In the Year of Jubilee | Page 7

a restaurant.'
'Who have you to meet?' asked Fanny, with a grimace.
Her sister disregarded the question, yawned again, and turned to
Beatrice.
'Who shall we ask to take Fan's place on Tuesday? Whoever it 15,
they'll have to pay. Those seats are selling for three guineas, somebody
told me.'
Conversation lingered about this point for a few minutes, till Mrs.
Peachey went upstairs. When the door was open, a child's crying could
be heard, but it excited no remark. Presently the other two retired, to
make themselves ready for going out. Fanny was the first to reappear,
and, whilst waiting for her sister, she tapped out a new music-hall
melody on the piano.
As they left the house, Beatrice remarked that Ada really meant to have
her dinner at Gatti's or some such place; perhaps they had better
indulge themselves in the same way.
'Suppose you give Horace Lord a hint that we've no dinner at home? He

might take us, and stand treat.'
Fanny shook her head.
'I don't think he could get away. The guv'nor expects him home to
dinner on Sundays.'
The other laughed her contempt.
'You see! What good is he? Look here, Fan, you just wait a bit, and
you'll do much better than that. Old Lord would cut up rough as soon as
ever such a thing was mentioned; I know he would. There's something I
have had in my mind for a long time. Suppose I could show you a way
of making a heap of money--no end of money--? Shouldn't you like it
better,--to live as you pleased, and be independent?'
The listener's face confessed curiosity, yet was dubious.
'What do you say to going into business with me?' pursued Miss French.
'We've only to raise a little money on the houses, and m a year or two
we might be making thousands.'
'Business? What sort of business?'
'Suppose somebody came to you and said: Pay me a sovereign, and I'll
make you a member of an association that supplies fashionable clothing
at about half the ordinary price,--wouldn't you jump at it?'
'If I thought it wasn't a swindle,' Fanny replied ingenuously.
'Of course. But you'd be made to see it wasn't. And suppose they went
on to say: Take a ten-pound share, and you shall have a big interest on
it, as well as your dresses for next to nothing. How would you like
that?'
'Can it be done?'
'I've got a notion it can, and I think I know two or three people who
would help to set the thing going. But we must have some capital to
show. Have you the pluck to join in?'
'And suppose I lose my money?'
'I'll guarantee you the same income you're getting now--if that will
satisfy you. I've been looking round, and making inquiries, and I've got
to know a bit about the profits of big dressmakers. We should start in
Camberwell, or somewhere about there, and fish in all the women who
want to do the heavy on very little. There are thousands and thousands
of them, and most of them'--she lowered her voice--'know as much
about cut and material as they do about stockbroking. Do you twig?
People like Mrs. Middlemist and Mrs. Murch. They spend, most likely,

thirty or forty pounds a year on their things, and we could dress them a
good deal more smartly for half the money. Of course we should make
out that a dress we sold them for five guineas was worth ten in the
shops, and the real cost would be two. See? The thing is to persuade
them that they're getting an article cheap, and at the same time making
money out of other people.'
Thus, and at much greater length, did Miss. French discourse to her
attentive sister. Forgetful of the time, Fanny found at length that it
would be impossible to meet Horace Lord as he came out of church;
but it did not distress her.

CHAPTER 3

Nancy Lord stood at the front-room window, a hand grasping each side
of her waist, her look vaguely directed upon the limetree opposite and
the house which it in part concealed. She was a well-grown girl of three
and twenty, with the complexion and the mould of form which indicate,
whatever else, habitual nourishment on good and plenteous food. In her
ripe lips and softlyrounded cheeks the current of life ran warm. She had
hair of a fine auburn, and her mode of wearing it, in a plaited diadem,
answered the purpose of completing a figure which, without being tall,
had some stateliness and promised more. Her gown, trimmed with a
collar of lace, left the neck free; the maiden cincture at her waist did no
violence to natural proportion.
This