“I see happiness,” she said. “Yes, I felt it immediately. You walk through life calmly, as the young do. You are young in heart and that is a good thing to be. There are dangers all around you … below you … above you … but you walk straight through and you look neither up nor down, and because you see no evil, evil cannot harm you.”
“It sounds a little dull,” said Amaryllis. “I should like to know what all these dangers are.”
Leah shook her head. “This is the best way. You are a lucky lady. That much I can tell you.”
Amaryllis looked faintly disappointed but Leah could say no more.
Then she turned to me. I held out my palm and she took it.
“Oh yes …” She touched my hand lightly and looked up at me. Her dark eyes seemed to bore right through me and I felt my secret thoughts were revealed to her, my petty jealousies and vanities, my less than admirable nature.
She said: “You will be much sought after and there will be a choice to be made. So much will depend on that choice.”
“Can’t you see what I should do?”
She answered: “There is always free will. There are divided paths. It is for you to decide. If you take one you must beware.”
“How shall I know which is the dangerous path?”
She paused and bit her lip. “You are strong in your will. Whatever happens to you will be your choice. You can come through. But you must be wary. All about you I see forces … forces of evil.”
“What sort of evil?”
She shook her head. “I saw this … and I wanted to tell you. You must be careful. Do not act rashly. Be careful.”
“How can I when I don’t know of what to be careful?”
“Take care in all your actions. The time of choice will come, depend on that. You go one way and the evil will not be there. You take one path and then … it is there.”
“What sort of evil? Death?”
She did not answer.
“So it is death,” I insisted.
“It is not clear. Death could be there … Not yours. A death. That is all I can say.”
“And you saw all this when you met me. You wanted to come and warn me.”
“I did not know what I should find. I never know. But I had the strong feeling that I wanted to warn you.”
She released my hand and looked at me helplessly; and at that moment the door of the summer house opened. I looked towards it in dismay. She had shaken me a little with her warning and I wanted to hear more.
It was Tamarisk who stood there. She was dressed in a red dress with a light navy blue cloak. The combination was beautiful. Jeanne made most of her clothes and the colours always blended delightfully.
“What do you want, Tamarisk?” I asked.
“To see you,” she replied. “What you are doing?” She stared at Leah. “You’re the gypsy,” she added.
“Yes, I am.”
“I know about you. Jenny and Mab told me.”
“They told you?” I said sharply.
“No … not me … but I heard them. You live in the woods and tell fortunes.”
Tamarisk approached and stood still, looking intently at Leah.
As for Leah herself she could not take her eyes off the child. I thought she was struck by her extraordinary beauty.
“Tell my fortune,” said Tamarisk.
“Fortune telling is not for children,” I said.
“Oh yes, it is. It’s for everybody.”
Leah had taken the small hand which had been thrust into hers. She said gently: “When you are young, there is nothing written in the palm. It comes when you grow older.”
“Nothing written on it!” She seized my hand and studied it. “There’s nothing written on Jessica’s.”
“It is not writing with a pen,” explained Leah. “It’s written by life.”
“Who is Life?”
“What we are … what we are growing up to.”
“I want Life to write on my hands.”
“It will,” said Leah with a smile. “I think it may have a great deal to write.”
That pleased Tamarisk, but she was bored with fortunes if she was not to have one yet.
“There are four puppies. I like the big one. He squeals a lot and he is very greedy.”
“Who took you down to show you the puppies?”
“Jenny.”
“Where is she now?”
Tamarisk lifted her shoulders. “Do gypsies have puppies?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” Leah told her. “We have our dogs and some of them have puppies.”
“Where does Life write on them? They haven’t got hands.”
“It would find somewhere no doubt,” said Amaryllis.
Tamarisk was quite taken with Leah. She put her hands on her knees and looked up at her searchingly.
“You’ve got gold rings in your ears.”
“Yes,” said Leah.
“I want gold rings in my ears.”
“Tamarisk always wants everything everyone else may have,” I said.
“I want gold in my ears,” she repeated.
“Perhaps one day …” began Amaryllis.
“I want it now. They are always saying one day,” she told Leah. “Do you live in a caravan?”
“Yes.”
“Do you sleep there?”
“Yes. Sometimes if it is a very hot night we sleep out of doors … under the sky and when we wake in the night we can see the stars twinkling overhead. And sometimes there’s a moon.”
“I want to sleep under the stars.”
“Perhaps you will… one day.”
“You say it now. One day! I never want one day. I always want now.”
I heard an agitated voice: “Miss Tamarisk. Miss Tamarisk. Where are you?”
Tamarisk buried her head in Leah’s lap. I noticed how gently Leah’s long brown fingers touched the dark straight hair.
I went to the door of the summer house and said: “She’s here, Jenny. Did you think you had lost her?”
“She ran off and when I turned round she had gone, Miss Frenshaw.”
“Well, she’s here now. She ought to be put on a chain like a little dog.”
Tamarisk lifted her head and put out her tongue at me.
“Oh, certainly she should be,” I went on. “And taught how to behave.”
“I know how to behave.”
“Well, why not practise what you know?”
“Come along, Miss Tamarisk,” said Jenny. “Jeanne is waiting to go.”
She took Tamarisk firmly by the hand and led her away.
“She is a beautiful child,” said Leah as the door of the summer house closed.
“And a very unmanageable one. They spoil her.”
“She has a look of…”
“Romany Jake?” I said. “He is her father.”
Leah nodded; her face was full of secrets and I did not know what she was thinking.
“Poor Tamarisk,” said Amaryllis, “her mother is dead.”
“She has her father …” began Leah.
“A father who does not know of her existence!” went on Amaryllis.
“She is his child,” said Leah. “There could be no doubt of it.”
She was quiet for a moment, then she said: “I am sorry I could not tell you more. That is how it is. I do not want to talk nonsense … as some of our people do … just while they are waiting for what is to come. Inspiration … truth … it flashes upon you… and you wait for it. But sometimes it does not come and then there is no fortune. But what can be done? Can one say, ‘There is nothing. You do not inspire me. The powers are silent…’ Or ‘I do not wish to tell…’ How could we say that? We can only wait… and sometimes it comes and sometimes not.”
“I understand perfectly, don’t you, Amaryllis?”
“Perfectly,” she replied. “And you have given me such a lovely fortune. It’s poor Jessica I’m sorry about… all those dark forces …”
“They are there surroundi
ng us all. We must be like you and look neither up nor down. Then we shall not see them … and perhaps our good angel will guide our footsteps in the right direction.”
I had brought money with which to pay her and I gave it to her. She accepted it gracefully with many thanks and we walked with her to the gates and then went back to the house.
Tamarisk and Jeanne had already left.
Guests were arriving for the party. Lord and Lady Pettigrew were there with Millicent and her son Jonathan.
Jonathan was a little younger than I, and Millicent, although my sister-in-law, was of an age with Amaryllis’ mother, Claudine. My birth to my parents late in life had made some rather complicated relationships for me.
I quite liked Jonathan. He had always been a high-spirited boy and was continually in some sort of scrape. He had a charming personality, and was always disarmingly sorry if he caused anyone any trouble. His mother said he was very like his father who had been killed nearly twenty years ago in a shooting affray with a French spy.
The Pettigrews were frequent visitors at Eversleigh and one day Jonathan would inherit the estate, and my father was quite interested in him, although he was often exasperated by him.
Lady Pettigrew was a very autocratic lady who thought she could manage everyone’s affairs better than they could themselves, and unfortunately tried to do so. Lord Pettigrew was a very pleasant old man, gentle and resigned. As I said to Amaryllis, he had to be, living with Lady Pettigrew for years. Claudine said she was getting old now and we must bear with her. Amaryllis was a great favourite with her; I was not because I could not resist the temptation to contradict.
The Pettigrews had come several days before the birthday and we were all invited over to the Barringtons’ to dine. I was next to Edward for dinner and I began to wonder whether we were being thrown together, for I always seemed to find myself close to him.
“I am very much looking forward to the party,” he said.
“We all are.”
“The eighteenth birthday! Rather a special one, isn’t it? Eighteen is supposed to be one of the milestones of life.”
“When one leaves childhood behind.”
He looked at me seriously and nodded. I felt faintly uneasy. He was hinting at something. Could it really be that he was thinking of marriage?
I hoped not. I had always fretted to be grown up but when one was an adult certain decisions had to be made. I did not want to be married yet. I liked Edward Barrington, of course. I also liked some of the other young men in the neighbourhood. Oh yes, I wanted to be grown up; but I did not want to leap straight out of girlhood into marriage. I wanted a little time to bask in the admiration of a number of people. I did not want to confine myself to the attentions of one, which I supposed I should have to do when I was married.
A faint gloom had been cast over the evening. Times change. Nothing remains the same for long. I looked along the table at my father and realized with a sudden anxiety that he was an old man. The great Dickon … old! I had always had a special relationship with him. I had been grateful from my earliest childhood when I discovered that I and my mother were the only ones who could soften him. I remembered Amaryllis’ saying “Ask your father. He’ll say yes … if you ask him.” Miss Rennie had said, “Miss Jessica knows how to get round her father.” It was especially wonderful because I did not have to know anything. I just had to be. I loved him dearly. For all his wickedness—and I believed he had been very wicked in his youth—I loved him more than I did anyone else—except perhaps my mother and that was equally. But they were both getting old and could not live forever. My father was fresh-faced; he looked healthy; but I realized with a pang that he was well into his sixties. The thought frightened me. And my mother was in her fifties. She was still beautiful, of course, because she had that kind of beauty which does not fade. There is a permanence about it. There was white in her hair now but it was still abundant; and her eyes, although they might be a little lined, were still of that arresting dark blue shade. But they were both getting old. Edward Barrington, by his insinuations … if insinuations they were … had reminded me of this.
“You look a little sad,” Edward was saying.
I flashed a smile at him. “Sad? No, of course not.”
I started to talk animatedly trying to dismiss those rather frightening thoughts.
When we returned home that night, my mother came to my room. It was a habit of hers. There were times, she said, when she was in need of a cosy chat. This was one of those occasions.
“A pleasant evening,” she said. “It always is at the Barringtons’. Nice neighbours. We were lucky when they came to Grasslands.”
“A little different from the last inhabitants.”
My mother frowned. “Yes, old Mrs. Trent was always something of a misfit and then that tragedy with Evie … and now poor Dolly … it seemed as though she were dogged by ill fortune.”
“Edward is a little perturbed about the work people and the machines.”
“Yes, I heard about that. I daresay Edward will overcome his difficulties. He’s that sort of person. I like him, don’t you?”
I looked sharply at her and burst out laughing.
“You know me well,” she said. “Sometimes I believe you know what I’m thinking.”
“For instance at the present moment?”
“Well, he’s very earnest. Mrs. Barrington hinted to me … Now, you mustn’t get on your high horse. Parents are like that. You’ll know one day. It has occurred to me for some time that there might be a happy outcome.”
“Why don’t you say it outright. You want me to marry Edward Barrington. Well, Mother, I do not want to marry him or anybody.”
“Don’t look so fierce. Nobody is going to drag you to the altar against your wishes.”
“I should think not!”
She laughed at me. “Just idle dreaming. I expect the idea is new to you. I’d like to see you happily married. It’s nice to have children when you are young.”
“As you did me?”
“That was a very special case.”
“I don’t want to think about marrying anyone. I want to be young for a while yet.”
“Of course. But if you did decide on Edward Barrington we should all be rather pleased. You’d be near us, for one thing.”
“He’s in Nottingham a great deal of the time.”
“Yes … but Grasslands would be a sort of root. I should hate it if you went far away.”
“I have no intention of going far away … or marrying … for a very long time. I like it here. I can’t imagine I should ever love anyone as much as I love you and my father.”
She was deeply moved. “My dear, dear Jessica,” she said. “What a comfort you have been to us both!”
“You don’t need any comfort from me. You have each other.”
“I’m so lucky.”
“I think we all are.”
She laughed. “We’re getting quite maudlin.”
“I felt a little sad at dinner because it suddenly occurred to me that you were getting old … you and my father … and it frightened me. I just could not bear it if you weren’t there … either of you.”
“We shall always be here until…”
“That’s what I mean.”
“My dearest child, all my joy has been in my husband and my daughters … you and Claudine. Charlot…”
“You rarely speak of him.”
“I think of him often. He left us … on that day years ago and I have not seen him since. Perhaps I shall one day. He is after all my son, and when I think of him I thank God for my daughters.”
I said: “Who is getting maudlin now? You are going to live forever and I’m going to be with you … your unmarried daughter who will always be there to look after you.”
The door opened and my father came in.
“What on earth is going on here?” he demanded. He was looking at my mother. “I wondered what had happened to you.”
“W
e got talking,” she said.
“You look a bit… peculiar.”
“Jessica was saying she was going to look after us for the rest of our days.”
“Look after us! When did we need looking after?”
“She’s worried because we’re getting old, and so is she, and she is dead against marriage because she much prefers you to any suitor.”
“Well, of course she does. She is going to find it impossible to discover someone who will match up with me.”
“It’s true,” I said.
My mother slipped her arm through his. “It all came about because I mentioned … or did I hint? … that Edward Barrington looked as though he might have plans concerning her.”
“I shouldn’t object to him as a son-in-law.”
“But it is I who have to accept or object, dear Father, not you.”
“Parental approbation is usually necessary in the best regulated families.”
“But this is not one of those. It’s us. Please get out of your silly old heads that you have to find a husband for me. When I feel the need of one I’ll choose him myself. At the moment, I am very content for everything to remain as it is.”
“You’ve made that clear enough. And what’s this about our getting old? I’ll never be old.”
“I don’t believe you ever will.”
“Well, come on, Lottie.”
He took my face in his hand and looked at me. “Stop fretting,” he said. “When have you not had your own way, eh? Nothing is going to change that… just because you have reached the mature age of eighteen. Stop thinking about age. That’s the best way to ward it off. All will be well. You are like me … born lucky. Life works out for people like us. Look at me. A wicked old sinner and I have got the two best women in the world.”
He kissed me swiftly.
“Good night,” he went on briefly.
My mother kissed me and they were gone.
Nothing had changed. No one would attempt to force me, nor even persuade me, to do what I did not want to.
My fate was in my own hands.
Return of the Gypsy Page 12