Текст книги "The Return of the Gypsy"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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Philippa Carr
The Return of the Gypsy

Romany Jake

I BELIEVE THAT VERY few people who lived through that summer and early autumn of the year 1805 will ever forget it. Throughout the entire country was a feeling of dread of what might be our fate, which was only surpassed by a determination to prevent it. We were a nation preparing for invasion from the most formidable foe any country had ever had to face since the days of Attila the Hun. The Corsican adventurer, Napoleon Bonaparte, had shown the world that he was determined on conquest, and, having subdued the greater part of Europe, was now turning his attention to our island.

His name was on everybody’s lips; any little rumour about him was magnified and passed around; he was generally known as Boney, for nothing is such an antidote to fear as contempt—even if it is assumed—and he was slightingly referred to as The Little Corporal; but the most ominous warning a mother could give to a naughty child was: “If you are not good, Boney will get you”—as though Boney was the devil himself. Boney was the bogey-man and there could have been few in England at that time who did not contemplate his coming to our land with considerable apprehension.

Bands were formed all over the country; weapons were collected and hidden. We looked at the sea which lapped our shores, and whether it was calm and blue, or lashing our beaches in a grey fury, we thanked God for it. It was our great ally because it separated us from that mass of land over which the Emperor Napoleon’s battalions had ranged and where, it seemed, none could deter him.

Enemies became allies in the only cause that mattered. We were all one great family, determined to maintain our independence. We were no little European state to be lightly overrun. Until now we had ruled the seas—and we were going to carry on doing so. We were—we hoped—impregnable in our little island, and thus we were going to remain.

There was talk of little else in our household, and we would sit over meals listening to my father discussing the state of affairs. My father was very much the head of our household. He was the patriarch, the master of us all, one felt. There were only two in the family who knew how to soften him; my mother was one; I was the other.

He was quite old at that time—sixty in fact—for my mother was his second wife, and although they had been in love with each other in their youth, there had been a previous marriage for both of them. My mother already had a grown-up son and daughter by her first marriage—and I was the result of that long delayed union.

This made complicated relationships in our family. For instance, my constant companion, Amaryllis, who had been brought up in the nursery with me, and who was only a month younger than I, was in fact my niece; her mother, Claudine, being my mother’s daughter by her first marriage.

I always felt this gave me a certain superiority over Amaryllis—one month’s superiority plus the fact that I was her aunt.

I used to call her Niece sometimes until Miss Rennie, our governess, told me not to be ridiculous.

“But it is a fact,” I would insist.

“There is no need to stress it,” retorted Miss Rennie. “You are both little girls, and there is scarcely any difference in your ages at all.”

I was not such a pleasant little girl as Amaryllis was. She was fair, with a face rather like the angels of the coloured pictures in our Bible. I sometimes expected to see a halo spring up about her curly head. She was pretty in a fragile way, with blue eyes and long fair lashes, a little heart-shaped face, and hair that curled about her head—hyacinthine locks, someone once called them and the description fitted.

She was very kind and loved animals; her mother, my half sister, Claudine, doted on her, and so did David, her father, who was my father’s son. The relationship seemed more and more complicated whichever way one looked at it. But we were a very close family and few in it were closer than Amaryllis and myself.

We were in the schoolroom together; we had our ponies on the same day; we learned to ride under the tuition of the same riding master; we shared a governess; we were as sisters. But although we were related and scarcely ever out of each other’s presence, we were not in the least alike in looks and temperament

I was very dark—with almost black hair and dark brown eyes, heavy dark brows and lashes. In our family there were very dark-haired and very fair-haired women. The picture gallery bore witness to this. Some of the dark-haired ones had blue eyes, which was a very attractive combination. My ancestress Carlotta and my mother were two of these. They were the dramatic ones, the ones who struck out from conventions when they wanted to. I was one of that kind. Then there were the gentle ones with their pleasant good faces. They were quite a contrast to the dark side of the family.

Amaryllis and I seemed to fit quite neatly into these categories. We were surrounded by love. Amaryllis was the sort of daughter most parents would have chosen had they been given a choice; but I believe my father and mother preferred me as I was. They knew that I might be a little rebellious, that I might act in an unpredictable manner. My mother might have been like that once. As for my father, he had always been bold and determined to get his own way, so he would want a daughter who was a little like himself.

That Amaryllis and I were the best of friends was largely due to her unselfish and forbearing nature. When I seized the more exciting toy or demanded more than my fair share of the rocking horse, she had merely stood aside. It was not that she had no spirit. I was sure that, in a good cause, she would have had a good deal. Perhaps she was wise and from an early age saw the futility of screaming for something which was after all not worth the effort; perhaps she was far sighted enough to realize that after I had taken the prize from her, it had already lost its value because she did not want it as desperately as I had done.

Well, whatever it was, Amaryllis was Amaryllis and I was Jessica, and the two of us were as different as two children brought up together and sharing a nursery and schoolroom could be.

I suppose my parents were not conventional, Dickon, my father, in particular. He made the rules his way and in our household they were law.

When we were eight years old he decreed that we were too old to eat in the nursery with Miss Rennie and we joined out parents at table.

“I like to see the family assembled,” said my father

Our parents encouraged us to talk and listened to our opinions. I was a great talker, egged on by my father who would sit back watching me with his mouth moving almost involuntarily as though he were trying to stop himself laughing. He would argue with me, trying to trip me up, and I always plunged in, stating my views without considering whether they were his or not, for I knew that the more I disagreed with him the more he liked it.

My mother would sit enraptured, her eyes on us both.

And it was the same with Amaryllis; her parents were as proud of her as mine were of me. I could imagine them in their bedrooms alone at night and I could hear my father’s comment: “Amaryllis hasn’t our Jessica’s spirit. I’m glad we have a girl like that.” And in that other bedroom: “What a difference in the two of them! I’m glad Amaryllis is not so forward. Jessica can be almost insolent at times.”

But most important to me, we both had love, the most important thing a child can have.

It was alarming to think that an alien force might intrude on our cosy way of life. My parents were aware of the threat and so, as I have said, was the whole of England. Patriotism flourished. It is only when people are afraid of losing something that they realize how precious it is.

That was what was happening to us in those memorable days of that year.

There is something very comforting about a big manor house which has been the home of a family for generations. Eversleigh was such a house. It overawed me to think that the house had been here long before any one of us was born and it would be there long after we had all gone.

It was also comforting to have the whole family there—my parents and Amaryllis’s. David’s twin brother Jonathan had died a long time before, and his wife Millicent had gone to live with her parents some miles away taking her son Jonathan with her. They should really have stayed at Eversleigh for Jonathan was the heir. I was next in succession and after me Amaryllis. I was a little resentful that Jonathan should come before me just because he was a boy. I was older than he was, and I never forgot to remind Amaryllis that she was a month younger than I. However, Millicent wanted to go to her old home, but although she lived at Pettigrew Hall with her parents she was often at Eversleigh.

I loved the place, especially the antiquity of it, and I often thought of the members of my family who had lived here. I had read so much about them, and I felt I knew some of them personally—generations and generations of them—right back to the days of the great Elizabeth when it was built—the E shaped building dated it without doubt. I loved the old hall with the two wings on either side. Dear Eversleigh!

I found the neighbourhood of immense interest. For one thing the sea was not very far away. I loved to gallop along by the frilly waves and feel the salt sea breeze in my face. “Race you!” I would shout to Amaryllis. I always wanted to race and it was of the utmost importance to me that I win. Amaryllis would come riding along, a pace behind me, smiling happily, not caring in the least who won. Winning was not important, she would say. It was the ride that mattered. Wise Amaryllis!

There were two houses close to ours and I found their inhabitants quite intriguing.

At Enderby was Aunt Sophie, a very sad and tragic figure; she had been badly burned during a fireworks display in Paris at the time of the marriage of Marie Antoinette to the Dauphin who soon afterwards became the ill-fated Louis XVI.

Aunt Sophie was a recluse, living there with her faithful friend and companion-servant Jeanne Fougére. I was not encouraged to visit her often; though she had a certain fondness for Amaryllis. It was an uncanny house. Terrible things had happened there. It was haunted, said the servants; and I could well believe it. Even my half-sister, Claudine, looked strange when we called on Aunt Sophie; and I noticed she looked about her almost as though she was seeing something which was not there.

Aunt Sophie had had a very tragic life. She had not only been terribly scarred but had lost her lover and she never forgot it. She liked to mourn over the past and I had a notion that if things were going well she was not so pleased as she was when they were going badly. All the talk of possible invasion seemed to take years off her life. She herself had come out of revolutionary France with her jewels sewn into her clothes—a story I loved to hear in detail. We did not speak of it often because of Aunt Sophie, and Jonathan my father’s son, who had shared in that adventure, was dead, so he could not tell of it.

Enderby, house of shadows, shut in by tall trees and thick bushes, uncanny, redolent of the past, was a house of mystery and tragedy which must stay so because that was the way Aunt Sophie wanted it.

I should have liked to prowl about that house all alone, for I always enjoyed frightening myself. I felt there was evil in that house. Amaryllis did not feel it. I suppose when one is good—fundamentally good—one does not sense these things as quickly as someone who is more inclined to sin.

But I felt there was something there. Often I would look quickly over my shoulder, expecting to see a sinister figure hastily disappearing. I loved to linger in the minstrels’ gallery for that was said to be especially haunted.

I liked to make Amaryllis call me up from the kitchen when I was in one of the bedrooms for there was a speaking tube connecting the two rooms. Claudine heard us once and asked us not to do it. Amaryllis immediately desisted but I wanted to do it more than ever. It had a fascination for me and when I was younger I used to ask one of the servants to talk to me through the tube.

The other house that interested me was Grasslands—and again it was not the house which fascinated me so much as the people who lived in it. Grasslands was an ordinary small manor house—pleasant without being impressive. There was nothing special about the house itself to arouse my interest. Its inmates were quite another matter.

Old Mrs. Trent, for instance. I was sure she was a witch. She rarely emerged from the house, and it was said she had become a little strange since the suicide of her elder grand-daughter. It was a tragic story and she had never got over it. She lived in Grasslands with another grand-daughter—Dorothy Mather, whom we all knew as Dolly.

Dolly was a strange creature. One met her riding about the countryside; sometimes she would return our greeting; at others pass us by as though she did not see us. She ought to have been attractive; she had a neat figure and pretty, fair hair, but she had a facial disfigurement. One eyelid was drawn down at one side and her face seemed slightly paralysed in a way that gave her a somewhat sinister appearance.

I told Amaryllis that she gave me the shivers and even when she smiled, which was not often, that malformation gave her a mocking look.

Claudine was always trying to be kind to her and telling us we must be the same. “Poor Dolly,” she used to say, “life has been cruel to her.”

Amaryllis would always stop and talk to her and oddly enough Dolly seemed to be a little fascinated by her. She looked at Amaryllis as if she knew something about her which she could tell if she wanted to.

So we lived in our little community which was now threatened by the possibility of invaders who would disrupt our pleasant existence.

It was a lovely September day. There was just a little chill in the air, which was full of the scents of autumn. Amaryllis and I had ridden away from Eversleigh in the company of Miss Rennie, and had come as far as the woods. It was lovely riding under the trees on a carpet of golden and russet leaves. I liked the scrumbling noise the horses’ hooves made as they walked through them.

Miss Rennie was a little breathless. As we had approached the woods I had pressed my horse into a gallop, which always alarmed Miss Rennie. She was not so sure of herself on a horse as she was at the schoolroom desk and was greatly relieved on those days when one of the grooms took over the duty of escorting us.

I was thoughtless in those days and I liked to tease her. It made up for the withering contempt she sometimes had for my scholastic achievements. It was like turning the tables and I am afraid I often set my horse galloping ahead of her, for I knew she had great difficulty in keeping up.

“Race you!” I had cried to Amaryllis; and we were off. Thus we reached the woods a little before Miss Rennie, which was why we came face to face with the gypsy.

“Don’t you think we should wait for Miss Rennie?” cried Amaryllis.

“She’ll catch up,” I replied.

“I think we should wait for her.”

“You wait then.”

“No. We should keep together.”

I laughed and pushed on. And there he was, sitting under a tree. He was very colourful and yet somehow blended in with the landscape. He wore an orange-coloured shirt, open at the neck. I caught a glimpse of a gold chain and there were gold rings in his ears. His breeches were light brown; he had dark hair which curled about his head and brown sparkling eyes. I noticed the flash of very white teeth in a sunburned skin. He began to strum on a guitar when he saw us.

I pulled up my horse and stared at him.

“Good afternoon, my lady,” he said in a musical voice.

“Good afternoon,” I replied.

Amaryllis was now beside me.

He rose and bowed. “What a pleasure to meet not only one beautiful lady—but two.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“A gypsy. A wanderer on the face of the earth.”

“Where have you wandered from?”

“From all over the country.”

“Are you encamped here?”

He waved his hands.

I said: “These are my father’s woods.”

“I am sure the father of such a charming young lady would not grudge the poor gypsies a spot on which to rest their caravans.”

“Miss Jessica! Miss Amaryllis!” It was Miss Rennie. She was close by.

“We’re here, Miss Rennie,” called Amaryllis.

The gypsy looked on with some amusement as Miss Rennie came into sight.

“Oh there you are! How many times have I told you not to go on ahead of me? It is most unseemly.” She stopped short. She had seen the man and was horrified. She took her duties very seriously and the thought of her charges coming into contact with strangers—and a man at that—momentarily stunned her.

“What… what are you doing?” she stammered.

“Nothing,” I replied. “We have just got here and have met…”

He bowed to Miss Rennie. “Jake Cadorson, at your service, Madam.”

“What?” cried Miss Rennie shrilly.

“I am Cornish, Madam,” he went on, smiling as though he found the situation very amusing, “and Cador in the Cornish language means Warrior. So Cador son… the son of a warrior. For convenience my gypsy friends call me Romany Jake.”

“Very interesting, I am sure,” said Miss Rennie, recovering her composure. “Now we must get back or we shall be late for tea.”

He bowed again and resuming his seat under the tree he began to strum on the guitar; as we turned away he started to sing. I could not resist looking back. He saw me and putting his fingers to his lips blew me a kiss. I felt extraordinarily excited. I rode on in a sort of daze. I could hear his strong and rather pleasant voice as we went on to the edge of the wood.

“I must insist that you stay with me when we are riding,” Miss Rennie was saying. “That was an unfortunate encounter. Gypsies in the woods! I don’t know what Mr. Frenshaw will have to say about that.”

“They always have permission to rest there as long as they are careful about fire—and there is not much danger of that after all the rain we have had,” I said.

“I shall report what we have seen to Mr. Frenshaw,” continued Miss Rennie. “And I must ask you, Jessica, to be more obedient to my wishes. I do not wish to have to tell your parents that you are disobedient. I am sure that would grieve them.”

I thought of my father’s receiving the news and I could picture that look on his face when he was trying not to smile. His daughter was very much what he must have been at her age, and parents like their children to resemble them even in their less admirable qualities; so I did not think he would be greatly grieved.

As for myself, I could not stop thinking of the man under the tree. Romany Jake! A gypsy… and yet he did not seem quite like other gypsies I had seen. He was like one of the gentlemen who were friends of my parents… only dressed up as a gypsy. He had fascinated me. He was very bold. What would Miss Rennie say if she knew he had thrown me a kiss when I had looked back? I toyed with the idea of telling her, but desisted. Perhaps that would be something which would be unwise to come to my parents’ ears.

True to her word she told either my father or my mother and the subject was raised at dinner that night.

“So we have gypsies in the woods,” said my father.

“They always come south towards winter,” commented David.

My father turned to me. “So you saw them today.”

“Only one. He said he was Romany Jake.”

“So you spoke to him.”

“Well, just for a few minutes. He had an orange-coloured shirt and a guitar. There were rings in his ears and a chain about his neck.”

“He sounds like a regular gypsy,” said David.

“I think you should avoid the woods when the gypsies are there,” said Claudine, looking rather fearfully at Amaryllis.

“But the woods are so lovely now,” I cried. “I love scrumpling through the leaves.”

“Nevertheless …” said Claudine, and my mother nodded in agreement.

“I wish they wouldn’t come here,” she said.

“They can make a bit of a mess of the land,” added my father. “But they’ve always been allowed to bring their caravans into the clearings. As long as they don’t make a nuisance of themselves they can stay. I expect they’ll be round to the kitchens with their baskets and oddments to sell—and telling the maids’ fortunes.”

“Mrs. Grant will deal with all that,” said my mother.

Mrs. Grant was our very efficient housekeeper who ruled the nether regions as despotically as Pluto ever did his. I had rarely seen so much dignity contained in such a small body—for she was under five feet and rotund with it—and the very crackle of her bombazine jet-decorated gown, heralding her approach, was enough to set a servant shivering and wondering what misdemeanour could be laid at his or her door.

So the gypsies could be left safely to Mrs. Grant.

During the days that followed I learned a little more about the gypsies. The best way to get news of such matters was through the servants and I had developed a very special relationship with them. I saw to it that there was always a welcome for Miss Jessica in the kitchens. I chatted to them, made a point of knowing what was happening to them and of encouraging their confidence. I was enormously interested in their lives; and while Amaryllis was studying the exploits of the Roman generals and the Wars of the Roses, I would be seated at the kitchen table hearing what was happening when Maisie Dean’s husband came home suddenly and caught her with her lover, or who might be the father of Jane Abbey’s child. I knew that Polly Crypton, who lived on the edge of the woods in a cottage surrounded by her own special herb garden, could cure other things besides earache, toothache and indigestion; she could get rid of warts, give the odd love potion; and if a girl was in a particular sort of trouble she could do something about that too. There was much mysterious talk about this activity, and when they found themselves discussing it in my presence there would be nods in my direction, followed by an infuriating silence. Still, at least I was aware of the powers of Polly Crypton, and this I told myself was Life, and as necessary to the education as a knowledge of past battles. Moreover, I could always copy Amaryllis’ notes. She was very good about such matters.

So it was not difficult to learn something about Romany Jake.

He was, according to Mabel, the parlourmaid, “a one,” and I knew enough of the vernacular to understand that that meant a person of outstanding fascination.

“There he was, sitting on the steps of the caravan playing that guitar. His voice … It’s a dream … and the way the music comes in … Real lovely. Romany Jake they call him. He’s from foreign parts.”

“Cornwall,” I said. “That’s not exactly foreign.”

“It’s miles away. He’s been up in the North and come right down through the country … all in that caravan … with the others.”

“He must know the country very well.”

“I reckon he’s been wandering all his life. One of them came round this morning, telling fortunes, she was.”

The other servants started to giggle.

“Did she tell your fortune?” I asked.

“Oh yes … Even Mrs. Grant had hers done—and gave her a tankard of cider and a piece of meat pie.”

“Was it an interesting fortune?”

“Course, Miss Jessica. You ought to have yours done. I reckon they’d tell you something.”

The servants exchanged glances. “Miss Jessica is a regular one,” said Mabel.

I felt warm and happy to be awarded the highest accolade which could be bestowed.

“Now, Miss Amaryllis… she’s a little darling… so pretty and gentle like.”

I was not in the least jealous. I would much rather be “A One” than pretty and gentle.

The servants left me with no doubt in my mind that there was something special about Romany Jake. I could tell it by the manner in which they spoke of him and giggled when his name was mentioned. Although they were fairly frank with me, there were times when they remembered my youth, and although that did not prevent their talking, it curbed their spontaneity and they spoke in innuendoes which I sometimes found difficulty in deciphering.

But I learned that the coming of Romany Jake was one of the most exciting things which had happened for a long time. He must have driven from their minds the thoughts of invasion for he was now the main topic of conversation in the servants’ hall.

He was no ordinary gypsy. He was a Cornishman—half Spaniard, they reckoned, and I remembered that at the time of the defeat of the Spanish armada many of the Spanish galleons had been wrecked along the coast and Spanish sailors found their way ashore. So there was a sprinkling of Spanish blood in many a Cornish man or woman. It was evident in those dark eyes and curling hair and their passionate natures—all of which attributes were possessed, so I was told, by Romany Jake.

“Romany Jake!” said Mabel. “What a name to go to bed with!”

“I always think of him just as Jake,” said young Bessie, the tweeny. “I don’t think he’s a real gypsy. He’s come to it because he likes the wandering life.”

“He looks like a gypsy,” I said.

“Now what would you know about that, Miss Jessica?”

“As much as you do, I suppose,” I retorted.

“They’ve made quite a little home for themselves in that clearing. They’re shoeing their horses, setting up their baskets and doing a bit of tinkering. You can’t say they’re lazy, and Romany Jake, he plays to them and sings to them … and they all join in the singing. It’s like a play to see them.”

“At least,” I said, “he has stopped you all talking about the invasion.”

“I reckon Romany Jake would be a match for Boney himself,” said Mabel.

And they all laughed and were very merry. That was what the coming of Romany Jake had done for them.

I saw him once when I was alone. I had been down to the cottages to take a posset to Mrs. Green, wife of one of the stablemen who was suffering from a chill, and on my way back there he was. He had no right to be on our land, of course, and he was carrying something in his coat pocket. I believed he had been poaching.

His eyes sparkled as he looked at me and I was aware of an acute pleasure because I fancied he was admiring me and as I was growing older I was becoming rather susceptible to admiration and experienced a kindly feeling towards those who expressed it. But it seemed particularly pleasant coming from him.

So I had no desire to run away from him, nor to reprove him for poaching on our land.

“Good day to you, little lady,” he said.

“Good day,” I replied. “I know who you are. You’re Romany Jake. I met you in the woods the other day, I believe.”

“I am certain of it, for having once made your acquaintance that would be something I should never forget. But that such a great lady as yourself should remember me … that is as gratifying as it is remarkable.”

“You don’t speak like a gypsy,” I said.

“I trust you will not hold that against me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you might think that every man should keep his place … a gentleman a gentleman … a gypsy a gypsy.”

I fancied he was laughing at me so I smiled.

“I know you live in your caravan in the woods,” I said. “Are you staying long?”

“The joy of the wandering life is that you go where you will when the spirit moves you. It is a great life lived under the sun, the moon and the stars.”

He had a musical voice not in the least like any gypsy I had ever heard. There was laughter in it and it made me want to laugh too.

“You’re quite poetic,” I said.

“The life makes one love nature. It makes one conscious of the blessings of nature—of the life on the open road.”

“What about winter?”

“Ah, there you have spoken. The north wind will blow and we shall have snow and what will the gypsy do then, poor man. I’ll tell you. He might find some warm and cosy house and a warm and cosy lady who will open her doors to him and shelter him there until the cold is past and the spring comes.”

“Then he wouldn’t be a wandering gypsy, would he?”

“What does that matter as long as he is happy and those about him are happy. Life is meant to be enjoyed. You agree with me? Yes, I know you do. You will enjoy life, I see it in your eyes.”

“Do you see the future?”

“They say, do they not, that gypsies have the powers?”

“Tell me what you see for me.”

“All that you want it to be. That’s your future.”

“That sounds very good to me.”

“You’ll make it good.”

“Have you made yours good?”

“To be sure I have.”

“You seem to be rather poor.”

“No man is poor when he has the good earth to live on, and the sun to warm his days and the moon to light his nights.”

“You have a great respect for the heavens,” I said.

“Well, from thence comes the source of life. I’ll tell you something if you will swear never to mention it to a soul.”

“Yes, yes,” I said eagerly. “I promise.”

“I took to you the moment I saw you. I said to myself: She’ll be a fiery beauty, that one. I’d like to steal her away and take her off with me.”

I burst out laughing. Of course I should have scowled at him and ridden off immediately; but I did not. I just wanted to stay where I was and indulge in this conversation which was fascinating to me.

“What! You think I would leave home and become a gypsy.”

“I did,” he said. “It’s a good life … for a while.”

I shivered. “What about the north winds blowing and the snow coming?”

“You’d have me to keep you warm at nights.”

“Should you be talking to me like this?”

“I am sure some would say I shouldn’t but between ourselves it depends on whether you want to hear it.”

“I don’t think I should stay here.”

“Oh, but is it not the things which we are supposed not to do which we enjoy doing? I’ll swear you have often done that which you should not have done … and loved the doing of it.”

Someone was coming. I looked at the bulge in his pocket. He was about to disappear when Amaryllis came into view.

“This is my lucky day,” he said. “Once more two beautiful ladies.”

“Why, it’s Romany Jake,” said Amaryllis.

“You are the second lady to do me the honour of remembering my name … and all in an hour.”