Voices in a Haunted Room

by Philippa Carr

  The servants left me with no doubt in my mind that there was something special about Romany Jake. I could tell it by the manner in which they spoke of him and giggled when his name was mentioned. Although they were fairly frank with me, there were times when they remembered my youth, and although that did not prevent their talking, it curbed their spontaneity and they spoke in innuendoes which I sometimes found difficulty in deciphering.

  But I learned that the coming of Romany Jake was one of the most exciting things which had happened for a long time. He must have driven from their minds the thoughts of invasion for he was now the main topic of conversation in the servants’ hall.

  He was no ordinary gypsy. He was a Cornishman—half Spaniard, they reckoned, and I remembered that at the time of the defeat of the Spanish armada many of the Spanish galleons had been wrecked along the coast and Spanish sailors found their way ashore. So there was a sprinkling of Spanish blood in many a Cornish man or woman. It was evident in those dark eyes and curling hair and their passionate natures—all of which attributes were possessed, so I was told, by Romany Jake.

  “Romany Jake!” said Mabel. “What a name to go to bed with!”

  “I always think of him just as Jake,” said young Bessie, the tweeny. “I don’t think he’s a real gypsy. He’s come to it because he likes the wandering life.”

  “He looks like a gypsy,” I said.

  “Now what would you know about that, Miss Jessica?”

  “As much as you do, I suppose,” I retorted.

  “They’ve made quite a little home for themselves in that clearing. They’re shoeing their horses, setting up their baskets and doing a bit of tinkering. You can’t say they’re lazy, and Romany Jake, he plays to them and sings to them … and they all join in the singing. It’s like a play to see them.”

  “At least,” I said, “he has stopped you all talking about the invasion.”

  “I reckon Romany Jake would be a match for Boney himself,” said Mabel.

  And they all laughed and were very merry. That was what the coming of Romany Jake had done for them.

  I saw him once when I was alone. I had been down to the cottages to take a posset to Mrs. Green, wife of one of the stablemen who was suffering from a chill, and on my way back there he was. He had no right to be on our land, of course, and he was carrying something in his coat pocket. I believed he had been poaching.

  His eyes sparkled as he looked at me and I was aware of an acute pleasure because I fancied he was admiring me and as I was growing older I was becoming rather susceptible to admiration and experienced a kindly feeling towards those who expressed it. But it seemed particularly pleasant coming from him.

  So I had no desire to run away from him, nor to reprove him for poaching on our land.

  “Good day to you, little lady,” he said.

  “Good day,” I replied. “I know who you are. You’re Romany Jake. I met you in the woods the other day, I believe.”

  “I am certain of it, for having once made your acquaintance that would be something I should never forget. But that such a great lady as yourself should remember me … that is as gratifying as it is remarkable.”

  “You don’t speak like a gypsy,” I said.

  “I trust you will not hold that against me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you might think that every man should keep his place … a gentleman a gentleman … a gypsy a gypsy.”

  I fancied he was laughing at me so I smiled.

  “I know you live in your caravan in the woods,” I said. “Are you staying long?”

  “The joy of the wandering life is that you go where you will when the spirit moves you. It is a great life lived under the sun, the moon and the stars.”

  He had a musical voice not in the least like any gypsy I had ever heard. There was laughter in it and it made me want to laugh too.

  “You’re quite poetic,” I said.

  “The life makes one love nature. It makes one conscious of the blessings of nature—of the life on the open road.”

  “What about winter?”

  “Ah, there you have spoken. The north wind will blow and we shall have snow and what will the gypsy do then, poor man. I’ll tell you. He might find some warm and cosy house and a warm and cosy lady who will open her doors to him and shelter him there until the cold is past and the spring comes.”

  “Then he wouldn’t be a wandering gypsy, would he?”

  “What does that matter as long as he is happy and those about him are happy. Life is meant to be enjoyed. You agree with me? Yes, I know you do. You will enjoy life, I see it in your eyes.”

  “Do you see the future?”

  “They say, do they not, that gypsies have the powers?”

  “Tell me what you see for me.”

  “All that you want it to be. That’s your future.”

  “That sounds very good to me.”

  “You’ll make it good.”

  “Have you made yours good?”

  “To be sure I have.”

  “You seem to be rather poor.”

  “No man is poor when he has the good earth to live on, and the sun to warm his days and the moon to light his nights.”

  “You have a great respect for the heavens,” I said.

  “Well, from thence comes the source of life. I’ll tell you something if you will swear never to mention it to a soul.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said eagerly. “I promise.”

  “I took to you the moment I saw you. I said to myself: She’ll be a fiery beauty, that one. I’d like to steal her away and take her off with me.”

  I burst out laughing. Of course I should have scowled at him and ridden off immediately; but I did not. I just wanted to stay where I was and indulge in this conversation which was fascinating to me.

  “What! You think I would leave home and become a gypsy.”

  “I did,” he said. “It’s a good life … for a while.”

  I shivered. “What about the north winds blowing and the snow coming?”

  “You’d have me to keep you warm at nights.”

  “Should you be talking to me like this?”

  “I am sure some would say I shouldn’t but between ourselves it depends on whether you want to hear it.”

  “I don’t think I should stay here.”

  “Oh, but is it not the things which we are supposed not to do which we enjoy doing? I’ll swear you have often done that which you should not have done … and loved the doing of it.”

  Someone was coming. I looked at the bulge in his pocket. He was about to disappear when Amaryllis came into view.

  “This is my lucky day,” he said. “Once more two beautiful ladies.”

  “Why, it’s Romany Jake,” said Amaryllis.

  “You are the second lady to do me the honour of remembering my name … and all in an hour.”

  Amaryllis looked at me and said: “We ought to go in.”

  “I was just going,” I replied.

  “Good day, Mr.—” began Amaryllis.

  “Cadorson,” he said. “Jake Cadorson.”

  “Well, good day, Mr. Cadorson,” I said.

  Amaryllis pulled at my arm and I turned away with her. I was aware of his watching eyes as we went towards the house.

  “What was he doing there?” asked Amaryllis.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you see what he had in his pocket?”

  “There was certainly something there.”

  “A hare or a pheasant, I think,” said Amaryllis. “He must have been poaching. Do you think we ought to tell your father or mine?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “They have to eat. Do you want them to starve?”

  “No, but they should not poach. It’s stealing in a way.”

  “Don’t tell, Amaryllis. My father would be angry and turn them away. They must be very poor.”

  Amaryllis nodded. It was always easy to arouse her compassion.

  The next time I
saw him was in the kitchen at Grasslands.

  Claudine took a special interest in Mrs. Trent and was always sending something over to her. I had heard Claudine say that Mrs. Trent had never been the same since the death of her grand-daughter Evie. She just seemed to lose her grip on life. Amaryllis never liked going there very much which I thought odd for she was always eager to share our comforts with the people of the estate. They liked to see her, too. She had the face of a ministering angel, and was also patient listening to accounts of their ailments. She had more aptitude than I for that sort of thing. “You’re the ideal sister of mercy,” I told her. And so she was … except at Grasslands.

  I asked her why she did not like going there and she said that Dolly had an odd way of looking at her.

  “She makes me shiver sometimes,” she said. “I’ll look up and her eyes will be on me—at least the one that is wide open. And I always wonder what that other eye can see. It is almost as though it sees what other people can’t.”

  “I always thought you were so reasonable and logical,” I said. “I don’t expect you to have flights of fancy.”

  “That’s how I feel… just uncomfortable. So will you go and take them whatever my mother wants to send to them?”

  Although I was not the perfect visitor of the sick, I did like going to Grasslands—just as I did to Enderby. It was not that I wanted to spend a good deal of time with Mrs. Trent and Dolly or Aunt Sophie; but the uncanny atmosphere which prevailed in both houses intrigued me.

  “We are lucky to have two such houses in the neighbourhood,” I said to Amaryllis.

  “It is not the houses,” she replied. “It’s the people in them. I wouldn’t mind Grasslands at all without Dolly.”

  I thought a good deal about what she had said and I wondered why Dolly was so interested in Amaryllis, because most people simply thought Amaryllis sweet and angelic, and paid more attention to me. Dolly did, however, have a certain interest in me. Once she said: “You were ever such a lovely baby.”

  “Do you remember me then?” I asked.

  She nodded. “You were so pretty … and could you scream! If you couldn’t have what you wanted … You should have heard.”

  “I probably did hear myself.”

  “And when you smiled … oh you were lovely then.”

  But even so her real interest was in Amaryllis.

  So it was that I took the sloe gin to Mrs. Trent.

  I looked in at the front door and there was no one there so I went round to the back. I could hear voices. The door was open so I went in.

  In the Grasslands kitchen, seated at the table, his legs stretched out before him, sipping from a tankard, his guitar on the table before him, was Romany Jake.

  Dolly was sitting at the table some little distance from him.

  He rose when he saw me and said: “Well, if it isn’t the lady from the big house.”

  Dolly said: “Oh Jessica, it’s you then.”

  She needed no answer to the obvious so I put my basket on the table and said: “Young Mrs. Frenshaw thought your grandmother might like to try her sloe gin.”

  “She’ll appreciate that,” replied Dolly. “Would you like a little wine?”

  “No thank you.”

  Romany Jake surveyed me with his laughing eyes. “Too proud to sit down with a gypsy?”

  “I never thought …” I began; but he had turned to Dolly.

  “Perhaps you should be taking your guest into the parlour which is more suited to her.”

  I said firmly: “I will take a little wine, Dolly … here.”

  “You are as gracious as you are beautiful,” he said. “Grace and beauty. What a joy to find the two together!”

  “Jake brought in a basket I ordered,” said Dolly, explaining his presence.

  “And how is your grandmother today?” I asked, as she poured out a little wine which she handed to me.

  “She is brighter, thank you. I’ll tell her you called. She’ll like the sloe gin.”

  Romany Jake, who had kept his eyes on me, then raised his glass. “A long and happy life to you, Miss Jessica,” he said.

  “Thank you.” I lifted mine. “And to you.”

  “Jake was telling my fortune,” said Dolly.

  “I hope it was a good one.”

  “I have told Miss Dolly what I tell all… and there is no great skill in it. What comes to you is largely of your own making. The good life is there … if you have the wit to take it.”

  “It is a comfortable way of looking at life if you believe it,” I said.

  “And wouldn’t you believe it, my lady Jessica?”

  “I suppose you are right in a way, but so many things happen in life that one has no control over. Acts of God they call them.”

  Dolly said: “Earthquakes, floods, death …”

  “I wasn’t only thinking of them,” I said.

  “She is wise, our lady Jessica.”

  “Jake told me I had a good life ahead of me … if I took the right road to it,” said Dolly.

  “That applies to us all,” I retorted.

  “Ah,” said Romany Jake, “but we don’t all have the opportunity to take the golden road.”

  “If it is golden why should we turn away from it?”

  “Because it is not always seen for what it is at the start. You have to have the wisdom to see it and the courage to take it.”

  “Shall I?” asked Dolly.

  “It is for you to decide, Miss Dolly.”

  He held out his goblet and she went to him to refill it.

  There seemed to me then a sense of unreality in that kitchen. I wondered what my family would say if they could see me sitting at a table drinking wine with Dolly and Romany Jake. He seemed to guess what I was thinking and to be amused by it.

  He said: “Look at me now. Romany Jake, sitting at this table drinking wine with two ladies. Now if I were a man who turned away from his opportunities, I’d have touched my forelock and declared myself to be unworthy of the honour.”

  “I have a feeling that in your heart you think yourself worthy to sit down with the highest in the land,” I said.

  “And what would a lady like you know of a poor gypsy’s heart?”

  “I think Mr. Cadorson, that I know a little about you.”

  “Well, it is clever you are and I’ve never doubted that. You’ll have a great life because you’re bold and you are going to take what you want with both hands. It will be a lucky man who shares that life with you.”

  He looked at me very steadily when he said that. I felt myself flushing.

  “And what of me?” asked Dolly.

  “You are more timid than my lady Jessica. She has a fine opinion of herself, this one. She’s precious … and she knows it. And she will make sure others don’t forget it either.”

  “You are still talking about her” interrupted Dolly somewhat peevishly. “Why are you so interested in her?”

  “I am interested in the whole world—you, gentle Miss Dolly, and the not so gentle lady Jessica …”

  With that he set down his goblet and picked up the guitar. He strummed a few bars and began to sing a song about beautiful ladies. We sat there in silence watching and listening.

  Then he started to sing about a high-born lady who was discontented with her life until she met a gypsy in the woods. Then she left the luxury of her home and all that went with it to live a life of freedom under the moon and the stars and the sun … among the trees of the forest.

  His tenor voice vibrated with emotion; and all the time he was singing his eyes were on me and I was sure he was singing for me rather than for Dolly.

  I clapped my hands when he had finished but Dolly was silent.

  I said: “I daresay she didn’t find it so very wonderful. It is all very well to change a soft feather bed for the earth … but the earth can be very hard and uncomfortable with creeping crawling things in the summer and frost in winter. It is just a pleasant song.”

  “Oh, but my l
ady Jessica, there are great comforts in a gypsy’s life which I haven’t sung about.”

  “Well, I think she would soon have been regretting it.”

  “Not she. She learned more about love and life with her gypsy than she ever would with her high and mighty lord.”

  “Perhaps high and mighty lords would think differently.”

  “What an argumentative lady you are and how hard to convince. There is only one way of getting you to agree.”

  “And what is that?”

  He looked at me very boldly and I knew what he was going to say before he said it. He leaned closer to me and said quietly: “To show you.”

  “Have some more wine,” said Dolly, still peevish.

  She filled his goblet; he sipped it thoughtfully, looking at me with that amused smile; then he picked up his guitar and his deep rich voice echoed round the Grasslands kitchen. Some of the servants came down and stood at the door listening.

  When I saw them I remembered it was time I went home.

  I stood up hastily and said I must go. “I only came to bring the sloe gin.”

  He rose and bowed, giving me that disturbing enigmatical smile. I hurried out and as I walked away I heard the sound of the guitar.

  I felt very exhilarated by the encounter.

  When I arose that October morning there was no indication that this was going to be an important day not only for my family but for everyone in England. But with one glorious stroke our fears disappeared when the news of the victory at Trafalgar Bay was brought to us.

  Even my father was deeply moved. We were assembled at the table and the talk was all about what this would mean to us and our country. Lord Nelson had beaten the French at Trafalgar Bay. He had so crippled their fleet that there could no longer be a question of invasion. He had shown the world that Napoleon was not invincible.

  The saddest news was that, in giving England freedom from fear, our great admiral had lost his own life. Therefore our rejoicing was tempered with sorrow.

  But even that could not stem the jubilation. We had checked Napoleon. We alone, in threatened Europe, had shown the bombastic Emperor that we were the unconquerable.

  My father was eloquent. “Never, never in all its history has our country lain at the foot of a conqueror.”

  David mentioned the Norman Conquest and was immediately rounded on by my father. “We English are the Normans. The Vikings … for mark you they were not French …” I smiled at him. My father had an unreasoning hatred of the French because my mother had married a Frenchman before she married him. I could well imagine him in a winged helmet, sailing to these shores in a long ship. He guessed my thoughts and grinned at me. “No,” he went on. “Not French. The Normans were Vikings who had been given Normandy by the King of the Franks to stop them invading the rest of France. The Vikings along with the Angles and the Jutes mingled their blood with the Saxons and created the Anglo Saxon race … us, my son. And we have never allowed a conqueror to set foot on this soil… and by God’s grace never shall. Napoleon! Napoleon would never have been allowed to come here. But this matter of Trafalgar Bay has saved us a lot of trouble.”