The Gipsy's Baby

by Rosamond Lehmann

  I did not know.

  ‘It’s a good way off,’ she said. ‘That I do know.’ She shifted the baby a bit and relapsed into indifference. Chrissie was hiding behind her, and involuntarily I caught a glimpse of her face. It was pinched, sallow, drab, and she was almost indistinguishable from the others.

  We hurried home to tell Isabel, and found that news of the calamity had already reached her. She shut us up when we attempted to question her, but asked us rather sharply if they’d said whether they’d had their dinners. We had not thought of this. For us, meals were things that appeared automatically on the table at punctual intervals, were eaten, removed again. She appeared absent all through lunch, bit her finger, and after she had cleared away, came to us and said:

  ‘Now be good girls and sit down with your books a bit, like your mother wished you to do. I’m just going to pop down and see if those young Wyatts are all right.’

  Feeling a warm rush of affection for Isabel, we obeyed her. She came back not long after, still laconic, and merely said they were all right, various neighbours had taken them in and given them their dinners. They were playing now in the lane, along with some others, and seemed quite bright.

  The kitchen maid ran upstairs with a belated post-prandial cup of tea for her, and they retired together to the nursery pantry while she drank it. Terrific whispers came forth, and my ears, ever agog, caught such words as ‘raving’ and ‘water on the brain’ as I lingered past them on my way to the bathroom.

  I told my father that evening when he got back from London, where he went four days a week to edit a literary journal; and immediately he took his hat and walking-stick and went down the garden to see Mr. Wyatt. He was away some time, and when he came back, his face looked sorry. He told us that poor Mr. Wyatt was very worried. Mrs. Wyatt was dreadfully ill. After all his long bicycle ride, they had not allowed him to see her: she was too ill. She had had a baby, and the baby had died. I knew, and did not know, and could not ask about the unmentionable connection between this and her mortal sickness.

  Then he rang the bell and told Mossop to telephone to the hospital first thing in the morning, and inquire for Mrs. Wyatt, and get the message sent down to Mr. Wyatt. Then he went over to the garage and told Gresham, our chauffeur, to hold himself ready to drive Mr. Wyatt to the hospital at any moment of the day or night.

  We felt comforted, almost elated. Our father had the situation in hand, and everything would probably be all right.

  It was the next night after supper. Sylvia had gone to bed, and I had been allowed an extra half-hour for David Copperfield. My father and I sat reading in the library. It must have been nearly nine o’clock. There had been a heavy thunderstorm earlier in the evening, and the sky, instead of clearing in the west with sunset, had remained dun, murky, overcast; and we had drawn the curtains to shut out the lugubrious dusk. All of a sudden came a sound of running on the gravel path outside. Then a frantic drumming on the French windows. My father went white as paper, as he always did at any sudden shock. Again. Again. Paralysed with terror, I watched him walk across the room, draw back the curtains, press down the handle. The doors fell back and there on the step stood Mr. Wyatt, hatless, haggard, wild.

  ‘Wyatt, my dear chap, come in, come in,’ said my father, all haste and gentleness, taking his arm and drawing him across the threshold. They stood together in the bay of the window, silent, their heads bowed down; one so tall, dignified, white-haired, the other so small, brown, and gnarled, his poor coat hanging off him, his hair plastered in dark dishevelled strips over his bald head. He drew great labouring breaths as if he had been running for miles, and I saw that his clothes were soaked with rain and sweat. His throat and lips kept moving and contracting, but no sound came. My father stole an arm around his shoulders. At that he cried out suddenly in a terrible threatening voice, like an Old Testament prophet:

  ‘She’s gone, sir!’

  My father nodded. I heard him murmur: ‘Rebecca, run along,’ but I was too petrified to make a quick move, and next moment the storm was loosed. Mr. Wyatt began to walk up and down, up and down. The appalling dry sobs torn out of his chest seemed to fling him about the room. He passed my chair with glaring eyes fastened upon me, and took no notice of me. An overpowering smell emanated from him—his clothes, his body, his agony—and his terrible voice went on racking him, bursting and crying out.

  ‘She’s gone, sir! They never let me see ’er—not once since they took ’er away. Not till the end. Better not, they said, she won’t know you, Mr. Wyatt—she was raving, that was it. They sent word down at dinner-time—come at once. Thanks to your kindness, sir, I got there quick. ’E was good, your shuvver—’e give me a packet of fags and ’e never stopped for nothink. She’s going, they said … It’s all for the best, Mr. Wyatt … It was ’er brain went—brain fever or that—some word or other—I never did understand sickness. Why should a thing like that fly all over ’er like, in a couple o’ days? She was always strong and ’ealthy, wasn’t she? She never complained—only to say she was fagged like these last few months—and a bit of a backache. I thought that ’ud right itself when ’er time come. I thought—I never thought … She never … She ’ad the best of attention, didn’t she, sir? Do you think they give ’er proper attention there?’

  ‘My poor Wyatt, I feel convinced they did,’ said my father.

  ‘I never saw no doctor. They don’t always trouble so much about poor people and that’s a fact, sir. She’s going, Mr. Wyatt, the nurse said … She was a pleasant spoken woman. She won’t know you, she said. They’d got ’er in a room separate … She died private anyway—not in a ward along of … She didn’t fancy the thoughts of that … She never wanted to go to the ’ospital. “Don’t let them take me, Jim,” she says that night—just before she come on so queer. “I’ll never come out alive.” “Don’t talk so foolish, girl,” I says. “You’ll be back along of us all next week.” What could I do, sir? I ’ad to let ’er go, didn’t I? I ’ad to abide by what the doctor said?’

  ‘Of course, of course. It was the only thing to do, Wyatt. It was a hundred to one chance, you know. We knew that.’

  ‘A ’undred to one chance—Ah! … She was peaceful when they took me in. She died peaceful anyway. She ’ad ’er ’ands laid out on the sheet—’er eyes shut … “Now, my girl,” I says … Oh, but ’adn’t she fallen away in the short time! It would ’ave ’urt you to see ’er. It ’urt me crool. “Now my girl,” I says. “We want you back ’ome, don’t we? The little ’uns is fretting for you.” I thought that might rouse ’er … She never stirred nor took no notice … I sits there beside ’er, on and on. Then I leans over to ’ave another look at ’er. All on a sudden ’er eyes flies open as wide as … She stares right up at me … She knew me at the last, that I do know. That nurse comes in again then … “She’s gone,” she says. “Poor dear,” … and covers ’er face over … Sir, do you know what they says to me? She didn’t never ought to ’ave ’ad another, they says. It was ’er time of life. She was too wore out, they says. She’d ’ad too many. I … ’ He struck his forehead with his clenched fist. ‘God knows we ’ad enough mouths to feed.’ His voice broke, trailed off; hopelessly he shook his head. Then he cried out: ‘I loved my wife, sir! They can say what they like—nobody can say different. We was happy … A happy family … She thought the world of them—the ’ole blessed lot. “I wouldn’t be without one o’ them,” she’d say …’

  He fell silent, but went on walking up and down. My father took the opportunity to come over to me and whisper that I was to go to bed—he would come presently and see me. He gave me a kiss. Doubtful whether or not it would be correct to say goodnight to Mr. Wyatt, I hazarded it finally in a tiny voice, scarcely expecting any response. But he answered with dignity:

  ‘Good-night, missy, God bless you. I must ask your pardon, sir, for coming like this upsetting you and little missy here. I ’ad ought to ’ave thought. I thank
you for all your kindness. You’ve been a friend, sir. Yes, a friend. I must get along ’ome to the young ’uns. Got to think of them now, haven’t I? Got to break it to them. Maudie, she’s a good girl, but …’ He shook his head with the same hopeless perplexity, and adding: ‘Good-night, sir, God bless you,’ made for the window.

  ‘Wyatt, my poor fellow, don’t dream of going like that,’ said my father tenderly. ‘Sit down and rest yourself and take a drop of brandy with me. You’re thoroughly exhausted. Here.’

  He pulled forward an armchair and Mr. Wyatt sank immediately into it without another word, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The decanters were on the table and my father was pouring out brandy in liberal measure as I slipped out of the room.

  I told Isabel what had happened, and she was kind to me and brought me hot milk to stop my shivering after she had helped me to bed. Great tears dripped down her face, and she blew her nose loudly and muttered if only there was something she could do.

  A little later I heard voices in the garden and crept to my window to look out. The moon was up now, softly breaking the clouds, and I saw Mr. Wyatt and my father walking together across the misty lawn towards the lower gate. Their voices rose and fell. Mr. Wyatt was quiet now. The prophetic howl had gone out of his throat, and his guttural voice, his voice that seemed almost choked with soil, twined with thick roots, with tubers, sounded much as usual; and my father’s voice, which was both light and rich, answered him musically.

  Still later on, he came up and sat on my bed and told me how very sorry he was I had had to witness so painful a scene. He explained and comforted as best he could, and made me feel better. I could bear to accept the fact that that was how human beings behaved in the first anguish and indignation of bereavement. What I could not bear, then, was to see him wipe away the tears that kept rolling down his face.

  I lay awake and imagined all the children huddled crying and wailing in the cottage. I saw Maudie’s face; I tried to imagine Chrissie’s; and I saw Mrs. Wyatt stretched dead, her hands folded, in the hospital bed, taking absolutely no notice of them all. I thought the two stains of colour must still lie in her snow cheeks, like roses in December.

  After that, the sinister pattern broke. We went away to join our infant brother and nurse at the seaside; and plunged in the happy trance of waves, rocks, sand, we let slip the Wyatts from our minds. My father joined us for a week, brought us all home, and then went to Liverpool to meet my mother and Jess.

  We painted WELCOME HOME in white letters on a strip of scarlet bunting, and were busy attaching it to the gateposts of the drive, when we saw Horace, Norman, Alfie and the soapbox one standing under the wall, watching us.

  ‘Hallo,’ we said.

  ‘’Allow.’

  We looked at them furtively and they seemed much as usual except that the three younger ones had new suits on. They watched us with their usual mixed look, incurious yet attentive, as we sat each astride a brick post and lashed rope round the stone ball on the top to hold our banner in position. I felt suddenly that we were doing something silly; and directly I had said: ‘Our mother’s coming back from America this evening,’ I blushed deeply, realising the tactlessness of mentioning the return of a mother.

  ‘It’s nice,’ stated Norman, in a flat way.

  We called directions to each other, and they went on watching, and by and by we got down and surveyed our work. It was a bit crooked but it flared out with loud brilliance upon the shining blue September air. In another hour our parents and Jess would drive in under it. We could not help wondering if Jess would whole-heartedly approve of such a blatant display of feeling.

  Horace said:

  ‘They’re going away to-morrow—the three of ’em.’

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘To the Institution.’

  Silence. We did not know what he meant.

  ‘Our dad said for us all to stay together and we’d manage, but that lady said it was too much for Maudie, she hadn’t ought to do it. She come and see ’er. She said Maudie couldn’t give ’em what they needed, so she spoke to our dad.’

  ‘Our dad cried,’ said Alfie.

  ‘So she said they’d be better off in the Institution. She wanted for the baby to go too, but Maudie wouldn’t let ’im go.’

  ‘Maudie cried,’ said Alfie.

  ‘The lady said it was ever so nice there. They was ever so kind to children. They ’ave a Christmas tree and all. So our dad said to ’em to be good boys and learn their lessons and ’e’d ’ave ’em out soon. ’E’s going to get a better job and then we’ll ’ave a reel ’ousekeeper and it won’t come so ’ard on Maudie. ’E bought ’em new suits.’

  ‘And we got sixpence each to buy sweets,’ said Norman.

  ‘And a horange,’ said Alfie.

  ‘What about Chrissie?’ I said.

  ‘Chrissie’s going to stop at ’ome. She went and ’id ’erself when the lady come. One of our aunties wrote a letter. She said she’d take Chrissie and bring ’er up just like ’er own. But Chrissie created so our dad said for ’er to stop at ’ome.’

  ‘So there’ll only be the four of us at ’ome now,’ said Norman.

  ‘Maudie and ’Orace and Chrissie and baby,’ said Alfie.

  Their voices were important, not pathetic. The family had obviously been the object lately of many a local charitable scheme, both private and official; and this had set them all up in their own estimation. I felt vaguely that a number of well-disposed people were interested, many benefits were being conferred, and everything was turning out as well as could be expected.

  It was time to go and tie a festal bow on to Jannie’s collar, so we said good-bye, and went away.

  But when I asked Isabel what the Institution was and she replied the workhouse, I knew enough about society to know that disgrace had come upon the Wyatts; and though I was sorry and disturbed, I felt once again what a very low family they were, and how they and their house and their misfortunes emanated a kind of miasma which the neighbourhood could neither purify nor disregard: as if a nest of vermin had got lodged under the boards, rampant, strong-smelling, not to be obliterated.

  Now and then I saw Chrissie passing to and from school or playing in the lane among a group of contemporaries. She looked as usual, in her plaid frock. She never smiled, or took any notice of me. Mr. Wyatt continued to be seen about the sheep folds, smoking his pipe. My mother went to see him, and then went again and took Maudie some clothes. Maudie told her she was managing nicely. Dad helped her in the evenings when he got home from work. Sometimes he undressed the baby all himself and gave him a wash and put him to bed: he’d never taken so much notice of any of them as he did of this baby. Yes, the baby had a cold on his chest, but she’d rubbed him, and he was ever so bright and eating well.

  There was a neighbour, Mrs. Smith the washerwoman, who was kind. Once I ran down with a message from Nurse to ask her to wash the nursery sofa cover in a hurry and Maudie was there, sitting slumped in a kitchen chair, drinking a cup of tea, silent, grimy, greasy, her hair screwed and scraped up into a bun with huge hairpins. She had put it up, I suppose, to mark the fact that she was now a woman: one of a thousand thousand anonymous ones who bear their sex, not at the unconscious, fluid, fructifying centre, as women who are loved bear it and are upborne by it; but as it were extraneously, like a deformity, a hump on their backs, weighing them down, down, towards the sterile stones of the earth.

  In October, the gipsies came back. They came twice a year, in spring and autumn, streaming through the village in ragged procession, with two yellow and red caravans; men in cloth caps, with handkerchiefs knotted round their throats, women in black with cross-over shawls and voluminous skirts, some scarecrow children, and several thin-ribbed dogs of the whippet race running on leads tied, much to Jess’s disquiet, under the shafts of the caravans.

  They were a raff
ish, mongrel lot, with bitter, cunning, wizened faces and no glint of the flash and dash that one is conditioned to expect. But there was one noble beauty, a middle-aged woman, short, ample of figure, with gold earrings and a plumed black hat, who came regularly to the back door with a basket of clothes’ pegs to sell. The eyes in her darkly rich, broad face glowed with a veiled and mystic fire, and her voice came out of her throat with an indescribable croon on one low note. Isabel always went flying down to buy some pegs—it brought bad luck to turn the gipsies from the door—and once I went with her to watch the transaction. Superstition made Isabel excessively polite, not to say conciliatory, quite unlike her usual style of bridling badinage and repartee with the tradespeople.

  I smiled at the woman, and at once her face seemed both to melt and to sharpen, and she caught my hand in hers and began to mutter. I felt the hardness and dryness of her strong hand. My eyes sought hers and were immediately lost in the fathomless gaze she bent upon me. I could not look away, and my panicking senses began to swoon beneath the torrent of unintelligible words poured over me. Something in my face, she said—my fate, my future, a long, long journey … something I could not bear to hear. Then suddenly it stopped; and she asked in quite a different, whining voice if there were any old clothes to-day—any shoes—a pair or two of the little lady’s cast-off shoes now for the children—a coat, now—an old jacket for her man. I heard her drilling away at the resisting Isabel as I made off upstairs, my heart still thumping loud with terror. After that I was convinced that the gipsies designed to steal me, and ventured to tell Isabel so; and though Isabel told me not to be so soft, all old gipsy women went on like that, I would never, after this incident, go through the gravel pit field where they always camped so long as the caravans were there.

  The gravel pit itself was a romantic spot, overgrown with grasses, clover, brambles, wild rose bushes and bryony. In spring it harboured the most exciting birds’ nests—once I found a goldfinch’s—but in autumn it was particularly enchanting, when one could rove from one slope to another picking blackberries, hips, and branches of the dogwood that flushed the air so rosily on grey days and blue. Also there were fossilised sea-urchins, petrified fragments of shells lurking among the stones and sand of the old quarry-workings. I spent hours of my childhood there, wandering in a voluptuous, collector’s daydream, or lying hidden in one of the many secretive hollows.