The Gypsy in the Parlour Read online

  “But you must,” I persisted, “you must have said something to her, at the Assembly? Something, I mean, to make her give up Uncle Stephen?”

  He looked vague.

  “Maybe,” he agreed, vaguely. “Home cider be a powerful brew, and us filled ourselves proper ere setting out. Maybe I did swear a bit more undyingness than suited.”

  If I had been the size of my Aunt Charlotte, I would have shaken him.

  “But didn’t you see, next day, what you’d done? Didn’t you see Fanny would wait for you?”

  He smiled.—The sweet Sylvester smile, so rare, so disproportionately effective, changed his whole face. I, angry as I was, melted before it.

  “B’aint that true?” said my Cousin Charles thoughtfully. “They wait …” (How many in Australia alone, thought I?) “But where Fanny had the pull, do ’ee see, was that her was to home … Guarding my interests. ’Twas so her put it in her letters: guarding my interests. So naturally I was bound to reply, to keep she still.”

  “By Miss Jones,” said I, “because you were ashamed to write direct!”

  He considered; finally, with the eternal Sylvester motion, shook his big, handsome head.

  “Fanny was right enough there,” said he. “Letters, save at proper tides, be too astounding for folk’s comfort; moreover the sight of my first might well have brought all to light—But the damned time I spent penning ’em! ’Twas hard labour, no less,” said Charles earnestly, “and specially as Clara couldn’t aid I.”

  “And why,” I asked severely, “not?”

  “Stands to reason,” said my Cousin Charles. “One female b’aint penning to another love and de-vo-ti-on, on behalf of the same chap.”

  He was incorrigible. I understand him now better than I did then—but still with the reservation: incorrigible. Yet his handsomeness wasn’t his fault; nature had made him so handsome he couldn’t walk down a street without attracting every female glance. He was as handsome as his father Tobias, and as mild as his Uncle Stephen. The one Sylvester quality he lacked was will. Looking back, I am astounded that no one had married him sooner. He escaped, I imagine, as the jellyfish escapes the shore-fisher’s net; by sheer amorphousness …

  But he had in full measure the cardinal Sylvester quality of all. He had the Sylvester feeling for land.

  “Did Fanny ever tell ’ee,” he asked me once, “of her design I should sell up the farm? Us to bide in Plymouth, so landless as rats? But for that, I’d maybe have returned and out-faced all; I never did see Stephen a match for she …”

  So Fanny Davis, with all her boldness, and all her resolution, defeated her own ends. She saw her chance and seized it, she enticed Charles Sylvester, eldest son of eldest son, and during those first days of her illness, while he so kindly relieved the women-watchers, bound him firmly with a promise to wed. Then she over-reached herself.—“For I took it,” said Charles, “as naught but a passing fancy, due to her mysterious disease; hearing she speak so pretty and wistful of Plymouth, I took it as but passing weakness. So to cheer she, I agreed.”

  This was so like Charles, I instantly believed him. And I knew how beguiling Fanny could be, weak and helpless on bed or sofa, cooing out soft complaint in her wooing, beguiling voice … But when her letters began to arrive in London, each more pressing than the last—urging him, for example, to visit my father and get expert opinion on his rights—then my Cousin Charles took alarm. He saw Fanny so determined on her outrageous plan, he was literally afraid to come home.

  “For I feared her’d get hold of I again,” said Charles frankly, “or at the very least, did I hold out, create some most ’mazing disturbance. So I saw naught for it, but to bide at London.”

  So he bided in London two years. The original plan, as concocted by Fanny Davis, was that he should stay there perhaps a couple of months, seeing and taking opinion of my father while Fanny prepared the ground at the farm. Charles stayed a couple of years, more or less easily reposed upon the bosom of Clara Blow.—He had all the Sylvesters’ lavish attitude to time; no doubt he’d have stayed ten years, or twenty, peaceably chucking-out Jackson’s clientèle, sooner than face any’mazing disturbance at home.…

  “You should have married Clara straight away,” said I.

  He looked at me with genuine reprobation.

  “And I betrothed to Fanny Davis?” said my Cousin Charles.

  He was incorrigible.

  5

  Again I have leapt forward in time. My Aunt Charlotte, and my Cousin Charles, and my friend Clara Blow, and Fanny Davis, are still in Jackson’s Economical Saloon, embattled.

  CHAPTER XXV

  1

  Fanny fought hard. She employed every resource of pathos, guile and venom. When Charlie’s complete, and completely unchivalrous defence left her in the end no leg to stand on, at least as regarded the farm, and when her counterattack, that she’d thought only of his welfare, was almost contemptuously turned aside by Charlotte, Fanny abandoned this position altogether to retreat upon the higher ground of true love. Her affections so thoroughly belonged to Charles, even after his heartless treatment of her, she was prepared to live out her days a simple farmer’s wife. Gladly, at her beloved’s side, would she work her fingers to the bone, seeking no reward but his and his family’s good opinion. My Cousin Charles, with one eye on Clara, who ostentatiously began to count saveloys, replied uncomfortably but firmly, he was sorry, but all that was over. “Is it possible!” cried Fanny Davis piteously. “Oh how is it possible you should say so!” My Cousin Charles said he didn’t ’xactly know; but so ’twas, and he was very sorry. (On this ground he didn’t defend himself at all. He let Fanny, as her temper rose, call him every name she could think of, and when she dissolved back into tears, obligingly allowed her to hang on his neck again.) On the ground of true love Fanny had it all her own way—in fact my Aunt Charlotte, temporarily changing sides, helped her give Charles a thorough dressing-down. Clara Blow also contributed several cutting observations on men of weak character. At this phase of the battle it was undoubtedly Charles who took most punishment; but his wounds couldn’t help Fanny to victory. If he wouldn’t marry her, he wouldn’t. His head was bloody but unbowed.

  Fanny Davis accordingly changed front once more; wiped her eyes, sweetened her voice, forgave my Cousin Charles absolutely, and observed what a fortunate thing it was dear Stephen hadn’t been told.

  The implications of this magnanimity were lost on no one. Clara Blow told me afterwards she could hardly believe her ears: she knowing enough already of how all lived, at the farm, to foresee the extraordinary discomfort, particularly to Charlie’s future wife, of having Fanny Davis permanently on the premises. Which was of course exactly what Fanny foresaw herself, as with a sweet, forgiving smile she went on to assure my Cousin Charles that never, never, never, by word or look, would she remind him of what had once passed between them.

  “For indeed, dear Mrs. Toby,” said she, turning her honey now upon Charlotte, “I have learned my lesson. Hardly taught, to be sure, by lips I believed loving to me! I have been ambitious, I acknowledge it—though only for Charles. I have allowed my heart to sway me, against my promised word. But no more ambition, no more foolhardy loving, shall ever again turn me from the strict path of duty to dear Stephen.”

  I have always thought Clara Blow remarkably generous in her reporting of Fanny’s speeches. She never played them down, if anything she polished them up. (She was a great patron of melodrama.) This one, said Clara, would have touched a heart of stone.

  Fortunately my Aunt Charlotte’s partook more of the nature of oak.

  “What my brother Stephen be ignorant of as yet,” said she stolidly, “him shall learn upon the instant us returns. That is, do ’ee return with I, Fanny Davis; and for all his kind, forgiving nature, knowing what him shall, and against the word of all his kindred, him’ll not take ’ee to wife, Fanny Davis. Howsoever—” the oak being the noblest of trees, and my Aunt Charlotte carved from its heartwood—“howso
ever,” continued she, “I do acknowledge, and with Miss Blow a most sensible and experienced person to witness, certain lightness on my son Charlie’s part in his dealings wi’ ’ee. Therefore, morning-time, us may make rounds of a milliner or two, I having noted more than one announcement on my travels, seeking experienced bonnet-hands. And do a matter of five-ten pounds be needed, to give ’ee proper standing or partnership, that Sylvesters shall furnish. Now b’aint it getting late?”

  This unexpected conclusion, rhetorically perhaps weak, in effect couldn’t have been bettered, because it was. Even for Jackson’s, it was getting late. Tables were filling, Taffy Griffiths was due, and the life of the Saloon, like the life of the farm, carried on across all human hazards. Charlotte, who had been listened to by both Charlie and Clara Blow with extreme admiration, by these last words returned them to their proper business. Clara started towards the kitchen, my Cousin Charles flexed his shoulders; and this sudden switch took the wind from Fanny’s sails. It was as though the strong vitality of the Sylvesters, of Clara Blow, even of the Saloon itself, once again and for the last time elbowed her aside.

  “Speak out your mind if ’ee wish, though there be none to hear,” said my Aunt Charlotte comfortably. “In my opinion, ’ee’d do better to revolve what all must consider very fair words; which, in my opinion again, ’ee can do best in bed. Can ’ee endure to pass another night with I, Fanny Davis?”

  Fanny snapped. Caught in a trap of her own making, she snapped.

  “Certainly!” said she. “Just so Sylvesters can foot the bill, certainly!—if you’re not afraid I’ll stuff poison down your throat!”

  “Did I think ’ee had means of procuring it, maybe I’d not take the chance,” said Charlotte placidly. “Moreover, I hear London police-chaps be uncommon sharp. Charlie bor, fetch we a cab.”

  So that night too they slept side by side.

  2

  My Aunt Charlotte devoted the whole of Thursday to Fanny Davis.

  She was no longer worried about Charles. She knew where he was, and why, and perceived his return home now simply a matter of paying his railway-fare: Fanny she had still on her hands, a Sylvester responsibility. A lesser woman might have felt all responsibility cancelled by Fanny’s behaviour; my Aunt Charlotte worked it out in her mind, and could subsequently give Grace and Rachel excellent reasons for every act. Stephen undeniably bore Fanny from Plymouth, her native place—where presumably she would have behaved better, and Charlie undeniably turned her head at the Assembly, and made she promises he’d no business to, and by raising her ambitions paved the way to all following wickedness: wherefore Sylvesters, though naturally anxious, and entitled, to rid themselves of she, had still the duty to Fanny Davis of seeing her decently placed.

  The pair of them therefore spent Thursday going round bonnet-shops.

  Fanny Davis went because there was nothing else she could do. She had no money, and even her return-ticket was in Charlotte’s pocket. She had lost, and at some point during the night must have faced the fact. But she went unwillingly. Charlotte was astonished: to her mind the prospect of living in London should have been Fanny’s best cure—so sophisticated as she was, with such a taste for urban life. In shop after shop, however, Fanny seemed determined to make the worst possible impression. When asked what experience she had, she replied, Only in the country. (“Plymouth be by some considered a town of size,” suggested Charlotte. “Not as regards fashion,” said Fanny Davis loudly. “As regards fashion, it’s a wilderness.”) When asked if she were strong, she instantly said no, she was subject to fainting-fits; and in fact felt worse for London air. Only when asked what wages she would take were her standards metropolitan; and then so outrageously so, every prospective employer at once showed her the door.

  The truth of course was that London had rebuffed Fanny Davis too thoroughly. She had been rebuffed at Jackson’s, and rebuffed by my father. Even the streets rebuffed her; after her two-years’ seclusion in our parlour she understandably found their noise and bustle terrifying. (She never summoned Charlotte’s courage to see the sights. Except for her one foray to my home, and her cab-journeys to Jackson’s, she spent her every London-moment in a double bedroom at the Flower in Hand.) And when at the end of Thursday’s reconnoitring she cast all sophistication aside, and whimpered that if she were left in London she would die, my Aunt Charlotte, considering her peaked white face, was reluctantly forced to admit it possible.

  When my Aunt Charlotte thought of Plymouth, it seemed a better plan still—so obviously, she wondered she hadn’t pitched on it sooner. For wasn’t Plymouth Fanny’s home? (Charlotte, I believe, to the end of her days blamed Fanny’s uprooting for all that followed. She was extraordinarily cautious, at the farm, of transplanting so much as a bush. She said all plants throve best where they rooted.) Wasn’t Plymouth Fanny’s home—filled with old friends, old associations? Wouldn’t all old acquaintance there remember her, and cry, “Look, here’s Fanny Davis back”?

  These very considerations made Fanny prefer death in London. She had quitted Plymouth in some glory: cocked aloft, both physically and socially, upon a bridegroom’s pony-cart; off to her wedding, bound for the desirable state of matrimony. One or two spinster-cronies, yellow with envy, actually threw old shoes … To return amongst them still spinster-named was more than flesh and blood, said Fanny Davis, could possibly endure; and hinted at making away with herself altogether in preference.

  My Aunt Charlotte, munching pastry in the Flower in Hand’s best bedroom, (Fanny too nervous to eat downstairs), after due consideration admitted this natural enough.

  So it was they came round to Frampton; where Miss Jones, said Fanny Davis, had long sought genteel assistance; and whose privity to Fanny’s sad past, by offering the relief of confidence, would make Fanny’s present sad lot less totally unendurable …

  3

  I still find it almost incredible that this was in fact the solution.

  Fanny Davis returned with Charlotte as far as Frampton, and was there set down to join forces with her friend Miss Jones. Some five-ten pounds was I believe put up for her, buying her into this most modest partnership, and in Frampton Fanny Davis, through all the years of my adolescence, fabricated bonnets for local swells.—Even for the Sylvesters. Her tongue never for a day left them alone, and the Sylvesters cared so little, my aunts regularly bought their bonnets from her. (“Charlotte, what’s she to do here?” “Trim up our bonnets,” said Charlotte, laughing.) After my Cousin Charles married, his wife bought bonnets. I myself occasionally bought a chip straw hat. An extraordinary indifference to opinion, an unawareness of anything not directly touching land, carried my Sylvester connections through, or over, all.…

  My Uncle Stephen’s passage must have been the most painful; but he was so nearly a saint, he traversed it. We had to tell him. My Aunt Charlotte, I am sure with the greatest sympathy and feeling, told him—if not all, at least enough to make him resign himself. Fanny Davis was indeed recovered; but not sufficiently so to contemplate matrimony; and so preferred to return to her old avocation. “Her requiring,” explained my Aunt Charlotte, “some little bustle of business to keep up her spirits; which in our quiet life, how can us hope to furnish?” My Uncle Stephen, Sylvester-like, nodded a big, resigned head. He didn’t seem very much put out. Bachelorhood was become second nature to him, and he never had thought himself worthy of Fanny Davis.—To her my Aunt Charlotte spoke less smoothly. “Though ’ee mayn’t think Sylvesters able for much,” said she, “us can still run ’ee out of Frampton, do us care to tell a tale or two.” “Of Charles’ jilting me?” rejoined Fanny coolly. “Can’t I tell a tale of him?” “Ah, but ’ee be on the losing end of it,” said my Aunt Charlotte. “Live and let live, Fanny Davis; and before all things keep your wiles from my brother Stephen, for I’ll not see he fooled twice. Why not have a try for Mr. Pascoe?” suggested my Aunt Charlotte. “’Ee be no worse-looking than Miss Jones?”

  So Fanny Davis left my Uncle Stephen alone
, while continuing to loose her venom on the Sylvesters. This proved extremely good for trade. In so quiet a neighbourhood any fresh local feud was always welcome as a source of entertainment, and if no one ever got to this one’s exact root, no one the less enjoyed Fanny’s shafts, so that it became rather a popular thing to buy bonnets off her, to hear what she’d say next.—Of this whole tale, I sometimes see this the most remarkable chapter. Fanny Davis, set up with Miss Jones as Frampton’s fashionable milliner, to the end of her life enjoyed all Sylvester custom. Her tongue was never still, she abused, in casual conversation, to each least, casual customer, every one of my aunts. The stream of libel issuing from her shop supplied the scandal-pool of Frampton. My aunts never ceased to buy their bonnets from her. They said she made them fit properly to the back of the head. They cared no more for what Fanny said of them than for the braying of a gypsy’s donkey, strayed back into the Sylvester court.

  4

  I return again to London. My Aunt Charlotte is not yet home.

  She could really have come back on Friday. The several small matters to be settled with Clara Blow might have been attended to on Thursday evening, by cabbing round to the Saloon as usual. (My Aunt Charlotte’s insouciant use of this phrase was a wonder and a joy.) That she didn’t, and that she chose to spend a whole day more in London, was due solely to the fact that she was enjoying herself. Unlike Fanny Davis, she found London purely delightful—not that she’d care to bide there, she reassured us, but as a most wonderful, interesting sight to which even three-four days barely did justice. Her strong nerves, her strong self-confidence, carried her easily through all noise and bustle; she found Londoners, as has been said, most ’mazingly civil, and their shops proper masterpieces. Her own anxieties relieved, the thought that we at home might be anxious still never crossed her mind. (As regards all except myself she was of course right.) So she took Friday morning as a holiday, to look at the shops.