The Gypsy in the Parlour Page 5

  They were, naturally, mahogany. All the furnishings were excellent, which was another reason why our house was so dark. What was good, at that period, was dark. Dark mahogany, dark oak; dark wallpapers, dark velvet curtains; even the most violent aniline dyes—purple and magenta and spinach-green—soon darkened, in London, to a uniform prune-colour. All our clothes were dark too, so as not to show the dirt. It was a curious yet typical fact that what might have been my one touch of exoticism—the one garment my mother brought me home from Paris—was a black school-child’s blouse. I wore it to do my home-work.

  The winter passed. I had nothing to complain of. I wasn’t actively unhappy at school. I was rather a clever child. I never knew the misery of a bad report. Also I had a friend. Her name was Marguerite, her father was an important banker, so I was allowed to bring her home to tea on Saturdays. I didn’t like her much, but she was my friend. On my other half-holiday, Wednesday, I was walked in Kensington Gardens by a cook. I necessarily employ the indefinite article because my mother changed them, or they changed her, so constantly. Most little girls walked with a governess or parlourmaid; I went to school, and our own Toptree was so experienced and well-trained, my mother wouldn’t risk losing her by even suggesting a duty she would certainly have refused. Cooks were another matter; cooks simply couldn’t be kept at all. (Fortunately for myself they all took in novelettes. I got on with them all.) Our regular promenade was the Broad Walk, the grass being nearly always considered too damp for my boots: cooks also liked the Broad Walk because it led insensibly towards Kensington, with its High Street and its drapers, and also, I fear, its public houses. A cook abandoning me, as sometimes happened, to go and ‘look at the shops,’ more often than not returned smelling strongly of trifle. I naturally never mentioned this. Children and servants have to connive, and I was always glad of the opportunity to run on grass. Some cooks looked at my boots, some didn’t. Some brought me back peppermints, accepting one themselves. I grew, in time, as expert on cooks as other children on guinea-pigs; a cook-fancier.…

  I had nothing to complain of, but I dreamed of the farm almost every night.

  I also, once, dreamed of my Cousin Charles.

  I dreamed that one evening, when my parents were dining out, I drifted alone into the empty drawing-room. It was about eight o’clock: I had had my supper. I didn’t go to bed till half-past. So I wandered into the drawing-room, and thence looked out through a window upon the street below.

  A man stood looking up at me.

  Or if not at me, at our house. He stood just as Fanny Davis stood under the crab, motionless, most fixedly at gaze. I recognized him for Charles immediately. I put my hand on the sash to throw up the window and call out to him; once again I was too late. The glass was still between us as I called ‘Charles!’ to him, as he moved, turned, and with his swift, lounging stride walked away.

  I never dreamed of him again, much as I tried. I thought about him whenever I thought of the farm. But I was still too essentially a child to fit him into the shape one might have expected, I never imagined him the man of my choice adumbrated by Fanny Davis. Charles was real, and a real suitor would have terrified me. I did most earnestly hope he would be there, when I got back, but chiefly because I hoped he might take me fishing. I didn’t think my Uncle Stephen would. I already foresaw matrimony, even with my beloved Fanny Davis, ranging him with his elder brothers as a silent, adult Sylvester. I was rather remarkably well prepared for his taking no further notice of me; but I thought that if Charles, (so much nearer to me in age), was at all interested in fishing, or birds’-nests, he might make my next summer at the farm the best summer of all …

  So the winter wore away. At Easter, I coughed noticeably. I didn’t cough enough to be sent to Devon. My brothers came home for the holiday, and as usual ignored me. Their grander friends occasionally lunched with us; I was permitted to invite Marguerite, (her father so prominent a banker), and found a certain satisfaction in seeing her ignored too. (Prematurely; my elder brother Frederick eventually married her. It was she who left him, in 1906, for a dubious Austrian count.) Summer term received me willingly back to school; I got through it, did well in my examinations, and began to cough again. Actually I needn’t have bothered: it was thoroughly accepted, it was found an admirable trouble-saving arrangement, that I should spend my summers at the farm.

  I now travelled alone. I was twelve, and had made the journey so many times before. By the time I reached Exeter my ankles ached through pushing the floor with my feet, to make the train go faster: whenever a London-bound train rattled past, I quivered with apprehension lest my Cousin Charles should be among its passengers. But I arrived, at last I arrived—and there, at the gate, stood my Aunt Charlotte.

  3

  She had thrown over her head a light scarf or shawl, which made her look a little different; but her big welcoming hug winded me just as usual. I gasped, half-smothered, on her bosom—hay and lavender, hay and lavender!—kissed her, came up for air, and instantly asked if Charles was still there.

  She laughed.

  “What a memory ’ee do have! No, my lamb, Charlie b’aint here. He bided no more than two-three weeks.…”

  I felt my heart drop. I was so chagrined, and I knew so unreasonably, that to cover my disappointment I said the first thing that came into my mind. I asked if Fanny had a baby.

  My Aunt Charlotte hesitated.—I looked at her in astonishment. It always and beautifully happened that the moment I reached the farm every London-inhibition dropped from tongue and spirit. In London, I still officially believed in gooseberry-bushes, and never dreamed for a moment of admitting to better sense; at the farm, I interestedly worked out dates. Now, to my enormous surprise, my Aunt Charlotte turned on me a look as disconcerted, as embarrassed, as would have been my mother’s.…

  But at least she explained. Obviously she had to. For her explanation—which included another, why Fanny Davis never wrote to me about her wedding—was simply that no wedding had taken place.

  Fanny Davis and my Uncle Stephen weren’t married. Fanny was still living at the farm, and still as Stephen’s betrothed; but the wedding hadn’t taken place.

  CHAPTER VI

  1

  There was enough in this to drive all else from my mind. I stood there at the gate, staring up at my Aunt Charlotte, waiting for her to go on. Fanny hadn’t married my Uncle Stephen, but was still betrothed to him; there hadn’t been a wedding—so I shouldn’t have been bridesmaid; so no wonder Fanny never wrote to me.… If I set down such phrases, so disjointedly, it is to mirror my absolute bewilderment. “But why—?” I demanded of my Aunt Charlotte. “What happened?” I had some idea, I leapt to some wild notion, of aristocratic relations belatedly springing up to forbid Fanny’s vows; my Aunt Charlotte’s further explanation quelled it.

  “Fanny’s not found herself quite so well,” said my Aunt Charlotte, carefully. She didn’t make any move towards the house; perhaps she meant to answer all my questions first. “From the very morning after the Assembly, her found herself very poorly indeed.… So us had Dr. Lush over from Frampton, who bade she wait a while, before so great an undertaking as marriage …”

  “But that’s a year ago,” said I—scarcely less bewildered. “Isn’t she better yet?”

  “Us do greatly fear,” said my Aunt Charlotte gravely, “her be in a decline.”

  At these solemn words—amongst the most solemn in the whole medical vocabulary of the period—my heart, I regret to say, not only quivered in sympathy, but also, very slightly, leapt. Declines were scarcely less interesting than marriages to me, and in any case Fanny’s wedding would have been over.—I suppose my excitement must have shown in my face, for Charlotte immediately added.

  “And ’ee b’aint to go bothering and questioning she, since peacefulness be her only hope, if she’m ever to wed without disaster; and when ’ee sees her after tea, ’ee must mind and speak softly, for noise her cannot abide.”

  We went into the hou
se. Usually I rushed in—calling out to my aunts, clattering up the stairs, dashing down again to the kitchen—but Charlotte’s quiet, almost cautious step controlled mine. We went upstairs quietly. My new bed-chamber flaunted its promised new curtains, big pink roses on a yellow ground, and a new square of pink carpet made a rosy island in the middle of the floor. I so genuinely admired these beauties, my praises satisfied everyone. (The door of my old chamber was shut; I tiptoed past, under the mistaken impression that Fanny lay resting behind it. She in fact lay resting in the parlour.) Tea was magnificent, with all my favourite cakes, to show how glad my aunts were to have me back.—But in a sense all this was but my journey over again; I now longed only to see, and talk with, Fanny Davis.

  The promised moment, like the moment of my arrival, was reached at last. My Aunt Rachel slipped into the parlour, and emerged with a tray; my Aunt Charlotte led me to the door. “Fanny?” called my Aunt Charlotte softly. “Can ’ee see a visitor from London?” Within, a low affirmative murmur replied. I pushed open the door, and shot through.

  2

  All poised as I was to fly to Fanny’s side, I was nonetheless pulled up, held a moment absolutely dumb and motionless on the threshold, by the changed aspect of my aunts’ parlour.

  It had turned into a sick-room.

  It was a most minor detail that I noticed first: the lustre-ware was no longer in the cabinet. Nothing replaced it, the shelves were empty; and this at once gave the whole room an air, not of disuse, but of being used for some unaccustomed purpose.—Very noticeably, there was less light: the red brocade curtains, that used to be caught back by gilt rosettes, hung almost across the windows. Thus much less sun could enter, and what did missed, by intent, both prisms and andirons; in the hearth burned a small fire, fire- and sun-light oppose each other. Everything was dimmed. If I hadn’t known already that the person on the sofa was sick, I should have guessed it at once.…

  “Is that my little friend?” breathed Fanny Davis. “Come closer, dear.”

  I advanced. She was lying on a sofa. I recognized it as new. She was fully dressed, but had arranged over her knees, as a coverlet, my Aunt Charlotte’s Paisley shawl. On a little table at her side a novel and a plate of plums completed the picture.

  I was most relieved to see she didn’t look as ill as might have been expected. She had never had much colour, and now had no less; she didn’t even look much thinner. What startled me was her hair, which was cropped short.—In those days, I think invalids were cropped almost on principle; certainly cropping—“All her pretty hair cut off!”—featured regularly in cooks’ novelettes. But since Fanny Davis’ hair hadn’t been pretty at all, the damage to her appearance was trifling. All in all, I, who hated, like most children, the ugliness of the sick, was enormously relieved.

  “My little friend from London!” whispered Fanny Davis.

  She held out her hand. I took it cautiously. It lay in my own small and weightless as a bird’s claw.

  “I’m so sorry to hear you’re not well,” said I. (The scene was really solemn; I felt it called for formality. Of course if it had been Charlotte lying there I would have cast myself into her lap, I would have cried and hugged and kissed, and probably been turned out.) And evidently I struck the right note: with a gentle smile Fanny pressed my hand, and observed that my coming was a great comfort to her.

  In a low voice, I said I was glad. There was a brief pause, like a pause on the stage.—I cannot tell why I thought of this, but for a moment we really did seem like characters in a play—Fanny the heroine, I her little comfort. Perhaps it was because I had spoken so beautifully; certainly Fanny’s long sigh, at last breaking silence, was beautiful and artistic too.

  “For here I lie alone all day,” sighed she, “all too busy, most naturally, to come near! But now I’ve my little friend back; and what more can a poor invalid ask?”

  I was so moved, I couldn’t speak. Still holding Fanny’s hand, I dropped to my knees by her sofa; and as she gently stroked my hair thrust my head closer, to spare her effort.—So pressing a cheek to Charlotte’s Paisley shawl; but how oblivious, for the moment, of Charlotte!

  “This,” said Fanny softly, “is what I have so longed for! I’ve always felt, dear, such sympathy between us … And mayn’t we have pleasant times together still—weak and dull as I am—so long as we can share sympathy?”

  I enthusiastically agreed. I already yearned to do all in my power to console her.—It was perhaps witless, however—I actually made the offer still in my new, low voice—to propose playing ‘Chopsticks’ to her straight away. She shuddered. But seeing my crestfallen look at once put out her hand again, and again smoothed back my hair.

  “Such pretty, pretty hair!” murmured Fanny Davis. “And such pretty, pretty music! It’s just that a bird at the window, dear, sets my foolish nerves a-flutter. But you shall be with me, if you will, all day long; and amuse me with London talk, and tell me just how many parties your mamma gave last winter; and run in and out from the house, like a little Queen’s Messenger, bringing me all the news … Will you, dear?”

  I promised eagerly. I promised to run in and out continually, even when there was no news at all.

  “Just what’s said, just what’s thought, will interest me,” breathed Fanny Davis. “My little friend!”

  I don’t remember our talking, that evening, very much more. I just sat by the sofa holding Fanny’s hand. Though there were a great many questions I longed to ask—whether it didn’t feel very dreadful, for instance, suddenly not to get married; and why, and what had happened—not delicacy alone, nor my Aunt Charlotte’s injunctions, tied my tongue. The whole atmosphere of the parlour, dim, over-warm, which I wasn’t then accustomed to, conduced to a mood I can only, and best, describe as—accepting. As Fanny, apparently, accepted her affliction, so I accepted it too. (I was later to discover the same attitude in my Uncle Stephen.) Even the changed aspect of the parlour was acceptable; its new quiet, its new dimness, so obviously necessary to sustain Fanny’s flickering spark of life. I noticed my aunts’ famous clock no longer ticking, its sun suspended in mid-course; when Fanny told me how the chimes bruised her nerves, I instantly accepted its silencing as necessary … Unless we spoke, the parlour was perfectly still; which stillness only a boor could have broken with interrogations.

  So I didn’t put any questions to Fanny. I still didn’t want to go away. The fascination of Fanny Davis’ society had never depended on straight answers to straight questions: it lay rather in questions unanswered, in the aura of mystery with which everything about her, even to her illness, seemed to surround itself. (Might I not perhaps, in the long summer that stretched ahead, find out?) I should have been quite happy sitting on and on till bed-time, I felt reluctant as though it were winter to leave Fanny’s fire; and when my Aunt Charlotte fetched me for supper, scuffed reluctantly out.

  3

  Something else was changed, at the farm: my Uncle Tobias sat in his father’s place.

  Seeing him that night at supper at the head of the table, I didn’t think much of it. My mind was full of Fanny Davis: I had forgotten, during a year’s absence, how ritually old Mr. Sylvester’s chair, when he didn’t eat with us, was left vacant. Latterly he had occupied it less and less; my aunts put him to bed like a baby. Tobias heading the table therefore seemed matter-of-course to me; of my uncles I had eyes only for Stephen, whom I was rather pleased than not to find interestingly haggard. (What he must have suffered! That was something else I had to find out.) My uncles, always silent, were no more so than usual, my aunts as usual conversed between themselves. But I think my Aunt Charlotte was watching me; I think she observed that I did not; and that night after I was in bed came with practical kindness to tell me as much as I needed to know.

  Old Mr. Sylvester was dead; but it made no difference.

  I understood at once. Even I had seen that for years he played no part in life: I remembered him only as the little old, white falcon, blinking on his perch in a warm
corner. In his warm corner, I heard now, he had at last blinked out his life; departing so quietly, with so little warning, there wasn’t even time to call his sons. Charlotte alone saw him away—Grace running out to the fields, Rachel to the byres, when they so suddenly perceived his hands loosen on his knees, and his head drop down on his breast, and the death-sweat break on his forehead, just as he sat, just as usual, in the sun, by the kitchen-window. My Aunt Charlotte stayed to ease him with a grip of her hand.—“So large-fisted as I be,” said Charlotte, “and so dim his poor eyes at last, I do trust he took I for Tobias.” For by the time his sons tramped in, he was gone.

  If I was a good deal affected, it was chiefly for the simple reason that old Mr. Sylvester was the first person I ever knew who had died. He had been, and no longer was. I was also, at this time, slightly religious, with a tendency to contemplate hell; and I had liked Mr. Sylvester just sufficiently to worry, just a little, about where he’d gone. My Aunt Charlotte relieved me at once.

  “’Ee and I, I do trust, be both Christians,” said she. “Mr. Sylvester, by token of all him ever said or acted, was so pagan as a savage. Nonetheless, seeing what fine property him bequeathed Tobias, and regarding moreover the gentleness of his latter years, us may hope to meet he in Paradise. Be us worthy,” added my Aunt Charlotte severely, “for ruffian as he was, on my first acquaintance wi’ he, his last days gave no more offence than a babe unborn’s.…”

  She had the largest charity of any woman I have ever known.—Long afterwards I learned that she first supported, then apprenticed, no fewer than three of his bastards in Frampton. It didn’t cost so much, in those days; but my Aunt Charlotte also dispatched to each, each Christmas, a fine fruity cake; and still held her father-in-law’s memory respectable.