had cried. She had written three or four letters in answer to it, beginning, "Dear Mr Hancock," "My dear Mr Hancock," "Please do not think me horrid," etc.; but it was no use, each was a distinct refusal, yet each seemed either too cold or too warm. "If I send this," said she, "it will hurt him horribly, and he has been so kind. Oh dear! why will men be so stupid, they are so nice if they'd only not worry one to marry them. ”

“ Mr Bevan's parcels contained a box of sardines, a paysandu ox tongue, and a basket of peaches; Fanny's, the before-mentioned prayer-book, envelopes, and in the tissue-paper parcel a light shawl or fichu of fleecy silk dyed blue.
She cast her hat off, and throwing the fichu round her neck, hopped upon a chair, candle in hand, and glanced at herself in a great mirror on the opposite wall.
"It makes me look beautiful!" she cried. "And I have half a mind to keep it for myself." ”

“ What's the good of being alive? I remember the days when I could drink a whole bottle of port without turning a hair."
"I know—but you're not as young as you were then, Hancock."
"Oh, do say something original—say I'm getting old, and have done with it!"
"It's not your age so much as your diathesis," said the pitiless Carter. "It's unfortunate for you, but there you are. You might be worse, every man is born with a disease. Yours is gout—you might be worse. Suppose you had aneurism? ”

“ Oh, it would be such a world—no poor people, and no rain, and no misery, and no debts."
"You mean no debtors," said Patience, seizing her opportunity. "It is the debtors that make debts, just as it is the drunken people who make drunkenness."
"Yes, I suppose it is," said Fanny, suddenly abandoning her argumentative tone for one of reverie. "It's the people in the world that make it so horrid and so nice."
"That's exactly it," said Hancock, who was standing on the hearthrug listening to these banalities of thought, and contemplating Bridgewater. "Miss Lambert is a true philosopher. ”

“ I'll never marry a man who won't help father, and he wants help. Oh! if you only knew our affairs," said Miss Lambert, picking a daisy and looking at it, and apparently addressing it, "the hair would stand up on the top of your head."
"Are they so bad as all that, Fanny?"
"Bad isn't the word," replied Miss Lambert, plucking the petals from the daisy one by one. "He loves me—he loves me not—he loves me—he loves me not—he loves me." ”

“ I am not young, Bridgewater, and it seems to me that if instead of living all these years side by side with this money-grub, I had lived side by side with a wife, my lot would have been a better one. I might have had children, grown-up sons now, daughters—things that make an interest for us in our old age. Between me and all that has come my sister. That woman has a very strong will. ”

“ Irresponsibility when it passes a certain point becomes absolute lunacy. Fanny and her father ought to be in a lunatic asylum with their ghosts, and cats, and rubbish, only I don't believe any lunatic asylum would take them in; they would infect the other patients and make them worse. Good Heavens! it makes me shudder. They must be on the verge of the workhouse, making asparagus beds, and drinking champagne, and flying off to Paris, and feeding every filthy stray cat with food they must want for themselves. Poor devils—I mean damned fools. ”

“ Father is mad over them; he says nothing will stop them when they begin to move, whatever that means."
"Well, they have moved with a vengeance, for only yesterday I heard they had gone into liquidation."
"All the good luck seems coming together," said Fanny with a happy sigh, as Charles went to the window and looked out at the moon, rising in a cloudless sky over the forsaken garden and ruined tennis ground. "Not that it matters much if we get those jewels whether the old mines go up or down; still, no matter how rich one becomes, more money is always useful." ”

“ Look at Miss Pursehouse! as charming as a woman and as clever as a man. Look at this house of hers! One would [Pg 237] think a man owned it, everything is so well done: brandies and sodas at your elbows, matches all over the place, and electric bells and a telephone. That's the sort of woman for me—not that I'm not fond of the old-fashioned sort of woman too. Fanny, my daughter—I must introduce you to her—is as old-fashioned as they make 'em. ”

“ The recollection of Leavesley's words shot up in her brain.
"Dear me, dear me! I wish I hadn't spoken now. I'm sure it's nothing wrong. I think, very possibly, I have been mistaken."
"John Bridgewater," said Miss Hancock, "you have known me from my childhood, you know I hate shuffling, come to the point—there is a lady—well, I have known it all along, so you need not be afraid to speak. Just tell me all you know. You are very well aware that no one cares for Mr James as much as I do. You are very well aware that some men need protecting. ”

“ Mr Lambert told her all his affairs, his estates are all encumbered. She says he's just like a child, and wants protecting; so he is, and so's Fanny; they're both a pair of children, and you are just the man to keep Fanny straight, and make her life happy and buy her beautiful clothes and diamonds. Why, she'll be the rage of London, Fanny will, if she's only properly staged—and she's a dear and a good woman, and would make any man happy. My!"
Mr Bevan had taken Miss Morgan's hand in his and squeezed it.
"Thank you for saying all that," said he. "Few women praise another woman. ”

“ He ate a whole leg of mutton the first day we had him."
"That was very unwise," said Mr Bevan, who always shone on the topic of dogs or horses; "you should never give dogs much meat."
"He took it," said Fanny. "It was so clever of him, he hid it in the garden and buried the bone—who is that at the door, is that you, Susannah?"
"Luncheon is ready, Miss," said the voice of Susannah, who spoke in a muted tone as if she were announcing some unsavoury fact of which she was half ashamed. ”

“ But jump into the cab, and come and have luncheon, and we can talk things over."
"I can't," said Mr Hancock, "I am waiting for a lady—my sister, she has just gone into that shop. I'll tell you, I will see you, any time you like, to-morrow."
"Well, I suppose that must do. But sixteen pounds!—people seem to think I am made of money. I tell you what, Hancock, the great art in getting through life is to make yourself out a poor man—go about in an old coat and hat; you are just as comfortable, and you are not pestered by every beggar and beast that wants money." ”

“ Through the open windows came the pulse-like sound of the omnibuses in the King's Road, the sleigh bells of the hansoms, the rattle of the coster's barrow, and voices.
As he painted, the sounds outside brought before him the vision of the King's Road, Chelsea, where flaming June was also at work with her golden brush and palette of violet colours.
He saw in imagination the scarlet pyramids of strawberries in the shops. The blazing barrow of flowers all a-growing and a-blowing, the late-June morning crowd, and through the crowd wending its way the figure of a girl. ”