The Gypsy in the Parlour (20 page)

Fanny Davis, with her small smile, observed and said nothing. I alone, I think, observed
her
. Our relations had cooled; she felt me under her thumb again, but so to speak on my promotion. I was no longer so unquestionedly her little friend: she suspected me still of a weakness for Clara Blow.—Which indeed I still harboured, to my unhappiness; for I alone—again—saw Fanny likelier than Charlotte to win the battle in London.

Because I knew Fanny Davis so well. The scales of romantic attachment dropped from my eyes as completely as suddenly: children so hate duplicity. I couldn't forgive her two-years' foxing of me, her joining with me in surmise as to my Cousin Charles' whereabouts—as she had done, more than once, probably with a letter from him in her pocket. I nonetheless admitted her cleverness—because she
had
foxed me. Upon perfectly dispassionate reflection, I rated her so much cleverer than my Cousin Charles, or my Aunt Charlotte, or Clara Blow, I didn't see how one of them, or all combined, stood a chance against her.

Moreover, if Charlotte looked rejuvenated, Fanny Davis looked pretty.

Bustle, astonishingly enough, appeared to suit her also. Dipping between work-basket and kettle—all her movements informed by what I can only describe as
irony
—Fanny Davis also, quietly, bloomed. She found a way of arranging her short hair that was almost fashionable: an Alexandra fringe kissed her eyebrows. I thought of Clara's galumphing coiffure, and hoped Charles insensible to elegance. Hoped, but unconvincedly; all male Sylvesters having a curious knack of seizing upon the currently admired.…

There arose also, discussed against the smell of baking and hot irons, the question of where Fanny and Charlotte should lodge.

Here Charlotte spoke strongly: all reputable Norfolk having from time immemorial put up at the Flower in Hand, by Bishopsgate Station. My Aunt Grace proposed the Bush, time immemorial used by Devon folk, hard by Paddington; so that one felt as 'twere the West Country
backing
one, by its regular service of powerful trains.—Most quietly, now, most insinuatingly, Fanny Davis put in her words; weren't both these nice places, however nice, really no more nor less than
public houses?
For two females alone perhaps—unsuitable? “A small, quiet hotel,” suggested Fanny Davis, “if one can't stay with one's friends, or relations—wouldn't some small, quiet hotel be
really
more suitable?”

I felt her eye on me as she spoke. She had already breathed to me a plan which I at once saw impossible, of staying with my parents. I said firmly that I knew of several small, quiet hotels. Fortunately no one took any notice of me; pressed, I could have named only Claridge's.

“Where Fanny bides I naturally mayn't control,” said Charlotte more firmly still. “Where I bide will be the Flower in Hand.”

Of course Fanny had no choice, because Charlotte would be paying. They went to the Flower in Hand.

3

I can no better describe the scope of these preparations than by saying that my uncles noticed them; with the consequence that Charlotte was forced into the first untruth I ever heard her tell.

She said she was taking Fanny to London to see a doctor.

It was either tell that, my aunts agreed amongst themselves, or tell all, and Fanny Davis acquiesced in the deception. She was I think no more eager than they to thrust enlightenment upon Stephen any sooner than necessary; for all her confidence in his understanding—which she never ceased to affirm—she could not fail to anticipate a painful moment. “Only that, dear, no more,” she assured me more than once. “That it must be painful, to both of us, goes without saying; but as soon as the first shock is over, Stephen will understand. Indeed, I sometimes think he has forgotten me already!—during this last year almost ceasing to visit my couch! Still, it will be better all the same to have Charles at my side—such a weak little person as I am! Don't imagine for one moment, dear, I accuse my poor Stephen of
fickleness:
it's just that I know he'll regard it as a happy release …”

Fanny therefore practised her powers only when the men were abroad; retreating, at their return, from the ironing-board in the kitchen to the parlour-couch; and only occasionally, to demonstrate the improvement on which. Charlotte based her great plan, making a sort of official appearance on the landing.—The first time my Uncle Stephen saw her there I happened to be present; and as he slowly, almost timidly mounted towards her—Fanny at last on her feet again, though at this moment a little drooping—
I
felt the pain already on us. My Uncle Stephen's face was so set in lines of patience, he could hardly achieve a smile; but his patient voice lifted.

“Be 'ee truly better, Fanny, my dear?” said he. “Be 'ee truly on the way to recovery?”

Fanny Davis drooped a little more.

“Who knows?” she murmured. “Oh, Stephen, who can tell? Pray, pray don't build your hopes!”

He reached her side and cautiously took her hand. Fanny allowed it to rest passive on his enormous palm.

“I was never a chap hopeful beyond measure,” said he. “But if this London doctor be all Charlotte hears of he, and seeing 'ee already so strengthened of your own nature, give I leave to hope proportionately. Take every care upon the journey, my dear, and confide all troublesomeness to Charlotte.”

I learnt, long afterwards, that he sought out Charlotte that same night and pressed upon her his personal fortune of twenty pounds as fee and journey-money. Charlotte took it. Money was short all round, just then, at the farm, and she had contemplated selling the pair to her tallboy. So she took Stephen's savings because it was the practical thing to do.

My other uncles, as usual, afforded us no clue to their sentiments. Tobias, upon the prospect of his wife's absence for a period of several days, became silent absolutely. (“Charlotte'll win his consent a-bed,” said my Aunt Grace—practically.) At least no obstacle was placed in our travellers' path: the baking and dressmaking proceeded in full vigour, I drew several maps, the last shaded, indicating the locality of Brocket Place, five days passed and all was ready.

My Uncle Stephen drove them to the station in our trap. My Aunts Grace and Rachel, and of course myself, trooped out to see Charlotte and Fanny climb up. I remember, crossing the bitterness of being left behind, a sensation of extreme pride in my Aunt Charlotte's splendid, hussar-like appearance. The flowers in her bonnet garlanded her like a victorious warrior; stacked about with baskets of food, as it might have been with the spoils of war, she sat perfectly erect, perfectly composed, perfectly, (to all outward seeming), confident. Beside her Fanny Davis huddled in her shawl, all features extinguished under the limp, drooping brim of her black straw hat. I, and I think I only, caught her glance as the vehicle was set in motion: from under that limp black brim she shot me a look as full of triumph, as of malice.

We who were left behind could now do no more than wait.

CHAPTER XXII

1

While we waited, an odd thing happened. There sprung up at the farm a spirit of gaiety. All our official looks were sober, we never ceased, at least to begin with, to cast most anxious thoughts after Charlotte; thrusting up from which, as snowdrops from hardest winter-soil, gaiety nonetheless peered. My Aunts Grace and Rachel, passing each other in hall or passageway, exchanged involuntary smiles. Their new-old shouting matches grew gradually hilarious, they began to laugh at anything, at nothing, simply to catch up, as it were, on laughter. Rachel, with no need to bake at all, frivolously made dough to cut me a family of cat and kittens: Grace, from the breast-bone of a goose, made me a jumping frog. Also, of course, they turned out the parlour.

I find it hard to discover a comparison for the zeal with which my aunts set about this work. (Or perhaps the mother of a child stolen by gypsies, her offspring regained, might so set about cleansing its body, burning its rags, clothing it afresh.) Every single portable object was carried out onto the landing, and thence, as space became congested, into Fanny's bedroom. The vacant floor was then swept, then polished; the Turkey carpet, hung over a line in the court, beaten into insensibility. We washed each lustre separately. We rubbed the fire-irons till they shone like gold. Grace took the cabinet-doors off their hinges, the better to scour their panes. Every item of Rachel's lustre-ware was washed in Castile-soap shavings and warm water, before being set back in place. I won delighted praise for my notion of re-stringing the harp, to make it look more seemly, with lengths of discarded fishing-twine. Fanny's sofa was beaten, and polished. The needlework-chair was brushed with two sets of clean brushes—one hard, one soft. We didn't move out the piano, but we polished that too; and I distinctly remember employing my tooth-powder on its keys.

When all was finished, and set back in place, my aunts decided that the carpet should have been
washed;
so took it up again, and while they were about it gave the floor a second beeswaxing, for good measure, and out of sheer light-heartedness.

Even amongst the men I recall, if not gaiety, at least a certain relaxation. Our mealtimes were no less silent, but an over-flow of cake and pastry loaded the table, and my uncles were cheered by nothing so much as food. They ate even more than usual, it may be their contentment had no other spring; but for whatever reason, whether from appetites ideally satisfied, or because they too felt Fanny's absence a relief, the clouds about their heads perceptibly lifted.—The reason for Stephen's lightening of spirit of course needed no conjecture; and shadowed
my
days.

I felt he should be prepared.

This notion, carried from my Aunt Grace scouring the china-cabinet to my Aunt Rachel washing lustre-ware, received small encouragement. Since all things must take their course, said Grace, and Rachel echoed her, no use to meet trouble halfway—a retreat from reality which shocked me deeply. I forgot that no Sylvester could do two things at once: they couldn't think about Stephen, because their minds were fixed on their parlour. They said Charlotte had bade all keep still tongues. When I persisted that Charlotte had said nothing against Stephen's being prepared, only against his being
told
, they didn't, I think, even hear me. I therefore loitered down to the pig-styes, at the appropriate hour, on a private mission.

My Uncle Stephen was still far easier to draw into conversation than Tobias: he noticed me almost at once, and to my opening remark, that I hoped Charlotte and Fanny got to London safely, replied after only a moment or two, most like they had.

(I should say that I alone, during these few momentous days, watched for a letter. No Sylvester did. I had begged Charlotte to write, or even
telegraph
to us; she nodded the proposal aside as a childish fancy. Even shyer of a pen than most Sylvesters—shy as of some black art—she had neither written to Charlie to meet her, nor allowed me to do so on her behalf. I still hoped for a line from Fanny; which didn't come.)

“How did they
look
, Uncle Stephen?” I asked cautiously. “How did Aunt Charlotte and Fanny seem, when they got to the station?”

He considered. I saw him withdraw his thoughts from me, from the present, and cast them back towards Exeter station. It naturally took a little time.

“Charlotte,” said my Uncle Stephen at last, “commanded a chap to bear in their belongings just as 'twere her natural right.… As to Fanny, her appeared most amazingly upheld. Also hopeful,” added my Uncle Stephen, after a moment's further research. “In fact, I b'aint able to remember she, my little dear; so uplifted, and so hopeful-seeming, since our first Plymouth meeting …”

I was twelve, he nearing forty. I trembled for him. I said impetuously,

“Uncle Stephen, if you don't marry Fanny
ever
, will it wreck your life?”

Like one of our huge farm-horses, like the very incarnation of all docile strength, my Uncle Stephen bent his big head.

“B'aint us all as grass?” said he gravely. “As weeds to be cut down and put in the Lord's oven? Do Fanny grow brave enough to wed, most gladly will I wed she; do her still decline, b'aint I in the happy situation to offer she for ever a kindly home? Where be the wreckage of my life in that?”

He spoke poetry, he spoke like the Bible; I nonetheless felt slightly impatient with him. I wished him more, at that moment, the legendary black Sylvester male. I didn't put my last question—what if Fanny, recovered, married anyone else?—I felt so sure he would have a fresh New Testament answer for me. Sylvesters weren't New Testament, they were Old: Tobias, I was certain, would never so tamely have acquiesced in the rape of his bride. (The point wasn't, I in justice repeat, put to Stephen directly; I still, I think accurately, perceived the trend of his mind. My Uncle Stephen was already one step removed from human failings, or feelings. He was Christian. From a worldly standpoint, from the farm's standpoint, a smack of pagan self-regarding would have been more useful.) I said,

“Uncle Stephen, if Fanny gets better, do you mind what she does at all?”

“Not so be it suits she,” said my Uncle Stephen, gently.

At least I had prepared him. If the hope that sprung up in my mind, actually during our conversation—the hope that Stephen might by some violent act of will prevent Fanny and Charles from marrying—if this hope was dashed as soon as formed, at least I had prepared him. It seemed unlikely that he would be forced to leave home. But when I said something of the sort to my Aunt Grace, she absently retorted—and only absence could have made her speak so, to me—that 'twould be a very different case altogether, did Stephen ever see Charles and Fanny bedded. I could only hope her mistaken.

2

Two days passed. Three days passed: my Aunt Rachel at least began to wonder had our travellers borne sufficient provision. I confident in the hospitality of Jackson's Economical Saloon, grimly suggested the greater danger of their being run over by omnibuses—because they wouldn't take me with them. Both my aunts regarded this as a joke.—Their laughter rang now continuously as of old, as in the days when I first knew them: each hour of this period carrying so great a respite. Their spirits soared. The parlour, reaching its former pitch of perfection, made their increasing joy. My uncles, stuffed with rich food, yawned contentedly. Lolled in a sunny doldrums, thoughtlessly the Sylvesters took their ease …