St James' Fair

by St James Fair (retail) (epub)

  By the time they went to bed the moon looked huge in the sky, swimming in an opalescent sky netted in silver skeins of clouds. Alice arose and opened the caravan door so that she could watch it from where she lay in bed and there was wonder in her gaze as she turned to whisper to Jem beside her, ‘Look at that moon. It’s a magic moon. It’s a moon for casting spells.’

  He raised his head and gazed at it. ‘If there’s a moon like that tomorrow night, there’ll be plenty of bairns made among the young folk at the Fair,’ he told her as he reached out to hold her to him.

  ‘St James’ Fair is famous for making bairns,’ said Alice in a faraway, sad voice. Then she sank her head on his shoulder and slipped a loving arm around his neck.

  * * *

  The windows of Havanah Court were glowing with the light of massive banks of candles. They shone out across the River Tweed that flowed at the foot of Canny’s garden. A convivial party was going on in the house and the host sat proudly at the top of his dinner table knowing that his dining room put the one at Sloebank to shame. His mirrors and pictures sparkled richly on walls painted an attractive shade of pale apple green beneath a plaster-embossed ceiling encrusted with medallions painted in pink, white and cerulean blue. His furniture, which had been made to his special order in the local workshop of James Mein, another of Canny’s boyhood friends, gleamed like glass because it was lovingly polished every day with lemon-scented oil. His silver was brightly burnished and his plates were of eggshell-thin porcelain imported from China where they had been specially painted by artists in Canton with his own device – a full-rigged ship and a palm tree enclosed in a wreath of tropical flowers. Canny felt prodigious pride as he surveyed this domain and luxuriated in the way the carpets felt silken through the thin soles of his evening slippers.

  The guests around his table were not constrained by ceremony but leaned their elbows on the stiffly starched cloth and shouted remarks at each other in happy animation as they relished a good meal. It would have been considered scandalous to send anything back to Canny’s kitchen uneaten as more sophisticated guests had done at the Duke’s table. A beaming Joe Cannonball and his army of flunkeys were running to and fro bearing aloft silver platters of steaming capons in fragrant sauce, roast veal with oranges, gaping-mouthed fish that had been specially sent up from Berwick in boxes filled with ice, and paper-thin slices of pork stuffed with forcemeat and set in quivering aspic. Joe was grinning more broadly than the happiest guest because there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a party.

  Most of the guests at the gathering were people the host had known all his life. In place of honour was his oldest friend, Wattie Thompson, now Professor Walter Thompson of Edinburgh University, who was peacocking it over a brace of rich farmers and prosperous local businessmen with their plump and cheerful wives. Martha was there too, quite at ease and shyness forgotten now that she was among old friends. Her lace cap was still pinned askew onto her grey hair and her cheeks were flushed by her brother’s magnificent claret. Best of all, his daughter Odilie sat facing him at the other end of the table. He could see her over banks of flowers and the glittering standards of burning candlesticks and he looked at her with love noting how beautiful she was in the candlelight that sparked flashes of colour into her hair and gave a satiny sheen to her skin. Tonight she was gloriously gowned in a dress of the same deep pink colour as a geranium and pearls were looped through her hair. Canny was happy to see that she was looking more cheerful than she had been since the Duke’s dinner party and that she was talking animatedly to a young man called Playfair whom Thompson had brought along to the party.

  ‘He’s staying in the Cross Keys too and the place’s so full that the food’s like swill. I thought if I brought him here, you’d give him a good meal,’ Thompson had explained to Canny when he introduced the extra guest.

  Odilie had taken to the young man, who was obviously dazzled by her and Canny wished he could hear what they were saying to each other. In fact the conversation between Odilie and William Playfair that so intrigued her father was very innocent. When Playfair told the glowing girl that he had been commissioned to draw up the plans for the Duke’s new mansion, she seemed to shrink in her seat and some of the animation left her, so he wished he had not mentioned the Duke’s name for he knew very well that she was the girl who was on the verge of marrying his patron. Gossip had it that the betrothal was to be announced officially on the day after Fair Monday but till then it was a secret – a Lauriston secret – which of course was no secret at all for every guest in the room looked at Odilie with open and frank speculation that night. However, when Odilie sobered at the mention of the Duke, Playfair thought that he had committed a breach of etiquette by referring even obliquely to her intended husband and tried to make up for it by animated conversation in the hope of bringing brightness back to the lovely girl. He leaned forward in his chair and told her, ‘I want to build the finest mansion in Britain up there at Sloebank. My head’s so full of it that I was up most of last night making drawings. I’m producing new ideas all the time. It’ll be a miracle, a place of delight like the palace of a Mughal Emperor. I want people to stand and look at it in wonder like they do when they see that Indian palace near Delhi some rajah built for his wife. I saw engravings of it in a book…’

  She smiled at that and a delicious dimple appeared in her right cheek. ‘What a huge task you’ve set yourself,’ she said. ‘Does your patron know what you’re doing?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m not doing it for him anyway…’ he said. He didn’t dare continue and say the other words that were on the tip of his tongue… ‘I’m doing it for you,’ but his eyes said it for him.

  * * *

  The moon that enchanted Jem and Alice was not regarded with the same favour by eight mounted men who came slipping like wraiths down the dark lanes from Kirk Yetholm. Each of them rode one horse and led another by a short halter rope as they trotted along the grass verges at the sides of the road in order to muffle the sound of their horses’ hooves, which otherwise would ring out through the still night on the stones of the sun-dried road surface. They took this precaution even when there was no habitation visible for miles because the habit of seeking secrecy and invisibility was ingrained in gypsies.

  Shortly after eleven struck on the town clock, they reached the end of the Rennie Bridge and headed up the north bank of the Tweed, passing a darkened grain mill by the roadside and looking across the water at the windows of Havanah Court which were still glowing with light because Canny Rutherford was giving his pre-Fair dinner party.

  Gib Faa, leader of the line, stared across at the gleaming windows of the sprawling mansion with interest but without envy. He knew that it belonged to a fellow who’d made a fortune in pirate waters and he respected the man’s enterprise but did not envy his settled life in retirement. Gib’s idea of the perfect existence was to be on the road all the time until he died and he would have loathed passing his days sitting in grand rooms filled with fancy furniture and remembering an adventurous past. When Havanah Court disappeared over his right shoulder, he turned his leonine head back towards the west and heard Abel, his son, who was riding behind him, muttering, ‘I wish that glim would go doon. It’s as light as day. It’s not good to be seen.’

  But the moon was not going to disappear for hours yet and Gib had to make a decision. Should the gypsies risk crossing the River Teviot in moonlight or wait until it was pitch dark? He raised his arm and his band drew up in a line, one after the other, in the lee of a hedge on the approach to the Teviot Bridge.

  ‘Pandlo mengro!’ exclaimed Gib, pointing ahead and indicating that the toll-gate was locked against them. His horse arched its neck and mouthed on its bit as he turned to look back at his companions. His eye rested on Jesse who was riding third in the line. The young man sat with a hand on his knee and an impassive look on his face. Pointing back at the closed toll-gate Gib asked, ‘What do we do, then? What do you think, Jesse? Will we wait till the choon goes
down and it’s dark? It irks me that the rajahs can close us off from our fords.’

  ‘We should fight them for it,’ said the angry voice of Abel who was riding second horse. Abel was rash and always too ready for a battle which was why his father had passed him over as his successor, and Abel was aware of the fact that his father preferred Jesse so his jealousy of his cousin was fierce. Recently it had grown worse because of his unrequited passion for Thomassin who had eyes for no man except Jesse.

  As Abel turned and stared with dislike at his cousin, Jesse leaned forward in his saddle and said in a low voice, ‘There’s no point in a chingaro. Fighting’ll do us no good. It’d be the staripen if they caught us.’

  Abel’s voice was full of scorn as he hissed, ‘And scared of the staripen, are you?’

  Jesse retorted, ‘Yes, and so should you be. Have you heard of the convict hulks, Abel? Do you want to spend your life chained up like a stinking rat? I don’t. It’s not clever to let them pen you up for the sake of a fight which you’re sure to lose.’

  His anger ran as high as anyone else’s, however, when he contemplated the injustice that had been inflicted on local people when the fords which they had used from time immemorial were closed. This had been happening over the last few years with the aim of driving travellers on to the turnpike roads and toll-bridges which were the monopoly of local landowners who had discovered them to be a good way of raising money. Now a local by-law had been passed decreeing prosecution for anyone found using the old crossing places on the Border rivers where there were toll-bridges. Those who still used the fords were fined, or, in the case of persistent offenders, they could be sent away to the Antipodes in a convict ship. This piece of legislation blatantly enacted by the moneyed folk was a standing invitation to the gypsies to flout it but Gib and Jesse knew that they had to use caution and guile. The most popular fords were guarded and if they were caught trying to cross by them, it would be the dreaded staripen, the prison, for them.

  Gib nodded. ‘You’re right, lad. We’ll wait for darkness. Pass the word down that we’ll hide on the river bank. I wish we’d brought the jakkalors though. Look at the merryfeet up there.’ He pointed upstream at a grassy bank where rabbits were hopping about gaily in the moonlight, blissfully unconscious of how lucky they were that the gypsies had not brought their dogs: the lurchers would have made swift work of them.

  Jesse laughed. ‘We’ve enough trouble without dogs. It’s going to take us all our time to get these horses across the ford without the Duke’s bailiffs having a deek at us.’ Abel found it impossible to stay out of the discussion and pushed his way up beside his father to whisper hoarsely, ‘Damn their eyes for closing the fords. We’ve aye crossed freely here but now they want their bars. Why don’t we jump the gate and defy them? If I could get my hands on that Duke I’d glib him right enough.’ He put his hand on a pistol that hung from his side as he spoke.

  ‘Calm down, Abel. If you go talking about glibbing the Duke your body’ll be hanging on a gibbet quick enough. Put that pistol away and see you don’t use it,’ warned Gib.

  The angry man hissed derisively, ‘You’re as bad as the rajahs. You’re letting us down. Your father, my grandfather, wouldn’t have stood for this. You’re getting soft. We’ve all got a Yetholm jagger in our belts tonight, why don’t we use them? Have you one, Jesse Bailey?’

  When the dark-haired young man looked over at Abel his eyes were flashing with scorn. ‘Act sensible, Abel. Don’t play the fool. There’s no point giving them an excuse to hang us one by one. It was my brother last time, it could be you tomorrow. If I’ve a jagger on me I’m not saying and I’ll only use it if I have to. Otherwise it stays sheathed and so should yours if you’ve any sense.’

  Abel only snorted. ‘A pol-engro, that’s what you are. When a man learns reading and writing, he loses his guts. Instead of sitting with your head in books you should be bedding Thomassin. What’s wrong with you anyway – are you a chavi in breeches?’

  ‘You know damned well I’m no chavi,’ said Jesse.

  His temper was rising because of Abel’s goading, however, and Gib saw that his fists were clenching on the reins so he put out an arm and pushed Abel back into his saddle ordering as he did so, ‘Keep quiet or you’ll waken the toll-keeper. There’s no point in all this useless talk. I’m the leader and I say we go up the river and lie low till the glim goes down. Come on.’

  They followed a path up the grassy bank and found a convenient place where they could wait under the branches of a circle of sheltering trees. Gib took care that Abel was left behind with one group of men while he led Jesse and two others farther up the river. Then they loosened their horses’ heads and sat silently in their saddles till they seemed to merge into the landscape. They were so still that the nocturnal animals started coming out and playing around their horses’ hooves. Hedgehogs waddled by; a hare sat up and brushed its whiskers with its paws; dozens of rabbits flopped foolishly about; a badger winked its eyes at Jesse from its set at the tree roots and hunting owls flitted among the branches giving an occasional bloodcurdling screech as a kill was made.

  Jesse sat with his head lowered as if asleep but he was pondering his usual problem. How was he going to find enough money to leave Kirk Yetholm? The argument with Abel had only stiffened his resolve to go. He put his hand up to his neck and stroked his throat thinking that if he stayed, there would be a rope around it sooner or later, either because of his own impetuosity but more likely because of someone else’s. If he could pick up some money at the Fair, he thought, he’d give half of it to Thomassin to assuage her for the disappointment of not marrying him and go away with the rest. Twenty pounds in his pocket would be enough to carry him a long way – perhaps to London where the feuds of the Yetholm gypsies which so ruled his life at home would be forgotten and the obligations expected of him by people like Gib would be left behind.

  He knew that although he had never pretended to love Thomassin it was expected by both their families and by the girl herself that they would marry. If he refused to do so, yet another feud would begin. Blood would flow, new hatreds would be born. He sighed and looked over at the proud figure of his uncle whose white head shimmered as if it was surrounded by a halo in the moonlight. Jesse felt deep admiration for Gib who had been like a father to him since his real father died in a brawl with rival gypsies from Alnwick but he realised with a feeling of sadness that he did not want to grow old like Gib. He did not want to pass his life dealing and dickering, cheating and choring. Daily he grew more tired of it, tired of always being on the wrong side of the law, always in danger of apprehension and often for something that he had not done. The fact that he was so obviously a gypsy was a mark of culpability in itself.

  He longed to get away and see the places he’d read about in the minister’s books. He wanted to experience another kind of life, to escape from Kirk Yetholm and the destiny that was marked out for him there. He knew better than talk about this to anyone – he’d never even mentioned it to the old minister who had died deeply mourned a couple of years ago, but it was a cherished secret that he carried inside his head.

  Chapter 7

  Monday, 3 August

  It was not until four o’clock in the morning that the moon began to sink down towards the black outline of the hills and the stars shone brighter, spangling the dark purple sky like diamonds. There was no need to pass a signal among the gypsy men for as soon as Gib raised his head, they stiffened, sat up straighter and lifted their reins in readiness to move. One by one after their leader, they rode out of their waiting place and headed for the river. Gib and Jesse made a proud sight, like an aged knight and his squire, as they rode side by side. They were the same height and sat their mounts with the same elegant mastery. Like the steeds of knights of old, too, their horses paced majestically over the mist-silvered grass leaving ghostly hoofmarks on the sward behind them. The whole tableau was uncannily silent, for even the horses seemed to be as aware as the men of the need fo
r stealth.

  In pairs they crossed a short strip of field towards the entrance to the old ford. It was one that was known to few people and its entry point was marked by a dip like a notch in a stick in the river bank. The horses slipped down the declivity on their haunches, their hooves slithering in the mud. The river was not high because there had been a long stretch of fine weather so there was no fear of being swept away as long as they kept to the line of the ford, and each man was told in a whisper by Gib to head for a special marker, a big stone shaped like a bull’s head that jutted out of the bank on the other side.

  ‘Remember, head for the bull rock and avoid the middle pool. Keep to the same side as the fir tree,’ he hissed as he sat on the bank watching while each rider drove and pulled his charges into the water. The horses were nervous of the swiftly-flowing stream and lowered their heads to sniff the water as its coldness chilled their legs. They walked gingerly through its flow, lifting their hooves fastidiously and breathing heavily through distended nostrils. One or two of them tried to take a drink but their heads were hauled up and they were not permitted to linger, for the crossing had to be made as quickly as possible. The riders were used to crossing water and knew not to look down into the flow but to sit upright and keep their eyes fixed on the exit point. One after the other they entered the water. When each crossing was complete, the next rider went in.

  In a short time they were all across and Gib followed last. When he climbed the bank on the far side he waved his arm again and the men clustered around following him into a cluster of scrubby trees that sprouted out of the base of the mound which was surmounted by the ruins of the ancient castle. In a way that was almost miraculous they seemed to disappear, for they had ways for making themselves appear invisible that were not known to other people.