"How exceedingly unpleasant! Was he always in this deplorable condition?" enquired Major Tallboys.
"No, he lost a lot of money in some shipping firm, and that soured him for life. He dropped all his friends, and gave up a fine house in Prince's Park, Liverpool, and went over to a dingy little terrace in Tranmere. We never could make out, if he was very poor, or just a miser. I know, he only took a weekly paper, and gave Fan ten pounds a year to dress on. Now she is free, and her own mistress, she does not know what to do with her liberty, and believes she is grieving for the old man."
Here Mrs. Bond paused for breath, and to dab the stump of her cigarette in the ash-tray.
"His affairs were in a shocking state," she resumed, "one would think a monkey had kept his books; but my Joe says there will be a good bit of money, and that Fan will have between four and five hundred a year!"
Major Tallboys liked Fan for herself, and had hitherto believed her to be of the genus "poor relation." He noticed that she was the Cinderella of the family, who ran messages, was left out of expeditions, and evidently held of no account. Four or five hundred a year would be an agreeable addition to a major's pay and allowances. He chucked the end of his cigar into a shrub, and looked Mrs. Bond squarely in the face.
"And I tell you this," she continued eagerly, "Fan is the kindest, simplest, and most unselfish of women; whoever gets her"—patting his sleeve with a hateful significance—"will have the best of wives!"
"I am sure of that," he agreed in a studiously bland voice, but his air was cold and detached, his eyes gleamed frostily, under his somewhat heavy brows. He was fond of Fanny, but he had no intention of being managed and rushed by this great, blowsy woman, and abruptly turned the conversation by remarking:
"I see by the evening paper they have a heat wave in Berlin; how fortunate we are in our weather!"
"It was no go," the disconcerted matron whispered to her sister; "I did my big best, but he wouldn't rise—no, not even when I mentioned her income! He got quite lofty, and shut me up by talking of the weather. So now I can see Fan in our spare back, at Waterloo, for life; I shall charge her four guineas a week, and laundry. After all, she will be useful! Since Nan has her hair up she is a regular handful, and must have some sort of keeper or chaperone to take her to her classes in Liverpool."
"Nan is as clever as they make 'em, and no fool," remarked her aunt. "Pity she's so ugly," she added with that unaffected candour habitual among near relatives; "I'm afraid you'll never get her off—no more than Fan—she's so cocksey, and so blunt."