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Updated: May 21, 2025
But how can I turn my back on an old friend?" "That's just what surprises me," Phoebe answered. "I don't understand such a person being a friend of yours." Always ready with the necessary lie, whenever the occasion called for it, Jervy invented a pathetic little story, in two short parts. First part: Mrs. Sowler, rich and respected; a widow inhabiting a villa-residence, and riding in her carriage.
Sowler burst into a hoarse laugh. "Do I look as if I was likely to be squeamish about smells?" she asked, with the savage contempt for her own poverty, which was one of the dangerous elements in her character. "See the place I live in, young woman, and then talk about smells if you like!" This was indelicate.
Still following them, unnoticed in the crowd, the old woman stopped at the extremity of the hindermost bench, looked close at a smartly-dressed young man who occupied the last seat at the end, and who paid marked attention to a pretty girl sitting by him, and whispered in his ear, "Now then, Jervy! can't you make room for Mother Sowler?" The man started and looked round.
Sowler, bearing in mind some talk which had passed between them on the occasion of a supper, had called at Phoebe's lodgings on the previous day, and had tried to entrap her into communicating what she knew of Mrs. Farnaby's secrets. The trap failing, Mrs.
"The money's my business," she remarked. "You tell me where he lives and I'll make him pay me." Jervy was equal to the occasion. "You won't do anything of the sort," he said. Mrs. Sowler laughed defiantly. "So you think, my fine fellow!" "I don't think at all, old lady I'm certain. In the first place, Farnaby don't owe you the debt by law, after seven years.
Phoebe lifted her eyebrows with a look of contemptuous surprise, which was an answer in itself. "Fancy the great Mr. Farnaby going by an assumed name, and having his letters addressed to a public-house!" she said to Jervy. Mrs. Sowler asked no more questions. She relapsed into muttering to herself, under her breath.
Jervy yielded with his best grace. "Try a third glass," he said; "there's luck, you know, in odd numbers." Mrs. Sowler met this advance in the spirit in which it was made. She was obliging enough to consult her memory, even before the third glass made its appearance. "Seven years, did you say?" she repeated. "More than twice seven years, Jervy! What do you think of that?"
He had aimed straight at her purse and he had only hit her heart! He tried a broad hint next. "I wonder whether I shall have a shilling or two left to give Mrs. Sowler, when I have paid for the supper?" He sighed, and pulled out some small change, and looked at it in eloquent silence. Phoebe was hit in the right place at last. She handed him her purse.
The suspicion of her infamous employer, which had induced Mrs. Sowler to attempt to intrude herself into Phoebe's confidence, led her to make a visit of investigation at Jervy's lodgings later in the day. Informed, as Phoebe had been informed, that he was not at home, she called again some hours afterwards.
"And the child was put into my hands, sixteen years ago," said Mrs. Sowler. "Take sixteen from twenty-four, and eight remains. I'm more surprised than ever, miss, at your knowing it to be a girl. It couldn't have been your child could it?" Phoebe started to her feet, in a state of fury. "Do you hear that?" she cried, appealing to Jervy.
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