“Of what?”
“That the gypsies may have had something to do with this.”
“You mean you think they have taken her. They wouldn’t dare. Kidnapping! It could be a hanging offence.”
“I don’t think they would care about that. Besides, they would say she is one of them.”
“Good God,” he said.
And we walked on in silence.
The night air was still balmy as the day had been so hot. It seemed a very long time since I had been sitting in the garden listening to Edward’s proposal.
At length we came to the clearing in the woods. There were no caravans there. My father went over to a pile of ashes. He knelt down and touched them. “They are still warm,” he said. “They can’t have gone long.”
He stood up and we faced each other.
“Why?” he said.
“Leah,” I said. “I may be wrong, but it did occur to me. She was very taken with the child … and the child with her. There was an affinity between them. I believe Leah loves the child’s father, and because of that she wants his child.”
“You’re romancing, my dear.”
“Maybe … and then maybe not.”
“What do you propose we do now?”
“We could send after them. They’ve gone to the West Country. We’ll see if Tamarisk is with them.”
We went back to the house. I dreaded reaching it for something told me that when we did we should hear that there was no news of Tamarisk.
And it was significant that the gypsies should have left just at the time when Tamarisk disappeared.
Everyone was talking about Tamarisk’s disappearance. It seemed a foregone conclusion that she had been stolen by the gypsies, or more likely gone of her own free will. One of the maids remembered that she had seen the gypsy woman talking to the child on the edge of the garden. Miss Allen confirmed that on the previous day she had insisted on walking to the camp, and when they were there she had talked to one of the gypsy women who had shown her inside a caravan.
It was too much of a coincidence that they should have gone at the very time Tamarisk disappeared.
Aunt Sophie was stricken with grief. She had been suffering from a cold before Tamarisk’s disappearance: now that turned to bronchitis. She would not eat; she could not sleep. She just lay in bed crying for the child.
My mother and I went over with Amaryllis. We were deeply shocked. She just lay in her bed, her hood slightly awry so that we could see the beginnings of those sad scars which she had been so careful to hide; now she did not seem to care.
Two days had passed and there was no news of Tamarisk.
My father and David had gone in search of the gypsies but they had disappeared completely and left no trace. It seemed very clear that Leah had taken Tamarisk away.
It was difficult to believe that the gentle girl could be capable of such an act, but I remembered the knife in her belt and the way she had looked at Tamarisk. I was sure she had loved Romany Jake; it was natural; he was the man who had risked his life for her sake. I believed that she would be capable of deep emotions, passionate hatred, passionate love.
And she had wanted the child. So she had lured Tamarisk away from us. I was equally sure that Tamarisk had not been taken against her will.
I thought of Romany Jake sitting in Dolly’s kitchen singing of the lady who had left her fine home for the gypsies.
That was what Tamarisk had done.
As the days dragged on and we had given up hope of finding Tamarisk, we became very concerned about Aunt Sophie.
We visited her every day. Jeanne was in despair.
“She cannot go on like this,” she said.
Poor Aunt Sophie was sunk in melancholy. Someone from the family was there almost throughout the day. We would sit by her bed, saying nothing. She just lay there staring into space.
Jeanne was always trying to tempt her with some special dish. Poor Jeanne, she herself looked weary and older.
It was about four days after Tamarisk’s disappearance. I had gone over to Enderby to be met by Jeanne. She was pale and there were shadows under her eyes.
I said: “How is she?”
Jeanne shook her head.
“I used to say how much good the child did her. After she came she was happy as she had never been before. Now I would to God there had never been a child. Then we should be as we were before her coming.”
“Do you think she will ever come back now?”
“She has gone with the gypsies. She is her father’s child. Her mother was a strange and unhappy girl and with the gypsy her father, it is small wonder that she was rebellious. There is something wild about her. But we loved her and she was everything to Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle always wanted children. If she could have married and had them I think life would have been very different for us. Life is cruel. There she was … a young pretty girl. She goes out one night… one night only … and there is that terrible disaster and that is the end of the life she knew. A fresh one starts … a life of bitterness and regrets. Oh, it is so cruel. My poor, poor one. How I wish I could bear it for her.”
“You have always been so wonderful to her, Jeanne. My mother always says you are one of the rare people, for people are rarely so good.”
“She is my life, my child, you might say.”
“How I wish that wicked girl would come back. She plagued us all with her presence, but never as she has now by her absence.”
“Ah, if she would only come in at that door now. That would be enough for Mademoiselle. Then I could start feeding her … making her well again … make life good for her. But the child will not come.”
“Shall I go and sit with Aunt Sophie for a while?”
Jeanne nodded. “She seems listless but perhaps she is happy to know that we are all so concerned for her.”
So I went into that room and I sat there by the bed and I thought, There is something evil about this house. It was supposed to be haunted. Terrible things had happened here. My mother told me how surprised she had been when Sophie had decided to take it. They had said then that she had been bewitched by the melancholy of Enderby, the gloom which hung over it. The personality of the house was like that of Aunt Sophie.
But Jeanne had brought her impeccable French taste to the house. She had subtly changed the furnishings. She had made discoveries in the house and changed it a little. And Aunt Sophie had been happier here than she had since her disfigurement when she had lost her fiancé and the happy future to which she had looked forward.
But Aunt Sophie was doomed. Those she had loved, she said, were taken from her. Her fiancé was lost to her, although it was she who had refused to marry him, so my mother told me. He would have gone on with the wedding; but he had married my mother instead. Then there was Alberic, the French spy who had come into her life and whom she had loved—so Jeanne told me—as her son. He had died—murdered, said Aunt Sophie; meeting his just deserts, said my father; it was Jonathan, my father’s own son, who had killed him and lost his own life in similar fashion.
So many tragedies! Yes, there was something about the house, I could feel it… in this very room.
A disembodied voice floated up to me.
“Is Mademoiselle all right?”
It was Jeanne speaking through the tube in the kitchen—a weird device, I had always thought it, connecting the two rooms. It always sounded odd to me, unnatural, even though I understood how it came through.
Aunt Sophie stirred a little.
“Am I all right?” she said. “I shall never be all right. Life is too cruel. Jessica, why do you sit there? Why don’t you go away. Just leave me in my misery.”
“Oh, Aunt Sophie, we are all so anxious about you. We all want you to be well.”
“I lose all those I have loved. There is something fatal about my loving. I just have to love and they are taken from me.”
“Oh no, it is not so, Aunt Sophie.”
She raised herself a little. “Ye
s, yes,” she cried vehemently. “There was Charles. He was so handsome. And he is long since dead. He married your mother. Charlot and Claudine were the result. I loved Charlot. Where is Charlot now?”
“He has his vineyard in Burgundy. My mother longs for the end of the war so that she can visit him … or perhaps he will soon come to us.”
“Oh, the war will be over. Your mother will see her son. Everything works well for her … whereas for me …”
“Oh, Aunt Sophie, you are here with your family. You escaped with Jeanne. No one could have a more devoted friend than Jeanne. She at least is something to be grateful for.”
“She is a good woman. I am devoted to her… but she is here with me in my prison. Charlot… Claudine … they might have been my children. But life is always against me. True, I escaped. I came here. I found this house. I thought life would be a little kinder to me … at last. Alberic came. He was a beautiful young man… always so eager to please me. And … they murdered him. I was fond of Dolly and she went with that gypsy and she died. But she gave me Tamarisk. I thought then I could be happy. I had this little girl to bring up as my own … mine at last. And now … she is gone. You see, whatever I do, whatever I touch, brings desolation. It is time I gave up the struggle, Jessica.”
“You must not say such things. You have been so brave.”
“Brave? I? Crouching in my prison … shutting myself away … afraid to see anyone … living like a hermit! You call that brave?”
I said: “It is brave in a way.”
She laughed. “No, it is cowardice. I was always a coward. Afraid of life. I never grasped firmly as your mother did. Perhaps I should have married Charles. He would have married me. Gentleman’s honour, you understand. I knew that he did not want me. I suspected even before the accident that it was your mother whom he wanted. I could have made him marry me. Perhaps I should have done so. I might have had children. After all, it was an obligation on his part. How different everything might have been if I had married him! Sometimes one has a choice in life. Two ways loom before one. Which should one take? And the decision makes all the difference to one’s life.”
I was thoughtful. Was that not what Leah, the gypsy, had said to me?
I sat there thinking of Aunt Sophie’s decision. Which would I have taken had I been in her place?
There was silence for a while, then Aunt Sophie said: “Jessica, I sometimes feel there is no reason why I should go on. It would be so easy to let go …”
I said: “Tamarisk will come back. I feel it in my bones.”
She shook her head. “I shall never see Tamarisk again.”
There was nothing I could say or do to comfort her. I kissed her forehead and took my leave.
The weeks were passing. There was no news of Tamarisk. My father had done everything possible to trace the gypsies, but there was no sign of them. Enquiries were made and it was learned that they had not visited their usual haunts that year.
There were whole days when no one mentioned Tamarisk which was a sign that we were all beginning to accept the evidence that she had gone with the gypsies. She was not, after all, related to us. My father said: “The child is merely Dolly Mather’s bastard by a wandering gypsy. If it wasn’t for Sophie’s preoccupation with her it would be no concern of ours that she is taken back to her father’s people. It might be said that they have more right to her than Sophie.”
I tried to explain to him what Tamarisk had meant to Sophie, but my father was apt to be impatient of the weaknesses of others. The only two people he cared about were my mother and myself. He had a certain pride in David who was a model son and as unlike Dickon as a son could be from his father. He regretted the death of Jonathan; he had a fondness for Claudine and for Amaryllis. But they were immediate family. Outside that he had little concern. So he shrugged his shoulders. Tamarisk had gone and that was the end of the matter for him.
How different was my mother. She was warm-hearted, making other people’s troubles her concern; and particularly so in the case of Aunt Sophie, for whom she always had had this very special obligation to help.
Aunt Sophie was shrinking into a decline. She seemed to have shrivelled; she was constantly talking of Tamarisk, and Jeanne told me that she had gone into her room at midnight to find her at the window looking out because she had thought she heard someone in the garden and wondered if Tamarisk had come home.
The talk at Eversleigh now was all about Napoleon’s advance on Russia. My mother always listened eagerly to news of the war. She was longing for the day when it would be over and she would be reunited with Charlot.
There was no fresh news about him but since she had heard that he and Louis Charles had a vineyard in Burgundy, she had been hopeful. She confided in me that it had been heart-rending when she had believed he was fighting in Napoleon’s army. “Fighting against us,” she said. “It seemed so terrible. Now I can think of him in his vineyard. He will find that so interesting. And Louis Charles with him. He was always his shadow. I wonder what his wife is like. I might have grandchildren. It is maddening to be in the dark. But I must thank God that he is safe.”
She did not try to bring a halt to the conversation at the table when it was about the war now as she had done in the past. She encouraged it, listening avidly for some indication that there might be peace.
My father watched events with great interest. He said that if Napoleon succeeded in conquering Russia the whole of Europe would be in his hands.
“Then,” he went on, “he would turn his attention to us.”
“But there is the sea to protect us,” said my mother.
“If he could find a way of bringing his armies over …”
“The Navy would never allow it.”
“If he does succeed in conquering Russia,” said David, “he will believe he cannot fail.”
“He failed at Trafalgar,” pointed out Claudine.
“And by God, he is going to fail again,” added my father. “But at the moment the Russians are in full retreat. Napoleon is after Moscow. If he succeeds in taking it the Russians will lose heart.”
“Will that be the end of the war?” asked my mother.
“My dear Lottie, what do you think the mighty conqueror of Europe will do if he beats the Russians? He will have come to the conclusion that he is invincible. Nothing will deter him from an attack on our island.”
My mother shivered. “It is all so stupid, so pointless. What does it matter to the people who is king or emperor?”
“Unfortunately, my love, it matters to the kings and most certainly to this particular emperor. Napoleon wants to see himself astride the world.”
“He will never conquer us,” said David firmly.
“Never!” agreed my father. “But there might be certain troubles to be faced first.”
We visited Aunt Sophie regularly. Sometimes I went; sometimes Amaryllis did. Always Sophie talked of Tamarisk, her beauty, her charm. I said to Amaryllis: “She is fast turning the child into an angel of virtue.” And she agreed.
Jeanne was very worried. “She eats scarcely anything; and does not rest at night. Often I hear her moving about. I went in last night. She was sitting at the window looking out. She said she thought she had heard Tamarisk in the garden, calling to her. She was icily cold. I got her back to bed and although I covered her with several blankets she lay there shivering for a full hour. She can’t go on like this.”
“I wish we could get some news of Tamarisk,” I said.
It was a balmy September day when we heard that Napoleon had entered Moscow.
“This is the end,” said David. “The effect of Moscow’s surrender will be devastating for the Russian army. It will collapse.”
David was a shrewd observer of the political field, I had always thought. He approached all subjects with logic. My father was apt to have preconceived notions and a certain amount of emotion crept into his judgements.
But for once David was wrong. We waited for news with the u
tmost eagerness. Moscow was burning. It was first thought that the French had set fire to it; but that would have been folly. Napoleon did not want a destroyed city. He had his army to house and feed. It was a last desperate manoeuvre by the Russians—an example of what they called the scorched earth policy. They had tried it out consistently during the war and Napoleon’s advancing armies, far from home, found nothing ahead of them but burning towns.
“He has to make a decision now,” said David. “To stay the winter in a burned-out city or to withdraw. He is hesitating. If he waits much longer it will be too late.”
“What we must pray for now is his retreat from Moscow and an early Russian winter,” said my father. “That will be better than an avenging army.”
“Those poor soldiers,” murmured my mother, and I knew she was giving up a prayer of thanksgiving because Charlot was no longer one of Napoleon’s soldiers, but snug, she hoped, in his vineyard.
“Those poor soldiers, Lottie,” retorted my father, “are the very gentlemen who would be over-running this land and bringing their accursed emperor here to rule over us.”
“I know. I know. But it is always sad when men … whose quarrel it is not… have to risk their lives. I do hope it will be over soon. Oh, if only it could be.”
“Then you should pray for a hard winter.”
I have no doubt that the Russians prayed for the same—and those prayers were answered. Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow decimated his army. However well drilled, well disciplined those men, they could not stand up to the terrible climatic conditions.
There were many to rejoice—ourselves among them—when Napoleon returned to Paris, and of the army of six hundred thousand only one hundred thousand had survived.
We were dining with the Barringtons when the news came.
“Perhaps he will make peace now,” said my mother hopefully.
“Not him,” said my father.
“Nothing short of capture and the complete destruction of his armies will silence Napoleon,” added Edward Barrington.
“You are right,” added his father. “Nothing will subdue him but complete defeat.”
“It will come, depend upon it,” said my father. “And when it does we shall be free of this threat which has been hanging over us for so long. The French have a lot to answer for.”
Return of the Gypsy Page 14