No lovelier creature, no more perfect picture of a graceful English virgin could have been seen than Fanny Sandcross, the petted offspring of a lewd father and an indulgent mother. Miss Sandcross was tall-too tall, said hypercritical observers-overtopping her father by an inch or two. But what perfection of form; firm bust; tiny waist; swelling hips; massive spherical posteriors; wee feet and hands; satin, fair skin; masses of auburn hair; a tip-tilted, thoroughly Anglo-Saxon nose; with rose-leaf nostrils palpitating at the least emotion; a small mouth with pulpy red lips, and her father's perfect dentition. Her eyes would have been nearly sufficient to cause her to be adored even were her other charms less overpowering. They were blue, grey, or violet; according to the light, or the ideas of colour of the person who looked at her, but we should say they were of the last-named rare hue. Shaded with long lashes and surmounted by arched brows, they were full of ever-changing expression, but what dominated was a look of almost babyish curiosity. She seemed always as if just born to the world and its mysteries; as if interrogating her interlocutor and begging him to tell her something more; some fact that he might be hiding from her. Fanny gave the impression of perfect innocence and purity, and her portrait when she was fifteen would have formed a model embodiment of unspoiled girlhood.
It is far from wonderful for a maid to conduct herself with all the artlessness of a sweet angelic creature as yet unsullied by the least polluting contact; guarded by vigilant parents from surroundings calculated to tarnish the mirror of her virtue, but what was miraculous in the case of the beautiful Miss Sandcross was that she knew
everything that a young girl of fifteen should not know. The more her terrible precocious insight into the secrets of sex increased, the more artless was her bearing. Some ancient Puritan strain must have caused her naturally to be able to touch pitch with an outward semblance of undefiled sinlessness which we may mention at once never left her all her life.
When we say her cognisance of forbidden subjects was peculiar and extensive, it must be understood that she was fully enlightened on all womanly mysteries, and there was no vice of venery which she could not catalogue, but her comprehension of the lascivious list of the hidden vices of humanity was far from being categorically formulated in her budding brain. What she knew, she had heard about and read about, but it had not yet taken a real shape in her mind. She was like a young lad revelling in the perusal of military history and bloody battles, but quite unable to realize the horrors of warfare and its saddening results.
This young damsel had been initiated in a very simple manner. When she came to Paris with her parents, she was fourteen and fresh from an English select academy for young ladies. Her mother, wrapped up in her husband and her own comforts, never troubled about her daughter's inner consciousness. It was true she would not allow her Fanny to be exposed to the contamination of a French school and took care to have her education terminated at home, by the aid of governesses. Miss Sand-cross was exceedingly quick and intelligent, and would soon have been able to teach her teachers. Her English and French were perfection; she had a smattering of German and Italian; and was a natural pianist and a fair singer. But the ladies who came to give her lessons were retained, more as companions for her, or chaperons, as it is an inflexible unwritten law that no single girl can be allowed to go about Paris alone.
The governesses were often changed. They underwent two distinct ordeals. First of all, their sweet young pupil pumped them as dry as she could, never ceasing to ply them with questions relating to tabooed topics: matrimony and kindred matters. Secondly, if they were at all well-favoured and desirous of keeping their situation, they had to submit to Mr. Sandcross's caresses. If they were virtuous they did not remain long in the rich electrician's flat; being unwilling to answer the daughter's queer queries, and revolting at the father's rudeness.
These intrigues were unknown to the mother, but Fanny, without having any idea that her dear father had really possessed most of her governesses entirely, perceived clearly that he liked to flirt with them. Sand-cross was really very excited over all the girls coming in contact with his daughter. It seemed to increase his enjoyment, when he thought that Fanny was constantly being attended by her father's mistresses. The knowledge that one of these lady companions went out to a matinee or concert with his daughter after a hasty upright encounter in his private den, without having had time to cleanse herself from the final spurt of his lubricity, lifted him far above the ordinary haven of debauchees, and landed him into some celestial unknown space of aphrodisiacal ether.
From thence to falling madly in love with his own charming offspring was but a step, and he took it boldly, firmly, and resolutely. Fanny was seventeen when he woke up one fine morning and found out while having his bath that if he did not deflower his own flesh and blood, he would be most unhappy. He suddenly saw that he had been in love with her for a very long time, but did not realize his own passion. Now that he felt his bold longing tightly clutching his brain, it may be imagined that he tried in some way or another to try and overcome his unnatural desire, or fought against the criminal passion. Not at all. He never troubled so far, merely meaning to try and enjoy his own girl, if he could; and if he did not succeed-well, it would be time enough then to see what could be done. The fact is, so many women had dropped down before him, ready to place themselves in any posture that best pleased him, that he hardly fancied Fanny would resist him any more than the others. They were strangers. He had no influence over them, and yet their seduction was not difficult. How much more easy to allure and entice his own daughter, fond of pleasure-going, dress, and jewellery? Moreover, he felt sure she loved him, for he had been the best of fathers to her up to the present. At least, so he thought, according to his lights. He had made her his companion to a certain extent. His wife was lazy, fond of good cooking and novel-reading. She could manage a house very well, and keep servants in order, but when her daily task of organizing work and having meals properly cooked and punctually served was over, she was content to sink into an armchair and cry showers of tears over some silly tale of love. She was glad when her husband took Fanny out of an evening, and did not trouble about what time they came home or where they went. Thus it was that Miss Sandcross had gone with the author of her being to all the second-rate theatres where spicy comedies of adultery and salacious intrigue are played. The variety halls had no mysteries for her. She sat unconcerned in the private boxes of the Folies-Decolletees, and her pa told her the latest echoes of the wings, concerning the amours of Juanita la Torticula, the lovely Spanish dancer who had formed a Lesbian liaison with Phyllis de Honiton, a high-kicking goddess starring at the same establishment. Mr. Sandcross did not say so in as many words to his pretty daughter, but when she put up her fan, as if to hide a blush, and nodded as much to say, "Yes, pa, I know!" he felt that his dear little Fanny was au fait. It did not seem strange to him that she should know what a cocotte was, or that she should have heard who kept such and such a notorious prostitute of Paris. His daughter was seventeen, and most girls at that age learnt from their companions what was what, didn't they?