Mr Forster's Fortune Read Online Free

about anything very much. Tom only regretted the fact that during his minority his uncle allowed him only a small proportion of the income to which he knew he was entitled. The fact that it was one uncle rather than another who was denying him his rights did not enter into his limited consciousness at all.
    ‘But even so my father allows you four times what he gives to me, Tom,’ Mr Forster was reminding him, as his young companion was complaining, not for the first time, about his devilishly out-at-elbow state. ‘I was hoping for an increase as soon as I came of age, but there’s nothing on the horizon quite as yet. I suppose I shall have to have a word with him about it. God, how hateful. I loathe having to go to him for anything. I daresay he’ll remind me that I’m ‘not the only drain on his resources,’ as he usually does. You’re damned fortunate in being an only child, my friend, and at least you’ve inherited already. Once my father passes on I’ll have Rachel to keep as well as myself, unless she finds a husband somewhere to take her off my hands.’
    Mr Springfield had to acknowledge the truth in this.
    ‘Very true, cousin,’ he said . He spoke with a slight lisp. ‘And, you know, I can’t bring myself to think of her as ever being spliced. She’s got that – oh, I don’t know – that sort of dreary, mealy-mouthed air about her. She’s far too clever by half, if you ask me – far too bookish. It quite puts a normal fellow off.’
    Mr Forster tacitly accepted his cousin’s opinion on his sister and resumed a somewhat leisurely perusal of the room.
    ‘Not like the mort over there, you mean?’
    His attention had been caught by a very pretty, very dainty but very ornamental lady who was just then holding a lively conversation with one of her own acquaintance at the other side of the fire.
    Mr Springfield followed his cousin’s glance.
    ‘Oh, Mrs Wetherby, you mean, Forster? Mr Wetherby’s little widow? Taken lodgings up on Rivers Street, so I understand. Rich as a Jewess, so they tell me. Like the look of her, do you? I’ll introduce you if you like.’
    Close to, Mrs Wetherby looked maybe a little less alluring, and considerably less youthful, than had seemed the case at the distance of several yards and to a young gentleman who had only just that week attained his majority the thought of a widow on the shady side of thirty was becoming less attractive by the second. However, having played a part in instigating the introduction it would have been churlish of Mr Forster to retract. And indeed, from the lady’s perspective, the knowledge that the heir to an ailing viscount had requested her acquaintance was altogether a most attractive proposition.
    ‘Most pleased t o make your acquaintance, my lordship,’ she bobbed, completely unembarrassed by Mr Springfield’s revelation that, at the present time at least, the viscount-in-waiting was, sadly, to be addressed as just plain ‘Mr’. ‘I was just saying to my good friend Fanny ‘ere,’ (failing, though, to introduce her good friend Fanny, perhaps due to a fear of diverting the exceedingly handsome young viscount-in-waiting’s attention from herself. She needn’t have worried. Poor Fanny, with several years’ experience in excess of her own, was singularly less attractive to the young viscount-in-waiting even than, on closer examination, Mrs Wetherby herself was proving to be.) ‘I was just saying to my good friend Fanny ‘ere that the pump room, as well as anywhere, is quite the place to meet with all the nobs.’
    Mr Forster smiled mechanically, pretended not to notice the kind lady’s hesitating hand, and retreated as quickly as common politeness would allow him to.
    ‘How in God’s name do you know a woman of that ilk, Tom?’ he demanded, departing the vicinity as soon as he could in case the charming young lady should take it into her head to pursue their acquaintance any further. ‘She’s surely a wretched city