The Gipsy's Baby

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘That the missing one? Well, I never! I took it off of the twelve-four myself. There you are, then. It’s your lucky day. That’s the end of your little troubles.’

  It looked so beautiful, all in order; no damage, no defacement, the labels correctly addressed in a clear round hand.

  ‘You’ll tell Mr. Hobbs, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, ah, I’ll tell ’im. ’E’s gorn to ’is lunch just now. What d’you want done with it?’ He heaved it on to the barrow.

  ‘I must dash across to Mr. Turnbull and see if he can take me up.’

  Walking beside him, she said, suddenly hysterical:

  ‘You don’t know what this means to me.’

  ‘Ah, I dare say.’

  Only a little while and she would be back home amid triumph and rejoicing. Jane would be in shorts and blue pullover, the grey ruin bundled off to the cleaners, the contents of her linen bag in the suds, the stamp collection pounced on, the specimens of handwork destined for Easter gifts distributed, the poster paints unscrewed; all the possessions reunited with their owner, the diminished personality knit up again, intact.

  Everything began to work together for good. As they emerged into the station yard, Mr. Turnbull drove up. It was her lucky day, he said. He’d got a funeral to meet on the one-seventeen, but he’d come along early for a quiet smoke and a read of the papers: seeing it was a special occasion, he didn’t mind obliging. They could do it with a sprint.

  There was no rapturous bursting open of the door when they stopped before it. Mr. Turnbull, chatty, unloaded trunk and bicycle, dragged the former into the hall and drove away. She called. The house was silent, deserted. Mrs. Plumley came in by the garden door from giving the hens their green stuff, and told her that the children were at the Carmichaels’. They had been in and out, the whole lot of them, all the morning. They had come back round about twelve and left a message: they were stopping for lunch at the Carmichaels’, so as to get right on with their rehearsing. They had taken the tin of minced beef and cereal loaf to help out.

  2

  Deprived of eleven points’ worth of near-meat, she and Mrs. Plumley agreed upon a fried egg each—and bacon?—yes, just a couple of the rashers—and ate them in the kitchen, enjoying the quiet tete-â-tete and exchanging the morning’s news. The broody hen had entered upon her period of progenitive ritual and retreat in a secluded coop at the bottom of the garden. The other hens had laid to capacity by midday. Judging by her size, appetite, and the spiteful expression on her face, Fluffy had gone and fallen for another lot. It would be that old Ginger from the farm again: Fluffy seemed as if she couldn’t resist him.

  Old Arthur had put in half of the potatoes and then, feeling a bit knocked up, turned it in for the day. What might be the chances of his coming back to finish them to-morrow? Mrs. Plumley had put that to him; but old Arthur couldn’t rightly say. It all depended on what he felt like to-morrow.

  It came to light that Mrs. Plumley and Mr. Hobbs had been boy and girl together at Redbury School a fair long time ago. Mrs. Plumley could remember when his mother, old Lizzie Hobbs that was, was taken off to the asylum, singing hymns at the top of her lungs. You had to laugh. It was the change, of course, and a lot of worry on the top of it. In view of this reminiscence, and of other dramas, recollected now in detail, in the life histories of Mr. Hobbs’s brothers, sisters and more distant relatives, to dwell on the profundities of emotion caused by a piece of luggage lost and found seemed—though Mrs. Plumley accorded them their due—disproportionate and self-indulgent. Scratch Mr. Hobbs below the surface and you found a being beset by the Eumenides,* emerged from strangling mazes to be the man he was. Crippled in the beginnings by family disasters and disgraces, Willie Hobbs had gone steadily forward to win scholarships and do himself credit, to attain his place, his insignia of office, his serene and authoritative pacing of Redbury platform.

  Not the Hobbses alone, but all the innumerable specimens impaled beneath Mrs. Plumley’s microscopic eye of memory, had been similarly beset. The birth-beds, the death-beds; and in between the schooling, the church, the chapel; the start in life, the rise, the stumble, the downfall: all followed the same banal yet portentous pattern; all were impregnated with the same citric essence of destiny. What accidents, what sickness, what curses, what omens; what eccentricities of pride and humiliation; what diabolical houndings, what selfless generosities; what morbid moral scruples, what coarse jests shrewdly savoured … What impoverishments of speech or total inarticulacies; yet when they spoke out, in their times of joy or doom, they spoke, through Mrs. Plumley’s reminiscent lips, with piercing accuracy and an austere majesty of rhythm.

  Had Jane and Meg got those posters done, by any chance? Mrs. Plumley thought not; but they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, no doubt of that. Jane’s laugh had been ringing out, such a merry peal, enough to cheer you up for the day. As for John, he seemed to be taken real helpless: stretched out on the floor, groaning, when she’d popped her head in. They’d been having a go at their rehearsing, she supposed: there was those young Carmichaels banging on the piano, and that young Mr. Wickham quavering out as grave as a judge: one of those music-hall turns she fancied they were getting up—the two of them aiming to render something sentimental in the way of a duet, and the other one chiming in all wrong every time accidentally on purpose to spoil the effect like.

  He did have a way with him, that young Mr. Wickham: you couldn’t help but take to him. It wasn’t what he said—he was on the quiet side in fact compared to the others—it was the way he said it. Every time he opened his mouth he set you off. She’d been busy down there making the old broody a bit more comfortable, and he’d come tiptoeing up with Jane to have a peep at her. And, oh, lord! if he didn’t start crouching down and stretching himself up behind the coop, and flickering with his eyelids, and muttering out some double-dutch as if it was a prayer, and raising his arms up to heaven and fluttering them around. Jane’s face was a study. Then he turns, and: ‘There, Mrs. Plumley,’ he says, very solemn, ‘I’ve seen to it this magnificent hen of yours won’t have no disappointments this time. These simple little rites you have just witnessed will guarantee her not only her whole brood of little ones, but very possibly twins out of each egg.’ And Jane, opening her big eyes at him as if to say could he mean it … At the recollection, Mrs. Plumley bowed double and rocked like a poplar in a gale. You could see, she added, he was a boy who’d had a nice home and a good bringing-up. He’d make a nice friend for the children. He’d taken a fancy to Jane, you could see that.

  ‘Do you really think so, Mrs. Plumley?’ She felt gratified. ‘I thought perhaps it was more the other way round.’

  But no, said Mrs. Plumley, clinching her point: Jane had gone trotting along down the road with him, swinging on his arm, prattling away, looking up at him so sparkling and roguish, it was a picture.

  Wondering with what downward looks he had countered these upward looks, debating the comparative values of inhibition and lack of inhibition in childhood, she helped Mrs. Plumley to wash up.

  The telephone bell rang. An official masculine voice enquired with curt nasal sleekness for Mrs. Ritchie.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Films division, M. of I., Brading, here. You were expecting a call from us, I think.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I was. About the films for Saturday. I do hope it’s all right?’

  ‘You may remember we told you on the occasion of your visit to us a fortnight ago that we were quite unable to give you a definite promise?’

  ‘Well, yes—only you said you’d do your best, and as I hadn’t heard, I sort of assumed—’

  ‘We always do our best, Mrs. Ritchie. We’re a Government service, and it’s our job to send our shows—free—wherever and whenever the public requires them.’

  ‘Oh, I know. The last one you sent was so popular.’ And the young operator and the girl friend he brought with him on t
he van so dashing and agreeable. ‘I do so hope you’re going to be able to manage Saturday? You know it’s to start off our Salute the Soldier week, and the village is simply counting on it. It’s advertised and everything.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear it, Mrs. Ritchie, because we’ve got a disappointment for you.’

  ‘Have you really?’

  ‘Circumstances over which we have no control.’ His voice sharpened to a knife-edge of confidential reticence. ‘I dare say you take my meaning.’

  ‘Yes; yes, of course, mm hmm.’ Automatically her voice assumed the correct note: knowing but shuttered, unquestioning.

  ‘Three-quarters of our vans gone … Unknown destinations. Simply vanished—so far as the public is concerned, that is. I needn’t say more, need I?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ I, too, obscure countrywoman, parent and housewife, am linked with the outer fringes of Authority. Gratifying.

  ‘Consequence is, we’ve no option but to cut our services to the civilian population. The only van at our disposal Saturday is booked for a show the other side of the county. We’ve worked out that getting to you would mean a run of fifty miles. Under the circumstances we don’t feel justified in such an expenditure of petrol. I’m sure you’ll understand.’

  ‘I understand.’ She directed a heavy groaning sigh into the mouthpiece. There was no response. ‘Well, thank you for letting me know. I’ll just have to explain to the village what’s happened.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ritchie?’ Voice of shocked alarm.

  ‘I’ll just have to write something up on the posters.’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘I don’t need to ask you, I’m sure, to watch out what—to exercise the utmost discretion in anything you write up.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I won’t put the exact invasion date.’ Silence. Not amused. ‘Perhaps there’d be no harm in writing: “Unavoidably cancelled”?’

  ‘Well, I dare say there’d be no harm in that. But the less said the better, you know.’

  ‘Oh! … ’ she broke out, hysteria climbing again within her, ‘I shall give up the whole bloody business. Everything’s gone wrong.’

  With a repressive good-bye, he dismissed her and rang off.

  She turned from the telephone and saw with a start that a motionless male figure blocked the glass door into the garden. Stiff, melancholy, it stared through a pane and held something on a plate. A raw chop.

  ‘Oh, Captain Moffat!’ She flung open the door.

  ‘Awfully sorry to disturb you.’ He thrust the plate towards her. ‘Could you tell me what I ought to do with this?’

  ‘A chop.’ Together they gazed at it, as if unable to believe their eyes.

  He muttered far back in his throat, scarcely moving a muscle of his face: ‘My wife fixed up with that Higgs girl, Violet, the one who has fits, to come in and see to my meals. But she hasn’t turned up to-day. Her mother’s just sent down a note which seems to say she’s got a swollen face. I found this chop in the larder. I suppose it ought to be cooked. Pity to waste it.’ His dry lips closed again, in a dead line. He looked at her intently out of two tiny black pits, extinct.

  ‘What a shame!’ All feminine sympathy, she beamed on him; then ventured a cheerful laugh. ‘It’s the most pathetic story I ever heard. What would your wife say?’

  ‘She’d take the next train home. She’s ringing up tonight to find out how I’m getting on. I shall have to put a good face on it. Can’t possibly let her know.’ His voice went weak with self-pity.

  ‘No, you couldn’t possibly, could you?’ she said, gently bracing and threatening. ‘She’s got enough to worry her, hasn’t she?’

  He’d let her know all right: trust him. She took the plate from him. ‘What a beautiful chop. Now, let me think a minute.’

  He stood before her, in sterile resistance, sterile surrender, his arms hanging down by his sides. His will, that beak of brass, lifted above her, guarding him, attacking her.

  ‘I tell you what, Captain Moffat: I’ll cook it for you. I’ll come round now at once and cook it.’

  ‘It’s most awfully kind of you. I couldn’t dream of troubling you. You’ve got plenty to do without cooking my lunch.’

  ‘But I must cook your lunch. I can’t let you starve. I’ll pop it under the grill, it’ll be done in two twos. I’m not busy just now—the children are out.’

  ‘Oh, they’re out, are they?’

  At this, he immediately advanced, stepped over the threshold into her house, as if to say: ‘Your dwelling-place is purged, safe for me.’ But he glanced round, nose lifted, sensing the hated young in ambush still, ready to burst out with yell and gibe, a brandishing horde, and ride him down.

  ‘Wait,’ she said; ‘we’ve got heaps of potato left over. I’ll get it and fry it up for you, if you can spare a bit of lard.’

  She went through the kitchen into the larder, seized the dish of cold mashed potato, winked at Mrs. Plumley, murmured: ‘The hens can’t have this, it’s got to go to Captain Moffat. He’s in trouble: Violet has let him down. I’m going next door to cook his chop. If you hear me blow a whistle, come at once.’

  The kitchen door, closing again, cut her off from Mrs. Plumley’s hilariously collapsing amplitudes.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said, bright. ‘All ready.’

  The telephone bell rang. She lifted the receiver and heard John’s voice above a subdued bubbling and humming.

  ‘Mummy? Look here, can you be along in five minutes?’

  ‘No, I can’t. Not possibly.’

  ‘Why not? We’re all set for the rehearsal.’

  ‘Go on learning your parts for half an hour. I’ll be along as soon as I can.’

  ‘In half an hour?’

  ‘Yes, with luck.’

  He said disapprovingly: ‘It holds us up rather. Make it as soon as you can, do. There’s a hell of a lot to see to one way and another, and time’s getting short.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘O.K. See you in half an hour at latest. Hold on, Gerald wants to speak to you.’

  The bubbling ceased and the delirious voice of Gerald pounced upon her ear.

  ‘That you, Mrs. Ritchie? I say, everything’s going superbly; it really is. We’ve put up a wizard stage, and John and Oliver are doing the footlights to-night. And, I say, John’s had some absolutely superb ideas for the noises off stage, and he’s rigged up an electric bell, absolutely superb. He’s worked like a black.’

  ‘You think I can be proud of him?’

  ‘Rather, absolutely … Mrs. Ritchie, could you possibly come along soon?—if you’re not too frightfully busy? It’s about our sketch. We frightfully want you to O.K. it before we begin rehearsing absolutely seriously. You see, the thing is, Oliver and I went to Fast and Furious in London last week—have you seen it?—it’s absolutely superb—and to-day we had the idea of incorporating a bit of it in our sketch—you know, just roughly, not enough to have to ask the authors for permission, I shouldn’t think. The point is, do you think it’s a good idea?’

  ‘Well … I haven’t seen Fast and Furious—’

  ‘Oh, you really ought to—’

  ‘But isn’t it on the sophisticated side?’

  ‘Sophisticated, yes,’ he agreed, breathless. ‘That’s just it. It’s incredibly sophisticated. Some of the jokes distinctly—you know—’

  ‘Have you put in those particular jokes?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we have. It’s a thing about advertisements—three chaps—and the point is to put it over frightfully solemnly, with the chaps doing a bluff on the audience, you know, getting them all worked up into thinking something frightfully—you know—is coming, and then at the very end, when the audience is pretty well at breaking point, we simply roar out all together: ‘Have you MacLeaned your teeth to-day?’ and the cur
tain comes down. At least, with luck it comes down.’

  ‘I see.’ Her head whirled. ‘It sounds fairly innocent.’

  ‘Oh, grand! You don’t think we’ll be hissed?—or even worse; that it might—sort of misfire? It went down like hot cakes in London, but of course a village isn’t quite the same.’

  ‘The village will relish any joke about false teeth. Or even B.O. they’d swallow without feeling too queasy.’

  There was a second’s pause.

  ‘I see … Well … thanks most frightfully, Mrs. Ritchie. I dare say we could change it to that.’ He sounded a little crestfallen, evasive.

  She said quickly: ‘Perhaps we’re talking at cross-purposes. Wait till I come. I can’t concentrate on the telephone. Listen, will you give your mother a message? Owing to unmentionable circumstances over which we have no control, there will be no film show. Will she please get on the track of that conjurer?’

  ‘The conjurer. Yes, yes, rather, superb, I’ll tell her at once. It’ll be quite all right. Don’t worry about anything, Mrs. Ritchie! Everything’s going fine. Would you hold on a moment? Jane wants to speak to you.’

  She waited. Nothing happened. The sound of breathing came through the receiver.

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Mummy?’ Constrained piping, dubious.

  ‘Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘Hallo.’

  ‘Hallo, how are you?’

  ‘Quite well, thank you,’ said Jane, polite.

  ‘What did you want to say to me?’

  Bawling to overcome the mechanical obstruction between them Jane continued: ‘Puffles is lost.’

  ‘Who’s lost?’

  ‘Puffles. You know Meg’s dog. He went off hunting and he hasn’t come back.’

  ‘I expect he will soon.’

  ‘We don’t think he will. Don’t you know his eyes are bad? Meg thinks he’s lost his way. Or else been picked up by some American soldiers.’

  ‘Let’s hope not. Would you be interested to know your trunk’s come?’

  ‘What?’