Her heart began to ache for all the troubles that she saw around her. Mr. Nix lost his boy in France and was a changed man. For a month or two it seemed as though he would lose all interest in Hortons. He was listless and indifferent and suffered slackness to go unpunished. Then he pulled himself together. Hortons was its old self again—and how Fanny admired him for that!
Then came the Armistice, and the world changed for Fanny. It changed because, in a sudden devastating horrible flash of revelation, she realised that the women would all have to go! The men would come back.... And she?
That night when she perceived this gave her one of her worst hours. She had allowed herself—and she saw now how foolish she had been to do so—to look upon the work at Hortons as the permanent occupation of her life. How could she have done otherwise? It suited her so exactly; she loved it, and everybody encouraged her to believe that she did it well. Had not Mr. Nix himself told her that he could not have believed that he could miss the magnificent James so little, and that no man could have filled the blank as she had done? Moreover, in the third year of the war James had been killed, and it would take a new man a long time to learn all the ins-and-outs of the business as she had learnt them. So she had encouraged herself to dream, and the dream and the business had become one—she could not tear them apart. Well, now she must tear them apart. Mr. Nix was dismissing all the women.
With teeth set she faced her future. No use to think of getting another job—everywhere the men were returning. For such work as she could do there would be a hundred men waiting for every vacancy. No, she would have to live always with Aggie. They would have enough to live on—just enough. Their brother allowed them something, and an aunt had left them a little legacy. Just enough with a perpetual sparing and scraping—no more of the little luxuries that Fanny's pay from Hortons had allowed them. Certainly not enough for either of them to live alone. Tied for ever together, that's what they would be—chained! and Aggie growing ever more and more bitter.
Nevertheless she faced it. She went back to Hortons with a smile and a laugh. Her gentlemen and ladies did not know that she was looking upon them with eyes of farewell. Miss Lois Drake, for instance, that daring and adventurous type of the modern girl about whose future Fanny was always speculating with trembling excitement, she did not notice anything at all. But then she thought of very little save herself. "However she can do the things she does!" was Fanny's awed comment—and now, alas, she would never see the climax to her daring—never, never, never!
She said nothing to Aggie of her troubles, and Aggie said nothing to her. The days passed. Then just before Christmas came the marvellous news.
By this time all the girl valets had been dismissed and men had taken their places. They would congregate in the hall of a morning, coming on approval, and Fanny would speculate about them. Mr. Nix even asked her advice. "I like that one," she would say; "I wouldn't trust that man a yard," she would decide. Then one day Albert Edward came. There was no doubt about him at all. He was almost as good as the late lamented James. Handsome, although short—but Fanny liked the "stocky" kind, and with such a laugh! Fanny delighted in his jet-black hair cut tight about his head, his smiling black eyes, his round, rosy cheeks. She admired him quite in the abstract. He was far too grand for any personal feeling.... At once, when he had been in the place two days, she allotted him to Mrs. Mellish's maid, Annette, such a handsome girl, so bold and clever! They were made for one another.
Albert Edward was valet on the second floor; he shared that floor with Bacon. Fanny did not like Bacon, the one mistake she thought that Mr. Nix had made.
Well, just before Christmas the wonderful hour arrived.
"Fanny," said Mr. Nix one evening. "Do you realise that you're the only woman left in a man's job?"