Mr Skeffington : A Virago Modern Classic (9780349005195) by Von Arnim Elizabeth

Author:Von Arnim, Elizabeth [ARNIM, ELIZABETH VON]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780349005195
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2014-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

She gave it, with a shilling, to a boy near her, and asked him to get it, somehow, to Mr. Hyslup.

“Father ’Yslup?” queried the boy.

“I dare say,” agreed Fanny.

“ ’Im on the chair?”

“That’s the man.”

With the practised hand of one used to having notes sent him while he was speaking, Miles took it from the boy, glanced at it without the least break in what he was saying, and looking straight at Fanny, where she stood wedged in among his intent flock, raised his hand and briefly made the sign of the cross. His flock, though a little surprised that this should be done in the middle of the address, took it as being of general application and bowed its heads, but Fanny knew it was for her, and said to herself, gratified, “Darling Miles.”

But what did he mean? That she was to wait? That he would speak to her afterwards? That she was being dismissed? He had made this same gesture over her at the miserable parting last time she saw him, when it was she who was dismissing him. No, he wasn’t dismissing her now, she decided, he was blessing her, just as he had blessed her then; and it made her feel as if she were framed in blessings, the one then and the one now, and this gave her the agreeable sensation, frequent in old days but rare indeed lately, of being safe and taken care of.

So she waited, and felt warmly towards him. And as she was so soon going to be with him her first thought, naturally, was what she looked like, and she wondered if it would be unseemly, or wrong, to open her bag, and attend to her face a little. Only powder, she would use; nothing scarlet or black. After all, this was an open-air meeting, it wasn’t as if it were church. She could move behind the big man in front of her, and bend her head.

But Miles seemed to have developed quite extraordinarily in every way, and nothing, apparently, escaped him. For, having edged behind the man in front, and seen in her little glass how urgent it was at once to do something, no sooner had she started most carefully, and as she imagined invisibly, applying the powder, than he, in his sermon, or discourse, or address, or whatever one would call it, began to talk of harlots.

Not that this would have mattered, because sooner or later all clergymen get to harlots, but what seemed rather to underline his remarks was that with one accord the people round her turned their heads and looked at her. Pure coincidence, of course; though it appeared to make Manby very angry, who glared about her and said in subdued but distinct tones—subdued, because she felt she was very nearly in church, and distinct because she wished for no possible misunderstanding, “Your ladyship shouldn’t condescend to such places as this.”

“Be quiet,” rebuked Fanny, who was used to being looked at, and knew she wasn’t a harlot; so what did it matter? “I want to listen.

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