The Gypsy Bride

by Katie Hutton

  ‘Married a gaujo – a ploughboy. Not seen ’er since.’

  ‘Your poor mother, Mr Loveridge.’

  ‘Yes, I reckon she’d agree with you there.’

  ‘I was wondering, Mr Loveridge . . . on Sunday we have a circuit preacher coming from Banbury. He has brought many to God. It’ll be a camp meeting, outside, I mean. You and your mother – and any of your family – would be welcome. You wouldn’t have to come into the chapel – if you didn’t like it, you could slip away and no one would be the wiser.’ She stopped abruptly, embarrassed at her babbling.

  ‘Them mission vans come round on the hopping,’ he said. ‘Tea and tracts – they always want you to take ’em even if you can’t read ’em. Kind enough people – I can see that. But they always want you to give up the road.’

  ‘Give up the road?’

  ‘Settle down, live in a house. Have the same master year-round. I’d feel like a tombstone, I would, buried up to the ankles so’s I couldn’t move. I worship God’s work every day, in every little animal I hear scuttling at night. When I’ve the sun in my face and the horse trotting the road before me, when I’ve to clear snow from the wagon steps, or when I see the new leaves putting out. Every road I go, and every new place I see. Every new face – your face.’

  ‘We’ve been here, in this place – Quaintons, I mean – for hundreds of years. There was a vicar when Grandfer was a child, told his father – they were church people then – that our name comes from somewhere in France, men that came over with the Conqueror and ruled here. Of course, none of us rule anything now.’

  ‘Not even yourselves! But all this,’ he waved an arm at the trees behind him, ‘in a few years if they go on as they do, it’ll all be gone. My people’ll be huddled in there waiting for the end, for by then there’ll be no place for us to go – like the poor rabbits and mice hiding in the last patch of a field before the crop’s all cut. Then if they dunt set about us with sticks like they do with them, they’ll put us in them boxes they call houses, with a poor naked patch of grass front and back to plant flowers in and pretend it ain’t a prison, and a ball and chain round our ankles, one you can’t see but you know is there. And rules, dockiments, and flags and duty! Look what duty did for my poor Noah! When I was inside, them scholars and holy boys tole me how it was wrong to kill a fellow man, same as the good Lord said, a man you dunt know, who in the ordinary way of things would do me no harm – but in France they was all the Boche, even the padres said so.’

  ‘So you did go to France?’

  ‘O’ course I did. Anything to get out of prison; some of what you might call the finer-natured men were driven mad by it. I went to France in their uniform in the end. I saw men die. I’d help the stretcher-bearers when I could, and sometimes it was only a case of gathering up the pieces after, but I killed no one.’

  ‘Kept your head down, did you, and fired in the air?’ said Ellen.

  ‘I’m more than a middling shot, as it happens. Even in poor light – and especially by moonlight. But I never let ’em know that. There’s not a thing I dun’t know about horses, so I went for Remount Services down in Romsey. Sorry, do I talk too much?’

  ‘No, no – but that sounds a good number, a long way behind the lines.’

  ‘Actually, it was.’ He was unabashed. ‘One and six a day and all found. Only problem was being roused at half past five every day, whether it was light or not. I didn’t see the sense in it.’

  ‘No different from anyone working on a farm.’

  ‘I know that well enough – I’ve worked on farms since I was a little lad. I only meant that for that work you might as well have stayed snug another half hour in winter.’ He rummaged in a trouser pocket. ‘Here – look. My badge. Pretty, ain’t it?’

  It lay in her palm, warm from his body, a little leaping horse with the letters GR above and the words Army Remount Services on an heraldic belt.

  ‘I s’pose you can read it, too?’

  ‘Can’t you?’ she said.

  ‘I know what’s writ there but no, I never had no learning. I got on all right without it, even there. Started as a rough rider, breaking the horses in, I mean, then worked up to being farriery corporal.’ He clicked his heels and saluted. Ellen laughed.

  ‘’Tis good I’ve made you laugh. You look like you haven’t done that for a good bit.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because the way you laugh looks very close to crying, I’d say.’

  She averted her face and said in a queerly suffocated voice, contemptuous, ‘An easy war, then.’

  ‘It was. In Romsey. But they tempted me with twice the money and something for Lukey – that’s my wife – if I’d go to France. I was fed up with the quartermaster too. In Romsey the officers was all gentlemen –’ the word sounded like an insult – ‘the kind that rode with the hunt and had their own stables. Most of the time he left me alone to look after the draught horses, them being of no interest to a man like that, but he hated it when the other men would ask advice of me rather’n him. And I wanted anyway to know where all them horses I’d trained up and led down to Southampton had ended up. They’d sent them to hell, Ellen. Can I call you Ellen? I can’t talk of them things and say “Miss Quainton”. ’

  She nodded.

  ‘I swear to you those poor beasts can get shell-shocked as readily as any man – and gassed, and bombed . . . I’m sorry. I’ve upset you.’

  ‘No, please go on. I wish people would talk more about what happened – the war, I mean. You’d think sometimes they were trying not to remember it.’

  ‘Some wunt want to, after what they’ve seen, Ellen.’

  She flinched. ‘You said – about the horses.’

  ‘I love horses, see. There they came in all sorts – like men do. There was poor nags as had only ever known the shafts of a butcher’s cart and a country lane, driven mad by the noise. And there was gentlemen’s chargers what had only ever ate grass, kicking up to find themselves in a strange stable with stranger company and throwing off their nose-bags. I killed no men but I had to shoot horses when there was no more could be done for ’em, they being poor flesh and blood just as ourselves. It doesn’t much matter to a horse if he’s German or English – he’s a horse and does like one.’

  ‘My grandfather says your kind cheat with horses.’

  ‘He isn’t the first to say it,’ Sam said without rancour. ‘And I wunt say there aren’t Gypsies as would, same as other men. We might know well enough how to whistle a horse out of a field – or get cows to stand out of the way for that matter – but it’s hard on a man to be told he is cheating when all he does is know more than another. The man who befriends us always gets good advice.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I spoke too hastily.’

  ‘Forgiven! Especially if you smile at me again,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know how I smiled, I’m sure. Like this?’

  ‘No, that’s too polite. It has to come nat’rel. That’s better . . . An’ you’ll let me know how the little maidy does, will you?’

  3 ‘When the Gentile way of living and the Gypsy way of living come together, it is anything but a good way of living’

  4 Non-Gypsy girl

  5 Gypsy boy

  6 Non-Gypsy girl

  CHAPTER 7

  At all times it is of use to have a Friend to whom you can pour out your heart without any disguise or reserve.

  John Wesley, 1776

  Lace

  ‘Come outside a minute, Ellen, I’m gasping for a smoke!’

  ‘Oh Judy, what about your pledge?’

  ‘Pledge my pretty arse!’

  Ellen looked round the school-room, now with the forms pushed back and thronged with tea-drinkers and cake-eaters, the reward of the righteous for having sat through a sermon and prayers on a Wednesday evening.

  ‘I think I can be spared now,’ Ellen said.

  *

  ‘Oh, that’s better.’ Judith leaned against a fence
, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. ‘I don’t get better at this, do I?’ she said, holding out the crooked little cigarette she had been at such pains to roll.

  ‘How do you keep it from your father, Judy? He must smell it on you.’

  ‘If he does, he never says. Anything for a peaceful life, that’s him.’

  ‘I think he must be afraid of you,’ said Ellen.

  Judith laughed, delighted.

  ‘Oh, then I should make more of it! What life is this, Ellen? Doing Boddington’s books for him day after day. Tea-meetings. Sewing meetings – even worse, you only get the old cats, not even the old tom-cats. Band of Hope . . . more teas for the missions, so’s over in Fernando Po they can have tea-meetings too.’

  ‘That’s unkind, Judy. Grace is hardly an old cat. You forget how much good comes out of it – holidays for orphans, the workhouse visits . . .’

  ‘But we make ’em pray morning, noon and night for it. If I was them people, I’d want the help for being me, not because someone was hell-bent on saving my immortal soul. The chapel’s like commercial travellers sometimes – how many stockings can I sell on this circuit? How many tracts can I give out? How many souls can I save before they give me a book with an inscription in it that I’ll never want to read? You know what I want before I’m too old, Ellen?’

  ‘A man, knowing you!’

  ‘O’ course. And I don’t believe for a minute you’re any different – you just hide it better. I want a man to kiss me and tell me I’m pretty and that he’d die for me. Instead, they’re too old, too married, or too common for Pa’s liking. And there’s poor Reggie stuck at home because he’s no use to anyone from the waist down and won’t even see me, when we could have had a houseful of brats by now if that Boche bullet had gone into the next man instead. And I daren’t find myself another man because I’d be afraid of hurting Reggie.’ Judith swore and flung down the cigarette butt.

  ‘He gave you your freedom,’ said Ellen.

  ‘I know – but what freedom is it? It just don’t feel right all the same. I wish . . . I wish I could go away. You too. We could find a room in a city, have ourselves some fun.’

  ‘You’ve said this before. But you know I can’t leave Mother.’

  ‘And I’m stuck with Pa.’

  ‘Did you really want a houseful of brats anyway, Judy? Look at Sarah Figg – old before her time.’

  ‘Figg beats her, they say,’ said Judith.

  ‘You see?’

  ‘Reggie would never have beaten me. He wouldn’t have dared! Don’t tell me, Ellen, that you wouldn’t want a fellow to hold you and tell you you’re the best thing that ever happened to him?’

  ‘Judy, you could write his lines for him! You’d do it better than poor Charlie ever did. You know, I can’t really remember what he looked like. There’s only that horrible photograph of him in uniform. I’ve stared at it that many times I can only remember a man in black and white who didn’t smile. And he did smile. He was always smiling at me.’

  Judith watched her carefully. ‘You might find someone else, you know.’

  Ellen hesitated. ‘Round here? I don’t think I could do it, Judy. If I stood up in the chapel with another man, he’d be taking Charlie’s place. It’d be like settling for second best – he’d know it too. I’d have to go away, like you said.’

  ‘You won’t, though, will you? If you’d gone on with the teaching, maybe you could have. Not now you’re a draper’s assistant.’

  ‘Don’t, Judy! Do you think, though, that hearts can mend? Even when you’d thought yours was all broken in pieces and buried in France in a place you’ve never seen?’

  ‘What is it, Ellen . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, Judy.’

  *

  The old woman sat on the steps of the vardo gazing intently at the small, fat pillow on her knees. The smoke from the incessant pipe in the corner of her mouth obscured the pricked paper pattern that lay pinned to the pillow alongside the strip of lace that grew beneath her flashing fingers, but that didn’t matter as by now her hands had memorised the rhythm of the design. The threads twisted as the little bobbins danced and shivered, their glass beads glinting in the light.

  Lucretia put her foot on the bottom step.

  ‘Pretty, that. For me, is it?’

  The fingers didn’t slacken. The old woman tightened the corner of her mouth to hold her pipe firm. She would not look at her daughter-in-law.

  ‘No. I’m making this for a lady.’

  Lucretia’s face congealed. Then, shrugging, she said, ‘But they gets all their trimmings from factories now, Mother Harmony. They’ll not be wanting your efforts. All smelling of baccy, that’s going to be.’

  The old woman said nothing, but the tinkling glass beads flew back and forth a little faster.

  *

  Ellen had just walked up onto the path across the fields when she heard her name called. She said nothing, but her shoulders stiffened in disappointment.

  No Sam this evening then! Nobody to tell me he likes the sound of my voice or wanting to kiss my hand!

  She turned round, trying not to look vexed, and waited for Judith’s father to catch up with her.

  ‘Good evening, Brother Chown.’

  ‘Good evening, Miss Quainton. May I walk with you? I was going to see your grandfather about Thursday’s class meeting.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Um . . . will you be attending yourself, Ellen?’

  ‘Well, yes, I expect so,’ she said.

  ‘I wish you could persuade Judith. She might listen to you when she won’t listen to her father.’

  ‘I have tried,’ said Ellen. ‘We can only pray for Judith’s conversion, Mr Chown, and trust to a will that is greater than ours.’

  ‘I have much faith in your influence on her, Ellen.’

  Only now did Ellen look at him directly.

  ‘She is my dearest friend, Mr Chown. I love her for what she is.’

  Chown’s greyish face flushed.

  ‘You do right to rebuke me,’ he said.

  ‘But I never meant—’

  ‘No, no, your loyalty to Judith does you credit. I only trust that she does not have a bad influence on you.’

  ‘I sometimes wish I were more like her,’ she said, half to herself, ‘more high-spirited, saying what I think, instead of worrying about how others judge me.’

  ‘Judith is in want of tact, Ellen. I, like you, am anxious about how I am seen by others.’

  ‘But you’re—’

  ‘I’m what? Old? I must look that way to you, of course. But for me worrying about the judgement of others is a matter of pride – a grave sin. For you, I think it is more that you want to avoid hurting people. Whereas Judith, I think, simply doesn’t care enough.’

  Ellen didn’t know what to say to this, and looked away from him up the path. They were approaching the ridge where the track met the road leading to Chingestone. To the left of the junction, Surman’s Wood cut a rich green swathe across the vale, up towards the ridge of hills that marked the border with Buckinghamshire. Where the trees edged the path as it rose to the horizon a man and a boy stood watching them. The man’s fedora alone gave him an unmistakeably un-English air, though quite why Ellen couldn’t say. But she did know that she didn’t want Judith’s father and Sam Loveridge to meet.

  ‘Um . . . I’ve noticed that you care, Ellen. I have heard reports from Quartermaine at the board-school that the children you teach on Sundays are neater, more attentive, more biddable when they are in his classroom the day after. Even the youngest members of our connexion can spread our Lord’s message if they set the right example – apostles not only to their companions but also to their elders. Quartermaine misses your help, you know. Not one of the girls he has engaged since you left has proved acceptable . . . Ellen?’

  The figures up ahead had disappeared into the trees.

  ‘Oh . . . I’m sorry, Mr Chown. I was distracted . 
. . What were you saying?’

  ‘Mr Quartermaine says his best pupils are those who attend your Sunday school.’

  ‘It’s their parents who deserve the credit, not me.’

  ‘But we must dare to be a Daniel, Ellen. There are Gypsies camped in that wood. Their women have been seen peddling fortunes to the credulous in the villages, dragging their filthy children with them to elicit sympathy. Just think if those little ones could be brought to the Lord by you as His instrument! If the children can be brought to godliness and cleanliness, then so may their parents follow!’

  ‘You want to make them like us, then?’

  Harold stared at her, perplexed.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I think they mayn’t be here much longer – not beyond the end of harvest.’

  ‘How would you know that?’

  ‘Farmer Horwood isn’t expecting to keep them,’ she said evasively.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. But would you not consider going back to the board-school, or to think about the teacher training again, Ellen? Now that you are . . . recovered? The connexion would look after you in Birmingham if you were willing to go, and Quartermaine would certainly take you on afterwards – that is if you wanted to use your talents other than in the chapel’s mission.’

  ‘No, and please don’t mention it again. If Charlie and I had married, it would have been different.’

  ‘But a married woman should not work anyway, Ellen! Her task is to please her husband and make a home for him, not belittle him by pretending to a wage the same as he has. It’s not the natural way of things – no more than a woman voting when she can have such little idea of what government means. One must be grateful for the small mercy that at least she may not vote until she is thirty – that she may devote the best years of her youth to her children and her lord, without troubling herself with matters that should be of no concern to her!’

  ‘But I have no children, no lord, Mr Chown! So why does it matter what I do? If I spent any more time with other people’s children I’m sure I would come to hate them because I’d none of my own. I think you must see me, Mr Chown, as a better person than I really am.’