Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Mrs. Noonan,” Anne said, her voice loud and echoing in the cavernous kitchen. Various scullery maids scattered at the sound of the mistress’s voice, so the only other soul left was the cook, Mrs. Macey, and she had a look of bilious fury on her normally placid many-chinned face. She tended a boiling pot nearby and shot an unpleasant look at Mrs. Noonan. She only dared such a look at a family member because of her own secure place in the household and the common knowledge that the woman and her brood of ill-mannered boys were a sore trial to Lady Anne.

  Mrs. Noonan turned. “Anne, my dearest, try this!” She lifted a wooden spoon from the pot and shoved it in Anne’s face.

  Anne was forced to take a mouthful of scalding contents, or it would have cascaded down her stomacher. “Ow-woo!” she shrieked, jumping about, her eyes watering from the scalding food in her mouth. Her tongue had been seared and she could taste nothing but pain.

  Mrs. Macey swiftly fetched a dipper of cool water and offered it to Anne, who took a long draught, feeling the hot contents slipping down her throat. “Good God, Mrs. Noonan, what are you trying to do, scorch the whole of my mouth?” Her words came out in a mumble, for her tongue was numb from the scalding.

  “I’m sorry! Oh, my dearest cousin, I’m so sorry!” she said, clasping her hands to her bosom and flinging the spoon’s contents around. “But I know how you love mushroom catsup, and so I thought I would try a new receipt for it. I have been trying and trying, but none of the batches have turned out quite right until this; this is the best so far. After four batches. One was dreadful, the other two were not bad, but this is quite tasty.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Anne said, her tone cold. “I will likely not taste anything for a fortnight, with a scalded tongue.” She calmed herself, taking in deep breaths. She must remember that she had come to the kitchen with a purpose. “Mrs. Noonan, your time would be much better spent in one of two occupations.”

  “Yes, dearest cousin?” the lady said, her blue eyes lighting with a zeal to please. “You know I would do anything to make you happy, you and your dear father, for without you, me and my poor dear fatherless boys would have no roof over our heads until the renovations are finished on the cottage my dearest brother is repairing for us.”

  There it was again, the implication of a future reprieve. But how far in the future? “You have been here for, how long? Almost two months? And I have it on reliable authority that you have as yet received not a single missive from your brother.”

  Mrs. Macey, tending her ragout nearby, snorted. She waddled away to the other end of the kitchen and began banging copper pots around with unconscionable noise.

  “Well, no, of course not, dearest,” Mrs. Noonan said, setting the wooden spoon back in the pot and wiping her hands on a cloth. “He told me he would write when the work is done, so if he has not written, then it clearly is not done.” It was said with an air of sweet reason.

  Still holding her temper, though with increasing difficulty, Anne said, “How long? How long should the repairs take?”

  “Well, how am I to know that?”

  Mrs. Macey snorted again and bashed some pots together, tossing them into the deep soaking sink.

  “Mrs. M., could you perform your work more quietly, please!” Anne cried over the din. There was immediate silence, and Anne took a deep breath, counting to ten. She released it. She had been distracted from her original purpose in descending to the kitchen. Gritting her teeth, Anne said, “Mrs. Noonan—”

  “Why do you never call me by my given name, dearest Anne?”

  “Mrs. Noonan,” Anne said, more loudly. “I have been almost killed by those …” She was oh, so sorely tempted to call Mrs. Noonan’s children imp helpers of Satan, but it would not aid her objective to insult the woman. “Your children,” she began over again, “have been making an enormous nuisance of themselves. They have insulted the staff and upset Mrs. Macey. They have damaged our property on numerous occasions, and this time have gone too far. They could have killed me.”

  So far, she had managed to contain her temper. “This,” she continued, shaking the noose wire in front of her cousin, “was laid on the stairs, and it tripped me. I would have fallen to my death if it were not for my own grasping of the handrail.”

  “You saw my little angels do this?” the woman said, her red cheeks burning scarlet and her eyes wide with shock.

  “Well, no, I did not see them,” Anne replied, irritated. “But I heard their laughter—”

  “They’re such high-spirited children, aren’t they?” she said, a fatuous smile adorning her round face. “Always laughing, despite losing their dear father so tragically. But their laughter, it is the sound of angels’ bells, don’t you think?”

  Fury rose up in her like a tide. “No, it is more the sound of the souls trapped in the Outer Ring of the Seventh Circle!” she exclaimed.

  Mrs. Noonan stared blankly back at her.

  Of course the woman would not know that those were souls cast into hell for their violence against persons and property. Sighing and sending up a prayer for patience, Anne said, “Mrs. Noonan, your children must be taken in hand. Why are you wasting your time in the kitchen, when you should be minding your sons?”

  Tears started in the woman’s pale blue eyes. She clasped her hands in front of her in a gesture of supplication. “I only wanted to thank you and your father for your generosity. I know how much you like mushroom catsup, and Mrs. Macey doesn’t have time for such things, nor really, though I say it as I shouldn’t,” she said, leaning forward and dropping her voice to a whisper, “the skill, for without a proper chef, you know …” She shook her head, and paused, looking around. “Which really, my dear,” she continued, her tears drying quickly, “as an earl, your father should employ a proper French chef for his own consequence. Everyone in the village wonders why he doesn’t.”

  “Mrs. Noonan,” Anne said, loudly, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “Please do not discuss this household in any way with the villagers. Think of it as a favor to me,” she said, softening her command when she caught a glimpse of the older woman’s work-worn hands, which reminded her that Mrs. Noonan’s life had not been easy. It behooved Anne to be charitable to her, even as her father was.

  And yet, Anne would not have the Noonan brood accidentally murder someone. Like herself. Charity must be tempered with a stern hand, something at which her father was not accomplished. “Whether you know it or not, madam,” she continued, injecting an earnest yet gentle tone to her words, “your children have been wreaking havoc in this house and among the staff. They have tormented the maids and disturbed the gardeners’ work. You must mind your children or I will have no other choice but to find you other lodgings until your home is refurbished. Give me your brother’s address. I will write him myself to see how things are coming along and when you can expect to move into your new home. I’m sure you would prefer to be in your own home.”

  “Thank you, Cousin Anne,” Mrs. Noonan said, rather stiffly.

  Anne turned away, intent on not softening her words into nothingness, a female failing she had fallen prey to many times. An hour later, after writing the requisite letter to Mrs. Noonan’s brother and speaking with Epping about what was to be done with the Noonan children in the meantime—unfortunately they had no dungeon nor murder hole, as at Darkefell Castle—Anne joined her father in the library.

  He was lost in work, as always, and toiled diligently on his key to the Romany language, while she perused every book she could find on known plant toxins. She was frantic to find out what was wrong with Robbie, Mrs. Jackson, and the gypsy woman. There was not even any point of contact common among them. The Jacksons kept to themselves and certainly didn’t go near the gypsies, though they did accept many foodstuffs from Harecross Hall. Robbie did play with the gypsy children, but he never went near Farfield Farm. Anne just couldn’t imagine their illness to be the result of contagion. If it were, surely more people would be ill.

  No, there had
to be something in common. Something they had picked wild and eaten, or something in the water. The mushroom catsup had given her an idea. She searched for poisonous fungi to which the three might have had access. There were several possibilities, according to the botany books in her father’s library, but it was too much of a coincidence that all three would pick and consume the same poisonous mushrooms at the same time. If Mrs. Jackson had picked and eaten them, then Jamey and Mr. Jackson would be ill, too. Or if the gypsy mother had done so, then others of her tribe would be ill.

  No, that could not be the answer.

  After an hour, she still had not found anything else that accounted for the symptoms they all suffered, the vomiting, the diarrhea, the sleep that bordered on unconsciousness. Her father was worried, too, but she had not overemphasized the problem for fear that it would make him ill. Trouble had done such a thing in the past. When her mother had announced two years before that she would be taking up residence in Bath, he had suffered what the doctor termed a kind of attack that, if repeated, could leave him paralyzed.

  No, she’d handle this alone.

  But there were things she could still speak to him about, and Darkefell was one of them. When she first came home she had told her father about all her adventures in Yorkshire and Cornwall, and he had enjoyed them thoroughly. He was, perhaps, the only person in the world who did not think she ever outreached her skills in anything she attempted. He seemed to view her as a kind of omnipotent figure of colossal ability, intelligence, and physical strength.

  As uncomfortable as such awe as he held her in could become, he tempered it with a deep affection that warmed her to the soul. She loved her father, trusted him, and relied on him as the source of her strength. She needed to speak with someone about her uncertainty over the marquess or she would burst.

  “Papa,” she said, staring at the bookcase in front of her as she slid a slim volume of Latin flower names back into its place. “Lord Darkefell has told me he loves me and I think I am in love with him.” She turned to gaze at her father. He was bent over a book, trying to see the print with his poor eyesight. “Papa, did you hear what I just said?”

  “What? I beg your pardon, Anne, I was not attending,” Lord Harecross said. “What did you say?”

  “Never mind,” she said, unwilling—or afraid—to repeat herself. It was an intensely private thing, this growing love, and though she had shared her feelings for the marquess with two other people—her friend Pamela St. James in Cornwall and of course Mary—it suddenly seemed precipitous to share that part of her life with her father. He would be full of questions about this man whom he had not yet met. The moment and the urge passed, and she hugged her secret love to her breast again. She still had time to think about it and decide what to do.

  The problem of the illness reasserted itself as of paramount importance. “Papa, you had the old gypsy mother here more than once, talking to her, constructing your lexicon of the Romany language.”

  “Yes, yes, indeed.”

  “Did you give her food while she was here? And when was the last time?”

  “Well, of course I gave her food, my dear.” He furrowed his brow and stared at the book he was perusing. “Cream cakes. She was fond of cream cakes and strawberries. She was very particular about what she ate, for gypsy cooking habits stress cleanliness. That is how I first learned their word ‘marime,’ meaning, as best as I can tell, dirty, or rather, unclean. Many things are considered marime, including a woman’s menstrual cycle, and indeed her whole lower body.”

  Anne was not shocked by his frank speech. She had learned from her father that to be ashamed of bodily functions was to be ashamed of being human. To be ashamed of being human was to be ashamed of a creation of the Lord, and that was blasphemy. Perhaps she did not quite look at it as he did, but she believed much of what he believed. “That actually answers one of my questions. Papa, I am trying to connect the gypsy mother’s illness with that of Wee Robbie and Mrs. Jackson, and I am coming up blank. Can you think of any connection? Upon thought, I have ruled out water from the same source, for I believe the gypsies use the stream, while Farfield Farm has its own well. Robbie may have drunk from the stream, but he has not been to Farfield Farm.”

  “I will set my mind to thinking of it, my dear. But the gypsy mother has not been here for over a week and there were many days between the visit and the illness.” He frowned. “It is worth considering what they ate that could have been the same, but I do not know what that could be. The gypsy mother, whose name, to a gajo like myself, is Kizzy, began to open her heart a little to me, Anne.” He looked up at his daughter, frowning over his spectacles. “I cannot help but wonder why she is said to have been cursing people lately. Ever since the trouble began, she has not been back to this house. What has occurred that she is said to have cursed poor little Robbie?”

  Anne told him her own experiences at the gypsy encampment, including the trouble among Madam Kizzy and Robbie and Mary. “I just don’t know what to think, but it is beginning to affect how the villagers are viewing Harecross Hall, and that, of course, is a concern.”

  “But others have spoken of this gypsy curse, is that not true, my dear?”

  “There has been trouble locally, Papa, and the gypsies blamed, you know that. The town gentlemen asked you to evict them for a reason, after all. In fact, I came upon one such encounter a few days ago in Hareham, before all this illness broke out. Some townsfolk were tormenting the old gypsy woman. I put a stop to it, of course. We have dealt with them for a century, our family, and never had trouble like this. No one is so adept at the harvest as a gypsy, and no one is so willing to move on once the work is over. Even the villagers know we rely on the gypsies at harvest.”

  He nodded, a frown on his pouched face. He scratched his forehead, sending his wig askew. “That is why I cannot understand what has gone wrong with the folks of Hareham. The only thing different this year is my own interest in the gypsy culture. I do miss Kizzy’s visits. Fascinating woman. Claims to be European royalty, you know, though she cannot say of what country or what family!” He chuckled.

  Anne leaned over and settled his wig on his head properly. “If she has not been here in over a week, then her illness cannot derive from here, or nothing that Robbie could have eaten, too. But he did play with the gypsy boys, even before that scene between Madam Kizzy and Mary.” She shook her head and muttered, “Better the gypsy children than those awful Noonan boys.”

  “Awful?” her father said. “What is wrong with Mrs. Noonan’s boys? Has something happened?”

  Anne sighed, wishing she had kept her mouth shut. She was not going to tell her father that the Noonan demons almost killed her with their mischief, though she still intended to have it out with them. “It’s nothing, Papa. Don’t fret about it.” She rose, crossed to him and kissed his forehead. “I have things to do now, so I’ll let you get on with your work. If you think of anything that could have made them all ill, please let me know.”

  “I will indeed, my dearest daughter,” he said, patting her hand on his shoulder.

  ***

  It was afternoon when Darkefell and Osei, traveling by Royal Mail coach in plain dress to avoid notice, were set down in Canterbury. Not an hour later, the two men were riding out through St. George Gate on hired mounts, heading for the Darkefell hunting lodge known as Hawk Park since his family had acquired it many years before.

  “How close is Harecross Hall to Hawk Park, Osei?” Darkefell asked.

  “It is some distance, my lord. A good half day’s ride, anyway.”

  The day around them was brilliant and warm, the breeze just brisk enough to be pleasant while riding swiftly, even on a hired mount that could not compare to his own favorite steed, Sunny. Now that they were out of Canterbury town the only unpleasant scent on the air was from the gibbet they passed, and the stinking corpses of three men, hanged after the last assize court. Once past them both the view and the smell improved. They traversed long rolling hill
s over dry hard-packed roads.

  Darkefell considered his plan of action as they rode east away from Canterbury. “We’ll head directly toward Harecross Hall, Osei, instead of going to Hawk Park first. I will not risk Anne’s life with any delay, for if Hiram Grover is in Kent, it can only have one meaning. He intends to see her dead.”

  “Why would he do such a thing, sir? Perhaps he was in Kent preparatory to making his escape to the Continent. Is that not a more reasonable surmise?”

  Darkefell thought about it. He had taken Hiram’s sending of the family ring to Theo as the last gesture of a man who thought he would end up dead, but could it be as Osei proposed, his last deed before leaving England forever? The man had traveled widely as a wine merchant before settling in Yorkshire after his inheritance. He knew Italian, and could no doubt find a home and employment in Italy among the many English expatriates who had escaped crime or bankruptcy there.

  But still … “No, I really don’t think he has any intention of leaving England. And in any case, I will not risk Anne’s safety, not for anything.”

  Osei didn’t reply. They cantered along the road, the rhythmic sound of the hooves blending with birdsong from the hedgerow to create a country melody. It was odd to speak of such dark things as murder and madness on a lovely spring day in the English countryside, but Darkefell went on to explain his reasoning.

  “I know Hiram Grover, and you should, too, Osei. Has he once looked at you with anything but loathing? He should have begged your forgiveness for the way his hired sailors treated you and the others, but he blamed you and me for his downfall instead of taking the responsibility upon his own shoulders.”

  “That does appear to be his character, my lord.”

  “And now we know more about his finances, that he has no money remaining from his fortune that is not owed to someone. He blames me more than you, and I fear he knows how much Anne means to me.” Anger boiled up in his gut. “He is not man enough to face me, but we already know he is willing to kill an innocent woman to make his point.”