The Gypsy in the Parlour (23 page)

So the hour, the hours passed insensibly: a scattering of early customers called Clara to duty, my Aunt Charlotte noted thoughtfully what each one ate, and what each one paid. The money thrown about astonished her—a penny for a saveloy, a halfpenny for pease-pudding; all mounting up to shillings. (I may say that she kept an eye on Jackson's thenceforward. My Aunt Charlotte was a pioneer of the country-to-London catering trade.) Nor was she in the least put out by the raffish aspect of most of Jackson's customers. She
expected
raffishness, in London; and since even the ungodly had to eat, why shouldn't the righteous profit? Moreover—and this sentiment, uttered some months later, I particularly cherish—why shouldn't even the ungodly, if they paid, purchase wholesome food? “Did our Lord, when Him so miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes,” enquired Charlotte pertinently, “enquire which mouths belonged to church-goers? Wherefore no boiling-fowl goes forth as a roaster, even into the jaws of London chaps …”

I glance too far ahead. We are still in Jackson's Economical Saloon, Wednesday evening, waiting for Charlie to sleep it off.

He appeared about nine o'clock: washed, dressed, in the pink of condition, and obviously prepared with some arrangement of words. He had something in his mind to utter; and surveying the three women ranged before him, but with an eye seeking Clara Blow, immediately spoke.

“Do Taffy Griffiths look in ere midnight,” said my Cousin Charles, “him'll require hot food for eight.”

To both Clara Blow and my Aunt Charlotte these words were absolutely welcome. Each felt towards Charles identically. Each in her way desired nothing so much as to see him accept responsibility. He was now doing so, as regarded Jackson's Economical Saloon; and though but upon a trifle, his words, after the long winter of his indifference, were like snowdrops, presaging a better season. Clara Blow's swift rejoinder, up till one-two-three kitchen's ready for 'em, was a blackbird's shout.…

Then it was—upon this springtide, and possibly to find Charlie's London spring-tide run against her—that my Aunt Charlotte spoke out.

“Charlie bor,” said she, “to see 'ee completely master of all business here be most peculiarly gratifying. And do 'ee choose to bide in London, where Miss Blow reports 'ee already so looked up to, no word of mine shall call 'ee home. But do 'ee aim to return, I'll not deny 'twill rejoice all hearts; seeing the farm also in sad need of management. And do 'ee return wedded to Fanny Davis, again no word shall be spoke. All us asks be, how do 'ee decide?”

She took a risk, and she must have known it, in putting the alternative so squarely to him. It would have been so easy for my Cousin Charles, that easy-going male, to loll a little longer on Clara Blow's, and Jackson's, ample bosom. He took by nature the line of least resistance. My Aunt Charlotte put it to him squarely—with a rider.

“Though this I must state also,” said she, “that do 'ee choose to remain from home, I b'aint able to promise 'ee any 'countable inheritance. Your father Tobias ain't able, bor; and what's masterless land but common? So why not wed wi' Fanny Davis, and return?”

I cannot imagine, even now, how she guessed Fanny Davis keeping him
away
. Obviously her whole gamble was based on the assumption; but to every other view Fanny was drawing him back. Charlotte couldn't tell herself; she simply guessed it. And having guessed, how bold was her approach! She wanted Charles home, without Fanny; backed her guess, and by opening her arms to both, forced Charles at last to frankness, and the point.—That Fanny Davis was instantly on his neck probably rather helped than hindered.

“Yes, Charles,
yes!
” cried Fanny wildly. “
Oh
, what a relief, what a blessing, to find your mother take our part! Hasn't it been but my weakness kept you from me?—Now what shall prevent our marriage, and your return?”

So at last Charlie spoke to the point. He had to. He saw his mother pressing on his marriage to Fanny Davis, with what consequences he alone knew; he saw Clara determined to cast him off for ever; his nostrils smelled Devon soil, he saw the weeds over-grow his own rightful Sylvester land. So he spoke. He said baldly,

“I be more anxious to return than words can tell. Two years since I saw my Dad not able. I be more anxious to return than all the world. But not do it mean wedding Fanny.”

The ensuing confusion of sound must have been immense. “Charles, Charles, my love!” shrieked Fanny Davis. “Chris-sake, what the, hell's he at now?” shouted Clara Blow. “Bor, think what 'ee say!” adjured my Aunt Charlotte. “Why shouldn't 'ee wed the poor toad?”

I imagine the straggle of early patrons—for this whole interesting scene was not unwitnessed: Clara Blow, from her trade, and all Sylvesters by nature, had an aristocratic indifference to publicity—I imagine Jackson's few early patrons awaiting Charlie's reply almost as eagerly as his interlocutors.

“
Ask
she,” said my Cousin Charles, “what Plymouth-town have to offer a chap like I.”

So broke upon my Aunt Charlotte what I already knew: Fanny Davis' intent to see the farm abandoned. Fanny instantly, naturally denied it; my Cousin Charles, with equal stubbornness, persisted in full confession. He wanted to get all out and done with; and as late as the following summer was still relieving his mind to myself.

4

“'Twas all
her
doing,” said my Cousin Charles, “as I don't now mind telling'ee.…”

When I heard my Cousin Charles' tale, it surprised me even more than had Fanny's. For love at first sight, for the
coup de foudre
, how many novelettes had not prepared me? Not one of them had prepared me for Charles' peculiarly unromantic rôle of hero in spite of himself.

As a lover, he was modest, opportunist, easy-going and unconvinced.

He never attempted to deny making love to Fanny Davis. What astounded me was to hear him say he thought 'twould be respectful.
“Respectful?”
I repeated incredulously. “Seeing she bound to my Uncle Stephen,” explained Charles. “I thought to pleasure 'em both by my attentions.…” He was one of the stupidest men, my Cousin Charles, I have ever met. But he was also honest. “I'll not deny,” he admitted, “that Fanny in her fine blue gown made it easy to I. I'd seen no such fashionable females in Australia. And her have a trick of looking beneath her eyelids, 'ee can call naught but enticing … Her enticed I,” said my Cousin Charles frankly.

“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.”