And so the autumn slipped away, and the trees grew bare, and the winds howled, and the damp, chilly fogs of November fell upon the little town of Oakhampton, and the more Fanny saw of her father’s enemy, the less it became in her power to hate him, as she felt a good and dutiful daughter should do. This made her very unhappy at times.
Lectures on scientific subjects were quite an annual institution in Oakhampton during the long winter evenings. Fanny Wrightson had always been a very regular attendant at these lectures, not that she understood what they were about, the least in the world, or that she came home a bit wiser than she went out, but the lectures offered some excuse for a very mild kind of dissipation, and Fanny’s life was a monotonous one. This year Fanny was more devoted than ever to the “pursuit of knowledge under difficulties,” for Mrs. Peirce and her son were sure to be at the Athenæum, and it sometimes happened (Fanny declared she never knew how) that she found herself seated next to the Peirces, and then Mr. Peirce would very good-naturedly explain to her everything that she could not understand, and would make the most abstruse subjects as simple to her as A B C.
Dr. Wrightson never went to lectures. He was too tired of an evening, even if he had no patients to visit, and he was glad to take his “forty winks” in his armchair by the fire. Aunt Penelope was too much afraid of risking a bad cold to stir out after dark, and so Fanny was duly called for every Thursday evening at half-past seven, by her neighbours, the Pentelows, who also left her again at her own door about ten o’clock; and when she returned, Dr. and Miss Wrightson were too sleepy to ask many questions, or to make any stringent inquiries as to Fanny’s adventures. She thought it was not worth while to wake them up and make them uncomfortable by telling them about the Peirces, and I have no doubt that if they gave the matter a moment’s thought, they took it for granted that Fanny invariably sat between her friends, Eliza and Harriet Pentelow.
It chanced, however, one Thursday morning, that Dr. Wrightson descried in a shop window a notice, stating that Montague Peirce, Esq., was to deliver a lecture on chemistry at the Athenæum that evening, and he instantly came home, in great wrath and indignation, to forbid Fanny or any of his household to attend the lecture, as usual, on pain of his heavy displeasure. Not any member of his family, he declared, should “encourage the man to make a Tom-fool of himself by giving lectures.”
In vain Fanny remonstrated and entreated and coaxed her father to let her go, that once. Dr. Wrightson was inexorable, till his pretty little daughter in despair burst into tears, and then Aunt Penny interfered, and assured her father that he had better say no more about it. “Fanny was moped to death at home, and after all, it would be amusing to hear what a mess the young idiot made of his lecturing, and how he would be the laughing-stock of the place, with his absurd conceit and presumption.” So Fanny at length obtained a reluctant consent. It was raining hard when the Pentelows called for her, but Fanny did not care for that. Wrapped in her large waterproof cloak, she tripped along the muddy streets to the Athenæum, feeling very proud and very happy, and firmly convinced that if she had been forced to stay at home her heart must have broken at once. Mrs. Peirce saw her as she entered, and made her a sign to come and sit by her, and the old lady was so good and kind as to confide to Fanny her nervous fears for “Monty,” though, at the same time, she was quite sure his would be the best lecture of the season. And such was soon the opinion of everybody in the room. Mr. Peirce had so fine a voice, so happy a delivery, and such a thorough knowledge of his subject, that the attention of the audience was attracted, even by the first few sentences.
Mrs. Peirce and Fanny were gratified to their hearts’ content by the acclamations of applause which greeted the close of the lecture.
The evening wound up with some amusing experiments with laughing gas by which several school-boys and a shopman or two were thrown into convulsions of laughter. This proved so catching, that the whole room was in an uproar of merriment, and the audience clapped and screamed, and stamped and cheered, till the whole street resounded with the sounds of their mirth. At the very height of this confusion, a rough, dirty-looking man was observed to press hastily through the crowded hall, towards the platform. His eager looks and evident anxiety caught the attention of the lecturer, and he instantly went forward to meet him.
After speaking to the man for a moment, Mr. Peirce’s countenance changed to an expression of the deepest concern and alarm. He whispered a few words to his mother, and immediately left the room.
“What is it? What has happened? Is anybody ill?” inquired Fanny of Mrs. Peirce.