However, they arrived at her aunt’s—a little sweet-shop in a side street. They “pinged” the door-bell, and her aunt came running forward out of the kitchen.
“There you are, child! Dying for a cup of tea, I’m sure. How are you?”
Fanny’s aunt kissed her, and it was all Fanny could do to refrain from bursting into tears, she felt so low. Perhaps it was her tea she wanted.
“You’ve had a drag with that luggage,” said Fanny’s aunt to Harry.
“Ay—I’m not sorry to put it down,” he said, looking at his hand which was crushed and cramped by the bag handle.
Then he departed to see about Heather’s greengrocery cart.
When Fanny sat at tea, her aunt, a grey-haired, fair-faced little woman, looked at her with an admiring heart, feeling bitterly sore for her. For Fanny was beautiful: tall, erect, finely coloured, with her delicately arched nose, her rich brown hair, her large lustrous grey eyes. A passionate woman—a woman to be afraid of. So proud, so inwardly violent! She came of a violent race.
It needed a woman to sympathise with her. Men had not the courage. Poor Fanny! She was such a lady, and so straight and magnificent. And yet everything seemed to do her down. Every time she seemed to be doomed to humiliation and disappointment, this handsome, brilliantly sensitive woman, with her nervous, overwrought laugh.
“So you’ve really come back, child?” said her aunt.
“I really have, Aunt,” said Fanny.