The Gypsy in the Parlour by Margery Sharp

her old big laugh.—We were a long way from the parlour, so Fanny couldn’t hear us.
    â€œHe asked his old mother,” said she. “He invited I, my lamb, to stand up wi’ him for the Lancers! As the handsomest woman present, said he! Goes wi’out saying I denied ’un, so he took Fanny again; but I’ll lay there be few females in Devon have refused both Lord-Lieutenant and their own big, handsome son.”
    We didn’t stay much longer. When I asked where Charlie was now, and why he’d gone off, she simply shrugged her big shoulders. All Sylvesters being so wild as hawks, and in particular so hating any authority over them, Charlie’d gone off as ’twere by nature. When him wrote, she’d a good mind to summon him back; but in the meantime contentedly basked in the recollection of his, and her, Assembly-triumphs. She could recall every single one of his partners—including the Lord-Lieutenant’s daughter. “Bred just as ’ee, my lamb,” gloried my Aunt Charlotte, “in the best of London schools—yet not too proud to stand up wi’ my Charlie, and indeed complimenting he after the valse, upon his remarkable stepping!”
    It was a pity we couldn’t stay longer; she had her multifarious duties, I a handkerchief to take to Fanny. But we had recaptured, if only for minutes, the old, golden happiness: as my Aunt Charlotte stood laughing beside the crab-tree, with its leaves in her hair.—I remember the incident particularly, as one remembers a last up-shooting ray, before the sun sets.

CHAPTER X
    1
    The first time I heard my aunts quarrel, it was as though the skies fell.
    They were all upstairs in the great linen-closet. There was an enormous quantity of linen at the farm, each aunt having her separate store, marked with her own maiden initials; about once a year, when they needed new pudding-cloths, it was all taken out, and gone through, and regraded from unused best to ready for cutting up. As a rule my aunts enjoyed this business enormously: they had a great feeling for linen, and so loyally and lengthily admired each other’s double-damask napkins, or hand-worked runners or Irish linen sheets, it was often a couple of hours before the last pile was hoisted back in place. On this occasion, to make things even pleasanter, they were replenishing the lavender-bags at the same time: when I looked in all the small muslin sacks lay empty in a neat pile, their contents tipped into, and almost filling, a two-quart measure, and my Aunt Rachel stood spoon in hand beside a great fragrant purple mound on a great wooden tray.
    The scent was indescribably delicious. I determined to stay and help. Just as I was about to advance this proposal, my Aunt Rachel, turning to smile at me, with a brush of her big arm sent a sprinkle of lavender over Grace’s counted napkins; and Grace called her a clumsy fool.
    â€œGrace Beer, hold thy tongue,” said Charlotte.
    â€œThen let Rachel hold her great fist. My stars, so mad I be driven by her clumsiness, ’tis like working with a bullock.”
    â€œSure enough ’ee should know their ways,” retorted Charlotte, “only bullocks buying damask so shoddy ’tis damaged by a blossom. Sweep away the mighty disaster, Rachel, ere Grace’s bed-linen also reveals its cheap worth.…”
    I stared incredulously at the tiny palmful of lavender Rachel managed to scoop up. I could almost count the grains: a dozen, no more, and most sweet-scented. I couldn’t believe they had caused the first quarrel I ever heard between my aunts.
    2
    As of course they had not. The roots of the quarrelling lay far deeper. But it was some time before I realised what these were: even after I had overheard, more than once, my Aunt Grace snap that Fanny should be sent away, I was still so far from comprehending that I thought she meant Fanny should be sent to the sea, to try sea-air, or even to