It was October. From the nursery window I looked out over the familiar view of shrubbery, lawn and apple orchard, and saw between the thinning boughs of the poplars that bordered it a glimpse, a mile or so away, up the hill, of two red and yellow caravans nestling in a corner of the gravel pit field. The beech woods rose up directly behind them, clasping them as in the curve of a tender shoulder. I saw blue smoke rising, figures sitting on the steps, children tumbling in the grass. I could also see a group of local children hanging over a gate, watching them, a little distance away: the scarlet frock of Chrissie was among the group. I remember thinking then what a fascination the bright roving caravans must have for her; how congruous a part she would seem of the life of fairs and gipsies. I felt faintly anxious and depressed, wondering if the woman had yet been to the back door, hoping that next day the corner of the field would be empty of its load of alien humanity. All the reasons I had for melancholy came down to weigh upon me: Jess, who had not been very well, absent for the winter, gone to share bracing air, riding and education with some cousins near Brighton; our unpopular governess back from Belgium in a day or so, and myself left to bear the brunt of her without Jess. Then I remembered Mrs. Wyatt whom I sought to forget, and how she also had seized my hand; and felt I was singled out in a disquieting if gratifying way by this coincidence: wild forces both, and I, so passive, their inexplicable point of explosion.
What happened next is hard to put down in any exact way, because so much was concealed from us, we had so much to conceal, that sometimes I think I dreamed it all. Suddenly one day out broke the melodrama; but at once we were hurried away from it, and its development reached us only as it were in snatches, in disjointed echoes from the wings or by the furtive peeps we contrived through the lowered curtain. Horror toppled above the village for a short while, then sank back and vanished; and everybody drew a great breath and burst out in chattering, exclaiming, head-shaking; and all the children who had been snapped indoors after school by wrought-up parents were let out to play again; and everything was as before, except for the usual scatter of flotsam left by the retreating tide; and except for one small figure carried away on it, vivid but dwindling.
The gipsies went away. Two or three days later, a peculiar vibration began in the village. It was confined at first to the children. In the afternoon, we were messing about in the laurels by the garden gate, when two of Sylvia’s associates, sisters called Cissie and May Perkins, came past and beckoned portentously to us. They said:
‘Can you keep a secret?’
We said yes. They said:
‘There’s a little dead biby in the gravel pit. We ain’t allowed to tell ’ow we know, but we do know. Cross your hearts and swear by the Bible you won’t tell no one.’
We did so. They said:
‘We know because Chrissie told us. She found it. It’s under some bramble-bushes. It’s got no clothes on. It’s a biby boy. She says the gipsies left it there.’
‘Do you mean they killed it?’ we said.
‘Dunno.’
We were silent, beholding the monstrous image of a dead naked baby boy under the bramble bushes. We said:
‘Oughtn’t somebody to be told?’
‘She says on our solemn oath we’re not to. We’re not to tell our mums nor no one. She says after three days the gipsies may come back and take it away. She’s going up to-morrow to see.’
‘Why does she think they’ll come back for it?’
‘Dunno. She says that’s what they do. She says if the gipsies knew she’d found it they’d do something downright awful to her.’
‘What would they do ?’
‘Murder ’er and bury ’er.’ They added: ‘Be down by the gate to-morrer afternoon when we come out of school. We’ll tell you if it’s still there.’
Next day at the appointed hour they said:
‘She’s been up to look, and it’s still there.’
We were to wait another day, and cross our hearts we’d tell no one.
But that evening some overwrought child broke down and unloaded the news to its parents. All the village began to hum. We were made aware of this by the gathering and whispering of Nurse, Isabel and the others in the servants’ hall; and by the fact that our mother called us to her and said with some severity:
‘Now girls, I want you to promise—especially you, Sylvia—not to talk to any children in the lane just at present. If they see you in the garden and call out to you just wave politely and go away. There may be a case of measles in the village and I don’t want you to run any risk of contact. I don’t say it is measles, we must wait a few days to make sure. But you needn’t give any reason. Do you understand? Promise now.’
We promised.
That night while Isabel was brushing my hair, she remarked to Nurse.
‘Not mentioning any names, someone told me they’re under suspicion, that lot, for the same line of thing before; only they never could fasten it on them like. Nice, isn’t it?’
Nurse shook her head and uttered a series of sharp tongue clickings. She said:
‘Ah, there’s more in it than meets the eye.’
‘Mark my words,’ said Isabel. ‘It’s that man. You know the one—the older one with the nasty expression of face. I always did think he looked the part.’
‘If you ask me,’ said Nurse, ‘they’re all in it. The shock for that little mite!—I can’t get her off my mind.’ After a pause she said: ‘Have they got back, did you hear by any chance?’
‘Mm,’ said Isabel.
Nurse queried with her eyebrows.
‘No,’ said Isabel. ‘It’s inky black out. Jim and old Gutteridge had lanterns, but I don’t think they fancied the job in the dark, if you ask me.’ She giggled. ‘I don’t blame them neether.’
Nurse told her rather sharply to get on with our hairs, do, and not chatter so.
We understood that an expedition of householders had visited the pit with lanterns, and returned empty-handed.
Next day as I came back at noon from my hour of German with Miss La Touche (cultured spinster and traveller), I saw a sight that froze my blood. It was the local constable emerging from the school-yard, grasping Chrissie by the hand. Her face was down on her chest, her hair over it. With every step she struggled to fling herself back. The constable seemed to be attempting genial encouragement, but he was not built or endowed for soothing. He was the very type of rustic policeman—burly, beefy, flaxen, slow of wits and speech. He was plainly embarrassed by his task and wore a sheepish grin. There was not another child in sight: all kept in. Together, slowly but surely, they turned up the hill towards the gravel pit.
Later on, in the afternoon, another kind of hum began to develop. The silence that had hung over the lane gave place to the customary commotion. The sounds that came out of the servants’ hall seemed to contain gasps of staggered somewhat ghoulish incredulity. There seemed also a note of disappointment or disgust—as if there had been a let-down after a promised sensation. I heard Nurse say to Isabel that’s what came of letting your nasty imagination run away with you.
‘Whose nasty imagination?’ said Isabel, going red down her neck.
‘Yours,’ said Nurse simply. ‘And a lot of other silly gossips I could mention. I never did believe it from the start.’
‘Oh, didn’t you indeed! I’m surprised,’ said Isabel, with impertinent emphasis.
Nurse actually let this pass, and hurried on to say in a different, confidential tone: ‘But talk of nasty imaginations! … ’ and they went murmuring and hissing down the passage together.
Shortly after, Nurse said in a crisp yet off-hand way: ‘Look here, you two—especially you, Sylvia—if you happen to speak to any of those children that hang around by the gate and they go telling you any nasty nonsense they’ve picked up, don’t you take any notice. They may have got hold of some silly story or other that’s b
een going about. I’m sure I don’t know what they don’t pick up, those children—nobody cares, more’s the pity, and if I had my way—’ She broke off, then added: ‘Well now, you’ve heard what I say. If they repeat it, you just tell them there’s nothing in it and never was and say I said so.’
‘All right,’ we said.
My mother went out about tea-time. As soon as the car had driven away with her, we made our way to the bottom of the garden, where Cissie and May were awaiting us. They said:
‘The biby wasn’t there.’
‘Had the gipsies taken it away?’
‘No. There wasn’t no biby. She mide it all up.’
‘! ! !’
‘The p’liceman come to school this morning. ’E said for Chrissie to come along with ’im to show ’im the plice. Teacher was ever so upset. Chrissie didn’t want to go. She fought ’im. She bit ’is ’and. But ’e took ’er along. When they got up to the pit, she took ’im to a plice and she says there, that’s where it was. Well, it’s not there no more, ’e says. It’s gorn, she says. So ’e said for ’er to come along at once to the p’lice station. So she begun to take on and said she didn’t want to go. Then she said there ’adn’t ever been no biby. She’d mide it all up. So ’e brought ’er back and ’e told teacher she was a bad wicked little liar, wasting ’is time. So teacher mide ’er stand up in front of the ’ole class and tell us she’d mide it up. Teacher asked ’er what she wanted to tell such ’orrible wicked lies for. She never said nothink. She was shivering and shaking all over. So teacher took ’er into ’er own room and put ’er to sit down in a big chair with a rug round ’er, and she said she’d speak to ’er later. She’s still there. Teacher’s going to keep ’er there till ’er dad comes from work, and then take ’er back ’ome. Our mum says she’s a bad bad girl and we’re not to ’ave anythink to do with ’er. She says she ’ad ought to be sent to a re-formary.’
We never saw Chrissie again. The problems of her disgrace, her punishment, her future—all were kept from us; and even the know-alls of the lane were more or less in the dark about her destination when she vanished from the village.
We knew that our mother, ever combining prompt with humanitarian action, had taken charge of Chrissie’s case. We did venture to ask Isabel whether it was true that Chrissie had been sent to a reformatory, but she said sharply, stuff and nonsense: Chrissie had gone right away to live with some kind people who loved her, and who would give her a mother’s care and perhaps adopt her if she mended her ways and tried to be a good girl. She added: ‘And if she grows up a decent ordinary being after all instead of a wild wicked demon, she’ll have your mother’s trouble and your father’s generousness to thank for it.’ So we knew that something impressive had been accomplished, and that our parents were paying for it.
This was before the days of child guidance clinics.
I remember only one or two more things about the Wyatts. Later on in October I plucked up courage to go past their cottage by myself: an act I had been unable to face since the death of Mrs. Wyatt. The lane was strewn with the drenched, honey drifts of poplar and chestnut leaves, and their sweet and pungent smell of death made my heart turn over. High over the fences of the little gardens, sunflowers flopped their harsh tawny faces. I came to the Wyatts’ cottage, and Maudie was there, standing by the gate. One of her hands was bandaged and in a dirty sling; with the other she supported the baby who sat astride her crooked hip.
‘Hallo,’ I said timidly.
‘’Allo,’ she said, unsmiling.
‘What a lot he’s grown,’ I said.
She looked down at him and said in her indifferent way: ‘Yes. ’E’s getting on all right. ’E goes all over the place now.’
‘Isn’t he heavy for you to carry?’
‘I don’t mind. ’E likes a ride.’ Suddenly she put her cheek down against his and cried: ‘Don’t you, ducks?’
He peeped out at me with a coy grin; then hid his face in her shoulder. A faint smile went over her face, maternal, indulgently mocking. He was bald, rickety, exactly like his brothers, but the hiding gesture reminded me of Chrissie; and what with that, and Mrs. Wyatt vanished for ever, and the desolate look of the cottage with Maudie standing alone there with the baby, and only two more to come home out of all the nine, I felt most terribly miserable and feared to disgrace myself by tears. I said:
‘What have you done to your hand?’
‘Got a poisoned thumb.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It throbs painful at nights. I ’ad it lanced but it goes on. The nurse comes to see to it. She says it got bad because it wasn’t done up sooner. Still, I got to use it a bit—you can’t do all your work with one ’and.’
I said I hoped it would soon be better, and then there was nothing more to say, and I said good-bye and went on. When I reached the corner I glanced over my shoulder, but she was not looking after me. Maudie had given up wanting anything I had got.
That winter they all went away. Mr. Wyatt got another job, over the other side of the country. I don’t know if it was a better job. He came to say good-bye to my parents. I was not present during this interview, but later on, looking over the stairs, saw my father showing him out of the front door.
‘Good-bye, Wyatt, my dear chap,’ said my father warmly. ‘The best of luck to you and yours.’
Mr. Wyatt went on wringing his hand, speechless, for a long time, then said brokenly: ‘God bless you, sir,’ and went away.
They left the cottage in such a state that it had to be fumigated and washed down with lysol from ground floor to attic. It stayed empty for a bit; then the landlord did a few repairs and put a coat of paint on, and another family came to live there. They planted vegetables and sowed a little plot of front lawn and cut out some little flower beds and made a little tile-bordered path to run exactly through the middle; and after a while it looked quite like the other cottages.
* Children’s book by E. Nesbit, published in 1898.
* Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, French neoclassical painter (1755–1842).
The Red-haired Miss Daintreys
Much is said and written nowadays of the proper functions and uses of leisure. Some people, as we know, are all for the organisation of spare time. Some take exercise; some sleep; some wind up the gramophone; some lean against bars or mantelpieces. Others develop the resources of the intellect. I myself have been, all my life, a privileged person with considerable leisure. When asked how I spend it, I feel both dubious and embarrassed: for any answer implying some degree of activity would be misleading. Perhaps an approximation to the truth might be reached by stating that leisure employs me—weak aimless unsystematic unresisting instrument—as a kind of screen upon which are projected the images of persons—known well, a little, not at all, seen once, or long ago, or every day; or as a kind of preserving jar in which float fragments of people and landscapes, snatches of sound.
It is a detached condition. It has nothing of the obsessed egotism of daydreaming, and only a ghost of its savage self-indulgence. One might almost be dead, watching from the world of shades, so pure is one’s observation, so freed from will, from the desire to shape or alter to personal ends. There is no drama in which one plays star-rôle; there is no emotion but that mild sort of satisfaction, based on familiarity and recognition, which one gets at the cinema, when the film turns out to be an enjoyable one seen several times before.
Yet there is not one of these fragile shapes and aerial sounds but bears within it an explosive seed of life. For most of us they will flit and waver by, and be gone again; but for a few, the shadowy and tranquil region which harbours their play is a working-place, stocked with material to be selected and employed. Suddenly, arbitrarily one day, a spark catches, and the principle of rebirth contained in this cold residue of experience begins to operate. Each cell will break out, branch into fresh organisms. There is not
one of them, no matter how apparently disconnected, that is not capable of combining with the rest at some time or another.
Perhaps this is a wordy, unscientific way of describing the origins and processes of creative writing; yet it seems to me that nowadays this essential storing-house is often discounted, and that that is the reason for so much exact painstaking efficient writing, so well documented, on themes of such social interest and moral value, and so unutterably boring and forgettable. The central area has not been explored, and therefore all is dead. There is not a false word, nor one of truth.
I am surprised when authors have perfectly clear plans about the novels they are going to write; and I find it dismaying, for more reasons than one, to have the projected contents related to me, at length and in rational sequence. I would be more encouraged by such an answer, given in rather a hostile and depressed way, as: It is about some people; and if the author could bear to pursue the subject and mention any of the images and symbols haunting his mind—if he spoke for instance of a fin turning in a waste of waters, of the echo in the caves, of an empty room, shuttered under dust sheets, of an April fall of snow, of music from of the fair at night, of the burnt-out shell of a country house, that woman seen a moment from the bus top, brushing her long dark hair—I should feel that something was afoot. Writers should stay more patiently at the centre and suffer themselves to be worked upon. Later on, when they finally emerge towards the circumference they may have written a good novel about love or war or the class struggle. Or they may not have written a good novel at all.
But this is a far cry from the four red-haired Miss Daintreys, who lately, during one of these periods of idle leisure appeared, as through a trap-door, before my inward eye: four sisters with red hair, in blouses and skirts, sitting with their parents at breakfast in the dining-room of a seaside hotel, many years ago. The room is vast. They loom a long way off, the other side of a no man’s land of tables with white cloths and the smell of fried eggs, coffee and toast. They come punctually down to nine o’clock breakfast, and so does this other family, four children with their parents. I do not see them, but am one of them.
The Gipsy's Baby Page 5