Fan | Page 6

a strange eagerness in her
voice--"let's run away together and leave him."
"Don't talk nonsense, child! Where'd we go?"
"Oh, mother, let's go right away from London--right out into the
country, far as we can, where he'll never find us, where we can sit on
the grass under the trees and rest."
"And leave my sticks for him to drink up? Don't you think I'm such a
silly."
"Do--do let's go, mother! It's worse and worse every day, and he'll kill
us if we don't."
"No fear. He'll knock us about a bit, but he don't want a rope round his
neck, you be sure. And he ain't so bad neither, when he's not in the
drink. He's sorry he hit me now."

"Oh, mother, I can't bear it! I hate him--I hate him; and he _isn't_ my
father, and he hates me, and he'll kill me some day when I come home
with nothing."
"Who says he isn't your father--where did you hear that, Fan?"
"He calls me bastard every day, and I know what that means. Mother, is
he my father?"
"The brute--no!"
"Then why did you marry him, mother? Oh, we could have been so
happy together!"
"Yes, Fan, I know that now, but I didn't know it then. I married him
three months before you was born, so that you'd be the child of honest
parents. He had a hundred pounds with me, but it all went in a year;
and it's always been up and down, up and down with us ever since, but
now it's nothing but down."
"A hundred pounds!" exclaimed Fan in amazement "And who was my
father?"
"Go to bed, Fan, and don't ask questions. I've been very foolish to say
so much. You are too young to understand such things."
"But, mother, I do understand, and I want to know who my father is.
Oh, do--do tell me!"
"What for?"
"Because when I know I'll go to him and tell him how--how he treats us,
and ask him to help us to go away into the country where he'll never
find us any more." Her mother laughed. "You're a brave girl if you'd do
that," she said, her face softening. "No, Fan, it can't be done."
"Oh, please tell me, and I'll do it. Why can't it be done, mother?"
"I can't tell you any more, child. Go to bed, and forget all about it. You

hear bad things enough in the street, and it 'ud only put badness into
your head to hear talk of such things."
Fan's pleading eyes were fixed on her mother's face with a strange
meaning and earnestness in them; then she said:
"Mother, I hear bad things in the street every day, but they don't make
me bad. Oh, do tell me about my father, and why can't I go to him?"
The unhappy woman looked down, and yet could hardly meet those
grey beautiful eyes fixed so earnestly on her face. She hesitated, and
passed her trembling fingers over Fan's disordered hair, and finally
burst into tears.
"Oh, Fan, I can't help it," she said, half sobbing. "You have just his
eyes, and it brings it all back when I look into them. It was wicked of
me to go wrong, for I was brought up good and honest in the country;
but he was a gentleman, and kind and good to me, and not a
working-man and a drunken brute like poor Joe. But I sha'n't ever see
him again. I don't know where he is, and he wouldn't know me if he
saw me; and perhaps he's dead now. I loved him and he loved me, but
we couldn't marry because he was a gentleman and me only a
servant-girl, and I think he had a wife. But I didn't care, because he was
good to me and loved me, and he gave me a hundred pounds to get
married, and I can't ever tell you his name, Fan, because I promised
never to name him to anyone, and kissed the Book on it when he gave
me the hundred pounds, and it would be wicked to tell now. And Joe,
he wanted to marry me; he knew it all, and took the hundred pounds
and said it would make no difference. He'd love you just the same, he
said, and never throw it up to me; and that's why I married Joe. Oh,
what a fool I was, to be sure! But it can't be helped now, and it's no use
saying more about it. Now go to bed, Fan, and forget all I've said to
you."
Fan rose and went sorrowfully to her bed; but she did not forget, or try
to forget, what she had heard. It was sad to