The Gypsy Bride

by Katie Hutton

  ‘If we’d done that there wouldn’t have been David. I can’t wish him away.’

  ‘Nor should you. You’ve been clever, my Ellen. Our Tom is the mirror of me and David of you. I wonder how Harold never saw it when we were on the trap that time.’

  ‘He didn’t see you. He saw a Gypsy and they all look the same to him.’

  ‘Dordi, that’s hard, Ellen!’

  ‘It’s as well. He talked about you for days, kept hoping he’d hear from you. When he didn’t, I knew that this Tom Boswell must be you and not some other man who really had that name.’

  ‘I told you I’d be coming back, and I have.’ He kissed her gently. ‘Do you trust me now?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But you know that whatever you and me do in this room, now, or next week, or as long as Judith’s willing to cover for us, means that some day you’ll have to make a choice?’

  Ellen looked steadily at him for about a minute, then put her hand to the back of his neck and drew his face down to hers. When she felt his touch upon her knee her legs gently parted as though of their own accord; she was surprised at the strength and speed of her arousal. His roughened fingers found their way gently under the lace edge of her drawers and worked blindly yet accurately at the quick of her. With his other hand he cradled her head against his shoulder, muffling the hot force of her cries against the skin of his neck. As he felt her sex soften and relax he carefully withdrew his hand and held her close, rocking her gently and kissing her damp, flushed forehead.

  ‘Next time,’ he murmured, ‘I promise to strip you as bare as you were in the wood, and worship every inch of you. I love you, Ellen.’ He straightened her skirt. ‘Will you see me next week?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Sam.’

  ‘Come and stand on the Burgate where we met that day of the cattle market. I’ll walk by and touch my cap politely to you, as though you’re a lady I’ve mebbe done a job for. Let me get twenty paces ahead of you and then follow me. I’ll be standing out in the yard below having a smoke. I’ll nod to you, polite-like again, and then you go in and up the stairs – I’ll have unlocked the door here. If there’s no one in the yard, I’ll be up at once. Otherwise I’ll have another smoke and come up after.’

  ‘You’ve thought of everything, Sam.’

  ‘Not quite. But you’ve had enough trouble on account of me already. So I’ll do whatever I can to save you more. Now you go down, and walk out through the yard, and go along the lane. Don’t turn out by the front. You’ll not meet any chapel people out the back unless they’ve a mind to go preaching in the lion’s den.’

  He put her into her coat, but before letting her button it he slipped his arms round her underneath it and held her close.

  ‘Oh Ellen, if I died right this minute I’d die happy!’ he murmured into her hair.

  ‘Don’t talk so!’

  ‘All right. Now out we go, until the next time.’

  He stood at the head of the narrow staircase and watched her descend, head bowed and eclipsed by hat and coat collar. What neat little feet she had, and she walked as elegant as a pony!

  As Ellen reached the last few steps, the noise of voices and the fug of ale and tobacco smoke rose up from the corridor to the public bar to meet her. The sound grew suddenly louder, as someone pushed open the glass-panelled door on his way to the privy in the yard. Ellen didn’t turn round.

  *

  She found Judith on the steps of the bandstand. Tom and David were chasing each other, as excitable as puppies, in an endless and unregulated game of tig. With a twinge Ellen wondered if they preferred to spend time with Judith rather than with her; Judith worried less about the state of their clothes.

  ‘Well, I thought you’d look happier! You’re back early.’

  ‘Oh Judy, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Go on, aren’t you going to tell me all about it? Still handsome, is he?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to tell you, really . . .’

  ‘He must’ve kissed you, at least! Go on!’

  ‘We talked. I can’t say more than that. He looks tired, Judy, that’s all. Like he has the cares of the world on his shoulders. He’s different.’

  ‘Not so Gypsy then?’

  ‘That’s it. No neckerchief, no earring, no hat on one side. He’s not . . . he’s not cock of the walk the way he was, Judy. If you saw him you’d just see a poor labouring man, but you might ask where his father came from.’

  ‘Not disappointed, are you?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all.’

  ‘So he’s poor but honest, in love with the respectable lady,’ said Judith, who devoured novels from the circulating library that she didn’t let her father see.

  ‘Respectable? Oh, Judy!’

  ‘Remember what we agreed. You cover for me and Walter Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘What if it rains?’

  ‘We’ll deal with that if it happens! Now stop worrying.’

  ‘What’s your father done to deserve this, Judy?’

  ‘Don’t care a button about him, do I?’ she said, with a toss of the head. ‘If he had his way, I’d never see no one, never have a laugh, never have pretty clothes, not read anything but scripture or that dreary paper he writes for that’s supposed to be so “uplifting” and “improving”. I’d have no life!’

  ‘Judith, he trusts us both.’

  ‘Well, more fool him then!’

  *

  Sam’s instructions had worked perfectly. Ellen sat on the bed in the room above the Flying Horse, her head light with a peculiar floating feeling of relief at having reached the shabby little sanctuary, after counting the days, the hours, the minutes.

  ‘The fire’s already laid!’ she said.

  ‘I came early and did that,’ said Sam. ‘There’s no travelling man who don’t know how to get a fire going.’

  ‘And the rag rug? I used to make them when I was a girl.’

  ‘You’re still a girl – my girl. It’s clean. Mrs French gev it me for my hut, but I wrapped it up careful and kept it for here.’

  ‘It’s warm as toast in here!’

  ‘O’ course it is,’ he said. ‘I meant what I said last time. I don’t want you catching cold, but I want every stitch off you – if you’ll let me.’

  ‘Oh Sam!’

  ‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about this moment, Ellen . . .’

  ‘I’ve thought about it too,’ she answered, looking down.

  ‘So many buttons, though! No, don’t help me . . . undo my shirt instead . . . Oh, this is pretty!’ he exclaimed, running his finger along the edge of her chemise.

  ‘Don’t you recognise the lace, Sam?’

  ‘Mother’s!’

  ‘I didn’t want anyone else to see it but you. It’s too pretty and I didn’t want questions about where it came from. I made that chemise, and my drawers,’ she added shyly. ‘I’ve not worn them before, apart from last week.’

  ‘My girl! You came prepared even then. You’re blushing, but you’ve no idea how much I like that. My braces, Ellen – and the fly buttons. Oh dear, that fellow can’t wait much longer. Unhook them stockings, I’m afraid of tearing ’em.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said, as he was about to take off his shirt. ‘Let me.’

  She ran her fingertips down his body, from shoulders to navel, her nails catching his nipples, and then circling his back.

  ‘Sam! What’s this? Turn round!’

  He did so, and said over his shoulder. ‘Lukey’s brothers. Then the cat – in Winchester. I’m sorry, Ellen, I should’ve warned you.’

  She started to cry, laying her wet face against the stippled skin.

  *

  ‘You’re beautiful, Ellen.’ He propped himself on an elbow, and with his right hand caressed her breast.

  ‘Your pretty birks are softer’n I remember, but these are bigger and darker,’ he said, circling her nipple with his forefinger. ‘Makes your skin all the whiter.’

  He sh
ifted down until his face was level with her breasts, and gently stroked her stomach, easing a fingertip into her navel. ‘That little rabbit hole ain’t the same.’

  ‘You’re tickling!’

  ‘It looks like a button hole – or a tiny letter box.’

  ‘Babies did that, Sam.’

  His hand stopped moving, then tapped her skin lightly.

  ‘I want my son. I want to know him and him to know me. I want him to love me.’

  ‘He loves Harold, Sam, in his own little-boy way.’

  ‘And what does Harold do with his little cuckoo?’

  ‘Not cuddling and kissing and all that babies need – not with David either. He sees that as womanly. I think the boys fear him a little, though they’ve no call to. He never beats them, but he can make them feel guilty with a frown – and a sermon if needs be.’

  ‘Leave him. Come away with me.’

  ‘How can I, Sam? What about David?’

  ‘I’d take him along too. I’d love lots of kiddies.’

  ‘Look at me, Sam . . . Can you really mean that?’

  ‘I want to put more babies in you, Ellen. He’d have to give you up then.’

  ‘Have you any idea what you’re saying?’

  ‘I’ll dig under this parsley patch again now, if you don’t believe me,’ he said, moving his hand gently between her legs. She shifted, aware of a slight soreness, that salty aching tenderness of prolonged love-making after long abstinence.

  ‘I don’t know that I can, Sam . . .’

  ‘I’ll never make you if you don’t want to.’

  *

  She watched him as he stood naked by the corner of the opened window, where he had been sent to smoke (‘Not here – I can’t come home smelling of tobacco’). She’d pulled the covers up against the draught, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘What is it, lovely girl?’

  ‘After us . . . did you still go with Lukey?’

  Sam turned back to the window.

  ‘Just once. She was all I had – I thought I’d lost you. She was my wife – is my wife. I cried after; I hated us both.’

  ‘Did you ever have other girls?’

  ‘No. That’s not our way.’ He threw the cigarette butt out of the window, closed it and crossed the room. ‘Let me in.’

  Ellen turned back the covers. He got in and lay on his back.

  ‘If I’m honest, there very nearly was one once – before I met you, I mean,’ he said, staring at the ceiling. ‘In France. One of the boys said we needed cheering up – we did, of course, we always did. Joe said he knew somewhere. I thought he meant a kitchema, an inn, and I liked the ale they had over there. It was a poor enough place we went to. There was five or six girls – you paid an old woman at the door and then you went in. They were sitting round, waiting, all nangi, of course.’

  ‘Nangi?’ asked Ellen, flushing.

  ‘Naked. But they wore their nakedness like a blacksmith wears his apron, or a nurse her uniform. There was a good fire going in the place because of it. My chums chose their girls and followed them upstairs . . . I was tempted, I’ll tell you. I was so bloody lonely – lonely there, and lonely at home. But I knew Lukey wouldn’t have served me that way. Joe took the prettiest one, I remember, but I went outside and smoked coffin nails till they all come out again. For a man that had gone to be cheered up Joe had a pretty long face on ’im. He said the girl had a picture in her room, a little boy, her putty feess she called him. When I heard that I wished I’d gone up with her just to talk – or try to, with my mumbling French.’

  ‘What did she look like – that girl?’

  Sam paused, thinking about lying.

  ‘She looked . . . a little like you.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Listen, Ellen, I could’ve told you she was dark and skinny, but then you’d think the kind of girl I liked was more like Lukey, and that ain’t so. And she wasn’t really like you at all – much more joking and laughing, not quiet and peaceful the way you are, though o’ course I don’t know as that wasn’t the way they taught ’em to be in that place, or whether she was like that to hide what she really felt about herself inside, poor girl. I couldn’t pay a woman to love me – I’d never know if she meant it – but I wouldn’t think badly of one who had a child to feed, or for helping a man to forget the hell round him for a minute. For even if I wasn’t waking every morning to kill a man, I was helping those that did every time I got some poor horse ready for battle or to move their infernal kit about.

  ‘You’ve no cause to be jealous, Ellen. It’s poor Lukey I’ve treated like a lubbeny, a whore, like one who didn’t care much if it was me or some other man – which was not fair to her, because she’d never played me wrong that way. You’ve gone with your Harold. You could go away from me now and he might come bothering you for his rights tonight, whilst I’m lying in the dark in my hut burning up for you and not being able to do a thing about it – because that’s what I do, every night. I’m living for these afternoons, being in this room with you for two hours at a time when I’d like to lie beside you all night and hear you breathing, and bring you your cup of tea in the morning. We’ve only got this – for now – so let’s not let either of ’em come between us here. I’ve left her for you, Ellen – she’ll never get me back! Now it’s you I’m waiting for.’

  Ellen was silent for a moment, then said: ‘You thought I’d gone with Charlie before you.’

  ‘O’ course I did. It was the war made me think that way, for I’d hear the other lads talking about their girls. Some of ’em married fast just to have a chance of it before a bullet got ’em. Some persuaded their girls without. Some I’d say was just boasting. Our first time, you know, when I made such a dinilo of myself, thinking you’d got your sickness . . . that’s because with you being a gauji, I thought you must’ve been with poor Charlie before me. For me that didn’t signify that you was a bad girl. We’re taught the gaujos don’t do as we do, so if a travelling man has to do with a gauji rakli then the same rules won’t apply, so he’ll do with her as he’d never do with a Romani chie.’

  ‘We’d call that the letter not the spirit,’ said Ellen coldly.

  ‘I don’t know about letters and spirits – I’m a bit scarce when it comes to the first,’ he said uncomprehendingly.

  ‘I mean that it’s like obeying the rule as it’s written down, but not what the rule is trying to do.’

  ‘Oh, that’s deep, Ellen. I never had the Sunday school like you.’

  ‘And if I’d been a Gypsy girl?’

  ‘Well, yes . . . I wouldn’t have thought you a good girl if you’d been Romani. You weren’t one of us,’ he rushed on, ‘but I was your first all the same. That binds me to you. It’s Harold that’s in our way, not me in his.’

  ‘I’m his wife. I’ve made him promises.’

  ‘Only ’cause you didn’t know different! You did what you had to do so that you and my Tom would be fed. Now kiss me, will you, and tell me you still want me.’

  *

  The following week, Sam was again banished to the window to smoke, when he spotted the bag Ellen had brought with her.

  ‘What’s this, then?’

  ‘Some books, Sam, but I don’t know if you’ll like them.’

  He kneeled and rummaged.

  ‘They’re books for kiddies, surely? What’s that cat doing wearing them clothes?’

  ‘They’re the boys’ books. I shall have to take them back with me or they’ll miss them.’

  ‘The pictures are very fine . . . Oh, I recognise this. A keeper with a gun! I’ve had enough run-ins with them – and that was after a rabbit usually, same as here. Oh look, he’s shot off his tail and his whiskers but the shoshoi gets away all the same!’

  ‘Just try reading them. See what you can remember from the man in Winchester. If I know how much you understand I can get you better books next time. These are the ones the boys like me to
read to them. I’m using them to teach Tom before he goes to the school in September.’

  ‘Is he good at his learning?’

  ‘Oh yes! He’s quick – fast as a flea. Always asking questions – and the sharpest memory! He misses nothing.’

  ‘Our boy. He should be sitting here between us now.’