Madame Flirt / A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera'

by Charles Edward Pearce

"Oh, that was it. And pray how did you come to learn she was outside?"

"Because she'd looked in at the door a minute afore and was afeared to come in 'cause of you, mistress. Give me that dish o' bacon, Betty. The man who saw his breakfast tumbling on the floor is in a sad pother."

This was a shot for Mrs. Fenton. Hannah rarely sought to have words with her mistress, but when she did she stood up to her boldly. Mrs. Fenton was discomfited and Hannah, snatching the dish Betty handed to her, vanished to appease the hungry customer, leaving the angry woman to chew over her wrath as best she might.

Mrs. Fenton gradually cooled down. In half an hour's time the market would be in full swing and most of her customers would be gone. Though she was dying to know what had brought her daughter home, the story would not spoil by keeping. Besides, though she was in a pet with Dobson, she did not want to give him offence and she tried to make amends for her angry outburst by bestowing upon him extra graciousness.

Before long Hannah was quite able to attend single-handed to the few lingerers, and Mrs. Fenton went upstairs, eager to empty her vial of suppressed temper on "that chit," as she generally called Lavinia.

She entered her own bedroom expecting to find the girl there, but Lavinia had no fancy for invading her mother's domains and had gone into the garret where Hannah slept. Dead with fatigue, mentally and bodily, she had thrown herself dressed as she was on Hannah's bed and in a few minutes was in a heavy sleep. But before doing so she slipped under the bolster something she was holding in her left hand. It was the purse forced upon her by Lancelot Vane.

Mrs. Fenton stood for a minute or so looking at her daughter. She could not deny that the girl was very pretty, but that prettiness gave her no satisfaction. She felt instinctively that Lavinia was her rival.

"The baggage is handsomer than I was at her age, and I wasn't a fright either or the men wouldn't ha' been always dangling after me. With that face she ought to get a rich husband, but I'll warrant she's a silly little fool and doesn't know her value," muttered the lady, her hands on her hips.

Then her eyes travelled over the picturesque figure on the bed, noting everything—the shoeless foot, the stockings wet to some inches above the small ankles, the mud-stained skirt, the bedraggled cloak saturated for quite a foot of its length. Her hair had lost its comb and had fallen about her shoulders. Mrs. Fenton frowned as she saw these signs of disorder.

Then she caught sight of a piece of paper peeping from the bosom of the girl's dress. The next instant she had gently drawn it out and was reading it. The paper was Dorrimore's letter.