The Gypsy Bride

by Katie Hutton

  ‘They can do their worst but I’ll not give up my baby.’

  ‘Well, don’t be proud, Ellen. I’ll talk to the sewing meeting again. We’ll take it in turns to walk out with you and Tom.’

  *

  ‘We must be grateful for small mercies, Sam. That man in forty-eight was spared the cat, I heard.’

  ‘Him that had torn up his cell, you mean?’

  Cecil leaned forward, trembling, his hands over his ears. ‘How shall I ever get through it? How will he? I’ll never forget the noise he made, a soul in torment. I’ll hear him forever – as I’ll remember your screams.’

  Sam looked round to see where the screws were, and slipped an arm across Cecil’s back, thinking: This is what a father does, recalling a distant memory of his own.

  ‘You remember I told you how I got a whopping in Lincoln?’ said Sam.

  ‘From the warder who’d lost his sons, you mean?’

  ‘Well, the pain of the cat was sharper than that, but of course they weren’t trying to kill me – which I’m pretty sure Whitelam would have, if they hadn’t stopped him. The cuts Puss gave me were bad enough, but mebbe the worst of it was being made to wait days for them.’

  ‘Sanctioned torture, Sam!’

  Since his flogging, Sam could often smell fear on his companion. To encourage him, he said: ‘Thank God you’re here, Cecil.’

  ‘Me? I cannot stand what happens here, not as a man should.’

  ‘A man who is a man and not a beast should not stand them. You’re a decent fellow, Reverend, and you show it.’

  ‘Well, at least they’ve taken forty-eight to the infirmary, poor devil. Anyone shrieking and raving as he was couldn’t be sane.’

  ‘He hit a screw. They have to punish that. But he’s not in the infirmary. He’s been packed off to Broadmoor.’

  Cecil gaped at him.

  ‘You see,’ said Sam, ‘why you mun do all you can not to go under, Cecil.’

  *

  Sam leaned against a stack in the prison library and said, ‘Nothing today, neither.’

  ‘It may not mean what you think,’ said Cecil. ‘The warders mayn’t have sent it. Letters can get lost. The wrong person could have got it from the postman. They might be holding her reply in the governor’s office until it suits him.’

  ‘Would you write another for me?’

  ‘Of course I would – but the schoolmaster won’t give me more paper for one for a good few weeks yet. He said you’re only allowed to send a letter once in three months.’

  ‘Three months! I’ll only get one more chance, then. First time in my life I’ve ever wanted to write letters and now they don’t let me!’

  ‘Sam, don’t despair – or if you must don’t let them see you like this; they’ll take advantage of it.’

  ‘You’re talking like a lag at last, Cecil!’

  ‘Sam, if it hadn’t been for you I don’t know how I would still be alive in this place. My own despair would have done for me . . . If you hadn’t told me to go to the chaplain I wouldn’t have got that librarian’s job.’

  ‘And we wouldn’t have this place to talk in.’

  ‘Without you – and these books here – the utter, dreary hopelessness of this place would destroy me . . . the monotony of days that never diminish.’

  ‘Except that they do.’

  ‘They do, but each day takes me further from what I knew. I fear that too. Now I don’t know how I will cope – outside. I don’t know how I’ll cope when they release you, Sam. I’m sorry. This is very selfish of me. Let me read what Beth says and then we’ll have your lesson.’

  ‘You should let her come, you know.’

  ‘I can’t. Not here.’

  ‘Is that because of you, or because of her? She med be stronger’n you give her credit for. And you ain’t the only one doing a stretch, are you? She is, out there. Maybe she wants to tell you what her days are like? Which friends have stuck by her.’

  ‘You may be right . . .’

  ‘You need to keep her picture clear in your head, in your dreams, Cecil. That biti22 photograph won’t do. Otherwise the bad stuff will get in instead. Anyway, I’m stopping you reading her letter. We don’t need to bother about a lesson today. I can’t say I’m in the right mood for it, myself.’

  ‘But I am, Sam. I need to teach you, for my sake.’

  ‘All right then. But let her come. You’ve much longer in here than me, though what I’ll do when they let me out I don’t rightly know. If Ellen wunt write to me, I’ll have to find her and see if she’ll forgive me leaving her there, once she knows it wasn’t my doing. But I’ve seen some of ’em as have a long stretch to do and what happens to them. I’d bet they don’t even see a woman when they’re dreaming now, whatever way they’re made. It even gets to screws in the end. That Barker wore a wedding ring. Stay here long enough and even you med feel that lonely that you’d forget who you were for a bit, and then . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t . . . for if I did, I could never look Beth in the face again.’

  ‘My point exackly. Look her in the face now, and you’ll manage.’

  *

  Without knocking, Ellen nudged open the door of Oliver’s cottage, her fingers curled round the handle of Tom’s baby-carriage, and for a moment savoured the familiar smell of what had been her home.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Hello, Ellen. What brings you here before chapel? Bring my Tom in so’s I can see him properly.’

  Flora leaned in over the sleeping child.

  ‘You’re lucky, daughter. Such a good baby!’

  ‘Well, let’s hope the new one’ll be as easy!’

  ‘Oh Ellen! Are you? Oh my dearest girl!’ Flora put her arms round her. ‘Ah, mustn’t squeeze too tight, must I? You see? Everything has worked out, hasn’t it? You can be happy now, can’t you?’

  ‘I can be content, I think . . .’

  ‘Well, yes, but—’

  ‘I wondered, Mother, would you mind bringing Tom yourself? I wanted to get to chapel early to lend the ladies a hand setting up for afterwards – and tell them my good news. They have been so kind. I am so loved, Mother, more than I deserve.’

  ‘Will you stop and tell your grandfer? He’s out the back.’

  ‘I’ll wait for him at chapel and tell him going in.’

  ‘All right. I’ll not say anything. And of course I’ll take Tom. I wish you’d let me out with him more often, if I’m honest.’

  ‘I know I protect him too much, Mother. It’s just that I’m still afraid.’

  ‘You needn’t be, not now, Mrs Chown.’

  *

  Four or five men were clustered round the chapel porch. Lightfoot the solicitor saw Ellen first and hastened forward.

  ‘Mrs Chown, I would urge you not to come any closer. I fear . . . there has been some unpleasantness . . . not something a lady should see . . .’

  She heard Oliver at her shoulder. ‘If Mr Lightfoot says come away, come away, child,’ he said, taking her elbow almost roughly. ‘What brings you here so early anyroad? Without your husband too!’

  With his curt words, something gave way in Ellen. How long am I to put up with this? Catcalling, mudslinging, stares – and now goodness knows what? Have I not paid? She twitched Oliver’s hand away and strode forward. In appalled surprise the other men gave way, revealing what lay propped against the chapel door.

  She heard Lightfoot’s voice: ‘It’s a matter for the constables.’

  Oliver was pulling at her sleeve. ‘Come out of it, Ellen!’

  White-lipped, she stood over two entwined effigies.

  ‘The devil finds idle hands,’ said someone.

  They were crudely but accurately made, straw-stuffed sacking dressed in scarecrow rags, posed obscenely. She saw what she immediately recognised as her own face, the mouth a red slash of paint, blue eyes, stiff arms sticking up round the male effigy pinning her down. Trembling, Oliver pushed past her and seized Sam’s
dummy by its filthy shirt, flinging it to one side. Its brown painted face leered above a tattered red neckerchief. Oliver wiped his hands feverishly on his trouser legs, as though he had just handled something dead.

  An old hat came to rest at Ellen’s feet. Oh, that hat! There was a ringing in her ears, a tightening of her throat. She gasped, and collapsed back into waiting arms.

  *

  ‘They’ve burned ’em,’ said Oliver, perched awkwardly on Harold’s divan, convinced that if he moved it would collapse. ‘You’re not to think on ’em anymore.’

  ‘Easier said . . .’ Harold found it hard to pay attention, for he was straining to hear the murmuring from above – the doctor’s voice, and Flora’s.

  ‘You mun listen to me a minute.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Harold.

  ‘I remember when I was a boy – long before I was converted, this was. There was a man and wife here, not long wed. He was what you might call well set-up, by way of fields and cattle and that, a bit older than her. It was said that the maid had had an understanding with another man, but that she married the richer one just the same, him being the safer bet – not the first nor the last to reason that way. Now, I don’t know if it was truth or not, for I was too young then to understand properly, but there was murmurings that after she was wed she’d been seen on the path there with her old swain. Next thing happened was that she and the young man were got up in effigy and tied back to back on a donkey, and paraded up and down for all to see, afore they drove the beast to the house where she lived along of her husband, with them all banging saucepans together, and shouting, and hitting the ass so he brayed the louder. My mother said as it was a shame, but it didn’t stop ’er going to the spectacle all the same – Mother and Father never did convert. Nobody came out, o’ course – I spied a hand trying not to be seen closing the curtains. They went back the next evening with those figures on the donkey, but the morning after I saw the pair of ’em go away on the carrier earlyish – I had work as a bird scarer then and was up with the lark. The man was all grim-like and his wife weeping, sitting there amongst their bits of things. Your Mr Lightfoot’s grandfer sold the land for them, for less than it was worth, but wouldn’t say where they’d gone except that it was one of the big cities – them as had had family round here for centuries. I never thought to see again such shameful goings on.’

  ‘And the other man?’

  ‘Joined a regiment and went to the Crimea. I don’t know what happened to him but he never did come back. But what would you do if that Gypsy showed his face round here again?’

  ‘He wouldn’t . . . he wouldn’t dare!’ Harold’s face cleared a little. ‘His tribe should be back by now – and they aren’t.’

  ‘He don’t have your sense of shame, brother. He med just be staying away this year to avoid the consequences of what he’s done. Don’t mean he couldn’t come back and cause trouble again. You’ve saved my poor girl. Take her away; take her where neither of you are known. Start anew.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. I want no more trouble for her. She is to be a mother again – that is, if this doesn’t— ‘What’s the matter, brother? You’ve gone pale as a sheet!’

  *

  Towards evening, Ellen woke to a gnawing pain in her belly. She opened her eyes.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ she whispered. A chair scraped on the floorboards, and Judith leaned over the bed.

  ‘Will I do?’

  ‘Judy! Help me sit up – thank you. Oh, my head feels as if it’s stuffed with rags.’

  ‘The doctor said he gave you a bromide, that’s why.’

  ‘What? Didn’t Mother tell him?’

  ‘Tell him what, Ellen?’

  ‘Oh, get me the pot, Judy . . . though I seem to have wet myself already.’

  As Ellen swung her legs over the side of the bed, Judy quietly closed the bedroom door and went to sit halfway down the narrow staircase. From below, Oliver and Harold’s voices reached her, something about ‘the connexion would help . . . Lightfoot will know about openings’, until Ellen’s cry sent her thumping back into the room without knocking. Ellen was squatting over the pot, her nightdress tenting about her. Even in the gloom Judy could see it was spotted – as was the bed.

  Ellen raised her stricken face. ‘I’ve lost it, Judy. I’ve lost my baby.’

  *

  ‘Sam. Listen. Look at me. Write to her again.’

  ‘She never wrote back!’

  ‘We’ve been through this – all the things that could have happened to your letter. Do you really think she would have ignored it if she’d got it – a girl that must otherwise have thought you the worst kind of rotter?’

  ‘I don’t know, Cecil . . .’

  ‘So what’s your plan?’

  ‘To go and find her, o’ course.’

  ‘So you’ll just turn up after all this time, and then expect her to come away with you? Put yourself in her shoes . . . Write, man! You can do it yourself by now!’

  Sam looked up at last.

  ‘You’d help me again, I mean, to find the right words?’

  ‘I won’t need to. Whatever your heart wants to tell her heart will be right.’

  ‘I’ll make mistakes, use up all the paper – your patience.’

  ‘That’s all right. Thanks to you I get to see Beth. I’m in your debt.’

  ‘Will you put the address on the envelope, though? In case I get it wrong and it doesn’t get to her – again.’

  ‘Of course.’

  22 Little

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 18

  Well may he pause who comes to Canterbury. The meanest flower that blows brought thoughts too deep for tears to William Wordsworth; this proudest shrine of all our Motherland stirs thoughts too deep for tears in us.

  Arthur Mee, The King’s England: Kent

  Nesting

  Canterbury, January 1924

  Ellen sat disconsolately on the trunk and looked round at the scuffed packing cases and tea-chests, at the dingy panes of the sash window, and the little grey yard beyond.

  ‘So this is to be our home, Judith?’

  ‘It ain’t so bad, Ellen. There’s a bit of life about the place at least. I’ve never been to London so I’ve never seen so many people all together in one place. I even heard furriners talking out there on the high street this morning when I went to find a baker’s. When we’re shipshape we can do our own baking but for today I thought we could allow ourselves that little extravagance.’

  ‘Foreigners?’

  ‘Furriners – not Gypsies,’ said Judith. ‘They looked just as you and I do, though I couldn’t understand a thing they said. French, perhaps – we’re just about as close to France as we ever shall be, here.’

  ‘Oh, Judith! I promised poor Charlie I’d go and find his grave over there, to put a handful of earth from our village over him. And I forgot, I forgot, and now I can’t go back there anymore to get it!’

  Judith looked at her steadily. ‘You’ve had plenty else to think on since then, Ellen.’

  ‘Betraying his memory, you mean.’

  Judith hesitated, for once not knowing what to say. Then eventually she said, ‘I can go back sometime. And I’ll get the earth for you. I’ll go to Grace’s garden for it, but I’ll tell her it was your idea. And then you and me can go together.’ Judith became more animated. ‘I’ve never been on a boat – just think of it, water all round! And sailors!’

  ‘Judy!’ But by now Ellen was smiling.

  ‘Not any old sailors, French sailors!’ said Judith, warming to her theme.

  ‘Aren’t they all Romanists?’ asked Ellen. ‘Charlie said that’s what the French people are. Your father wouldn’t like that much.’

  With the mention of Harold they fell silent for a moment, but Judith was irrepressible.

  ‘Not all!’ she sang out. ‘I went spying at the cathedral today. They have meetings – services, I mean – in French too, for the French Protestants.
So some of them are saved. Maybe Providence has saved one specially for me!’

  ‘Oh, Judith!’

  ‘At least I’ve made you laugh, Mrs Chown! Now let’s be stirring or my father will be home and nothing put right.’

  *

  By late afternoon Ellen had managed to unpack most of the boxes. Activity had momentarily helped her suppress her growing fear that life would forever after be defined by the limits of that humble Victorian brick and mortar.

  ‘The house will do very well, Judy,’ admitted Ellen, ‘but having strangers through that wall,’ she stretched out her right hand, ‘and that one,’ stretching out her left – the terraced house was only one room wide – ‘makes me feel I’m in a crowd with people pressing in on me from all sides. I have to sit halfway up the staircase where I’m safely boxed in to get away from them. And all these houses look the same, and so straight and sharp at the angles. If they turned the corners of this room inside out I’m sure I should cut myself on them!’

  ‘But there’s water indoors, Ellen! There’s a tap out there in the scullery and you turn it and out the water comes like magic – it’s Moses striking the rock under our own roof! And gaslight! Let there be light!’

  ‘Don’t let your father hear you talk like that!’

  ‘As if I would. But try to see it this way, Ellen: God provides, so let us be thankful. And you’ve paid your dues.’

  ‘Harold is angry with me.’

  ‘Oh Ellen, he’s only unhappy.’

  ‘He can’t see why I couldn’t keep his baby when I had no problem keeping Sam Loveridge’s. It’s easier for him to blame me than blame God.’

  ‘Blame those beasts that tormented the baby out of you. Your grandfer does. But how much do you want another one?’

  ‘I need to have one. It’s not about wanting – at least not only, though I’d have loved the poor lost babe, of course I would. If I don’t get another one, Harold will hate Tom. But if I do manage another one, I’d feel like I’d let him down.’