The Gypsy in the Parlour (22 page)

At last seizing her cue, Fanny flung herself forward upon Charlie's neck, and hung there like a bat, and burst into a flood of happy tears. Clara Blow instantly plucked her away and dropped her back upon a chair. There, Fanny's happy tears turned to hysteria. Clara, no doubt swearing like a trooper, dashed a glassful of water over her, then from an ingrained habit of cleaning up rubbed her dry with a napkin. When all this was over Charlie and my Aunt Charlotte still hadn't stirred.

“Charlie bor,” said my Aunt Charlotte moderately, “it seems 'ee be a bone of contention.”

She had to speak rather loudly, to top Fanny's sobs; but as she turned enquiringly to Clara, these rapidly diminished.

Fanny Davis too turned to Clara Blow; who was fortunately able to repeat to me her very words. I didn't wonder she remembered them, for they were notable.

“Mrs. Sylvester, I wouldn't take him as a gift,” said Clara Blow. “I am a person never wanted bread yet, nor ever will. I make no claim upon him whatsoever; if he has accepted of my hospitality, he's earned, with a bit of pushing, his keep. Far be it from me to offend a lady I both esteem and admire, and I hope we may still have a mutual business connection in the future; but I wouldn't take Charlie as a gift.”

So spoke, or said she spoke, Clara Blow. (Doubtless she polished it up a bit afterwards. I have equally no doubt that she gave me a generally accurate outline.)

“That be plain talk at least,” said my Aunt Charlotte approvingly, “and seems the field be left clear for Fanny Davis. (Who'm miraculously recovered,” threw in Charlotte superfluously.) “Well, Charlie bor?”

What Charles would have answered was never known, Fanny Davis being now in full voice again.

“Field left clear, indeed!” cried she. “
Oh
, what hypocrites am I fallen among! Are not Charles and I engaged? Haven't we been engaged these two years? Haven't we but waited till I regained strength, to marry? Charles, my love, tell your mother the truth! Admit your debts, which we have come to pay! Let Miss Blow list every last item—since for all her fine talk don't we know how she holds you? For heaven's sake, my love, speak!”

I don't know if Clara generously polished up this speech too, I can say only that it sounds exactly like Fanny Davis. And I think Charles really must have spoken at last. Almost incredibly, my Cousin Charles hadn't yet uttered a single word; but I think he must have spoken then—only Taffy Griffiths saved him.

3

“Which was really a riot, dear,” said Clara Blow. “Not that I refer to any roughness—far from it! I mean just the way your Auntie handled matters. Six-to-seven-to-eight, Jackson's commonly quiet as a graveyard, chaps never as a rule turning up much before nine; only it just so happened—as it
would
so happen—Taffy Griffiths brought some friends in for a sausage-and-mash before the fight. I think it was the Welterweight. And being mostly Welsh, dear, they do incline to sing a bit; which I must say, their voices being almost professional, I've always looked on it as rather an attraction. It was the
words
, dear,” said Clara frankly, “upset your Auntie. So she told them to clear out.”

“Did they?” asked I, enthralled.

“That's the funny part,” said Clara Blow. “They did. Without Charlie raising a finger, what's more. Of course they saw him
ready
, but really he wasn't needed. Your Auntie just gave 'em a proper tongue-lashing, and out they skedaddled—five bob lost to the till, but I still say well worth it …”

And when Taffy Griffiths and his friends had vanished, so had my Cousin Charles. With them, in fact. Under cover of the riot, mingling with Taffy's friends, my Cousin Charles simply walked out.

“Clara!” I protested. “Oh, Clara, how
could
he?”

“Well, dear, he never did like an upset,” said Clara tolerantly. “That's what made him such a splendid chucker-out.”

So my Cousin Charles walked quietly out; and the three women left behind, their bone of contention no less than the arbiter of their fates withdrawn, faced something of an anticlimax. (The shepherd Paris on Mount Ida might equally have discountenanced three goddesses.) Fanny Davis was probably quite right to grow hysterical again, she could have done nothing more socially useful. By common consent the whole debate was postponed; and Clara Blow went out and found another cab, and in it my Aunt Charlotte and Fanny Davis returned to the Flower in Hand.

I have omitted the fact that they there shared a room. Economy, prudence, convention—every possible consideration made it inevitable. But I have often wondered what sort of a night they spent, side by side in the same double bed.

CHAPTER XXIV

1

My Aunt Charlotte at least slept sufficiently well to have energy, next day, for quite extensive sight-seeing.

She visited the Tower of London, Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey; and if such a programme in the circumstances smacks of frivolity, I can but repeat her subsequent explanation to my Aunts Grace and Rachel: she had never visited London before, and in all probability never would again. My Aunts Grace and Rachel accepted this unhesitatingly, and only marvelled how Charlotte got about. (She got about in omnibuses. She found their conductors very civil. She found the police very civil also. In fact, my Aunt Charlotte found all London very civil to her. I see the trail of staggered Cockneys in her wake. She was such a great, good-humoured, handsome Whopper.) Moreover, she had already complete faith in Clara Blow's ability to produce Charlie when and as required; and so after a substantial breakfast off her own eggs and bacon set out to see the sights.

Fanny Davis, on the other hand, relapsing into fragility, took breakfast in bed, and didn't set off on her own account until considerably later. Thus their paths for the major part of Wednesday diverged; and in any case I very much doubt whether Charlotte would have followed Fanny Davis'. My Aunt Charlotte's big nature included several delicacies:
I
was domiciled at the farm summer after summer, but she never felt this gave her a claim to my parents' London hospitality, because I was paid for at some infinitesimal sum per week. Fanny Davis' object, that Wednesday, was to visit my father and cadge free legal advice.

2

Of this episode I heard far more than I wished as soon as I got home.

“If you have ever insinuated,” said my father, “to any of your mother's down-at-heel Devonshire connections, that I am open to a little pettifogging rural business—such as might arise, for example, over a parcel of disputed hen-coops, or some bucolic breach-of-promise—I shall be greatly obliged if you will disillusion them.”

It was then I knew Fanny Davis had visited him. He couldn't possibly so refer to my Aunt Charlotte—and how strongly I wished it had been she, not Fanny, who bearded him! I felt even my father must have recognized Charlotte's quality. I was too much afraid of him to point out that Fanny Davis wasn't a Sylvester at all. I simply stammered I was sorry, I hadn't insinuated anything …

My father had nonetheless been subjected to persecution. I felt at the time, as I feel now, his language exaggerated. Fanny Davis merely caught him at lunch. By a piece of luck, she found him lunching at home. (He in fact quite often came home to lunch while my mother was away, to enjoy the emptiness of the house. There could have been no other reason, since all our cooks thought he did it to keep them up to the mark, and in revenge served specially unappetising food.) Nor did Fanny actually interrupt his repast; our experienced parlourmaid Toptree kept her waiting in the hall till he had finished, and announced her only with the coffee. (This again an act of revenge: one glance must have identified Fanny Davis, to any experienced eye, as a person one wasn't at home to. Top-tree hadn't quite the audacity to interrupt the master's lunch, so compromised on annoying him at his coffee. Parlourmaids also resent being kept up to the mark.) To my father at his coffee, and at his first cigar of the day, Fanny Davis therefore entered; and instantly made on him the worst possible impression.

“I admit,” said my father, with elaborate irony, “to a certain astonishment. Some moon-calf charged with poaching, even with manslaughter: some collapsed hayrick of a rustic matron, anxious for her young at the Assizes: either well-worn character, however hopelessly beyond my aid, would have surprised me less. Indeed, would have offended me less. A milliner involved in breach-of-promise I found offensive absolutely …”

How did he guess Fanny Davis a milliner? I didn't like to ask. And as I didn't think she'd
told
, I could only imagine Fanny Davis' millinerishness undisguisable as ineradicable. Leaving the point aside, I nervously enquired what my father had said.

“I instructed her, naturally, to go away,” said he, “and take advice of some local man.”

So my father and Miss Jones agreed. Miss Jones also was a milliner; I didn't think my father would be quite pleased to know of this second opinion, so to speak, so thoroughly in agreement with his own. At the time—for this particular conversation took place in the autumn, all the events of the summer behind me—I was chiefly concerned to re-establish Sylvester repute. It wasn't easy. Toptree, who listened throughout at the dining-room door, reported Fanny Davis' recital of her wrongs enough to blacken every Sylvester living. (“Crimes you usually find only in the Bible,” said Toptree, with relish. “Only to think, miss, of a young lady among such folk! I wonder your Ma don't shudder.”) My father undoubtedly took much the same view. (Allying himself, however unconsciously, now with a parlourmaid. No one ever pointed this sort of thing out to him, which was a pity. His opinion of himself, because never challenged, in time led him to such impatience with the slightest opposition that we couldn't even have people to dinner.) Fortunately my mother proved more broad-minded: she hadn't encountered Fanny Davis personally, and my own healthy looks afforded so good an excuse for not taking me to Bournemouth with the boys, she would never hear an anti-Sylvester word.
All
county families, said she, had their hangers-on: my father had acted with exactly his usual good judgment in warning off one of the Sylvesters': so there was no reason in the world for my ceasing to frequent them. “I don't suppose the child knows a thing about it—whatever the imbroglio may be,” said my mother; in which opinion, as may be imagined, I loyally backed her. In time, the row subsided.

The fact relevant to Fanny Davis' and my Aunt Charlotte's London expedition was that Fanny failed to enlist my father's aid.

She thus wasted the major part of Wednesday altogether. (Charlotte at least saw the sights.) They rejoined forces, if such a term may stand, late that afternoon: when Charlotte coming in to rest her feet found Fanny once more prone upon the double bed. After a short breathing-space Charlotte again ordered a cab capable of penetrating to Brocket Place.

“Though if 'ee don't wish to accompany I,” said she considerately, “I'll bear Charlie your kind regards.”

Of course Fanny Davis accompanied her.

3

My Cousin Charles was upstairs, sleeping it off.

Clara Blow told Charlotte this at once. Where he'd been, night before, she couldn't say, except with Taffy Griffiths—and undoubtedly up to no good, because he hadn't come back till after noon. “And then sick as a dog, dear,” said Clara Blow, with less than her usual tolerance. “I don't say he can't
take
it, Mrs. Sylvester, no more'n I'd say a man ain't 'titled, time to time, to his skinful. Only Charlie I must say
can
take it …” “Devon cider be a powerful brew,” said my Aunt Charlotte, perhaps a touch complacently. “London gin's a sight worse,” retorted Clara, suddenly sharp. “Which Charlie ought to be got off. I must say this is the first time I've ever seen signs on him; and I must say I don't like it.”

From a person who wouldn't take Charlie as a gift, this was disinterested. Charlotte looked at her kindly; and after remarking there was plenty of time to let he slumber an hour or two more, tactfully asked to see the kitchen. Clara flounced ahead, with some difficulty my Aunt Charlotte was manoeuvred down a ladder-like stair into Jackson's subterranean base of operations. (What she saw there was never described. But recalling subsequent, reiterated exclamations of thankfulness that they'd borne their own provision, I suspect every horror save cockroaches. I don't think there could have been cockroaches, because the exterminator was in that Spring.) Fanny Davis, who refused to accompany them, remained seated above in the Saloon.

There they left her, and there she stayed. She didn't take the bolder step of going up to Charlie. Delicacy forbade. Victoria was on the throne, and Fanny Davis nothing if not refined. She was greatly ambitious, and quite ruthless, she would have sold up the Sylvester farm, thrust, ruthlessly, all Sylvesters into whatever almshouse could accommodate them: delicacy nonetheless forbade her to risk encountering Charlie unbreeched. So she sat and waited; and doubtless fretted, and felt angry as I did at my Aunt Charlotte's lavish attitude to time. Fanny Davis, to be sure, fretted only an hour or so, whereas I, two summers before, fretted months; but hers was the more painful suspense.

When Clara and my Aunt Charlotte returned, they made a light supper. After what Charlotte must have seen below, I find her appetite for sausage-rolls, (as reported to me by Clara), little short of heroic. Heroic in courtesy, she ate five. Clara, equally courteous, but more easily, ate Charlotte's cold chicken; and Fanny Davis ate nothing. If all ears pricked equally at any sound from above—and Clara told me she once quite jumped, but it was only Charlie falling off the bed—at least Clara and Charlotte had chat to cover their preoccupation.—Quite possibly my Aunt Charlotte wasn't preoccupied at all; she never could think of two things at once, she knew Charlie safe to hand upstairs, and the notion of supplying Jackson's with poultry was one to appeal to her most strongly. She had an excellent business-sense, unfortunately frustrated by her epoch; she could have run the farm, but for her sex, as well as any Sylvester male. The possibility of purveying Jackson's opened as it were a door; to-day I see her supplying half London's hotels …