Return of the Gypsy

by Philippa Carr

  “If Tregorran had looked after his mare properly she would not have been able to get out,” said my father. “And Mrs. Cherry should know by now that it is unwise to stand in the path of a bolting horse.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Rolf. “They know they are in the wrong but knowing makes them all the more determined to blame someone else. And in this case it is the supernatural in the form of Mother Ginny.”

  “I know,” said my mother, “but it does make me uneasy.”

  “It’ll pass,” put in my father. “Witch hunting went out of fashion years ago. What about luncheon?”

  Over the meal the subject of Mother Ginny came up again. Rolf was very knowledgeable on the subject.

  “There was a period during the seventeenth century,” he told us, “when the fear of witchcraft was rife throughout the country. The diabolical witch finders sprang up everywhere … men whose task it was to go hunting for witches.”

  “Horrible!” cried my mother. “Thank Heaven that is done with.”

  “People haven’t changed much,” Rolf reminded her. “There is a trait in some human beings which leads to an obsession with persecution. Culture … civilized behaviour is with some just a veneer. It cracks very easily.”

  “I am glad people are a little more enlightened now,” said my mother.

  “A belief in witchcraft is hard to eradicate,” said Rolf. “It can be revived with an old crone like Mother Ginny living in that place in the woods.” He looked at his father. “I remember one of the Midsummer’s Eve bonfires a few years ago when they were leaping over the flame because they thought that gave them a protection against witches.”

  “Yes, that’s so,” added my father. “I stopped it after someone nearly got burned to death.”

  “It makes gruesome reading—what went on in the past,” said Rolf.

  “He’s been interested in these old customs for a long time,” his father told us. “But I think more so since last year. Tell them about last year, Rolf?”

  “I was at Stonehenge,” Rolf explained. “A fellow from my college lives nearby. I went with him. There was quite a ceremony. It was impressive and really eerie. I learned quite a lot about what they surmised was the secret of the stones. But of course it is all wrapped up in mystery. That is what makes it all the more fascinating.”

  “He even had some sort of robe to wear,” said his father.

  “Yes,” agreed Rolf. “A long greyish habit. I look a little like one of the Inquisitors in it. It is rather like a monk’s robe but the hood almost completely hides the face.”

  I was listening enraptured as I always did to Rolf.

  “I should love to see it,” I said.

  “Well, come over tomorrow.”

  “What about you, Jacco?” asked my mother. “You’ll want to see it too.”

  Jacco said yes he would but he was going out with John Gort tomorrow. They were going for pilchards. John Gort said there was a glut and they’d fill the nets in a few hours.

  “Well some other time for you, Jacco,” said Rolf.

  “But I’ll come tomorrow,” I cried. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  “I’ll look for you in the afternoon,” Rolf told me.

  “You ought to come over, Sir Jake,” said Mr. Hanson. “I want you to see the new copse we’re planting.”

  “So you are acquiring more and more land,” said my father. “I can see you will soon be rivalling Cador.”

  “We have a long way to go before we do that,” said Rolf regretfully. “In any case we could never rival Cador. Cador is unique. Ours is just an Elizabethan Manor House.”

  “It’s delightful,” my mother assured him. “It’s cosier than Cador.”

  “They are not to be compared,” said Rolf with a smile. “Still we are very satisfied with our little place.”

  “Oh it’s not so little,” said his father.

  “How are you getting on with your pheasants?” asked mine.

  “Very well. Luke Tregern is proving a good man.”

  “You’re lucky to have found him.”

  “Yes,” agreed the lawyer. “That was a stroke of luck. He has come from the Lizard way … looking for work. Rolf’s got an eye for people and he felt he was the right sort. Good-looking, well-spoken and above all keen to make good. He comes up with ideas for the land. You must remember, Sir Jake, we are novices at the game.”

  “You’re doing very well all the same,” said my father.

  Rolf was smiling at me.

  “Tomorrow then?” he said.

  The Hansons’ place was called Dorey Manor and was on the edge of the wood which bordered the river. They had bought it some ten years before when it had been in a state of dilapidation. The lawyer and his wife—Mrs. Hanson had been alive then—had set about restoring it in a leisurely way; it was when Rolf began to take an interest that developments proceeded at a rapid pace. Now they were constantly acquiring more land.

  My father used to say jokingly: “Rolf Hanson wants to outdo Cador. He’s an ambitious young man and he’s attempting the impossible.”

  “He is making the Manor and its lands into a sizable property,” added my mother.

  There was not doubt that Rolf was proud of Dorey Manor. He was so interested in everything, and being with him made one interested too. I always felt more alive with Rolf than with anyone else.

  He was waiting for me in the stables. He lifted me down from my horse, holding me for a few moments and looking up at me, smiling.

  “You’re growing,” he said. “Every time I see you you are bigger than you were last time.”

  “Do you think I am going to be a giantess?”

  “Just a fine upstanding girl. Come on. I’m going to show you the copse first.”

  “I long to see the robe.”

  “I know. But waiting will make it more interesting. So … the copse first.”

  Luke Tregern was working there.

  “This is Luke Tregern,” Rolf said to me. “Luke, this is our neighbour, Miss Annora Cadorson.”

  Luke Tregern bowed his head in greeting. He was tall, olive-skinned, dark-haired and handsome.

  “Good day, Miss Cadorson,” he said.

  “Good day,” I replied.

  His dark eyes were fixed intently on me.

  “There’s a healthy look about these trees, sir,” he said. “They’re taking well.”

  “So I thought,” replied Rolf. “We’re just going to wander round and take a look.”

  Rolf seemed to know a great deal about trees as he did about everything else.

  He said: “I’m teasing you with all this talk of trees. You are longing to see the robe. What a patient girl you are.”

  “No I’m not. I just like to be here with you. I really am enjoying the copse.”

  He took my arm and we went towards the house. “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “You are the nicest little girl I ever knew.”

  I was in a daze of happiness.

  The house was small compared with Cador. It was built in the Tudor style—black-beamed with white plaster panels in between and each storey projecting beyond the one below. It was picturesque and charming with an old-fashioned garden where honeysuckle decorated the arches and the display of Tudor roses was magnificent especially when they were all in bloom, which they were almost till December.

  “Come on in,” said Rolf.

  We went into his library—a long room with linen-fold panelling and a moulded ceiling. The room was lined with books. I glanced at the subjects: law, archaeology; ancient religions, customs, witchcraft.

  “Oh Rolf,” I cried, “how clever you are!”

  He laughed and suddenly took my chin in his hands and looked into my face.

  “Don’t have too high an opinion of me, Annora,” he said. “That could be very unwise.”

  “Why should it be?”

  “I might not be able to live up to it.”

  “But of course you would,” I declared vehemently. “Tell me
about that strange ceremony.”

  “I’ve only just skimmed the surface of all these mysteries. I’m just interested in a dilettante way.”

  I refused to believe he did not know a great deal. “Do let me see the robe,” I cried.

  “Here it is.” He opened a drawer and took it out.

  “Put it on,” I commanded.

  He did. A shiver ran through me as he stood there. I could only describe his appearance as sinister. It was like a monk’s robe—greyish white. The hood was big. It came right over his head and he peered out through the narrow opening in the front. It was only when the hood fell back that his face could be seen.

  “There is something frightening about it,” I said.

  He pulled back the hood so that it fell right back, and I laughed with relief.

  “That’s better. You look like yourself now. In that … with your face hidden you are like a different person.”

  “Imagine the effect with several of us dressed like this. Midnight … and those historic stones all around us. Then you get the real atmosphere.”

  I said: “It reminds me of the Inquisitors who tortured those they called heretics. Miss Caster and I have been ‘doing’ the Spanish Inquisition. It’s really frightening.”

  “I think that is the object. These are not quite so bad as those with pointed tops with slits for eyes. They are really quite spine-chilling. I shall show you some pictures of them.”

  “May I try it on?”

  “It’s far too big for you. It is made for a tall man.”

  “Nevertheless I want to.”

  I put it on. It trailed to the floor. Rolf laughed at me.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” he said. “You’ve robbed it of its sinister quality. Annora, you’ll have to grow up.” He looked at me with a tender exasperation. “You’re taking such a long time to do it.”

  “I’m taking just the same time as everyone else.”

  He put his hands on my shoulders. “It seems a long time,” he said.

  He took the robe from me and put it back in the drawer.

  “Tell me about Stonehenge,” I said.

  I sat at the table with him and he brought books from the shelves to show me. He talked glowingly about the gigantic stones in the midst of the barrows of the Bronze Age. I found it fascinating and it was wonderful to sit beside Rolf at the table while he talked.

  That was a very happy afternoon.

  There was a great deal of talk about the tragedies. The servants discussed them constantly. When I met Digory in the woods he seemed extremely proud.

  “Did your granny kill Jemima and Mrs. Cherry’s baby?” I asked him.

  He just pursed his lips and looked secretive.

  “She can do anything,” he boasted.

  “My father says people shouldn’t say such things.”

  He just swung himself up onto a tree and sat there laughing at me. He put his two forefingers to the side of his head, pretending he had horns.

  I could not stop thinking of poor Mrs. Cherry and the mare which had to be shot. I ran home as quickly as I could.

  Talk went on about Mother Ginny and then it ceased to be the main topic of conversation and I forgot about it.

  One morning when I went down to breakfast I knew something had happened. My parents were in deep conversation.

  “I must go at once,” my mother was saying. “You do see that, Jake.”

  “Yes, yes,” said my father.

  “Even now I may not be in time. I know it’s hard for you to get away just now.”

  “You don’t think I’d let you go alone.”

  “I didn’t think so. But I ought to leave today.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh Jake … thank you.”

  I cried: “What’s happening? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s your Grandfather Dickon,” my mother explained. “He’s very ill. They think …”

  “You mean … he’s dying …”

  My mother turned away. I knew she had been especially fond of her father, as I was of mine.

  My father took my arm. “He’s very old, you know,” he said. “It had to come. The miracle is that he has lived so long. Your mother and I will be leaving today.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No. You and Jacco will stay behind. We have to get there without delay.”

  “Well, we won’t delay you.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “Your mother and I are going alone. We shall be back before you’ve had time to realize we have gone.”

  I tried to persuade them to take me with them, but they were quite firm. They were going alone and later that day they left.

  A few days after they had gone, the rain started—just a gentle shower at first and then it went on and on.

  “Seems like there’s no stopping it,” said Mrs. Penlock. “It be like a curse on us, that it do. My kitchen garden be that sodden everything in it will be well nigh drowned.”

  There were floods in the fields; the rain found the weak spots in cottage roofs. Every day there was some fresh tale of woe.

  Then the rumours started.

  “You know who be doing this, don’t ’ee, my dear.” A whispered word. A look. “It be her no less.”

  Jenny Bordon’s warts which had been cured by Mother Ginny a year before came back. The Jennings’ baby caught the whooping cough and it spread like wildfire. Tom Cooper, doing a bit of thatching, fell off a ladder and broke his leg.

  Something was wrong in the neighbourhood and the general idea was growing that we did not have to look far to discover the source of these misfortunes.

  In the inns where the men sat over their pints of ale, among the women at their cottage doors or in their kitchens, the main topic of conversation was Mother Ginny.

  Digory did not help matters. When Jenny Bordon—suffering from her new crop of warts—called after him “Witch’s Varmint,” he just stuck out his tongue and put his forefingers to his head in a gesture of which I knew he was very fond and declared he would put a spell on her.

  “You can’t,” she called back. “You’re only the Varmint.”

  “My Granny can,” was his retort.

  Yes, agreed the people, so she could; and so she had. She had put an evil curse on them all.

  I was aware of mounting tension. I spoke to Jacco about it but he was too full of his own affairs to give much thought to what I was saying. On the other hand I was beginning to experience a certain alarm because of all I overheard. One of the men said: “Something’s got to be done.”

  I tried to discuss it with Miss Caster but she was uncommunicative, though even she must have been aware of the rising animosity against Mother Ginny. She did not believe in spells. She was far too educated for that, and she certainly thought the Wars of the Roses were more important than bad weather and the mishaps which had befallen the neighbourhood.

  “They are getting so angry about it, Miss Caster,” I insisted. “They talk of nothing else.”

  “These people have nothing better to think about. We have. Let us get back to the Temple gardens where the red and white roses were growing.”

  “I wish my father were here. He would talk to them. I do wonder what is happening at Eversleigh. I wish they had taken me with them. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t.”

  “Your parents know what is best,” was Miss Caster’s comment.

  The weeks passed and there was no news from my parents. Grandfather was taking a long time to die. He must be very ill or they would come home.

  June had arrived. The rain stopped and summer burst upon us. At first it was warmly welcomed but as we woke up each morning to a brilliant sun which showed itself all day, and the temperature soared into the eighties, there were more complaints from the farmers.

  My father used to say: “Farmers are never content. Give them sun and they want rain, and when the rain comes they complain of the floods. You can’t please a farmer weatherwise.” So it was
only natural that now they complained.

  I enjoyed the heat. I liked to lie in the garden in a shady spot listening to the grasshoppers and the bees. That seemed to me utter contentment. Moreover Miss Caster was a little lethargic and never wanted to prolong lessons—a habit she had in cooler weather. I think Jacco rejoiced in the same state of affairs at the vicarage where Mr. Belling, the curate, attended to his scholastic education.

  We rode together—galloping along the beach. We went out onto the moors where we would tether our horses and lie in the long grass looking down on the tin mine which was a source of income to so many people thereabouts. Our community consisted mostly of miners or fishermen and those farmers on the Cador estate.

  So one long summer day passed into another and the sun seemed to shine more brightly every day.

  People grew irritable.

  “Get out of my kitchen, Miss Annora,” said Mrs. Penlock. “You be forever under my feet, that you do.” And I was never given a cake or a scone fresh from the oven as I’d been accustomed to. It was too hot for baking in any case.

  I hated to be banished from the kitchen because there was more talk than ever at this time about Mother Ginny.

  We were approaching Midsummer’s Eve. This was always a special occasion. Rolf, who had been away, returned from visiting one of his college friends in Bodmin who shared his interest in antiquity. He talked to me enthusiastically about some stones they had discovered on Bodmin Moor. I mentioned to him that there was a growing feeling in the community against Mother Ginny.

  “It’s natural,” he said. “The Cornish are very superstitious. They cling to old customs more than is done in other parts of the country. It is probably the Celtic streak. The Celts are certainly different from the Anglo Saxons who inhabit the main part of our island.”

  “I suppose I’m only part Celtic through my father.”

  “And I pure Anglo Saxon if you can call such a mixture pure.”

  I knew, of course, that Rolf’s parents had come to Cornwall when he was five years old. He had been born in the Midlands. But he knew a great deal more about the Cornish than they seemed to themselves; and perhaps he was able to study them more dispassionately because he was not really one of them.