Margaret Dashwood's Diary

by Elliott, Anna

  I sighed and brushed the sugar from my gloves—I hoped she might at least find it in the grass and feel some benevolence for my having left it, though that seems a small chance at best. Then I took my leave, afraid of agitating her any more.

  The sun was still low on the horizon, the air still pleasantly cool—or at least not as stiflingly hot as it was likely to be later in the day. And since it would be another hour or two at least until breakfast time, I chose a route back to the house different from the one I usually take—a long way around, through a copse of stately oaks at the edge of Colonel Brandon’s lands.

  I had just entered the shade of the trees when I heard a sound midway between a groan and a growl. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the comparative dimness, and looked round—wondering whether the sound had been human or animal, and whether whoever had made it was hurt. And that was when I saw it: a ragged canvas tent strung up between the lower branches of two young oaks, some little distance off the path. A gypsy’s tent—looking as though it would provide only a token protection from the elements, since it was filthy and tattered and all over holes, besides.

  I paused, then. I may not subscribe to the commonly held dictum that all gypsies are villains and thieves of barnyard stock and anything else not nailed down—and will, given the chance, ruin the honour of every girl they meet. But I also saw enough as a child to understand that—like horses, I suppose; like Star—men will turn brutal and savage if they are beaten and threatened and reviled for long enough. As of course nearly all gypsies are, wherever their travels take them.

  The groaning sound came again, though—and peering more closely through the screen of underbrush, I caught sight of a man’s figure, lying sprawled in the carpet of dead leaves, his body half in and half out of the tent. I hesitated another instant, but then started forward. He might be ill or he might be drunk—but he also appeared a very unlikely threat to anyone’s honour, including mine.

  Holding my skirts tight against me so as not to catch on brambles, I stepped off the path and approached his camp. It looked as though he must have been there for some time; everything was very tidily laid out: a well-dug fire pit in the centre, ringed with a circle of stones and with a tin cook pot hanging from a cleft stick; a trash heap a little distance away, piled with animal bones—if he had been stealing chickens, he had at least not eaten any. The bones looked as though they had come from a hare. Even the inside of the tent—what I could see of it—looked neat, if poor and threadbare. I could see a plain bedroll and a worn leather pack that probably held all he possessed in the world.

  The only untidy note about the place was the man himself, who did not even stir as I gingerly approached and knelt down beside him. I could not smell any odour of spirits about him, at least. So after a touch on the shoulder failed to rouse him, I took hold and as carefully as I could, rolled him over onto his back.

  He was quite young. No more than a year or two older than I am, with black hair, skin of golden tan, and several days’ stubble of beard on his jaw. I could not see his eyes, of course, since they were closed. But he had very thick eyelashes—almost as long as a girl’s. His face was strong boned and lean, his body wiry, but broad shouldered.

  There was a flush on his cheekbones. I drew off one of my gloves and touched the back of my hand against his brow—then drew back, startled by the heat of his skin. He was burning with fever.

  I sat back on my heels, wondering what I might do for him. But at that moment, his eyelids flickered, then opened.

  His eyes, too, were bright with fever, and I saw him wince as though even the pale sunlight filtering through the oak canopy above hurt his eyes. His gaze took in the fact of my presence with a look of bleary unsurprise; I suppose he was too far gone in illness for anything to seem remarkable.

  “Am I dead?” His lips had a cracked look and his voice sounded raspy.

  I shook my head. “No—at least, not yet.”

  “Good.” He had been making a feeble effort to pull himself upright, but gave up the struggle and flung up an arm to cover his eyes; his next words came out slightly muffled. “No one should feel this bad if they’re dead.”

  That startled me into almost a laugh. Though my mind was still racing, wondering what I ought to do—and whether there would be any point in running back to the mansion house to ask for help.

  But then his arm lowered, and he looked at me more closely. He seemed at once weaker and yet more aware—on the verge of slipping back into unconsciousness, but with the furrow in his brow deepening into one of concentration. And his eyes—they were very dark, as well—were this time surprised as he stared at my face.

  “Margaret?” he said.

  It was my turn to stare. His eyes slid closed once more before I could speak, and I sat in blank astonishment, tracing the—now familiar?—lines of his face.

  It does not seem possible that I should have stumbled across Jamie Cooper, of all the people—of all the Romany travellers—in England. But it seems I have.

  Sunday 6 June 1802

  It is past midnight, so the new date at the top of the page is now, strictly speaking, correct—though this is really the end of the same day.

  I was so impatient to get back to Jamie that I did not set the full story down before:

  When I was a child, my father used to hire on a band—or tribe as they call themselves—of gypsies every fall season on the estate, to help with getting the harvest in. The neighbours were more or less horrified, of course. In our part of Sussex—as in most other parts of England, I suspect—gypsies are denounced as sorcerers and cheats and accused of causing diseases in cattle. And those are the most civil of the charges levelled against them.

  My father was immovable, though. He said that the gypsies he hired gave honest work for honest pay, and that there was no reason he should not take them on when we had need of extra labor, and they had so many hungry mouths to feed.

  Father was charitable, as well as truly good and kind; I do not doubt he was swayed by the miserable-looking, barefoot—and often naked—children to be seen about the gypsies’ camp. But I also rather think he was not entirely unmoved by the fact that the rom baro (headman) of this band of gypsies—Elijah Cooper was his name—was the finest horse tamer and breeder Father had ever seen. And Father loved horses as much as I do.

  Elijah Cooper was a tall man—and not perhaps very impressive, physically speaking. His frame was lean, his shoulders slightly bowed, and he had a melancholy face, with very deep-set dark eyes and a drooping moustache that framed his mouth. Nor was he especially friendly or congenial—at least, not with people. I remember him as perpetually dour and slightly sullen in his manner. But he had what my father called a nearly miraculous gift with horses.

  Elijah had two sons: an elder boy named Sampson—called Sam—who was as high-spirited and wild as his father was surly and dour; and a younger boy, James—or Jamie, as he was always called—who was nothing like his brother or father. Jamie was nine or thereabouts the autumn that I first met him, the first year my father hired him on to train a new hunter he had just added to his stables. Nine years old to my eight—a tall, too-thin boy with dark hair and large, sober dark eyes.

  He was very quiet in his manners, and serious—though perhaps that was from shouldering responsibility so young. His mother was dead, and Sam had no skill at—and still less interest in—the family trade. So Elijah relied on Jamie to look after their family horses—they had a small herd of stallions they would hire out to stud—and he helped with any horse-breaking they were hired on for, besides.

  Though actually, looking back, I am not sure that ‘relied’ is the right word. ‘Commanded’ or even ‘demanded’ would be more accurate.

  But to go back to the point where I broke off in the story earlier today: Astonishing and impossible as it seemed, it was the same Jamie whom I had just discovered, lying ill and fevered on the edge of the Delaford estate. I have not seen him in years, of course—not since I was twelve, the ye
ar my father died, and we were forced to leave Norland. But the more I studied the man’s face, the more certain I was that I could trace in its lean lines the features of the boy I had known.

  “Jamie?” I whispered, to be certain. “Jamie Cooper?”

  ‘Cooper’ is not really their family name, of course, only the one they give to gadjos—that is their word for anyone not of gypsy blood. Jamie told me their real surname, once—I think it was something like Kalderash, though I would not swear to it now.

  His eyes flickered open again—though their gaze was once more fever-bleared and dull. I saw the muscles of his throat bunch as he tried to swallow and moisten his cracked lips.

  I had spotted a tin cup resting on one of the stones that ringed the fire, and crossing the camp, I found it filled with a few inches of water—I suppose from the recent rain. Not much, but better than nothing. I knew there was a stream running roughly across this edge of the Delaford lands—the same stream that feeds Colonel Brandon’s stew ponds. But having never been that way before, I did not want to leave Jamie and go floundering off into the woods when there was no guarantee of how quickly I might find it.

  I held the cup to Jamie’s lips and was relieved to see that he was able to drink. He gulped the water down thirstily—though he was too weak to raise his head, and some of the water splashed down his neck. He did not seem eased by it, though. His gaze was still unfocused and he muttered, “Paracrow tute”—which I know in the Romany language means ‘thank you’—but then started to shift, tossing and turning restlessly, his brow furrowed as though in worry or pain. He said something else—more Romany words, too low and slurred for me to catch any of them. Though I might not have understood in any case; it is not as though I was ever an expert in the tongue, and it has been years since I even thought of the handful of words and phrases Jamie taught me when we were small.

  “Hush, it’s all right.” I was still more or less dumbfounded by the shock of seeing him again this way, but I put my hand on his forehead, trying to soothe him. “I’ll fetch someone to help. The apothecary, or—”

  “No!” His eyes snapped fully open again at that, and he caught hold of my wrist. “No drab-engro.”

  After a moment’s frowning effort of recollection, I knew that word, too; it means ‘physician’- or rather, literally, ‘poison-man’, gypsies having little confidence in gadjo medicine in general.

  “But you need—,” I began.

  “No one can know that I am here.” Jamie’s fingers tightened. “I cannot … No one must know …” He spoke almost more to himself than to me; I was not even sure whether he was aware of my presence at all, or more than half lost in some waking fever-dream. But he spoke with so much agitation that I said, soothingly, “All right. Don’t worry. No one will know, I promise you.”

  I did not know why he was so bent on secrecy, but I could understand it, perhaps. Maybe Colonel Brandon had not given him permission to camp on his land. And if he were discovered, a fever would likely be the least of his worries, when the local men appeared to drive him away. Marianne would do what she could to protect him, I was sure; Jamie was always my friend rather than hers, but she would remember him, too—so would Elinor. But she could not guard him every moment from the tenant farmers and local landowners—who would be out and more or less up in arms if the words ‘gypsy encampment in the neighbourhood’ began to be whispered abroad.

  “I will not tell anyone,” I said.

  Whether the words brought him some measure of ease—or whether he was simply too exhausted to remain awake any more—I was not sure. But his grip relaxed and he sank back onto the carpet of leaves.

  With some trouble—he might be lean, but he is not at all skinny anymore—I managed to drag Jamie the rest of the way into the tent and cover him with the woollen blanket I found on the bedroll. He did not rouse again as I moved him, not even to twitch or mutter. Though in case he could by chance hear me, I promised that I would come back myself when I could, with food and drink for him.

  I did manage to get back tonight, after dinner. It is lucky that it being summer, the sky stays light until late into the evening. Lucky, as well, that Marianne was feeling tired enough to retire to her room early, which meant that I had only to tell the Palmers that I had letters that I wished to write in order to make my own escape.

  I brought bread and cheese and a jug of milk that I took from the Delaford dairy, and found Jamie’s camp again. But when I looked into the tent, he was still deeply asleep and lying exactly as I had left him. I left him the food and the milk. But I shall have to wait until tomorrow for answers as to how he has come to be here—assuming that I can slip away again.

  Monday 7 June 1802

  I found Jamie still asleep when I went back to his camp this morning. It was comparatively easy for me to slip away this time, since the whole household is already accustomed to my visiting Star before breakfast.

  I spent last night plagued with the worry that Jamie would take a turn for the worse during the night—and with wondering what I should do if I did find him more ill than before. I have not had very much experience in a sickroom. Nursing dogs and cats and once a hedgehog through illness scarcely counts. But even to my inexpert eyes, his fever had seemed serious enough to warrant true concern.

  And yet—even apart from my promise to speak of his presence to no one—there would likely be very little point in trying to bring the apothecary to him in any case. Mr. Gates, the Delaford apothecary, is round and red faced and jolly. But I had no reason to think he would be particularly eager to treat a wandering gypsy. Nor, from the look of his camp, would Jamie be able to pay Mr. Gates’s fees.

  And unless Jamie had changed far more than seemed likely from the boy I knew, he would categorically refuse to allow me to pay for him.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, though, when I arrived at the camp and found Jamie still asleep under the tent—but peacefully so, his brow unfurrowed and his body slack. I touched the back of my hand to his head again; his skin was still dry and unnaturally heated—but not quite so burning-hot as before.

  Jamie’s eyelids twitched, then opened fully at my touch. His dark eyes were clouded by sleep—but this time, his gaze cleared and focused on my face and he said, “Margaret. Margaret Dashwood.” He shook his head—part in disbelief, part as though he were still trying to physically shake the stupor of sleep and illness away. “It really is you. I thought”—he spoke as though the effort tired him—“I must have been having some sort of fantastical nightmare.”

  “Nightmare?” I raised my eyebrows and said, with asperity, “Proper convention would dictate that you say something about angels of mercy and believing yourself to be in heaven at the sight of me.”

  I saw the corners of Jamie’s mouth twitch upwards into a ghost of the quick, lopsided grin I remembered from years ago. “Angels, is it? I suppose I might at least believe God had chosen some strange way of punishing me for my sins.”

  I gave him a look, pressing my lips together—though I could feel an answering smile tugging at the corners of my own mouth. In fairness, I could see Jamie’s point. The first time we met, he had been tasked with picking apples in the Norland orchards—and as I watched, he jumped, caught hold of a low branch, and then swung himself up by means of a smooth backwards flip that brought him up to standing on the branch itself.

  Not being especially good at patience at eight years old, I begged that he teach me how to perform the trick—right away, that moment, at once. I was very indignant when he refused.

  “Do you think I cannot learn? Just because I am a girl?” I demanded.

  Jamie let out a breath that was half amusement, half exasperation, and he looked me up and down, from the silk ribbon in my hair to my blue sprigged muslin gown to my slippers with blue satin bows. “I don’t know about you being a girl. But I couldn’t climb trees, either, if I was wearing a dress that looks like it cost more than what my father sees in a year.”

  At eight, I also di
d not—not fully—understand the differences in our stations, or what that difference would mean to someone in Jamie’s place. But there was a hard note in his voice that I did not like. I drew myself up and said, coolly, “You ought not to wear this dress in any case—not with your colouring. Red would suit you far better. I have one from last Christmas that you can borrow if you like—I think it would look very pretty on you.”

  Jamie looked down at me a long moment from his perch in the apple tree—and then he snorted a laugh, and I started to laugh, too. And after that we were friends.

  I admit, also, that our friendship involved numerous episodes that began with my persuading him to teach me some dangerous trick—walking a fence rail or mounting a horse without a saddle—and ended with both of us getting a fearful scolding. Me for spoiling my clothes, and Jamie for having placed me in a position of risk.

  Neither of us cared over-much about the scoldings, though. We were friends, inseparable from the time his travelling band arrived every year at Norland at the end of August until they left again at the beginning of November.

  But I still have no answers for how Jamie comes to be here in Dorsetshire—and alone, without the rest of his tribe. He is better, in that he is no longer so delirious. But still very ill and weak. He managed to drink some of the milk I brought last night, and to swallow a few mouthfuls of the bread. But the effort left him so much tired that he dropped back into heavy slumber almost at once.

  Tuesday 8 June 1802

  As I promised Elinor, I called to see Eliza Williams this morning while visiting Star in the northern pasture.