The Gypsy in the Parlour (15 page)

I never could make Clara understand the exact nature of a decline. She had no feeling for the pathos and beauty of invalidism—possibly because she never read novelettes. Her favourite recreation was a good stirring melodrama, she knew
Sweeny Tod the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
almost by heart; so perhaps naturally declines weren't eventful enough for her, and she soon grew tired of hearing about Fanny's. She now inclined to shrug off Fanny's good offices altogether, saying her letters if anything seemed to put Charlie out, she, Clara, thought he'd sooner be without them. “But
he
must have written first!” I protested. “Or how would Fanny know his address? He must have written to her through Miss Jones,
asking
her to help him; and if you knew how Sylvesters hate writing, you'd see how in earnest he is.” Clara, still looking dubious, said
he
said he'd written for shirts. He'd left his best shirts behind. “Really, Clara, that's nonsense,” I retorted. “If he'd just wanted his shirts, he'd have written to Charlotte.” “All right, ask
him
,” said Clara darkly. “What he told
me
was, letters upset his Ma proper; so he wrote by Miss Jones to Miss Davis to send 'em on.”

When I considered this, I saw it possible. I didn't see Charlie believing his mother quite so nerveless as he pretended, but I could see him reluctant, the quarrel with Tobias still unresolved, to admit himself no farther off than London. Sylvesters in argument with their sires went to Australia: a withdrawal of no more than three hundred miles might look like weakness. It was a matter of pride—and so too, I thought, was his anxiety for shirts, they just afforded a face-saving pretext for opening negotiations.…

“Anyway, they never got here,” added Clara gloomily.

“Well, of course one sees why
that
was,” I returned impatiently. “If he wanted everything kept so secret, how could Fanny ask for them? I know where Charlie's shirts are this minute—in the bottom bureau-drawer in my room.”

“That's something,” said Clara.

“And,”
I continued firmly, “though Charlie mayn't like getting Fanny's letters, that's quite obviously because she's telling him he's got to apologise. After all, Uncle Tobias is his father,
he
'll never apologise first; but all Sylvesters are stubborn as rocks, so it's taking Charlie a long time to come round.”

“Maybe,” sighed Clara Blow. “Maybe you're right … One thing I do know; I wouldn't let a ‘Sorry, Dad,' keep
me
away.”

“You aren't a Sylvester,” said I.

2

But how readily she might become one!

When this notion first struck me, it seemed so obvious that I wondered I hadn't thought of it sooner. (I had been
feeling
for it: when I suggested a holiday at the farm for her.) Clara was from every point of view a natural Sylvester woman. She was the right size and shape, her handsomeness made exactly the right hit-you-in-the-eye impact, and she had the right temperament. She wasn't afraid of work, she was sociable, genial and forthright; and she had moreover for nearly two years successfully coped with a Sylvester male.

“Oh, Clara,” cried I impulsively, “why don't you and Charlie get married?”

She didn't say a word. I at first thought she was too much surprised—we had actually been discussing, when this cry burst up from my subconscious, the ideal menu for a Harvest Festival Sunday dinner. “Would chitterlings be too common?” Clara had just asked, when out I burst.…

She didn't say a word. She simply stood, her lips tightly closed against speech, her hands locked before her on Jackson's counter, while the tears over-filled her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks. Because I was a child, I understood. She was crying as I sometimes cried, because I wanted something so badly.

I had to go, it was time. A child has liberty only within limits. Clara's eyes, even tear-filled, directed mine towards the clock. I speechlessly nodded to her, and ran out.

CHAPTER XVI

1

I was an officious child, I was an interfering child: also, I hope, an affectionate one. By this time I loved Clara Blow almost as I loved my aunts. All through that summer term I devoted so much thought to her happiness, I came out at the end only seventh instead of first in class.

I cannot say I didn't enjoy worrying about Clara. I did. To do so gave me a feeling of adult importance; doubled the interest of my already double life, enlarged my secret rôle of little peacemaker to include that of little match-maker also. Yet what could I
do?
(I was always eager to do something: about anything. When the kitchen-chimney caught fire I had to be retrieved by Frederick from the local fire-station—Cook having successfully employed a pail of water. We might nonetheless have been burnt to cinders. When a telegram came for my father, and there was no one else at home, I took a cab to his chambers: I happened to interrupt an important conference, and the telegram merely cancelled a dinner-engagement. It might have called him to a parent's death-bed. I never got credit for my good intentions, but I never learnt.) I never learnt, and I loved Clara Blow; and Wednesday after Wednesday, together we revolved plans.

We had to leave Charlie out of them—except, of course, at the point when he would essentially be
in
. For Charlie, in London, was displaying to an exaggerated degree, (almost as though asserting his birth-right), the country-Sylvester characteristic of letting no one know what he thought. We had to deal with him as an X, an unknown quantity.—Here Clara again, though at the same time I couldn't realise it, showed herself specially fitted for Sylvester-hood. She and Charlie were in fact living man-and-wife, and had done for nearly two years. So far as concerned marriage, she saw this neither for nor against. She didn't know what Charlie thought. When I hopefully suggested that he must be very fond of her, she said, Well, yes, time to time he was all right; but he wasn't a chap to put himself out; if anyone ever did get round to putting the banns up, it wouldn't be Charlie.…

This observation from experience at least enabled us to clear a good deal of ground. We both agreed that if Charlie was married already, in Australia for instance, whoever landed him must have possessed such extraordinary, fixed resolution, she would have never allowed him to stray back home without her. As Clara rightly observed, catch a fish like Charlie, you didn't throw him back.

We therefore presumed him legally free to wed, which was something. But the next, or shot-gun, phase of our planning met a serious obstacle. When I asked Clara, hadn't she any relations, she shook her head.

“If you mean any who'd speak for me, and bring Charlie up to scratch—no,” said Clara Blow flatly. “Grandpa who sent us the turkeys I dare say might have; but he's pushing up the daisies long since. And as to my own Dad and Ma, if living they're best kept out of it. The reason you see me so decent as I am to-day,” said Clara, without rancour, “is that I skipped from home at thirteen.…”

I was never shocked by Clara Blow. Perhaps I ought to have been, myself so well brought up. The fact remains that whatever she told me of parental negligence—worse still, of parental ill-usage; and I once saw a deep, belt-buckle scar on her shoulder—I was never shocked by, I always loved Clara Blow.

Thus it looked as though any relations brought into play would have to be Charlie's: we should have to start from the other end, from the farm.
I
should have to start. Clara, obviously, could not.

Should I write a letter?—and if so, to whom?

The writing of a letter is to a child a highly important act. Children do not drop notes. I had never, for example, written back to Fanny Davis. I couldn't because I had too much to tell her. Should I write then to Charlotte? There was the same objection; moreover even my assurance failed before the scheme of baldly proposing to her a daughter-in-law she had never even heard of.

“'Specially if she don't know Charlie dead or alive,” added Clara.

I said she probably thought him alive, only in Australia. Admittedly it made another difficulty. There really
was
too much to write; good as I was at English composition, I felt here a subject beyond my powers.—For one daft moment I even wondered whether it couldn't be
set
as a composition; we were often invited to suggest topics, and if the whole class had to compose—“Letter to a Mother Breaking the News of her Son's Engagement”—I might garner useful hints. But I saw at once it wouldn't do. It was too unacademic. Even Marguerite's one mild attempt at realism—“Letter to a Dressmaker Saying Where It Doesn't Fit”—had been turned down with contumely. The pattern-subject was “My Pet.”

In the end we decided—for summer approached as we deliberated—that I should wait till I got back to the farm, and there open the matter by word of mouth: present Clara as a friend of my own, who would very much enjoy a country holiday: and leave the rest to Charlotte. I felt we could do this quite safely. My Aunt Charlotte was hospitable as mother-earth, she would certainly ask Clara immediately; and having once seen her, would I felt sure snap her up just as she snapped up Grace Beer and my Aunt Rachel. Charlie would then have to come home to be married—here my imagination easily jumped an awkward fence or two—and who but I, in pink muslin, should follow the bridal pair?

Unless I wore blue, with forgetmenots.

We contemplated this charming picture, Clara Blow and I, for hours on end. As I say, it didn't in the least trouble her that her groom cut so passive a figure therein: country-wise again, she frankly accepted the fact that most marriages were made up by women. (So they were in my own world, but disguisedly. Marguerite's mother and mine, after giving Marguerite and Frederick every encouragement to fall in love, received the official intimation that they had done so with tears of surprise.) Clara was simply more frank. She was frank—how rarely in a woman of her generation!—even in speech: employing no more than my mother's well-bred language of sentiment the novelette-talk of Fanny Davis.—She never, for example, spoke of stealing into Charlotte's heart: she just said she hoped Charlotte would take to her, 'specially after seeing her muscle. Nor was Charles ever ‘dear Charlie' to her, as my Uncle Stephen was always ‘dear Stephen' to Fanny Davis; when Clara spoke of
him
it was often almost belligerently. She promised to handle him. But there could be no doubt in the world of her thorough intent to make a good wife, and a good Sylvester; and I for my part felt I could do all Sylvesters no better turn, than to promote Clara Blow amongst them.

Here at least I made no mistake. Clara Blow, despite her habit of swearing, was among the nicest women I have ever known.

She suggested one variation to my plan, which I agreed to. She felt her position would be altogether stronger if on her arrival at the farm she found Charles already there. She felt, she said, it would kind of break the ice for her if when I mentioned my London friend, Charlie spoke up to acknowledge her his friend also. “Which I dare say would take a good hack on the shin, dear,” said Clara, “but still worth trying …”

I agreed all the more readily that I still cherished—if now as but a detail in the broader masterpiece—the incident of my descent from the carrier's cart in Charlie's company. (My Aunt Charlotte's astonishment, my own central place in the composition.) I therefore, on the last Wednesday before school broke up, with Clara's connivance, tackled Charlie alone.

2

It was deceptively easy. When I panted into Jackson's, Clara wasn't there. No one was there. I pushed the door back and forth until the jangling of the bell brought Charlie from above. Even in trousers and singlet he was still extraordinarily impressive; and even half-asleep, (though he didn't look particularly pleased to see me), still courteous.

“'Seems Clara be abroad,” said he. “Her'll be sorry to miss 'ee; but 'ee've no call to wait.”

I sat down. He was so enormous, I felt not exactly safer, but more out of harm's way, sitting down. Disingenuously I explained that I had come to say good-bye, I was going to the farm on Monday.

“Be 'ee, now?” said my Cousin Charles courteously.—I scanned his face for any trace of wistfulness. But as usual he showed no expression at all. He didn't even look impatient—though his next words might have been considered dismissive. “I'll gladly give Clara your kind message,” said my Cousin Charles; and after a brief pause added that when her did fare abroad, her was commonly many hours from home.

I refused to take the hint. Instead I asked boldly hadn't he any messages for the farm, because I was sure they all longed for news of him?

He slowly shook his big, handsome head.

“All know I wish 'em well,” said he. “There be no news in that.”

This was so typically Sylvester, I couldn't argue with it. There was nothing to do but plunge.

“If you were going home too, we could go together,” said I, as casually as possible. “Do just think, Charlie, how pleased. Aunt Charlotte would be to see you, after all this time! And wouldn't you be pleased too, to see the farm again? And Uncle Tobias and Luke and Matthew, and Aunt Grace and Aunt Rachel? You can't have
forgotten
them—” here, I must admit, I finished foolishly—“you can't possibly have forgotten them, they're too big!”

Foolish as I was, my Cousin Charles looked at me kindly. For the first time he gave me the good, slow, Sylvester smile.

“Aye,” said he, “they'm sizable all right. 'Tis a thing I do never grow used to, at London: the small stature of the population. Do a chap bother Clara, and I be called upon to calm he, 'tis like taking up a terrier. Or some other small dog.”

It was easy to see why my Cousin Charles made such a splendid chucker-out. He was never afraid of anyone, so he was never angry. He chucked out a fighting-drunk as he'd have put out a snapping terrier—quietly, peaceably, without fuss. (Clara told me he once doused a sparring couple with her washing-up water. One saw how his mind worked: he must have been regretting they hadn't tails to be picked up by.) But I wasn't just then concerned with the London career he had so unexpectedly carved out for himself, and I returned to my main point.