The Gypsy in the Parlour Read online

  “William the Second?” demanded Miss White sharply.

  I instantly responded, 1087 to 1100. I had precisely the ear, and the memory, to exasperate any conscientious teacher.

  “Edward the Martyr?”

  “975 to 979.”

  We both knew I could keep this up for ever, even dodging; she passed on to Marguerite.

  —there had been some dreadful breach and quarrel, which Fanny designed to heal. What made this all the more probable was that the healing of breaches was so to speak an invalid’s function. How many disunited families, to my own (fictional) knowledge, had not been brought together again at a loved one’s couch!—Only the frailest of hands, the weakest of voices, sufficing to compose the bitterness of family strife! I saw exactly what Fanny was doing, and loved her more than ever.

  The address on the envelope was 5, Brocket Place. Brocket Terrace I knew debouched on the Bayswater Road, which in turn paralleled Kensington Gardens. Since Charles had already been away eighteen months, I thought I might just as well deliver Fanny’s letter myself at the first opportunity, thus saving the postage, which incidentally she had omitted to include.

  3

  “Wouldn’t you like,” I urged Cook, next Wednesday, “a look at the shops?”

  She hesitated. She was one of the nicest cooks we ever had; but occasionally disconcerted me by behaving as though she were sorry for me.

  “I’ll be waiting at the Pond,” I urged. “You’ll find me just here, by the Pond, at four.”

  “You won’t tell your Ma?” said Cook.

  “You know I never tell her anything,” said I.

  “Then maybe I just will,” said Cook.

  She rolled smoothly off. I remember all our cooks as having this smooth, rolling gait, as though they ran on castors. It was due possibly to the limited yet free area of their operations: a cook in her kitchen wheels rhythmically as a planet from stove to larder to scullery, every one keeping out of her way. Off, then, rolled Cook: I watched till she passed through the Palace Gate, then turned and ran, as fast as I could, in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER XIII

  1

  Brocket Place was not quite so near Brocket Terrace as I expected; I hurried the whole street’s length without finding it. I had at last to ask my way; a most strict rule of my upbringing forbade me to do so of anyone not in uniform, and even my wider disobedience—of leaving Cook, and the Gardens—didn’t compass its infraction. Not a constable was in sight; at last I spied a postman, pantingly sought my direction, and pantingly pursued it.—Another rule, never to run in the street, equally hobbled me; I must have taken almost half an hour to reach Brocket Place.

  It wasn’t disreputable. That said, there was little more in its favour. It was a small afterthought of a street, a street of small, afterthought, two-storey villas, opening, at the end by which I approached, between a dingy general store and a dingy eating-house. I went up and down it twice before I realised that No. 5 in fact indicated the latter.

  I hesitated. It was such a place as I had never in my life entered—such a place as, in my life’s normal course, I never would. A fly-blown menu-card, propped between dirtyish curtains and dirtyish glass, offered cut-off-the-joint, bread and cheese, for sixpence; or sausage and pease-pudding for two. Through the dirtyish glass of the door I glimpsed tables and chairs suitable to such an ordinary—adorned however by paper flowers, loud pink-and-yellow blooms.… But there was no doubt that I had found the right place: upon the dirty fascia a still-legible Five flanked the honest legend, Jackson’s Economical Saloon.

  I pushed open the door and went in.

  A bell above my head rang tinnily; but produced no immediate result. It was half-past three in the afternoon, when an eating-house is naturally at its lowest ebb of life. I examined at leisure oilcloth-covered tables and bentwood chairs, cruets apparently uncleaned since the last fog, an oleograph of Queen Victoria still rakishly festooned with Christmas paper chains … Pink-and-yellow, matching the paper flowers; as though someone liked a bit of colour. The smell was chiefly cabbage, cooking-fat and onion, with onion fortunately predominating, and one could have cut it with a knife.

  In short, Jackson’s Economical Saloon was no place for a lady.

  If I hadn’t been so interested, I might have been alarmed. But I was intensely interested; and intensely aware, not only of my surroundings, but also of myself as an incongruous figure in them. On the opposite wall a long fly-blown mirror reflected me from head to foot—fur-capped, fur-collared, excellently apparelled all the way down to my fur-trimmed boots; I thought how astonished, and pleased, my Cousin Charles would be by such a rich-looking little visitor … Staring, preening, I had only just begun to wonder what Charles himself was doing at Jackson’s, when somewhere overhead a board creaked, steps descended a stair, the mirror swung open like a door, and someone came in.

  It wasn’t Charles: it was a woman. She was big, handsome, dark-eyed: her dark chestnut hair rolled magnificently, ridge-and-furrow, but her costume was rather negligent—a pink-and-yellow dressing-jacket over a woollen skirt.

  At least she was astonished. She was as astonished as one could hope. She gaped at me, tongue-tied; which I didn’t feel she was usually. I found my tongue first. I said boldly,

  “If there’s a Mr. Charles Sylvester staying here, I’ve got a letter for him. Please is he in?”

  “Well, I be blowed!” said she.

  —And for a moment didn’t say anything more, but continued simply gaping at me. As I subsequently found out, Clara had an almost Sylvester capacity for letting time run by while she sorted her thoughts. (Clara: her name also to be discovered later. She was Clara Blow, and she ran Jackson’s Economical Saloon for a Mr. Isaac Isaacs. Jackson was an Anglo-Saxon myth.) She stood now, gaping at me; also, I was pleased to think, taking in my rich-little-visitor appearance. At last she said, cautiously,

  “Letters upset him proper. D’you know who it’s from?”

  “Yes,” said I. “And I’m sure he’ll want to have this one, because it’s from his home, otherwise I wouldn’t have brought it, but I’m really a Sylvester cousin myself.”

  With a gesture extraordinarily reminiscent of my Aunt Charlotte, Clara instantly twitched aside the cheese-cloth covering from a stand of pastries and offered me a jam-tart.

  “Leave it with me, dear,” said she. “I’ll give it to Charlie myself. Just eat that up and run along, and I’m sure we’re very much obliged.”

  But that wasn’t what I’d panted all the way from the Gardens for. Ignoring, with some dignity, the tart, I said,

  “I’d rather, if you don’t mind, give it to Mr. Sylvester. If he isn’t here, I’ll just post it.”

  She hesitated.

  “If anyone’s died, wouldn’t it be a telegram?”

  I said of course no one had died, because there wasn’t a black border. (In 1872, this seemed conclusive to both of us.) I said it still might be important. (How extraordinarily, in 1872, even the young of the wealthy could bully the adult poor!) I said that of course if Charles wasn’t staying there at all—

  “That’s a good ’un,” said Clara—almost absently. “Matter o’ fact, he’s sleeping. But if I believe you it’s important, and if you won’t leave it—”

  She paused again. By the big round clock above her head I saw I had ten minutes at the most to spare. But I also felt myself better than she at waiting. I gave her two minutes, and she capitulated in one.

  “Char-lee!”

  Her shout, echoing up through the open door, was extraordinarily powerful. From above a protesting rumble answered almost at once.

  “Char-lee! Young lady to see you!” bawled Clara. “Says she’s your cousin!”

  We waited again. Partly to make conversation, partly because I was really curious, I asked if Charles had been staying there long. She said a year or so: he came in for his dinner a bit over a year ago. “But this isn’t a—an hotel, is it?” I asked. “Not so to speak,” replied Cl
ara vaguely. “Char-lee! Chrissake, Charlie, can’t you find your trousers?”

  Upon this less formal summons my Cousin Charles presented himself with all the Sylvester aplomb.

  He looked bigger than ever. He had to duck his head to get through the door, his shoulders filled it jamb to jamb. But he didn’t look clumsy; his size merely made the door look too small, as his handsomeness made the whole eating-house more ugly. Clara gazed at him with simple admiration—actually took a good look at him, as though she’d never seen him before—before turning back to me.

  “That’s her,” said Clara.

  It was a trifle embarrassing that Charles didn’t recognize me, as of course he could not. Nor did he show any of the surprise I’d anticipated. Being a Sylvester, he showed nothing. I said hastily,

  “I’m your cousin, I expect you know, I stay at the farm every summer. And I’ve a letter for you from Fanny Davis.”

  “How be she?” enquired my Cousin Charles courteously.

  —There was still the Devon-burr in his voice; he mightn’t, by his speech, ever have voyaged a mile beyond Frampton. I found time to wonder if his brothers and cousins all similarly preserved, in Canada and Australia, their native note;—quite likely, for if they talked no more than their sires, they wouldn’t get practice in any new mode.… In anwer, I said Fanny still wasn’t very well, thank you, but she’d sent him a letter by me, and I thought I’d bring it myself.

  “In case it’s important,” added Clara.

  Upon which, I could do no less, I handed Fanny’s letter—my passport—over. My Cousin Charles received it I thought rather indifferently, and stuffed it into a pocket. But his eye wasn’t altogether indifferent as he thanked me for so kind an act; it was rather warily upon Clara.

  “A very kind, clever thing indeed,” said he.—“Clara, give the young lady a cake.”

  I hastily said she had, but thank you I didn’t want one. There was then a slight pause. I looked at the clock; I had now no time whatever. The interview hadn’t at all passed off as I’d intended; it had in fact simply passed off … It hurt me that Charles didn’t seem more eager for my company and conversation; he looked if anything rather willing to be rid of me. Clara also refrained from pressing me to stay. (She had her eye on Charles’ pocket, and looked as though she had something for him on her tongue.) It was in short a moment all children recognize instinctively; the moment when their elders are waiting for them to go …

  “I’m so sorry,” said I, “I have to be back in Kensington Gardens by four.”

  Clara nodded amiably but absently. My Cousin Charles, though I gave him every opportunity, made no move to accompany me out. I walked as fast as I could to the Black Lion Gate, then ran. I reached the Round Pond just in time. I had just time to take up a loitering, patient stance near the start of a yacht race, before Cook rolled back from the shops smelling like dinner-party trifle.

  CHAPTER XIV

  1

  I was very sorry when Cook left, though this too, (as though all things were beginning to turn to the better for me), had its bright side. She had been with us almost three months, and used to send me up quite interesting suppers. But my test of a good cook henceforward was whether she would leave me independent in the Gardens on Wednesday afternoons; and this one, after what happened the Wednesday following, wouldn’t have.

  She left me, then, almost at once. I immediately took up a position between the Pond and the Broad Walk, where I could easily be seen. Since I had mentioned the Gardens in Charles’ presence, I hoped that was where he would come to find me.

  Presuming, of course, he wanted to. I made the presumption easily. Admittedly his demeanour, in Jackson’s Economical Saloon, had been less than enthusiastic: but there, I felt, I had been hurried, I hadn’t done myself justice; and also there was Clara. No Sylvester could open his heart before a third party. Presuming with equal certainty that Charles’ heart needed to be opened, I felt it my merest duty to place myself at his disposition.

  To be honest, I thought I could heal breaches just as well as Fanny. If I wasn’t an invalid, I was a child. Angel-children, in the novelette-world, played almost as rewarding a part as invalids. I imagined long earnest conversations by the Round Pond, I explaining to Charles how no quarrel with Tobias should keep him longer from his home.—Or at least no longer than next summer; for I must admit that the crown of my imagining was to take Charles actually back with me. I pictured my Aunt Charlotte—in what transports!—seeing us both descend from the carrier’s cart … “Why, whatever brought this about!” she would cry; I hoped my Cousin Charles would silently indicate me.…

  First catch your hare.

  The hare I caught was not my Cousin Charles, but Clara Blow.

  Or did she catch me?

  I in fact saw her first—that next Wednesday afternoon, I standing solitary by the Pond. She wasn’t a figure, in the Gardens, to overlook: her large, handsome person being for the time and place rather gaily clad. Gone was the negligence of her working-dress: she sported most noticeably a long feather-boa, pink tipped with black, which needed every few moments to be slung back over her shoulder in a gesture peculiarly gay and dashing. Her hat was the picture sort, more plumage, pink and black, drooping behind and before. She might have been bound for some raffish garden-party. But her gait was business-like: methodically she quartered the ground, right and left of the Broad Walk, up from the Black Lion Gate—until at the sight of myself she suddenly put on a spurt and took the last few yards almost at a run.

  “If it isn’t,” panted she, “little Miss Sylvester!”

  My name wasn’t Sylvester, but I saw how she could have made the mistake. I didn’t correct her. I was only too anxious to gain her confidence. Unfortunately my moment’s hesitation was misread, with a swift, abrupt movement she pushed up her veil, (as she might have pushed up a visor), and said loudly,

  “If you’re too proud to speak to me, say so. If you want to walk off, I shan’t blame you. Otherwise I’d be much obliged for a word.”

  I had never in my life been so roughly addressed. (I may say that Clara never so roughly addressed me again.) My father’s sarcasms, my mother’s rebukes, were always couched in terms of at least surface politeness. But however astounded I was not alarmed; I hadn’t the least idea what Clara was driving at, and I saw she was upset.

  “Of course you can have a word,” said I soothingly. “At least till Cook comes back from the shops, because then I’ll have to go home. But till then I’d like to talk to you very much. I want to talk to you.”

  Instantly her wrath vanished.—Indeed, for one truly alarming moment I thought she was going to kiss me. But she checked in mid-swoop and seized my hand instead, pressing it so vigorously that her kid glove squeaked.

  “There!” cried Clara energetically. “Didn’t I say straight off you had a good heart? Straight off, ‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘that young lady’s got a good heart.’—If you don’t mind sitting down, dear, I suffer with my feet.”

  I led her to the nearest bench. It was a cold day, most people were walking briskly; we had our seat to ourselves. Clara collapsed upon it gratefully; I inclined to sit on the edge, keeping a weather-eye open for Cook, because I was forbidden to speak to strangers, and wished to avoid explaining why Clara was not.

  “If you’ve a message from Charles—” I began.

  “Now don’t go running away with that idea,” said Clara at once. She was much more at ease, off her feet. She stretched them out before her, in tight buttoned boots, and delicately balanced them upon the heels. (“Lovely when the blood runs back, ain’t it?” said she.) “No, dear, Charlie hasn’t sent any message, he don’t even know I’m out looking for you; and if he did, I can’t tell you what he’d say, because he never says anything.”

  “That’s what they’re all like,” I informed her. “All the Sylvesters.”

  “I’m sure I’m glad to hear it,” said Clara warmly. “Christ, beg pardon, dear, you relieve my mind. Sometimes I’v
e wondered if I wasn’t going deaf.… Are they all as good-looking?”

  I told her, all of them; though I really thought Charles was the handsomest. (“Fair bowls you over, don’t he?” agreed Clara. “First time he came into the Saloon, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.”) But I was by now most impatient for her to explain what she wanted with me: we hadn’t all the time in the world. To prompt her, I said,

  “He isn’t like them in other ways, though. For instance, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything, and all my uncles work all the time. Of course I know Charles can’t farm, in London, but what I don’t understand is why he’s here at all.”

  Clara looked at me with something like amusement.

  “Not to be conceited, dear, there’s some might see a reason not a hundred miles off. You’re right just the same; all Charlie thinks about, business or pleasure, is land.”

  “Well, there’s no land in London,” I pointed out. “It all belongs to the Duke of Bedford or the Portmans.” I knew this because my mother admitted to her table these grandees’ solicitors. Clara, however, was less impressed than I’d hoped.

  “Don’t be soft, dear,” said she. “Neither me nor Charlie expects plough in Trafalgar Square. It’s just, as I say, all he talks about, when he ever does open his mouth, is land.…”

  “But he’s got land!” cried I impatiently. “Or at least he will have. He’ll have acres and acres of it!”

  “That’s just what I want to know,” said Clara plumply. “I mean, has he for Chrissake got expectations, or not?”

  2

  I thought, sitting there on the bench in the Gardens, of the Sylvester farm. The broad Sylvester acres, the great Sylvester house, appeared before me so luminous with sun that even under that chill spring wind I felt August bake my marrow. I thought of the big beautiful rooms and of the broad sodded court, and of the dairy and the byres and the barns, and of the wide encircling fields whose names I barely knew. I said, yes.