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Updated: June 12, 2025
"There's one of 'em, that to my mind, for real affection and stiddiness, is worth a dozen of your Forcuses." And Bessie, listening greedily, knew that the family boarder, George Boult's Manchester man, was indicated. "There's him to your hand. You can have him for the taking," Emily promised; and Bessie quieted down, meditating. "You've treated this one cruel, Miss Bessie. You have that!
Boult had made his offer, she sat down there with the deliberate intention of deciding which course to take, out of the three open to her. To be turned, with her children, homeless and penniless upon the world; to become Boult's wife; to drown in the river. An effort she made to keep her mind on these issues, but could only think, instead, of Franky.
Through pride and through shyness they had held him at arm's length, but now that they had joked together about George Boult's peculiarities, and he had ventured with playful force to take the nutmeg grater from Bessie's weary fingers, valiantly completing her task himself, it would have been impossible, even if desirable, to return to their earlier relations.
"Don't let the thought trouble you for an instant, ma'am," Mr. Gibbon advised. "None of us can afford to be too nice in trade. We've got to live, Miss Bessie. Customers don't think so they'd skin us if they could but we have. I'm of Mr. Boult's mind on that subject, although there isn't much I uphold him in.
And Mr. Boult's methods are not always pleasant, Deleah." "No. But he has been our friend. He has stuck to us. Who else has, of all the people with whom we were friendly? And we were never nice to him, in the old days not asking him to our parties, you remember, and never being friendly to him on Sunday afternoons. Oh, how I wish we had been, mama!" Mrs. Day acquiesced, but not with enthusiasm.
I have guessed all along. It is Mr. Boult." "Boult! Mr. George Boult?" "Yes." "Mr. George Boult!" "Yes. Mr. George Boult. I keep telling you, mama. That day we wrote the letter, I ran upstairs unexpectedly, and they were sitting on the sofa, and that old man had got his arm round Bessie's waist." "George Boult's arm? Bessie? Our Bessie?" "Yes. Now, don't faint, or begin to cry.
That George Boult's social position in the town did not entitle him to head the list. A banker's name should have figured there, or the name of the M. P. for Brockenham, or Sir Francis Forcus's name. With such an influential person to lead the way it was argued that the smaller fry would have been more willing to follow suit.
He had adopted the habit, of late, of going up to pay his respects in that quarter after every business interview in the shop. Bessie pretended to look upon the predilection for her society as presumption on George Boult's part. "A man as old as my own father!" she often said to Emily, with whom she had many confidences. "All the more reason for him to come fascinatin' round you," Emily declared.
So, at the hour when Boult's great shutters went up over the front of the six shops in Market Street, and the Manchester man was free to go to his evening meal, Bessie took an extreme care to be ready to receive him. She had allowed herself to become a little slovenly over her appearance in the day-time who was there to look at her, or care what she wore in the sitting-room over the shop?
Farmer Best called upon the Vicar. "I wish," said Mr Steele, "to add just a word or two to emphasise one particular point in Mr Boult's speech; or, rather, to put it in a somewhat different light. And I shall be brief, lest I spoil the general effect on your minds of his very powerful appeal. "I address myself to the women in this room. . . . With you the last word lies, as it rightly should.
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