The Gypsy in the Parlour Read online

  I said no, but I’d guessed. I said I’d guessed exactly what had happened, Charlie like all Sylvester sons had quarrelled with his father, and they were both so stubborn neither would make up, and Fanny was doing all she could to bring them together again. And I said I thought it perfectly wonderful of her to be exercising from her sickbed such a beautiful influence, and that I was sure all would come right in the end because I was sure Charlie really wanted to come home.—Fanny’s lack of answering warmth, as I finished, surprised me. Before my enthusiastic praises she merely dropped back against the cushions, and asked me not to call him Charlie, it was so vulgar.

  “It’s what Clara always calls him,” I apologised. “Fanny, is there anything else Charles could have told me? I mean, have you any plan? I tried hard to bring him back myself—”

  I broke off. Fanny hadn’t moved, or uttered any exclamation; but something made me break off. She was now sitting perfectly still, so rigid indeed that I was filled with alarm, I had startled her, I thought, the shock had been but delayed.

  “Are you quite well, Fanny?” I enquired anxiously. “Are you sure I’m not tiring you? Wouldn’t you sooner rest?”

  The breath came out of her body in a long sigh. But she faintly smiled at me.

  “Perfectly well, dear,” said she. “Go on, go on talking. Who is Clara?”

  Still keeping an anxious eye on her, I said Clara was Miss Blow, who managed Jackson’s Economical Saloon, where Charlie—Charles—had his lodging. Fanny appeared quite interested, and asked what Clara looked like: I described her at some length, stressing her size and her high colour and the interesting way she did her hair. “Good heavens, dear!” said Fanny lightly. “She sounds exactly like a barmaid!” I had never seen a barmaid, except in Punch, but on reflection I saw the justice of Fanny’s remark; and a trifle defensively added that Clara was very good-tempered as well. “Poor creatures, they have to be,” said Fanny kindly. “Do you know, dear, all you say solves a little mystery that’s been troubling me. I’ve assured Charles for months now he may come home and be welcome; no doubt he owes Miss Blow so much for rent, he feels he can’t quit without bilking her! Foolish boy!” cried Fanny, quite vivaciously. “Why didn’t he apply to Mrs. Toby?—Or to your own papa, dear, really quite a close relation?” (I was quite certain my father wouldn’t have advanced Charles a penny, but I didn’t say so. I didn’t, just then, say anything. I was too much bewildered by this new light on the situation at Jackson’s.) “I know what landladies are,” continued Fanny feelingly. “I dare say Miss Blow has visited the pawnbroker’s already, and poor Charles has no more than he stands up in!—In which case, dear, we must set to work at once; you shall tell your tale to Mrs. Toby, and I’ve no doubt in the world the money will be found. You haven’t told her already, I suppose?”

  I said no. I was still dreadfully bewildered. Fanny’s confident tone, as she so rapidly sketched Charlie’s predicament, was wonderfully convincing; at the same time, she didn’t know Jackson’s, she didn’t know Clara. I, who did, felt my kind hostess of Brocket Place quite incapable of the behaviour attributed to her. Certainly Charles was in her debt, and possibly for money—unless he’d returned from Australia much richer than his appearance and behaviour suggested; but his chief debt was for kindness. Clara had been very good to him. She had been good for him. She could quite easily—I think I now realised this for the first time—have kept Charles in complete idleness, fed by Jackson’s plenty; hanger-on instead of chucker-out. Chucking patrons out preserved not only Charlie’s physical condition, but also his self-respect; a man’s job if ever there was one, chucking-out might well have been Charlie’s salvation … All these thoughts crossed my mind too rapidly for coherent voicing; but I was left with so strong a conviction that Clara was being misjudged, I felt I had better tell Fanny everything.

  “She isn’t like that at all,” said I.

  “Who isn’t, dear? You can’t mean Mrs. Toby!” exclaimed Fanny. “Good heavens, child, to bring her Charles home she’d sell the pianoforte!”

  “Of course I don’t mean Aunt Charlotte,” said I, “I mean Clara. Clara isn’t like that at all, I’m sure she’d never pawn Charlie’s clothes if he owed her a hundred pounds. She’s too fond of him. And I think he’s fond of her. Do you know what I think, Fanny? I think they’re going to get married.”

  So I thought, so I said, with perhaps rather remarkable confidence. What I did was more remarkable still. My wildest dream came true: I cured Fanny Davis.

  2

  Miraculously, she rose. She rose to her feet. She stood. Quite unsupported, Fanny Davis stood. My Aunt Charlotte’s Paisley shawl slid unregarded about her feet, the cushions dropped to lie among its folds—so briskly did Fanny rise. With a quick motion she pushed all this encumberment aside, and stood free.

  “Fanny!” I gasped—leaping up in my turn to hold her. “Fanny, be careful! Lie down again at once!”

  She laughed. Certainly she didn’t seem to need my help; I was astonished by the erectness of her back, the thrust of her shoulders, against my protective arm.

  “Dear little friend!” smiled Fanny Davis. “Didn’t good Dr. Lush always pronounce my ailment nervous? So it was, indeed; now by some magic my nerves are tuned again. You observed, did you not, how I flinched, some moments ago? It was then I felt strength return.…”

  Most patently strength had returned. After a moment, while I still gaped, Fanny with an experimental air began to pace about the room; pausing indeed now and again to hold by the mantel, or by a chair-back; but every moment with increasing assurance. Life and vigour, as I watched, flowed back into her limbs.—I still couldn’t believe it, I still expected to see her suddenly collapse; but round and round the parlour Fanny paced, at the last whisking her skirts like the train of a ball-gown, at last pausing by the piano—but still on her feet—to thrum out a dance-tune.

  “I danced to that at the Assembly,” said Fanny Davis, “and I shall dance to it again!”

  It was then I rushed out upon the landing, and hurled myself downstairs, to proclaim to all the household that Fanny was cured.

  3

  Up trooped my aunts, marvelling—even Grace, swept along by the general impetus. Fanny Davis received them with every caress, kissing their broad astounded cheeks, dropping upon Rachel in particular tears of gratitude; paced again about the parlour to show her strength. What had cured her, all marvelled? Could it be, said Fanny Davis, smiling, the pleasure of having her own little friend back again? What else could it be? (I conceitedly received my aunts’ looks of renewed surprise.) But hadn’t good Dr. Lush always proclaimed her ailment nervous? “What matters how, you dear good souls, so long as it is?” cried Fanny Davis.…

  I think I noticed even then, even through the rosy clouds of self-conceit, that she had never so vivaciously addressed them before. Even in her first days of health and strength, Fanny Davis had been humbler. She wasn’t now humble at all.—The Bible tells so little of Lazarus’ post-mortem behaviour; we had no standard by which to judge Fanny’s, raised as she was too, almost, from the dead. I found her vivacity at once natural, and disconcerting; I also remembered that as I dashed out and down, calling to my aunts, Fanny sent no call after me for her betrothed.—Stephen, I thought remorsefully, Stephen, surely, should have been first to know?—But Fanny hadn’t called upon Stephen, nor had I thought to seek him; and when I now suggested I should do so, Fanny said, no, not just yet.

  In fact there descended on the parlour, at my helpful words, a rather odd silence. Kisses and caresses over—my Aunt Grace, under her share of them, still a trifle poker-backed—what was to do was so obviously to find and gladden my Uncle Stephen, that Fanny’s withdrawal struck an awkward note. “B’aint ’ee quite sure then of recovery?” enquired my Aunt Charlotte, with a touch of Grace’s tone. “Afore all else, us mustn’t raise unconscionable hopes in he,” said my kind Aunt Rachel; “take two-three days more, Fanny Davis, till all strength be confirmed!” “Be Fanny recovere
d, Stephen did ought to know instantly,” said Grace. “Matrimony being so far out of his mind—this two-three year, Rachel!—Stephen did ought to be apprised of his happy fate without delay.”

  Erect upon the hearth, but now, it seemed, holding herself so upright with a little more of effort, Fanny looked only at Charlotte.

  “Let me talk to Mrs. Toby first,” said she.

  CHAPTER XIX

  1

  I see now that from Fanny Davis’ point of view I had precipitated things. She herself had been impulsive, even rash; had sprung too soon to her feet, too soon let me run to spread the glad news of her recovery. Now she had to make the best bargain she could. I had no idea of any bargain to be made at all, I was simply intensely interested; and being not absolutely driven from the parlour, let my Aunts Grace and Rachel quit it without me; saw Fanny by a look admit my presence; and so hovered at the door.

  “Dear Mrs. Toby,” said Fanny Davis, “what I have to confess is a tale of love …”

  And out she, suddenly tearful, sobbed it; and as I now resume it—to me no less astonishing than to my Aunt Charlotte—I see it all explicable, and the whole gist of it to be summed, in the phrase that equally sums Fanny’s character.

  She knew how to seize a chance.

  She didn’t put it like that herself.

  “It was love at first sight, dear Mrs. Toby,” wept Fanny Davis. “Between one dance and the next, between one figure and the next, we read all, in each other’s eyes. The French call it the coup de foudre.”

  So that was what had happened, at the Assembly: Fanny Davis and my Cousin Charles fell in love. They looked in each other’s eyes and were lost to all—save possibly, on Fanny’s part, to the main chance. If so, with what boldness and resolution she seized upon it! She was to marry Stephen in three days. She was at the Assembly as Stephen’s bride. Between one dance and the next—between one figure and the next—she not only fell in love, she made up her mind. Did she also, then and there, make up her plan?

  She didn’t lead us to believe so. She fell sick next day, she assured Charlotte, from pure agony of spirit.

  “For consider my position!” begged Fanny Davis. “Not only had I poor Stephen to think for, I had also, a little, myself. The misconstructions I might have been open to, changing from younger to elder!—Not in years, of course—poor Stephen!—but so far as concerned all position! To marry Charles, your son, would alter my situation completely, from being last I should be first; and weak, even deceitful as it was to keep silent, Charles himself urged it, till health should be restored.”

  My father was a barrister. I had enough legal blood in me to realise, dimly, that something was being put to Charlotte. She hadn’t asked why Fanny kept silent; if she did, she was answered in advance.—But of this Charlotte herself probably saw nothing. She hadn’t yet spoken. She stood exactly where Grace and Rachel had left her, without stirring, letting Fanny talk; needing perhaps so many reiterations—her silence forcing Fanny into repetition—before she could finally comprehend what she heard.

  “So you’m betrothed to my son Charles,” said she at last. “Be that it, Fanny Davis?”

  I thought Fanny controlled a movement of impatience. But her voice remained smooth as silk.

  “Yes, indeed, dear Mrs. Toby,” said she. “Can you find it in your heart to blame me? He quite god-like in his handsomeness! The French call it the coup de foudre.”

  “’Tis called something other, in Devon,” said my Aunt Charlotte. “What of my kind brother Stephen?”

  “Stephen,” said Fanny firmly, “will understand. I shall always have the greatest regard, the kindest sisterly affection for him; for the very reason that he of all men would never wish me to marry against the dictates of my heart. But for my illness, making any marriage impossible, Stephen should of course have been told long since!” (Again, I felt that something was being put. I also, for the first time, realised, as a criticism, that Fanny talked like a novelette.) But before I had time to examine either reflection, she had hurried on. “I see you wonder,” pursued Fanny rapidly, “why Charles ever left my side? That I can explain at once. He couldn’t endure to see me so weak: the first time he’d loved, his feelings I can only compare to a volcano! He couldn’t endure to see me, he couldn’t endure not to; and now, though I’ve assured him again and again that his presence would quite restore me—as indeed the mere account of him has, from our little friend—” here Fanny raised a beckoning hand—“what do I learn now, from our little friend? That poor Charles is so indebted to his landlady—in other circumstances quite laughable!—he’s not able to leave London!”

  My Aunt Charlotte bent on me, as I advanced, a heavy, anxious look.

  “Be it true, as Fanny says?” asked she.

  I said stubbornly, no.

  Nothing supported me, at that moment, but my affection for Clara Blow. I liked Clara. I loved her—far better, as I’d never till that moment realised, than I loved Fanny Davis. So I said no. I said Clara Blow, and I was very sorry I hadn’t told about her before, was a particular friend of mine; and that she was so good-natured and generous, I was quite sure that whether Charlie’d paid her or not, and I thought in a way he had paid her, she would never try and stop him coming home.

  Fanny Davis shot me an ambiguous glance.

  “Sweet, innocent child!” said she. “Whom neither you nor I, Mrs. Toby, could wish to disillusion!—Don’t be stupid, dear: naturally Miss Blow wants her money—as naturally as Charles can’t compound for it.—For if he wished to marry her,” snapped Fanny Davis, I cannot but think rashly, “what was to stop him?”

  My Aunt Charlotte lifted her head.

  “Maybe his parents’ consent,” said she. “Maybe he still have the grace to ask for that … Do ’ee like this Clara, my dear?”

  I was about to say I liked her very much, when Fanny interrupted.

  “As Charles and I ask it now!” she cried. “Dear Mrs. Toby, let me be your daughter! To me at least how natural, how sweet the relationship will seem! How far, far more natural than any other! Let your kind, generous heart have its way, and welcome me in!”

  “My kind, generous heart,” repeated Charlotte. She appeared to consider the words, to examine them intellectually; I, knowing that heart’s long battle with Grace Beer, to save Fanny from being turned away, read at least some part of her mind. To have done good, and see evil come of it, was a paradox that so caught as it were her moral attention, she simply set the rest of Fanny’s words aside. Or perhaps they too deeply offended her taste …

  Fanny Davis, after a moment, shrugged.

  “Hard as Pharaoh’s, I see!” observed she whimsically. “How fortunate that I can console myself with Charles’! When you’re a little recovered, shall we discuss ways and means? To take up the money in person will I think be so much the best; and if a matter of twenty pounds, or forty, or even more—to have Charles home again, won’t it be amply worth it?”

  However veiled, this was a declaration of war. Rebuffed—as she undoubtedly was, no emotional appeal could have fallen flatter—rebuffed, Fanny declared war; and her smile, lifting a narrow lip above teeth so small and sharp, was victorious already. With a pang of dismay I perceived how sure she was—sure of Charles, sure of herself. To-day, in fact, I see her pretty emotional appeal as nothing more or less than an exercise in virtuosity. Fanny Davis (again the gloss is to-day’s), took a virtuoso’s pleasure in pitting her silver tongue against odds. For once it had failed; but it didn’t matter, because she was so sure.

  “Train-journeys are so remarkably easy,” added Fanny Davis, “I dare say I’ll have him home before the week’s out.…”

  Setting this aside too, setting all aside, my Aunt Charlotte slowly turned herself towards the door.—I suppose that of all the changes that in the past two years had come over her, this was the greatest: she could no longer be angry. Only a twelvemonth ago, at such a tale of treachery, she would have trampled Fanny Davis underfoot—if not quite literally, t
hen at least morally: loosed upon her such a storm of wrath, such a violence of indignation, that Fanny must have been blown about like a leaf in a gale. Now anger failed her. It was as though, in the long battle with Grace Beer, my Aunt Charlotte had fought herself out.

  “You tell I more than I can compass,” said she heavily. “I must speak wi’ my sisters. Can ’ee get yourself to bed, or shall Rachel still assist ’ee?”

  “Dear me, no,” said Fanny Davis. “Since I may be off to London in no time, I must learn to practise my powers!”

  Gravely, my Aunt Charlotte nodded, and went out; and I ran after her.

  2

  “Aunt Charlotte,” cried I, on the landing without, “I didn’t know! If I’d known, about Fanny and Charles, I’d have told you! I didn’t know!”

  “No more than any one of we,” agreed my Aunt Charlotte soothingly. “Do it seem so mistaken a match to ’ee too?”

  I stammered yes, because of Clara. Stammering out more about Clara, and about Charles in London, I grew finally incoherent; my Aunt Charlotte picked me up and carried me to bed. She was still strong enough for that; strong enough for any act of compassion. But she was no longer listening to me very attentively; already her thoughts seemed withdrawn where I could not follow them; by her face, she contemplated catastrophe. I stopped talking and and lay quiet. Whatever had happened, whatever was going to happen, it was no longer a matter for children.

  3

  Emotion had so worn me out that I fell asleep immediately. I must have slept a long time, perhaps my full night’s stretch: for when I awoke, or rather when I was awakened, it was to the unmistakable lack-life, ebb-tide silence of the smallest hours.