The Gypsy Bride

by Katie Hutton

  ‘I try to live by the commandments too, Mr Loveridge. I don’t believe it’s right to kill a man, even if he is guilty of the most dreadful crime – and I do not believe that you are – because each one of us, no matter how lowly, how debased, how corrupted, is made in God’s image and therefore can be saved—’

  ‘You want me for God, then?’

  ‘I’d want any man for God, Loveridge. But that is your choice, though open to you only for as long as you are alive to make it. If you are dead, your hope of redemption – or, to use the language of the world, of reform – has been dashed, utterly dashed. I don’t want you hanged. That would be the most terrible inheritance for your son – and the child yet to be born – besides everything else. I would not want you hanged if you had drowned my clerk, and because I don’t believe that you did, I will do all that I can to save you – and her, of course.’

  ‘I should thank you, then.’

  ‘I should like that, of course.’ Deakin smiled at last. ‘Now, perhaps we can talk about your defence. I shall have to find you a barrister, of course.’

  ‘A what? I never had all of this when I was took for horse-stealing.’

  ‘Indeed not. The magistrates can put you away for that, but murder is quite another thing. It’s the barrister who will stand up for you in court, and argue your case against the Crown’s – the prosecution.’

  ‘Like a bare-knuckle fight, but with words?’

  ‘A little like that, I suppose, though the spectators may not cheer anybody on, and the placing of bets is to be most strongly discouraged.’

  ‘I’m in your hands then, sir, and I’m grateful to you.’

  *

  Ellen pressed her hands against the tiled walls of her cell as if trying to push them back. Their clinical coldness reminded her of the mortuary where she had gone to identify Harold. She remembered that ammoniac reek, and the mere thought of it caused her to gag. Breathing deeply, she strove to master herself. My baby – Sam’s baby! She sat on the bed frame, next to the folded blanket, and cried.

  Ten minutes later there was a rustling at the door, followed by the clank of a key.

  ‘Here, Chown,’ said the matron, holding out a book. Ellen flinched at the peremptory use of her surname. ‘There’s a bit of time before lights-out. This might help.’

  Ellen tried to concentrate, following her grandfather’s practice of finding guidance by opening the pages at random, but quickly gave up, her eyes blurred and her tears dropping onto the flimsy pages. She laid down the Bible, but kept her right hand on it as she leaned back against the tiles. She shivered: she could feel their implacable cold through blouse and chemise. She looked at the blanket again. Is it clean? Holding her breath in case it smelled, she wrapped herself in it, and huddled on the bed. Someone outside turned out the lights, and she slept fitfully, until, she didn’t know how much later, she was woken by a cramping pain – a pain she knew. Dragging herself upright and throwing her shoulder to the door, she pummelled it until her fists hurt.

  *

  Two matrons came, and Ellen found kindness where she had not expected it. The elder of the two, the woman who had brought the Bible earlier, immediately understood. ‘Go for the surgeon, Anny. And tell ’em upstairs to bring a clean pail.’ She pushed Ellen’s hair back from her clammy forehead. ‘Wouldn’t be respectful, would it, to use the one you’ve done your water in.’

  The woman kneeled beside her and put her arm round her shoulders as Ellen sobbed, her body bleeding Sam’s child out into the zinc bucket, with a sound as loud in that space as rain on a tin roof. Brisk feet marched down the corridor.

  ‘A fait accompli, evidently,’ said the doctor, standing in the doorway to the cell. ‘Best get her a stretcher and bring her upstairs.’

  ‘I’ll say this,’ answered the matron. ‘Chown ain’t no murderess. There’s no hardness in her.’

  *

  ‘You have all been most kind,’ Ellen said later, looking up into the matron’s face, outlined against the bright whiteness of the sick bay.

  ‘That’s all right, dear. Your mother and brother came to see you.’

  ‘You told them?’

  ‘Yes. But I couldn’t let them in. You weren’t ready for visitors.’ The matron took her hand. ‘Maybe it’s better that way, dear.’

  Ellen sobbed. She was back in Surman’s Wood after the telegram from France, back in the clearing holding Sam’s beer bottle, back in the Coroner’s Court crying out, no, Sam could not have done such a thing. The doctor loomed over her, and she felt a needle enter the crook of her arm.

  *

  John got to his feet as the door opened and put his hands on his mother’s shoulders.

  ‘Oh my poor little girl! Your poor little baby!’ wailed Flora, the moment Ellen was brought into the room. She got up to embrace her daughter, but the matron intervened.

  ‘No touching the prisoner, ma’am,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘Sit down, Chown.’

  ‘Prisoner!’ wept Flora.

  ‘Now, Mother, remember what we talked about,’ said John gently. ‘We’re here to help Ellen, to get her out of here. And him if we can. You know scenes don’t help. You look very pale, Ellen.’

  ‘I am better, though. There wasn’t quite so much . . . I mean . . . it was earlier this time. I keep being told it’s for the best, but I can’t see it that way. Another little life has had to pay for my folly.’

  ‘She’s done very well, poor thing,’ murmured the matron.

  ‘Oh, but you don’t know how glad I am to see your dear faces,’ Ellen went on. ‘Tell me all the news. How is Grace? The ladies from the sewing meeting? Tell me about the world out there – how safe and normal and good it really is. It feels so far away. What about Grandfer?’

  Her visitors exchanged glances.

  ‘Go on, Mother,’ John prompted.

  ‘Grandfer ain’t coming,’ Flora said eventually. ‘He’s waiting back there, for Harold to be brought home.’ Then in a rush she added: ‘And I ain’t going back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to lodge with John – in Manchester. And when his mission starts, I’m going with him and Amy wherever he’s sent.’

  ‘Leave Chingestone?’

  ‘I can’t stay there no longer. I should’ve spoken out when you lost your other babe. Or when that first letter came, the one he read though it weren’t addressed to him. It was because of the dibber, you see.’

  ‘The dibber?’

  ‘I’m all muddled up with the sermons, Ellen. I can’t hear Oliver preach the scriptures but I get angry with him. Wasn’t it our Lord who raised up the paralytic on the Sabbath? All I wanted to do was seed my nasturtiums – I know it’s not quite the same thing, of course. Only I’d kep’ forgetting to ask Oliver for the dibber and then Sunday was round again.’

  ‘Mother, what have nasturtiums to do with it?’

  ‘I’m just telling you. Your grandfer went out for the class meeting and then I went into his shed. He never likes it if I move his things, so I’d to be careful to put everything back as it was or he’d have known. Only when I went to push the tool box back under the counter it went against something soft. They was old trousers, stuffed with straw. I couldn’t think why he couldn’t make a scarecrow outside instead of making a mess in there. I got my seeds in and him none the wiser. It was him did that Skimmington, Ellen, that wicked thing that he blamed on our church neighbours, because he wanted you and Harold away. He mun have known from that letter the Gypsy was going to come back.’

  ‘Oh Mother!’

  ‘But what if he had, Ellen? What if he had?’ Flora’s voice rose, querulous. ‘You’d’ve gone with him. Better that than losing your poor babe. Better that than Harold lying in his coffin. Better than you bein’ here! But not for ’en, not for Oliver!’ Flora wept. ‘I’ve been no mother to you.’

  Ellen grasped Flora’s hands. The matron opened her mouth, but looked at John and shut it again.

  ‘And then, of cou
rse, he did come for you, your Gypsy. And I shut the door in his face, tired and ill as he was! He pleaded with me through the letter box, and I didn’t dare even look him in the face – Tom’s face. And Judith’s Mr Deakin telled me the poor man loves you so much he’s ready to put his head in a noose to get you out of here!’

  *

  ‘You’ve the curtains already pulled, Judy! It won’t be dark for two hours or more yet.’

  ‘I know, Walter. It’s to stop them looking in, not me looking out – Ma Clerk and all the other old biddies. I’ve heard ’em next door, keeping their voices down so I can’t make anything out. And I’ve to bring my bicycle through the house because if I don’t go out the front door then I’ve to pass behind my neighbours. You wouldn’t believe the washing they’re doing and the fussing with their potted herbs and all. But it’s the boys I’m most worried about.’

  ‘How are they managing?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Deakin are very kind. But today David asked me again when his pa is coming home. Ellen hadn’t known how to tell them so she said the usual flannel about falling asleep in Christ, and of course Davy didn’t understand, though Tom did fast enough. He thinks it’s all his fault and cries himself into a puddle because of it, which sets off his brother, of course. Doesn’t miss a trick, that lad, and knows all the trouble started when he let slip that his little train came from the Gypsy man.’

  ‘What does Tom know?’

  ‘About Sam? Nothing yet. But he’ll have to be told – before someone else makes it their business. Oh Wattie, what’s going to happen to them? What if Ellen never comes home? What if—’

  ‘Ssh, girlie!’

  ‘They’ll not let me keep ’em, not me on my own, even if Pa has left me something. I don’t think we could stay here as it is. Mr Deakin has already said he could find places for them, though he couldn’t guarantee they’d be together – though I saw Mrs Deakin start when he said that. I think she’d half a mind to keep ’em herself.’

  ‘Better than separating them!’

  ‘Deakin was trying to comfort me – he was telling me not to worry about them, but I can’t help myself. But if Deakin weren’t there I don’t know who would fight for Sam – or Ellen. I have to trust him.’

  Walter cleared his throat. ‘We could take ’em, Judy, if you wanted.’

  ‘How’d we manage that? We ain’t even married.’

  ‘We could manage that, though, if you’ll have me. I’ve got work. If you don’t mind having the washing of my stinking clothes, of course. Mother never can quite get the grease out, no matter how much she tries.’

  ‘Oh Wattie, is that a proposal?’

  ‘If you like. I ’spect you’d want to get married in that chapel, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Never! Not now . . . Not that Pa would like the parish church, of course.’

  ‘Your pa’s not here, girlie. How could I be otherwise?’

  ‘Oh dear – I keep forgetting. Poor Pa. I should be crying for him, like those two little beggars, but I can’t. He deserved better’n me!’

  ‘Hush, Judy, you’re crying now. You’ve just been strong for the boys, and for Ellen, so you’ve had no chance to even think about him.’

  ‘Who’ll give me away?’

  ‘Ah, so you will have me! Don’t think about the giving away just yet. Your father ain’t even in the ground.’

  ‘Maybe Sam,’ sniffed Judy distractedly. ‘To give me away, I mean. If they let him go.’

  Walter took her hands. ‘Now you’re not thinking right, Judy. Don’t ask him to do something a decent man would find awkward. Whatever happens people will still say that he came in and took away Ellen from your pa and that cost your pa his life. He took Harold’s place as a husband. He’d take on Davy as a father along of Tom if he’s given the chance – but should he take Harold’s place leading you to the altar too? That wouldn’t be right, would it?’

  Judy shook her head.

  ‘All right, I’ll call by the parson tomorrow on my way home.’

  ‘I could ask Mr Deakin, even if he is chapel.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  *

  ‘Get up, Loveridge, you’ve another visitor.’

  ‘Deakin, is it?’

  ‘Not this time – a lady, of sorts.’

  ‘You’re letting me see her? She’s free?’

  ‘’Oos “she”? The cat’s mother? Nope, this one says she’s your wife and has been kicking up a ruckus. Wife like that, I’d feel safer shut in here! There’s a man along of her I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night. Says he’s her brother. But we’re not letting him in.’

  *

  ‘Sit here, Loveridge, and put your hands on the table. Jim, here, will stay with you and he’s handy enough with his fists should she try to scratch yer eyes out.’ The warder left, still laughing at his own wit.

  ‘I’ve a message for you from a mate of mine at the station,’ said Jim quietly. He scratched his nose.

  ‘She’s free!’

  ‘Ssh! Sit down and calm yourself. Not just yet but she will be, soon as she’s well enough. Boss will be back in a minute with your other lady.’

  ‘What do you mean, “well enough”?’

  The man hesitated. ‘Being locked up don’t agree with most people – but ’specially not a lady like her. Quiet now, that’s them coming.’

  *

  Lucretia looked positively garish in the drab setting, a life force in red and yellow. The guard raised his eyebrows at his colleague as he backed out of the room and locked them in. Lucretia rustled and jangled into the seat in front of Sam and smiled.

  ‘Before you start, you’ve to talk in English here or you’ll be taken out,’ came Jim’s voice over Sam’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you worry, precious!’ laughed Lucretia, then fixed her dark eyes on her husband. ‘It don’t look like the food in here agrees with you, Sam!’

  ‘The food don’t bother me,’ he muttered. ‘So what is it you’re after, Lukey?’

  ‘Me, oh, I’m just curious. It’s a good life, is it then, being a gaujo? Worth it, was she?’

  ‘Don’t you talk about her!’

  ‘I can talk about her all I like. She took you off of me. Going to hang you, are they, Sam?’

  ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Course you didn’t,’ she said soothingly. ‘But they’ve only a gippo’s word for it.’

  ‘How’d you know I was here?’

  ‘Went back to French’s as usual, an’ he tole us. But he wouldn’t take us on. That’s more trouble you’ve caused us. That was a good place. But everyone’s talking about you out there, and nobody wants us Gypsies ’cause of it.’

  ‘We wasn’t exackly popular at the best of times,’ said Sam, ‘but I never thought this would make it bad for the rest of us – for you, I mean.’

  ‘You’re a bit of an innercent, ain’t you, Sam?’ she said contemptuously. ‘You and that brother of mine both.’

  ‘Vanlo?’

  ‘Gorn off, hasn’t he? Same as you, without telling nobody. Took off when we was in Wandsworth last. And you can’t track anyone in a city.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you tried.’

  ‘Why would we? Can’t find anyone if they don’t want to be found.’

  ‘Poor Vanlo. So, seen enough of me now, have you?’

  ‘For a lifetime, Sam, however long that’s going to be – maybe yours won’t be so long after all. Want me to tell your fortin, Sam, so’s you know what to expect?’ She reached for his hand, but he pulled away sharply.

  ‘No touching the prisoner!’ shouted Jim.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Sam, glancing round. He placed his palms flat on the table. ‘You can’t tell my fortin anyway; we’re too close for that.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that. It’s you that forgot it.’

  ‘Lukey . . . I don’t know how, but I want to marry that girl.’

  ‘Oh dordi, that’s funny! Cuts his hair, takes out his earring, finds himsel
f a gauji and has to make her respectable. Want me out of the way too, do you? You’ve spent too long with lawyers, Sam. You want them to get you out of one noose so’s you can go and find another to stick your head into. Oh, let me out of here afore I die laughing and save you the trouble!’ She stood up.

  ‘Wait, Lukey!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She stared at him for a moment. ‘I ’spect you are. Seeing as you’re in here.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband.’

  ‘I’m sorry you wasn’t too. I hope they don’t hang you, Sam.’

  She turned away. The guard rapped on the door and keys rattled outside. Lucretia glanced back as she went out.

  ‘You always was a soft mush, Sam. But I never see’d a man I liked the look of more. Goodbye, then.’

  *

  The desk sergeant leaned over the counter of the police station and did his best to breathe shallowly. ‘You again, Tanner. What have you not done this time? We’re busy. Cells are full.’

  ‘I’m here in my capacity as a responsible citizen!’ said the tramp.

  ‘You? Well, get on with it then. I haven’t got all day, even if you have.’

  ‘’Tis about that ’orrible murder at St Radigunds. I didn’t come earlier as it was only yesterday as a nice lady gave me some coppers and I could get meself a few hot chips what was wrapped in an old copy of the Gazette and I read about it there.’

  ‘I didn’t know as you could read, Marty.’

  ‘They ’ad teachers in the werkiss, Sergeant. Anyways, it wasn’t.’

  ‘What wasn’t what? The Gazette?’

  ‘No! Murder most foul!’

  ‘All right, Marty. I give up. Two sugars, isn’t it?’

  ‘What, no biscuit, Sergeant?’

  ‘And biscuits . . . Come along with you, then,’ said the sergeant, lifting the flap of the counter.

  *

  ‘ . . . I was quite settled under that tree,’ said Marty Tanner, ‘when it came on to rain and woke me up, and seeing the landlady at the Millers sometimes takes pity on me I thought I’d see if her ’eart would be moved on this occasion by my wet and miserable state.