by Katie Hutton
‘Send my child away?’
Oliver glowered at her.
‘’Tis that or the poor ward, woman! “He that commiteth fornication sinneth against his own body . . . the temple of the Holy Ghost!” I mun think now what best to do – and pray for guidance. Keep her in the house, Flora.’
*
Where is she? What did I say that she won’t see me? It was the fourth evening that Sam had waited for Ellen by the chalky path. As usual, Vanlo had accompanied him part of the way before melting into the trees. The shadows were lengthening; there was a hint of autumn in the air’s cooler breath. Then at last he heard a woman’s hurried step. A dark-haired, scowling girl was approaching.
Judith Chown looked over her shoulder before speaking. ‘You Sam Loveridge?’
‘That’s me.’
‘She can’t come,’ said Judith.
‘Why – where is she?’
Judith looked away.
‘Ill.’
‘Ill? ’
‘Don’t ask me what of as I’m not going to tell you. But she’ll live.’
‘Well, can I see her?’ asked Sam.
‘I’d advise you not if you want to keep your skin whole. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve done what I told her I’d do – to stop her fretting.’ She turned round and began walking briskly back the way she had come.
‘Wait!’ called Sam, and started to follow her. Judy took no notice, except to walk faster.
*
Sam waited three more evenings, in the hope of seeing Judith, if not Ellen. He found he could not stay in the clearing, but walked round the beechwoods restlessly, smoking. Vanlo followed him, but Sam behaved as if he wasn’t there. He’d snapped at one of the other labourers that day, after the man had said, ‘You’ve a long face today. Crossed in love at last?’ Caley had silently watched this exchange. Going to the path on the last evening Sam had looked round to see Vanlo some paces behind him.
‘What is it, boy?’
‘You all right, Sam?’
‘Can’t say as I am, but I’ll live.’
‘They’re muttering about you back there. They’re brewing something up but they don’t tell me what. It wunt me, Sam. I never said nuffing.’
Sam stood very still. The boy looked up at him, pleading to be believed.
‘Lukey asked me. But I said we just mooched round, you tellin’ me things. Like an uncle does.’
‘Dordi! I’m for it then.’
‘I never said nuffing!’ said Vanlo again.
‘I believe you. Look, I’m going to the village for a bit.’
*
He asked a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman tending her garden the way to the Quainton home. Grace Lambourne regarded him curiously for a moment and then pointed to Oliver’s cottage. Encouraged by her courtesy, he said, ‘I hear Miss Quainton ain’t well.’
‘That’s right. I saw the doctor call. I can’t tell you more’n that.’
He felt her eyes on him as he raised the brass fox knocker on Oliver’s door.
Flora answered. Looking up at him, she said, ‘We don’t need anything. One of your tribe came with pegs only a week ago.’
‘Who is it, Flora?’ came Oliver’s voice from the parlour.
She turned her head. ‘Just one of them Gypsies from Surman’s Wood. I’ve tole him we don’t want anything.’
‘I’m not selling, lady,’ said Sam gently. ‘I wanted to ask after Miss Quainton. I hear she wunt well.’
Flora uttered a small scream and clung to the door-frame, staring at him like a rabbit before a stoat.
‘Send ’im away, woman!’ Oliver came stumping to the door and looked Sam up and down. ‘What’s the matter with you, Flora? Get inside and I’ll deal with this!’
With a whimper Flora scuttled indoors.
‘You heard the lady. Be on your way, will you?’
‘I came about Ellen, sir. Her being sick, I mean.’
The effect on Oliver was electrifying. His face darkened, his side whiskers trembled.
‘Know why she’s sick, do you?’
‘No . . . I came as soon as I heard, sir.’
‘Heard what?’
‘That she was sick, sir,’ said Sam in confusion.
‘And what has the likes of you to do with my granddaughter?’
With utter simplicity, seeing his feet and hers on the road waiting for the carrier, Sam said, ‘I love her.’
‘Get away from my door before I kill you! Flora! My shotgun! I’ll teach you to come deceiving God-fearing souls – ruining a decent girl.’
‘Ellen!’ shouted Sam. The casement above rattled, but in the same moment Oliver tore his shotgun from Flora’s shaking hands and shouldered it.
You’re no use to her dead, Sam! He took to his heels, turning his head again to shout out her name. A shot rang out, and he jumped, though the bullet came nowhere near him. He saw Oliver and Flora struggling over the gun, and heard Ellen screaming his name from the upstairs window. It tore his heart to hear her voice, but he took comfort from the fact that only strong lungs could make that sound. Neighbours appeared at the cottage doors; Sam knew he would have no supporters here. I mun go back and have it out with them, see if Mother will come along of me when I go, then I’ll get my things and doss in Horwood’s barn. Tomorrow I’ll look for that dark girl, see will she get a message to her from me. He was crossing this bridge earlier than he had expected, but was relieved to be upon it at last.
*
Sam sensed them waiting for him well before he reached the clearing. It was the silence. Even the children and the dogs had ceased their racket. His gut contracted with fear.
The fire was going as usual; the hiss and spit of damp wood was the only sound. They had even gathered in the bantams; he could see them shifting in their wicker cages beneath each vardo. Fifteen or more pairs of eyes were looking towards him, most of them belonging to the children peeping fearfully over the half-doors. He glimpsed Sibela’s face, streaked with tears. His mother, Lukey, her two elder brothers, their wives stood waiting. Vanlo was further off, looking as if he wanted to merge with the trees. Even at a distance Sam could see he was trembling. His mother was weeping noiselessly, tears making tracks as luminous as snail trails down her seamed cheeks. She still held her pipe in a corner of her mouth but had forgotten to smoke it and it had gone out. Then he saw the weapons Liberty and Caley carried: a stave and a horsewhip. Liberty started to swing his stave from side to side, and taking this as a signal, Caley moved towards him.
‘What’s this?’ Sam asked.
‘Liberty here see’d what you did, you and your gauji lubbeny15.’
‘She’s no lubbeny! ’
‘Shameless, she was,’ leered Liberty, ‘but you gev ’er your diklo like it was your right to!’
‘How dared you look at her?’
‘She looked like she didn’t care who see’d her! And how dared you put your karri16 where you did, brother! When our sister has never gev you cause!’
Sam felt sick with rage and fear; he felt as though in looking at her, Liberty had assaulted Ellen in front of him, and he had done nothing. Without thinking, he moved towards his brother-in-law.
Then his mother cried out, ‘Don’t argue with your brothers, Sam! Ask pardon! She begged a prayer on you, son, so’s you couldn’t help it. Tell ’em it warn’t your fault!’
‘No, mother! That’s not true.’
‘Get your shirt off!’ commanded Caley.
Sam obeyed in silence. A warm day still, but the air felt cold on his skin. He thought of Ellen’s gentle hands, Ellen lying sick in a room he had never seen. He put up his fists, the only weapon he had. Caley laughed, flashed the horsewhip in the air and brought it down. Sam screamed as it caught in the flesh of his shoulder; someone had added a metal tip, fashioned from the tin used to make clothes pegs. He tried to grasp the whip as Caley raised it again but the shock of pain made him slow. He staggered under the second blow, raising his hands in helpless su
rrender, but Caley was relentless. The whip whirred in the air, on and on, and the circle tightened round them. Sam’s shoulders and back were bright with blood. There was nowhere to run even if he’d had the strength.
‘Enough of your tickling!’ cried Liberty at last. ‘Let me at him now!’
Sam was by now on his knees, but the first blinding blow of the stave knocked him to the ground. He clutched his head, groaning, and his hands came away sticky. He tried to rise, but tipped forward. They’re going to kill me. They’ll bury me under the campfire and I’ll never see her again. He wrapped his arms round his head and stayed down, exposing his bleeding back to a rain of blows. Liberty paused, panting, then with a kick, rolled Sam onto his side.
‘Get him in the conkers, Caley!’
Caley’s boot was merciless. Sam doubled up, screaming with pain, but the sound he made seemed to come from far off. In his confusion and agony he saw again Whitelam’s face distorted with grief.
‘Lukey! Lukey!’ he shrieked, because she was the only one who could stop them. A stave cracked against his hand, and the pain of the blow made him involuntarily raise it in the air, in a mute plea for mercy. None came. He saw boots close to his face, and closed his eyes in anticipation of another kick, a broken nose. Instead the stave was swung low. Lucretia cried out, ‘Stop!’ but too late. Sam took the blow hard on the top of his head, and he collapsed and lay motionless.
‘We’ll fix his pretty face for him now, Lukey,’ said Liberty.
‘No, killing him’s enough!’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Caley. He walked up to Sam’s inert body and gave him an exploratory prod in the shoulder with his boot. Sam groaned faintly.
‘We did it for you, Lukey. An’ if you’d an ugly husband you mightn’t have a ’dulterating one.’
‘My Sam,’ wept Lucretia. ‘Let’s get you away from here, away from her. Mother Harmony! Will you help me clean ’im up?’
Harmony kneeled beside her son’s head. ‘You will not, Lukey. I’ll do it myself. You stay in the wagon for now and I’ll keep him in the bender till he wakes and decides if he likes living or not. Vanlo, boy, come here and help me move him!’
*
‘Lor’, Ellen, who’d have thought it to look at you!’ Judy studied her friend in frank admiration. ‘I’d wanted to get there first, and you beat me to it!’
Pale, sick and frightened, Ellen managed a weak laugh, then got out of her chair and staggered into her friend’s arms.
‘He’s a looker, your Gypsy, ain’t he?’ whispered Judy in her ear. ‘I asked you about brothers, didn’t I?’
‘There’s just him and his old mother – and his wife!’
Judy whistled. ‘What a buster, Ellen!’
‘Go and meet him again, Judy! Tell him I can’t come myself. I’m that overthrown – and I’ve promised Mother to stay here. Grandfer was all for locking me in otherwise. Tell him I’m his, but not to come here again for I’ll not answer for Grandfer.’
‘I’ll let you tell him your news, though,’ said Judy. She could not trust as Ellen did in Sam’s joy at impending fatherhood. ‘I’ll be back as soon as they let me in again – my good deed for the day.’
*
Judy waited nearly an hour that evening, pacing the path and getting angrier with men by the minute. I’ll not go back to her until I’ve seed him, she vowed.
The following day she waited again, but for a shorter time, and the day after even less. On the fourth day she determined to face Sam at Horwood’s farm, and ask him where he had been hiding himself. I’ll give him such a larruping if he tries a dodge on her.
*
The hay was piled high in Horwood’s ancient barn, its spine as bowed as a seaside donkey’s. With a sinking heart Judith watched the men rolling down their shirtsleeves and lifting their jackets from where they lay heaped on a barrel in a corner of the yard. Each man lifted his cap to her, and most of them greeted her by name, greetings she returned absently, though she knew most of them, saving a few itinerants, none of whom appeared to be Gypsies. Finally she approached Horwood, who was closing the great doors.
‘Oh Judy, daughter – you’re a sight for sore eyes.’
They stood and looked at each other for a moment, both thinking of what should have been: Reggie one of the team of threshers, Judy living in the farmhouse.
‘You’ve come about Ellen’s man, haven’t you?’ he said eventually. ‘I can’t tell you where he is, though. Them other Gypsies came by three days ago and said they was clearing off.’
‘Oh God!’
‘I’m sorry, Judy. I’m sorriest for Ellen – she deserved better. They took their wages and wanted Sam’s, but I said I’d only put it in his hand myself. They didn’t care for that much but I know what’s correct, and I also wanted to give him a piece of my mind – my best hand and just to up and go like that in the middle of the threshing. I wasn’t happy.’
‘Not half as unhappy as she’s going to be . . .’
‘Not that I can make sense of it, Judy. He was all of a scram for her. I mean, I didn’t know it was Ellen at the time, but if ever there was a man in love, it was him. He got on with his work all right – he always did. But you never heard a man sing and whistle as joyful as he did. We all joshed him about it, but you could see the Bucklands didn’t care for it one bit.’
*
‘Don’t take on so, Ellen,’ said Judith. ‘You’ll lose the poor babe!’
‘That would make everyone happy, wouldn’t it?’ sobbed Ellen. ‘Nobody wants it but me!’
‘Something ain’t right, Ellen. Why’d he have come here looking for you if he didn’t care? Most men’d have worked out why you was sick, surely, and run a mile – not come here to get shot at.’
Ellen raised her pale face. ‘I want to go to Surman’s Wood. I want to see for myself that he’s gone. Then I’ll believe it.’
‘I’m coming with you. No, don’t try to stop me. They’ll not let you out of the house otherwise. Get your things on and I’ll square it with them downstairs.’
‘Now?’
‘Why not now?’
*
‘She’s coming out with me,’ said Judy to their upturned faces. ‘It don’t do her any good being cooped up in here with no fresh air and just her own misery to live on.’
‘You’ll let them all see the shame she’s brought on this family,’ growled Oliver.
Judy raised her chin. ‘The shame ain’t exactly as you’d notice just yet. And let them think what they want – they don’t know for sure any of ’en that there is a baby coming.’
‘They all saw that man come here shouting for her!’
‘So? They don’t all know he left his calling card, do they?’
Flora gasped and wrung her hands in her apron. Oliver opened his mouth and shut it again.
‘So she’s coming out with me with her head high. Afterwards you can think up whatever story you want about why she’s being sent away. Ellen! Come down!’
*
The cows were in the field as they had been that fateful day but neither girl took any notice when the herd began its lugubrious progress towards them. They reached the stile, Judith insisting on helping Ellen over, and plunged into the wood. No plume of smoke guided them, nor barking of dogs.
‘I never got as far as the camp, Judy, but he used to go this way,’ Ellen whispered, as if they were in danger of being overheard. Then at last the trees opened out and they stood in the empty clearing. The remains of a fire lay dark from the drizzle. There was a scattering of small animal bones, some sodden rags and twisted bits of indefinable metal – that was all. Ellen prodded the ashes; a spark winked red and died. She saw paired rows of holes in the ground, as of tent pegs. Here were the marks of wheels – the path the wagons had taken out of the clearing.
‘What’s this then?’ asked Judy, picking up an earthenware beer bottle from amongst the roots of a beech tree, ‘Thorp – Coley St – Reading,’ she read out. ‘Worth a penny if re
turned, this is.’
‘Give it me here,’ cried Ellen. A wild hope gripped her – a message! She tipped the bottle up, listening for the rustle of paper, then remembered her lover had told her he couldn’t write so much as his name. It dripped sour beer. Clutching the bottle with both hands, she sank to her knees and wept.
*
‘Come in, child,’ said Grace, putting her hands out to support Ellen, slumped against Judy in the cottage doorway. ‘I’ve been expecting you.
‘Here.’ She led her to a rush-bottomed chair and gently pushed her into it. Ellen leaned her arms on the deal table and rested her head on them. Her shoulders shook, her eyes red and dry and sore. Judy pulled a chair alongside and put her hand on Ellen’s back.
‘I saw ’em go the other day,’ said Grace. ‘Three wagons going t’wards the Wallingford road. It was him, wasn’t it, Ellen, that has got you in this trouble? That handsome one that used to take Reggie out?’
Ellen moaned.
‘Did you think no one knew? You can’t but sneeze round here and someone will notice. And if we do then you can be sure his people do too, for they can hear the robin put his head under his wing, I reckon. They’ve took him away, Ellen, I’m certain of it. They don’t like their kind to mix with ours, no more’n we do with them.’
Ellen raised her ravaged face and asked piteously, ‘Did you see him go, Grace?’
‘No, but don’t get your hopes up. To my mind they had him hidden in one o’ their wagons. He’s gone, Ellen, and you must think no more of ’en.’
‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Oh Ellen . . . Told you he loved you, did he?’
‘Oh yes!’
‘And now you’ve lost everything for that – but I don’t blame you.’
‘Nor him either!’
‘Oh, I blame him, child, for all he needed to do was to get up on that wagon and go.’
‘If Charlie had been here—’
‘I know,’ said Grace. ‘’Tis hard for a maid not to be loved, to be cheated as you and he were. But there are plenty who will lay this trouble all at your door. Listen to me, Ellen. You’ll not be let to keep your Gypsy child. If the connexion doesn’t find somewhere for you, the poor mite will be born in the workhouse, saving a miracle. And you could be shut in the asylum after. Your grandfather loves you, Ellen, believe me, but though he knows pride to be the worst of sins he’ll not overcome it now. It’ll be stronger than his love.’
