The Gypsy in the Parlour Read online

  Unless I wore blue, with forgetmenots.

  We contemplated this charming picture, Clara Blow and I, for hours on end. As I say, it didn’t in the least trouble her that her groom cut so passive a figure therein: country-wise again, she frankly accepted the fact that most marriages were made up by women. (So they were in my own world, but disguisedly. Marguerite’s mother and mine, after giving Marguerite and Frederick every encouragement to fall in love, received the official intimation that they had done so with tears of surprise.) Clara was simply more frank. She was frank—how rarely in a woman of her generation!—even in speech: employing no more than my mother’s well-bred language of sentiment the novelette-talk of Fanny Davis.—She never, for example, spoke of stealing into Charlotte’s heart: she just said she hoped Charlotte would take to her, ’specially after seeing her muscle. Nor was Charles ever ‘dear Charlie’ to her, as my Uncle Stephen was always ‘dear Stephen’ to Fanny Davis; when Clara spoke of him it was often almost belligerently. She promised to handle him. But there could be no doubt in the world of her thorough intent to make a good wife, and a good Sylvester; and I for my part felt I could do all Sylvesters no better turn, than to promote Clara Blow amongst them.

  Here at least I made no mistake. Clara Blow, despite her habit of swearing, was among the nicest women I have ever known.

  She suggested one variation to my plan, which I agreed to. She felt her position would be altogether stronger if on her arrival at the farm she found Charles already there. She felt, she said, it would kind of break the ice for her if when I mentioned my London friend, Charlie spoke up to acknowledge her his friend also. “Which I dare say would take a good hack on the shin, dear,” said Clara, “but still worth trying …”

  I agreed all the more readily that I still cherished—if now as but a detail in the broader masterpiece—the incident of my descent from the carrier’s cart in Charlie’s company. (My Aunt Charlotte’s astonishment, my own central place in the composition.) I therefore, on the last Wednesday before school broke up, with Clara’s connivance, tackled Charlie alone.

  2

  It was deceptively easy. When I panted into Jackson’s, Clara wasn’t there. No one was there. I pushed the door back and forth until the jangling of the bell brought Charlie from above. Even in trousers and singlet he was still extraordinarily impressive; and even half-asleep, (though he didn’t look particularly pleased to see me), still courteous.

  “’Seems Clara be abroad,” said he. “Her’ll be sorry to miss ’ee; but ’ee’ve no call to wait.”

  I sat down. He was so enormous, I felt not exactly safer, but more out of harm’s way, sitting down. Disingenuously I explained that I had come to say good-bye, I was going to the farm on Monday.

  “Be ’ee, now?” said my Cousin Charles courteously.—I scanned his face for any trace of wistfulness. But as usual he showed no expression at all. He didn’t even look impatient—though his next words might have been considered dismissive. “I’ll gladly give Clara your kind message,” said my Cousin Charles; and after a brief pause added that when her did fare abroad, her was commonly many hours from home.

  I refused to take the hint. Instead I asked boldly hadn’t he any messages for the farm, because I was sure they all longed for news of him?

  He slowly shook his big, handsome head.

  “All know I wish ’em well,” said he. “There be no news in that.”

  This was so typically Sylvester, I couldn’t argue with it. There was nothing to do but plunge.

  “If you were going home too, we could go together,” said I, as casually as possible. “Do just think, Charlie, how pleased. Aunt Charlotte would be to see you, after all this time! And wouldn’t you be pleased too, to see the farm again? And Uncle Tobias and Luke and Matthew, and Aunt Grace and Aunt Rachel? You can’t have forgotten them—” here, I must admit, I finished foolishly—“you can’t possibly have forgotten them, they’re too big!”

  Foolish as I was, my Cousin Charles looked at me kindly. For the first time he gave me the good, slow, Sylvester smile.

  “Aye,” said he, “they’m sizable all right. ’Tis a thing I do never grow used to, at London: the small stature of the population. Do a chap bother Clara, and I be called upon to calm he, ’tis like taking up a terrier. Or some other small dog.”

  It was easy to see why my Cousin Charles made such a splendid chucker-out. He was never afraid of anyone, so he was never angry. He chucked out a fighting-drunk as he’d have put out a snapping terrier—quietly, peaceably, without fuss. (Clara told me he once doused a sparring couple with her washing-up water. One saw how his mind worked: he must have been regretting they hadn’t tails to be picked up by.) But I wasn’t just then concerned with the London career he had so unexpectedly carved out for himself, and I returned to my main point.

  “You know you want to go home,” said I firmly. “And any way I’m sure it’s much better for you to be among people your own size. I know what it’s like myself. The year I had scarlet fever and had to stay down a class I was top even in mathematics, and it was extremely bad for me. Everyone said so.”

  He looked at me really quite respectfully.—What a picture we must have presented, I lecturing him from my bentwood chair, he, three times my weight and size, respectfully inclined! But again, it was Sylvester: all Sylvesters retaining, no doubt from the days when they spoke smoothly to Druids, an innate respect for powers beyond their ken. I could always impress my aunts with my knowledge of Botany: if I didn’t cut the sacred mistletoe, I could at least draw it. All the same, I felt I wasn’t influencing my Cousin Charles. (As probably the Druids hadn’t influenced his forefathers. Send up, when your turn came round, a white horse for the sacrifice, then go your way till your turn came round again.) It was without much real hope of success that I reiterated and elaborated my proposal, that we should go back to Devon together.

  Thoughtfully, kindly, respectfully, my Cousin Charles again shook his head.

  “’Twouldn’t suit,” said he.

  I felt thoroughly impatient with him. I snapped—like a London terrier.

  “I know a great deal more than you think,” said I shortly. “I know Fanny’s writing to you, trying to make up your quarrel with Uncle Tobias; and I think you’re very unkind, and very inconsiderate, and just stubborn like all Sylvesters, not to meet her halfway.”

  —When a Sylvester really looked at you, turned on you the full force of his withdrawn yet contemplative gaze, it was a test for the boldest spirit. So my Cousin Charles looked at me now: his eye thoughtful, yet inscrutable; his regard powerful, yet incalculable. I felt small not only physically. He said calmly,

  “’Ee’ve the right idea of I ’xactly; and I trust ’ee may pass a most joyful holiday. And if ’ee looks behind the old pump, ’ee may find a wren’s nest; so small they be, and so bold, as my own little cousin.”

  I got myself somehow out of the Saloon. I wished very much Clara hadn’t arranged to stay away so long. She might be able to handle Charles; I certainly was not. I ran back to the Gardens, met Cook—smelling not of trifle but of hair-oil—and plodded crossly home.

  3

  I was still going to the farm. Nothing could prevent that, and certainly my parents had no wish to. My father, I think enjoyed more than anything in his laborious life those two months of absolute solitude in a house large and silent as a pyramid. My mother equally enjoyed her Bournemouth holiday with my brothers; they met Marguerite’s family there, and Frederick was encouraged to teach her tennis. I went to Devon as a matter of course. “So healthy for the child!” I heard my mother murmur, over a tea-table, to the mother of Marguerite. “You, my dear, bring up a little beauty: I must rely on rude health!” I, handing plates, naturally said nothing. But if they only knew, thought I, if they only knew what an extraordinary child I really was—how full of adult business and affairs—they wouldn’t dismiss me so lightly.…

  Monday came at last: Cook took me to Paddington and put me on the train. I was
so full of conceited anticipation, I couldn’t even bother to wave her, or London, good-bye.

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER XVII

  1

  During the first six years of my visiting the farm, I never perceived, between summer and summer, the slightest change there. My uncles, already old to me, did not age: my aunts seemed fixed in a ripe golden maturity. Even the coming of Fanny Davis made immediately no apparent difference; on the contrary, the interest of her arrival, the preparations for her marriage, rather broadened the normal flow of jocund life—my aunts being never so much themselves as with a festivity on hand. Change dated from the last summer only. But change had set in; and though by comparison with what I found then, I now found, on the surface, nothing, the deeper change was far more grave.

  Everyone was old.

  My Aunt Charlotte, at the gate, moved to greet me with a slow, a patient step: her hug was less violent, I had breath, and wits, to notice: I noticed at once the streak of grey twining like a ribbon through her plaited crown. Her face, less broad and ruddy, showed the withered-apple look all farm-women put on in time.—But too soon, thought I, too soon! I didn’t remark upon it, I had my wits about me; but I scanned my Aunts Grace and Rachel anxiously. They too seemed quite old.—In them the change was less physical, they were younger than Charlotte, Grace’s head was still corn-coloured, and Rachel’s milky throat still full; but there had come over them both a silence, a settled reserve of manner, too like the indifferent stillness of age. They no longer fripped and quarrelled with each other, but no more had they regained their old good understanding. Their relations had come to a sort of stalemate. Neither Grace nor Charlotte had given way; Fanny Davis still lay entrenched upon her sofa, but Grace no longer admitted her presence. She spoke neither to Fanny nor of her, and refused to set foot in the parlour. In the circumstances no doubt only silence made it possible for my aunts to continue living together at all; it also made them seem very old.

  My Uncle Tobias was old absolutely. This I think was due simply to his years, women-matters never much concerning him. Age had come upon him as suddenly as it came upon his father, he left more and more decisions to Matthew, inclined more and more to his father’s warm perch by the fire. But Matthew was old too; a little bewildered by his new authority, took advice of Luke and Stephen; who by their equal lack of assurance showed themselves un-young as he.… It was in short a moment in the life of the farm like a moment in the life of a tree, when the old leaves are ready to drop, but the new buds do not yet push forth. It was a moment when the Sylvester farm waited a new master.—I had him so to speak up my sleeve—Charlotte’s first-born Charles, eldest son of eldest son; for I strongly suspected that no one save myself knew where in the world he was.

  Except, of course, Fanny Davis. I make another exception for her: she alone wasn’t grown old. She looked in fact rather younger than I remembered; her short dark hair now prettily curled, her cheeks, warmed by the parlour fire, prettily pink. A slight new fretfulness in her expression was rather child-like; murmuring, behind Charlotte’s broad back, that we must have a long, long talk soon, she shot my youth a glance of complicity. I went to bed, that first night, a sadder child than I’d arrived; but as the first days passed, and as I perceived all I have here resumed, I doubt if I grew wiser.

  I thought it very lucky I had come, to set all to rights.

  Little peace-maker, little match-maker, little know-all that I was, I felt perfectly confident of my ability to do so: it seemed to me simply a matter of giving all my relations a good talking-to. For the one essential was to get Charlie home, after which all would be well again, especially if he married Clara, though even Clara wasn’t absolutely necessary; and I knew where Charlie was, and how to summon him. Tobias would have to apologise. Whatever their quarrel had been about, and however bitter, Tobias would never, I sagaciously reflected, once it was pointed out to him, allow a point of pride to jeopardise the welfare of the land. So it only needed pointing out to him.

  That I did not do so immediately was due to two reasons.

  The first was the extreme difficulty of entering into any sort of conversation whatever with my Uncle Tobias. He had never noticed me much, and now did not notice me at all. Even when I planted myself directly before his chair his eye seemed to omit me, to pass around me and through me back to the familiar hearth-place; and either my voice was too light to penetrate his deafness, or else he could close his ears, like a hunting dog, against any distracting sound. It wasn’t easy work. Much as I longed to present Charlotte with the glorious fait accompli (before I gave her a talking-to about Clara), I began to fear I should have to enlist her aid first, and thus rather spoil the surprise, with Tobias.…

  The other reason I delayed was simply that I had so much else to do. I didn’t mean to allow myself to be diverted; but it was so intoxicating to have the run of the farm again, to dance in and out looking at new calves, new piglings, new kittens—christening them all with names from Early Roman History—helping or hindering my aunts, eating my head off, sleeping like a kitten myself—cutting the lavender, (a week early), and generally recovering from nine months in London. The weather was superb, all aunts encouraged my fecklessness.—Not of course knowing it to be so; they were encouraging me chiefly, I think, to spend less time in the parlour with Fanny Davis. Charlotte and Grace found me small outdoor tasks and errands, Rachel was always there before me to make Fanny’s tea. (Upon Rachel now fell all sick-room duties, which she accepted with nun-like patience, if not with nun-like cheerfulness.) There was no time, during those first bright days, for much well-doing; and I temporarily shelved my responsibilities.

  I was so busy, and happy, I didn’t even have my long, long talk with Fanny Davis until the Thursday afternoon. My aunts as I say kept me rather from her; and I had also something to decide in my own mind, something that made me not over-anxious for our talk until I had decided it, that inclined me against impatience. On the fourth day after my arrival, however, on the Thursday, my Aunt Rachel left Fanny’s tea-making to me; possibly because it was Thursday, when Miss Jones and Mrs. Brewer came over from Frampton. (They came still. Tuesdays and Thursdays Fanny Davis was still At Home. My Aunt Rachel no longer gave a penny for her lustre-ware. The first time I saw Rachel indifferently handle a chipped plate, I recognized her old as Charlotte.) At four o’clock I therefore carried up cream and cakes—so Charlotte’s Sylvester pride still ordained—and for the first time Fanny Davis and I had the parlour to ourselves.

  “As we shall have all evening,” said she, with a small, sweet smile. “I’ve specially warned off both, dear, both the Brewer and the Jones, in order to have at least one happy hour quite alone with my little friend.…”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  1

  The fire glowed, the kettle sang; all was as it had been—Fanny snug on her sofa, I snug on the hearth. Once again the old sentimental intimacy enfolded us. “Now tell me all the London news,” said Fanny Davis; and then it was I had to make my hitherto postponed decision.

  I hadn’t told Charlotte I’d seen Charlie. I was still waiting, still hoping for the fait accompli. Should I now tell Fanny Davis? I believed her already active on the Sylvester behalf—more active than I’d been, or yet was: Charles’s correspondent, urging Charles to wiser courses. Selfishness made me greedy to claim all credit I could; I also, more obscurely, felt it disloyal to Charlotte to give Fanny my news first.—In the event, my tongue made the decision for me.

  “Fanny,” cried I uncontrollably, “I’ve seen Cousin Charles!”—And sat back on my heels, not at all sorry to have the words out, feeling extraordinarily important, looking forward to our long, momentous, adult conversation.…

  “When?” said Fanny Davis.

  —She was so much less startled than I expected, I only then realised my thoughtlessness. A slammed door made Fanny tremble; I might have made her faint. But though she did quiver, just once, she remained otherwise composed. Her manner in fact became rather
business-like; she appeared chiefly—intent. She reared and propped herself on one elbow, the better to watch my face. I felt a delicious importance.

  “A week ago,” said I. “The last time. I’ve been seeing him ever since Christmas.”

  “Did he come on Christmas Day?”

  I was evidently the one who was going to be surprised.

  “No, of course not,” said I. “He’s never been to our house at all.—When I said Christmas, it was really February, only the decorations were still up.” (Here of course referring to Jackson’s Saloon; it was too complicated to explain, so I let it go. I felt in need of explanations myself.) “Charlie’s never come to our house at all,” I repeated. “Did you expect him to?”

  “It just crossed my mind,” said Fanny Davis. “Go on.”

  “I found him because I took your letter. It was quite close, I thought I might as well.… Fanny, when you wrote to him, I mean when you wrote before, did you tell him to come and see us?”

  “I may have done,” said Fanny carelessly. “In fact, dear, I thought he might well have a word or two with your papa. But he evidently decided otherwise, and you—clever little thing!—found him out for yourself. Go on. Was he very much delighted to see you?”

  I hesitated.

  “Not exactly delighted; at least I don’t think so. But you know what Sylvesters are—”

  “One can never tell what they’re thinking,” finished Fanny lightly. “How true that is! Quite possibly he was too touched for speech. But I see he let you into the secret of our correspondence: did he tell you—” here she leant towards me more intently than ever—“did he tell you its subject?”