She drew me closer to her side. Her fingers, smoothing back my hair, offered the gentlest caress I ever knew; as different from my Aunt Charlotte’s loving hug as from my mother’s cool kiss. Smiling again, sitting a little more erect, she said softly,
“Do you ever recollect, dear, our first conversation of all? In my bedroom, the night I arrived?”
I said I remembered it very well. Even in the midst of so much distress my conceit hoped she was going to remind me how she had asked me to be her little friend, and perhaps thank me because I so beautifully was. But she skipped that part.
“I asked whether I wasn’t causing a great flutter here,” pursued Fanny Davis. “And I remember that you—dear honest little creature!—said no. What should you say to-day?”
This time I answered unhesitatingly. Had I not a lustre-ware plate actually in my hand?—And though this was but a trifle beside the changes in my aunts, and the changed aspect of the parlour, and the changed bearing of my Uncle Stephen, it somehow symbolised all.
“You’ve changed everything,” said I.
She laughed softly, and lay back again on her cushions. I have said that illness made very little difference to her looks: I never saw her so nearly pretty, as at that moment.
2
I didn’t tell her.
Not because my aunts trusted me, nor because I feared the effect of what I had to tell upon Fanny’s innocent confidence; simply because I couldn’t. All children know this tongue-tiedness. (All children keep a great deal in their lives dark, not because they wish to, but because an almost physical impediment stops their mouths. Children are bullied by schoolmates, or mistreated by servants, without telling; sooner than tell—since a word in the right quarter might end their pains.) I, in my dilemma, simply found myself as it were over-ruled by this universal law of childhood; and didn’t tell, because I couldn’t.
My distress of mind was no less acute. I knew that Grace wasn’t to be under-estimated, however boldly Charlotte fronted her: if Rachel was a reed, reeds, breaking, prick the hand. It was only by contemplating my Uncle Stephen that I was able to hold my spirits at anything like their normal pitch.
What the rest of the Sylvester men thought, or felt, at this time, I naturally didn’t know. Fortunately Stephen was the only one who mattered, and recalling our conversation by the pig-styes I saw him—if all else failed, if he at last had to be brought into the quarrel—an ally perfectly indomitable. So long as he lived, he would never let Fanny be turned away. (Angrily—if he was content, why couldn’t my aunts be? thought I. That his name hadn’t been figured in their argument was something I forgot.) When I thought of my Uncle Stephen I grew almost comfortable again; saw my fears perhaps foolish, my aunts’ angry words perhaps but an over-flow of ill-temper. (Never examining its roots: my aunts essentially the three most even-tempered women alive.) Shutting my eyes, then, blindfolding them as best I could, instead of telling Fanny I did exactly as my Uncle Stephen had urged me, and as my own amateur-doctoring prompted: I gave her what to-day would be called a build-up.
I expressed constant admiration of her short-cut hair. I said it looked like several pictures in the National Gallery.
Instead of persuading her to discourage her visitors, I became more than ever assiduous at their tea-table.
I let Miss Jones kiss me.
I changed library-books in Frampton even if I had to walk both ways.
I unweariedly filled my rôle of little friend, little maid, little toady. If I didn’t quite fill my rôle of little messenger, it was because, as I have explained, I couldn’t. I did everything possible for Fanny except tell; and if the omission sometimes made me feel guilty, at least I had my confidence in Stephen as excuse.
Conversely, I didn’t tell my aunts about Fanny’s letters.
3
She received three that summer.
I have described how rare letters were, at the farm. Fanny received, that summer, three; but they weren’t remarked because they weren’t directly addressed. Miss Jones brought them. I alone knew. I alone observed the extra archness in Miss Jones’ manner on the Tuesday or Thursday when she had an envelope to slip from hand to hand. I knew Fanny Davis in correspondence with someone; and thought immediately of her aristocratic connections. But she was so honourable that when once she observed me—saw my eye on a letter passed from her hand to Miss Jones’—she instantly told me it was to a totally undistinguished friend of youth.
“Apprenticed with me in Plymouth,” said Fanny Davis, “a milliner, in fact, just as I was, but now removed to London … Never let good fortune make you proud, dear,” said Fanny Davis. “Always remember the friends of your youth.…”
I do not now recall how I gathered, from such a beautiful sentiment, the strong impression my aunts weren’t to know. But I did, and held my tongue.
4
So the summer wore away.—If I use the winter-phrase, the phrase properly belonging to my winter, London exile, it is because Fanny’s parlour, in its fire-lit snugness, presented the bright reverse of the winter-medal. I haunted there more and more, more and more turned my back on the life of the farm without. This was understandable; in Fanny’s parlour life drifted so serenely, so untroubled by any imminence of storm. Without, I smelled thunder perpetually in the air. For though my aunts evidently came to some agreement among themselves, I felt it to be only temporary—directly, in fact, only towards me. They never again let me hear them quarrel outright. But they weren’t as they had been, they no longer dispensed the old corporate good-humour, the old wealth of easy kindness, and for this I blamed them severely.
Naturally I thought they still loved me. I was too young, that summer to realise love can be worn away. I relied on my aunts’ love for me as upon the heat of the August sun, not realising that to choose winter—the winter of Fanny’s parlour—was also to choose, inevitably, less of sun’s warmth; and was therefore totally unprepared for the shock about to be administered to me by my Aunt Charlotte.
I had made some casual reference to my return the following year. “When I come back next year,” I think I said, “I shall bring a lot more books.” (Fanny had almost exhausted Frampton library.) “When I come back next year,” said I, “I shall bring a whole box-full.”
“Shall’ee?” said my Aunt Charlotte.
Something in her tone stopped my breath. I stared.—I see her most clearly: she was plucking a goose, and the white of its plumage on her blue-checked apron, the red of her cheeks, the tawny of her braids, together made up such a picture as the Dutchmen loved to paint. But the Dutch school is placid; my Aunt Charlotte’s big hands jerked roughly at the pin-feathers, her scarlet was angry. I said uneasily,
“Of course I shall. They won’t be very heavy.”
“In any event, ’twill be betwixt ’ee and the carrier,” said my Aunt Charlotte.
I was not deceived. It flashed through my mind how easily she could write to my mother and with some excuse fob me off. It occurred, more slowly, that she might wish to.… I am happy to say that I forgot all my disapproval of her, and instantly flung myself at her lap.
“Aunt Charlotte!” I cried. “Aunt Charlotte, if I can’t come back, I shall die!”
—I dare say I would have wept, but that my eyes were full of goose-down. I rubbed at them furiously, and saw her drop upon me a look not angry any more. It was a look like my Uncle Stephen’s: a look of compassion. But she veiled it, quickly, with something of her old humour.
“Which would be a very sad thing indeed,” said she, “so young as ’ee be! ’Tis lucky maids don’t die so readily, with good homes and good parents to sustain ’em.”
“I shall cough,” said I. “I shall cough and cough. I’ve a very weak chest. Aunt Charlotte, I’ll die.”
She sighed. She still had such a big sigh, the goose-down fanned up again.
“Now ’ee looks like a Christmas-tree fay,” said she—still, I think, striving after lightness. But lightness never came readily to a Sylvester:
and we both knew the moment’s import. She said, reasonably, “Where’s the sense, my lamb, coming hither for country air, to sit all day at a fire? Do ’ee fancy ’tis that they intend who send ’ee? Don’t ’ee see I blamed, and most rightly, for permitting it?—as I blame myself,” said my Aunt Charlotte. “As I do most gravely blame myself …”
I sat back on my heels. This was an aspect of the situation that hadn’t occurred to me. I said,
“If you let me come back next year, I’ll go for walks.”
(The promise was more striking than it may sound. Farmers’ wives, farm-women in general, no more walk for pleasure than they fly, they leave such idiocy to summer-visitors. It was as though I promised to take a cure.)
“No doubt ’twould be a very clever thing,” said my Aunt Charlotte—grave as Dr. Lush. “’Ee might also remember to cut our lavender.”
“And I’ll draw the crab-tree,” I promised eagerly, “in silver-point. I meant to this year, only I forgot. And it’s so warm in the little yard, I dare say Fanny could sit outside too, if we wrapped her very carefully—”
I broke off: too late. The name instantly re-produced a constraint. But I still felt closer to my Aunt Charlotte than for some time; perhaps I also, in my relief and conceit, saw myself as a little peace-maker. I said boldly,
“Aunt Charlotte—if Stephen doesn’t mind, why should anyone else?”
“And what b’aint Stephen to mind?”
“Waiting. Waiting till Fanny’s better. I’m sure he doesn’t.”
My Aunt Charlotte laughed. But it wasn’t her old laugh, it wasn’t her old, free salutation before life’s jocund face. It held something of Grace’s irony.
“A proper saint among Sylvesters be he, then? ’Tis the last thing yet we’m set to swallow! But as ’ee knows so much I may tell ’ee more: I care but for the Sylvester name, borne by saint or sinner makes no odds; for which reason and for which alone, never fear, Fanny bides. Now do ’ee run and show your cleverness before she, who’m better fitted than I to value it.…”
So, essentially, we parted: I, for all her anger, pretty sure of my return, and knowing Fanny equally secure of tenure. But something had been lost, as the goose-down flew up and away, between my Aunt Charlotte and myself; I should return, not to her, but to Fanny Davis.
A week later the carrier fetched me and I went home. This time I made my farewells to Fanny in the parlour; she pressing kisses on me with particular, almost meaningful, vehemence.—“You’ll always remember, dear, won’t you, you’re my little friend?” said Fanny. “If any odd conjuncture, of persons or circumstances, should occur, you will always remember you’re my little friend?” I assured her passionately that I would. I went out, my carry-all in my hand, to the gate. My Aunts Charlotte and Grace and Rachel stood there ready to wave me away.—They stood apart; my Aunt Charlotte a pace or two in advance, my Aunts Grace and Rachel not flanking her, but each taking her own position. I kissed them too, hurriedly, and jumped up into the cart.
PART THREE
CHAPTER XII
1
London was autumn. The plane-trees bordering our Bayswater streets afforded me leaves and bark to please my Botany mistress. (I won a prize, that year, for Botany. It was Cathedrals Shown to the Children.) London was winter. Fires were lit at last, even in the school-room, and ointment laid in for my inevitable chilblains. Christmas loomed, half St. Nicholas, half ogre—for I wasn’t a success at parties. In a way my summer-life at the farm made me too adult for them; I couldn’t take Musical Chairs seriously. Also I was clumsy, and when I did make a dive for a seat, too often knocked my rival down. This wasn’t the accepted mode, in Bayswater.—Postman’s Knock found me equally maladroit: to one pimply youth who called me out I presented such a face of scorn that he never kissed me at all. (He complained of this, I learned afterwards, to my brother Frederick; but his father was in trade, and Frederick snubbed him even more thoroughly than I.)—The official gaieties passed off, my brothers went back to their school, I to mine. Spring term re-absorbed us. I returned to my home-work as usual, as usual alone, in our northward-looking schoolroom.…
From the time I left the farm until the middle of February nothing agreeable or interesting happened to me, except my Botany prize. Marguerite was still my friend, I found her a bore, but hesitated to show it lest I should be thought jealous of her superior prettiness. (The social life of children is just as complex as that of their elders.) She still came to tea on Saturdays, or I went to tea with her. On Wednesdays, as usual, I walked in Kensington Gardens with a cook.
And that Saturday was Marguerite’s, and Wednesday the Gardens’, and not the other way round, was to prove a point of the utmost importance: since it was on a Wednesday in Kensington Gardens, about the middle of February, that I again saw my Cousin Charles.
We were following, Cook and I, our usual route along the Broad Walk. At its midmost point the Walk parallels the Round Pond; and there, a dozen yards or so to the left of the path, I saw my Cousin Charles.
He stood watching some children with a boat.—Or rather, he stood, and the children played where his eye fell on them. This impression was as strong as it was surprising: I had never seen a Sylvester simply stand before. My uncles indeed planted themselves motionless for minutes on end, at field-gate or in byre, but always, one felt, to revolve some problem of crop or stock. They stood because they couldn’t do two things at once: they stood to think. I now received the impression that Charles watched the children and their boat simply because they happened to fill his field of vision; that he wasn’t thinking about them, or about anything else. He stood, in fact, less like a person than like a tree.
Tall too as a tree. He was taller than anyone else in the Gardens. If I hadn’t recognized him by his black Sylvester head, bare and rough-locked, I should have known him by his height; also by his own peculiarly lounging carriage. He was the only one of the Sylvesters who so held himself; Tobias’ majesty, Stephen’s looseness of limb, combined only in Charles to produce this indolent but most masculine grace.…
I glanced towards Cook. She had an eye for tall dark strangers, who frequently appeared in her tea-cup. But her glance on this occasion was turned towards Kensington, and she didn’t notice him. How gladly, if she wanted to ‘look at the shops’, would I have urged her on! I was determined not to miss my chance again, as I’d missed it on Exeter station, I was more anxious to address Charles than ever. Because what was he doing there? Why was he in London? I was certain my Aunt Charlotte didn’t know him so close; every scanty reference to his departure had suggested him gone foreign again … Beside the mysteriousness of my Cousin Charles’ presence in London even the mystery of Fanny’s illness paled: I thought of at least a dozen questions I wanted to put to him at once.
Only not with Cook there. I said hastily,
“Don’t you want to look at the shops? It’s a very cold day.”
Alas, so it was. Cook shopped only when the weather was cold. On very cold afternoons we simply scamped our walk, I not unwillingly concealing myself in the warm kitchen until the moment of our official return. So Cook decided we should do now; and turning her face homewards, inevitably turned mine too.
I had still, this time, seen Charles. I didn’t this time take him for a dream. He was here, where I was, in London; I had a great deal to find out.
2
Children are never surprised by coincidences. Hitherto, when I left the farm, I left it absolutely; not a letter, not a visit, linked my Devonshire and London lives. I might have been two separate children, each drawing breath solely in one or the other place. But when a few days after seeing Charles in the Gardens, I received a letter with a Frampton post-mark, I was hardly surprised at all.
It was from Fanny Davis. Rather unfortunately, it arrived by the mid-day post, when my mother was active. (My father, at breakfast, wouldn’t have noticed if I’d received a bomb.) However I resourcefully poured out, before my mother reached to take the letter from me, such coun
try-news of cats about to kitten, cows due to calve, as I knew she had no interest in, and which Fanny had thoughtfully provided. The real importance of the letter lay in its postscript, and in the fat enclosure I instinctively let fall in my lap. “Post the enclosed, dear, as soon as you may,” wrote Fanny Davis. “My little friend!”
I immediately assumed, without giving the matter any thought at all, Miss Jones somehow unavailable: my last summer at the farm having educated me in certain devious procedures. I thought Fanny was again writing to one of her humble friends, at so humble an address she didn’t wish my aunts to see it.—But the coincidence was more striking still. When on my way to afternoon school, I took out the envelope and looked at it—fully expecting to read, for instance, a direction to a Miss Smith in Brixton—I saw it addressed instead to Mr. Charles Sylvester.
The vigour of my imagination was so equal to any situation, that I, who never until that moment had imagined Fanny and Charles to be in correspondence, instantly leapt to the conclusion that Charles’ return eighteen months earlier had resulted in some terrible breach with Tobias—too terrible even for my Aunt Charlotte to tell me about—which Fanny was seeking to heal.
The more I considered it, (all through English History with Miss White), the more probable it seemed. (What a smug little girl was I, sitting demurely at my desk, revolving such adult speculations! I kept the letter wrapped in my handkerchief. Luckily I hadn’t, for once, a spring cold.) I remembered how curiously little Charles was spoken of, last summer; apart from describing his triumph at the Assembly, Charlotte hadn’t talked about him at all. No one had talked about Charles. (Yes: my aunt Rachel said how kind he’d been to Fanny.) He kind to Fanny, why should not Fanny be thoughtful of him? I remembered her anxiety over his proper status as heir. I assumed unhesitatingly there had been some breach—
The Gypsy in the Parlour Page 9
