That’s the stuff to make you jump!”
Ha. The tosher had made me jump quite enough. Still, I wanted, indeed I considered that I deserved, some ice-cream, and strode in that direction—but suddenly and squarely in my way stood an old Gypsy woman almost as tall as I.
How annoying. Gypsy women in the city were beggars, wheedling for pennies whilst on their arms and ears and around their necks over their low-cut bright-coloured blouses they wore a weighty fortune in gold, solid gold beads and chains and bangles, all their worldly wealth on their bodies at all times, gleaming against their rough brown skin. And all over their garish garments are sewed circular tin and copper amulets that flash and dangle, “magical” talismans etched with depictions of birds, snakes, arrows, stars, sunbursts, crescent moons, and great staring eyes. I think it was because of the strong superstition they carried with them, the “evil eye,” the Gypsy curse, that no one tried to steal their gold.
This Gypsy woman was dressed like the others. But instead of the usual whining plea, she addressed me in a deep, husky voice. “Child,” she said, “I see a dagger riding in your bosom and a raven on your shoulder.”
She astounded me so much that I stopped short, for there was, as always, a dagger sheathed in the busk of my corset, and no earthly way she could have known this. Speechless, I stared at her standing there arrow-straight and lance-strong yet hollow-cheeked, with grey hair as long and coarse as a moorland horse’s tail trailing down her shoulders.
Only later, on reflection, did I wonder whether she spoke of the dagger as an intangible quality, like the raven, ominous yet wise. Certainly no corporeal raven rode my shoulder.
In the same low, quiet way, she said, “You are in danger, cloaked in shadow, my child.”
True enough, but there was no way she should have known it, nor was there any reason for her to call me “child” when I dressed as a woman grown.
My astonishment gave voice to irritation. “For all I know, you’re the danger. What do you want?”
“I want to see the palm of your hand, child.”
“And you want me to cross yours with silver, I daresay.”
“No. Give me nothing. It is only that—that something about you—I recognise.”
Simultaneously, weirdly so, I recognised something about her. Rather, something that she wore. Amidst the many circular amulets hanging all over her clothing, one stood out, for it was not crafted of copper or tin, but rather of wood, a thin circle of wood, and it was not moulded, but painted with a yellow design. To the casual glance of a stranger it might look like a sunburst, but to me it was unmistakably a chrysanthemum blossom.
Rendered in brushstrokes I knew the way one knows one’s own handwriting, without reasoning.
Instantly, I confess, I forgot all thoughts of the unfortunate Duquessa, along with my manners. Without a word of explanation I lunged and grasped this talisman—the Gypsy woman wore it on the neck of her blouse, partly hidden by her hair and her many gold chains—and even though I had laid hands upon her without so much as a by-your-leave, she made no effort to prevent me, but stood like an iron signpost.
The wooden circlet—it appeared to be a section sawed from a branch or the trunk of a sapling—was sewed to the cloth through a single hole drilled at the top. With trembling fingers I turned it to look at the back side.
And there, yes, old habits persevere—there I saw the painted capitals, the initials by way of a signature. E.V.H., in dancing script I would have known anywhere. Eudoria Vernet Holmes.
Mum.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
DUMBFOUNDED ALMOST BEYOND SPEAKING, I whispered, “My mother painted this.”
Although I spoke not so much to her as to the heavenly spheres and the firmament, the Gypsy woman gasped, as much astounded as she had at first astounded me. “Your mother?”
Her voice summoned me back to a semblance of civilised behaviour. I let go of the wooden amulet and stood straight to meet her eyes, which shone almost amber, like a cat’s. “Yes, my mother painted that. There can be no mistake.” And why, after all, should I be surprised when I knew quite well that for the past year Mum had been wandering with the Gypsies, Mum who hardly knew how to live without a paintbrush in her hand?
But the tall Gypsy woman reacted with reverence, as if the noisy street were a hushed cathedral. Pulling a bright scarf up to wind it around the crown of her hair, she then placed her hands palm to palm, lowered her head to me, and said, “Blessings upon thee, O daughter of Mary of Flowers.”
Such veneration, to which I was utterly unaccustomed, flustered me so badly I could not at first speak. “Thank you,” I said finally, “but my mother’s name is not Mary.”
“She is a Mary to us, just the same.” The strong old woman raised her eyes to fix me with the gaze of a seeress and spoke on in her low and softly rasping voice. “Long ago there were Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, Black Mary, and Mary of Nazareth, who gave virgin birth. In our caravans we carry icons for them. But now has come a woman who speaks not our language yet travels with us, who saves us again and again from the wrath of police and game-keepers, who makes the old icons new, who paints for us flowers for joy, flowers for sorrow, flowers for luck, so that we go where we wish and eat the fat fish and bow our heads to her and call her our Mary of Flowers.”
“She is my mother,” I repeated, “and I would like to find her, please. Where is she?”
“Where is she? Where is the arrow shot into the sky? Where is the treasure buried? Where does the owl fly in the moonless night? We are Gypsies, child. We meet, we greet, we go again, wherever the wind blows.”
She said these things not as if to make folly of my question but more as a litany. Yet I sensed evasion. Something she was not telling me.
I tried again. “With what caravan does she travel?”
“With the caravan of many beautiful horses, child, black starred with white. May I see your hand now? Often have I held your mother’s hand, studied the lines of her palm, and told her fortune for no reason except that I revere her. There will be no crossing of my palm with silver. May I read your hand?”
Let the gentle reader please be assured that I took palmistry no more seriously than I did the making of wishes whilst blowing out birthday candles. I had been raised in an enlightened family, my father a logician, my mother a Suffragist, all of us free-thinkers who scorned superstition and regarded fortune-telling as a parlour amusement.
Yet I saw nothing to be gained by refusing the Gypsy woman her wish, whereas something might come of talking with her longer.
There we stood on the busy street, and paying no attention to horses, vehicles, or passersby, the Gypsy woman grasped both of my ungloved hands with surprising gentleness in her dry, tough fingers. She looked first at the backs of my hands, and then turning them, she studied the palms, squeezing my left hand with an odd unsmiling affection. “It might as well be your mother’s all over again,” she remarked, “except that it has a longer, deeper, and less divided line of the heart.” She gave my left hand back to me. “That one belongs to the past and the family. It is the right hand that shows one’s true self, both fate and deeds.”
“Even if one is left-handed?” Like my parents I question everything, but also I remembered Cecily, the left-handed lady who became a slave to society’s expectations when she was forced to use her right hand.
Fleetingly the Gypsy grimaced. “Such a question could come only from your mother’s daughter. Are you left-handed?”
“No.”
“Then why ask? Hush, child, and let me see. . . .” She studied the palm of my right hand with such fixed intensity that time seemed to recede along with the clamour of the city and the passing of traffic in the square. When she began to trace the features of my palm with the feather-light touch of a fingertip, I felt her touch reverberate throughout my personage to my deepest being. I stood without moving because I chose to do so, but also as if in a sort of trance.
She said in the rhythm
ic tones of a Mesmerist, “Your line of destiny begins with a star on the mound of Saturn and runs strongly into your line of life. The wedding ring on your left hand tells a lie. In truth you are alone, you have been alone even in your childhood days, and you are fated to be alone all your life unless you act to defy your fate.”
I felt the truth of the words settle heavily, like a brick, in my bosom, yet I merely nodded. “What else?”
“Your heart line, again on this hand, long and strong. You have a deeply loving nature, yet no lover. You address this problem by loving humankind. You try to help, to serve, to do good in whatever way you can.”
Her manner was so matter-of-fact that no blushes were necessary; again I merely nodded.
She went on. “Your hand is slender and sensitive, of an artistic nature, and your sun line shows great intelligence and intuition. It begins with a star on the mound of Apollo. One star on a hand is rare. Two stars—never before have I seen this, not even on your mother’s palm.”
Instantly I had but one thought. “Where is my mother?”
“Your hand cannot tell me that.”
“But you can?”
“I can speak only for the Mary of Magdala, the Mary of Bethany, the Black Mary. Your mother is where your mother is fated to be. You, Enola, must beware of following her. Follow your own stars. That is all I have to say to you. Now I go.”
And there I stood for a moment like a statue with my right hand extended until I blinked as if awakening and looked around me. I had not told the Gypsy woman my name. How had she known my name?
Where was she?
I scanned Dorsett Square, and although my glance once more encountered the hokey-pokey man (with nary a thought of ice-cream this time), the girls swinging from the lamppost, and all the rest of it, I could not see the tall Gypsy woman anywhere. Where had she gone? Her disappearance seemed almost supernatural.
Nonsense, I told myself. She could have concealed herself in the public lavatory, for at Dorsett Square stood one of London’s monuments to hygiene, featuring iron columns, carved Grecian figures, and a clock tower. Or she could have gone into the Underground. Or she could even have taken a cab, for directly in front of the Underground station was a cab-stand, of course. But this escape route seemed less likely. Because of the fine summertime weather, open-fronted hansom cabs were plentiful and four-wheeled “growlers,” the sort of cab one could hide in, rather lacking.
To hide, however, was quite what I wanted, suddenly realising how badly my dress and person were stained and grimed by my venture into the tunnel, and even more so, how dishevelled were my thoughts and emotions. Hurrying back downstairs into the dim Underground, I took the first train, and by a circuitous route made my way to the Professional Women’s Club. I needed to calm myself and think.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
MY ROOM, LIKE THE EXCLUSIVELY FEW OTHERS IN the third storey of this sanctuary, was rather Spartan in its furnishings; this was, after all, a haven for intellectual women interested in Dress Reform and other freedoms, not likely to care whether the tables were draped or the bed wore a skirt. But the food, as I have said, was excellent. I ordered a plate of sandwiches to be brought to my room, and then, once bathed, I sat in my dressing-gown devouring tuna-paste, cucumber, and watercress, attempting to comfort both body and mind. I reminded myself that today was not the first time I had encountered someone who knew my mother. I had overheard her Suffragist contemporaries speaking of her the first time I visited the club. I could not understand why my encounter with the Gypsy woman had left me so flummoxed, and as is my custom when such is the case, I turned to paper and pencil.
Swiftly I sketched picture after picture. I drew the Gypsy woman’s face; the intensity of her catlike gaze almost frightened me. I drew a raven in flight, certainly not riding on my shoulder; in olden times, speaking ravens accompanied soothsayers, but also the black birds flocked to battlefields, waiting to feed on death. I drew the ill-tempered tosher in the Underground tunnel, caricaturing his strawberry nose and cauliflower ears as revenge for the scare he had given me. I tried to draw the Gypsy woman again but found her turning into Mum; this was most disconcerting, as I could not normally call my mother’s features clearly to mind; seeing them emerge hurt my heart. Turning that sketch face-down, I tried another, drawing a delicate, lovely lady, fair-haired and slender, with the most exquisitely sensitive eyes. She soothed my feelings so that I was drawing her again from a different angle before I realised she was Blanchefleur, Duquessa del Campo.
Oh, for Heaven’s sake, there I sat—I’d be drawing horsies next—eating fish-paste sandwiches, when I should be finding out what had happened to her!
Shoving all other thoughts aside along with my sketches, I set to work, attempting to reason out, on paper, what might have become of Lady Blanchefleur.
Either she disappeared of her own free will
or she has met with accident or foul play.
If her own will, how did she hide from
searching ladies-in-waiting?
Down track? Most unlikely, but must be
investigated.
Must learn more about lady’s background—
unhappiness? Her letter to her mum not
cheerful.
If accident or foul play?
Accident: She fell through a grating into
a sewer, broke her leg so she cannot climb
out, and no one can hear her screams?
Unspeakably melodramatic.
Foul play: She has been taken by force.
For ransom—but no demand has been
r eceived.
For some other purpose? Revenge? Who
is her enemy?
Again, inquire into lady’s background.
Perhaps the entire subway story is a fiction
concocted by the ladies-in-waiting?
But surely the emotion I had observed in them was genuine. I did not believe that last sentence for a moment, and none of my other jottings felt particularly insightful, either.
In such cases one quite needs to cease thinking for an hour or two, thereby letting the mind alone to do its work. But how to distract myself meanwhile?
Visit Mrs. Tupper, of course! It had been several days, my dear deaf former landlady would be delighted to see me, and the venture was always quite a diversion. At once I arose from my chair to prepare.
Mrs. Tupper, I must explain, was now a guest-in-residence at the amazingly populous house of Florence Nightingale. Unfortunately, my brother Sherlock knew this, surely deduced that I visited her, and I believe kept watch for me. The street urchins I often saw hanging about might well have been his “Baker Street Irregulars.” However, he would have described me to them as a studious or spinsterish female in tweed or some other drab, dark garb, with mud-brown hair yanked back in a bun and an alarming nose disguised by spectacles.
Such being the case, whenever I visited Mrs. Tupper, for the sake of my own safety I went as an exquisitely lovely lady.
I will spare the gentle reader the rigours of the facial emollients and tinctures necessary to effect this transformation, except to mention that as usual I affixed a small birthmark to my temple to draw attention away from the centre of my face, that is to say my proboscis, the prominence of which was further diminished by my full, luxurious (and quite expensive) chestnut-coloured wig.
But I cannot deny myself a description of the afternoon calling-costume I wore that day, a heavenly confection of cerulean blue dotted swiss gathered into scallops over a skirt of midnight blue, with a wide white satin belt, a blue bodice trimmed in white, a dainty blue hat topped with daisies and ribbons, and a blue-and-white parasol ruffled with dotted swiss. In fawn gloves and gaiters, I looked, if I do say it myself, rather a dream.
Indeed, I took a hansom cab to Mayfair so that I might enjoy, whilst pretending not to notice, the admiring glances of the populace. Never has a fair lady felt less presentiment of impending doom.
Alighting from my cab in front
of Florence Nightingale’s handsome brick house, I turned to pay the cabbie—
Nearby and closing in on me I heard the most astonishing, almost human cries of joy. The next moment, furry feet nearly bowled me over! As I turned to see what had jumped upon me, time played the most peculiar trick, rather like an accordion with all the air pumped out of it; I might as well have been a child again, so instantly I embraced my beloved dog.
“Reginald!” Without a thought for my dress, for appearances, onlookers, or anything else except Reginald Collie, I sat right down on the pavement to hug him in both arms, laughing and weeping as he waggled and licked my face and cried canine yawps of joy.
Bliss. For brief, ecstatic moments. Then a pair of long, slender, but strong hands came down, clipping a leash to Reginald’s collar, and I looked up into the carefully expressionless face of my brother Sherlock.
But I refused to let go of my happiness. Still laughing, I extended a hand to him and let him help me to my feet. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” I burbled in dulcet tones an octave higher than my normal speaking voice. “Oh, just wait until I tell my aunt that I have met the famous Sherlock Holmes!”
Astonishment trumped control; his jaw fairly dropped for a moment before he disciplined it. “That was you in Watson’s parlour?”
“Studying the bizarre bouquet his enemy had sent him. Yes.” Still caressing Reginald with one hand, brushing dog hair from my dress with the other, I challenged Sherlock, “Now, confess, you would never have known me if it were not for our furry old friend here.”
The Case of the Gypsy Goodbye Page 4
