] I shall tell him, and you'll only have yourself to blame. He
loves me. He loves me for myself. I shall tell him the whole truth,
and ask him to give you all the sack.
BENNET. You're not forgetting that you've already told him ONCE who
you were?
[It stops her. What she really did was to leave the marriage
arrangements in the hands of her business manager, George P. Newte.
As agent for a music-hall star, he is ideal, but it is possible that
in answering Lord Bantock's inquiries concerning Fanny's antecedents
he may not have kept strictly to the truth.]
FANNY. I never did. I've never told him anything about my family.
BENNET. Curious. I was given to understand it was rather a classy
affair.
FANNY. I can't help what other people may have done. Because some
silly idiot of a man may possibly--[She will try a new tack. She
leaves the door and comes to him.] Uncle, dear, wouldn't it be
simpler for you all to go away? He's awfully fond of me. He'll do
anything I ask him. I could merely say that I didn't like you and
get him to pension you off. You and aunt could have a little
roadside inn somewhere--with ivy.
BENNET. Seeing that together with the stables and the garden there
are twenty-three of us -
FANNY. No, of course, he couldn't pension you all. You couldn't
expect -
BENNET. I think his lordship might prefer to leave things as they
are. Good servants nowadays are not so easily replaced. And neither
your aunt nor I are at an age when change appeals to one.
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