Aylwin Part 38

Then I took the eastern direction, and soon became familiar with the most squalid haunts.

My method was to wander from street to street, looking at every poorly-dressed girl I met. Often I was greeted with an impudent laugh, that brought back the sickening mental pictures I have mentioned; and often I was greeted with an angry toss of the head and such an exclamation as, 'What d'ye take me for, staring like that?'

These peregrinations I used to carry far into the night, and thus, as I perceived, got the character at my hotel of a wild young man. The family solicitor wrote to me again and again for appointments which I could not give him.

It had often occurred to me that in a case of this kind the police ought to be of some a.s.sistance. One day I called at Scotland Yard, saw an official, and asked his aid. He listened to my story attentively, then said: 'Do you come from the missing party's friends, sir?'

'I am her friend,' I answered--'her only friend.'

'I mean, of course, do you represent her father or mother, or any near relative?'

'She is an orphan; she has no relatives,' I said.

He looked at me steadily and said: 'I am sorry, sir, that neither I nor a magistrate could do anything to aid you.'

'You can do nothing to aid me?' I asked angrily.

'I can do nothing to aid you, sir, in identifying a young woman you once heard sing in the streets of London, with a lady you saw once on the top of Snowdon.'

As I was leaving the office, he said: 'One moment, sir. I don't see how I can take up this case for you, but I may make a suggestion. I have an idea that you would do well to pursue inquiries among the Gypsies.'

'Gypsies!' I said with great heat, as I left the office. 'If you knew how I had already "pursued inquiries" among the Gypsies, you would understand how barren is your suggestion.'

Weeks pa.s.sed in this way. My aunt's ill-health became rather serious: my mother too was still very unwell. I afterwards learnt that her illness was really the result of the dire conflict in her breast between the old pa.s.sion of pride and the new invader remorse. There were, no doubt, many discussions between them concerning me. I could see plainly enough they both thought my mind was becoming unhinged.

One night, as I lay thinking over the insoluble mystery of Winifred's disappearance, I was struck by a sudden thought that caused me to leap from my bed. What could have led the official in Scotland Yard to connect Winifred with Gypsies? I had simply told him of her disappearance on Snowdon, and her reappearance afterwards near the theatre. Not one word had I said to him about her early relations with Gypsies. I was impatient for the daylight, in order that I might go to Scotland Yard again. When I did so and saw the official, I asked him without preamble what had caused him to connect the missing girl I was seeking with the Gypsies.

'The little fancy baskets she was selling,' said he. 'They are often made by Gypsies.'

'Of course they are,' I said, hurrying away. 'Why did I not think of this?'

In fact I had, during our wanderings over England and Wales, often seen Sinfi's sister Videy and Rhona Boswell weaving such baskets.

Winifred, after all, might be among the Gypsies, and the crafty Videy Lovell might have some mysterious connection with her; for she detested me as much as she loved the gold 'balansers' she could wheedle out of me. Moreover, there were in England the Hungarian Gypsies, with their notions about demented girls, and the Lovells, owing to Sinfi's musical proclivities, were just now much connected with a Hungarian troupe.

VII

SINFI'S DUKKERIPEN

I

The Gypsies I had never seen since leaving them in Wales, and I knew that by this time they were either making their circuit of the English fairs or located in a certain romantic spot called Gypsy Dell, near Rington Manor, the property of my kinsman Percy Aylwin, whither they often went after the earlier fairs were over.

The next evening I went to the Great Eastern Railway station, and taking the train to Rington I walked to Gypsy Dell, where I found the Lovells and Boswells.

Familiar as I was with, the better cla.s.s of Welsh Gypsies, the camp here was the best display of Romany well-being I had ever seen. It would, indeed, have surprised those who a.s.sociate all Gypsy life with the squalor which in England, and especially near London, marks the life of the mongrel wanderers who are so often called Gypsies. In a lovely dingle, skirted by a winding, willow-bordered river, and dotted here and there with clumps of hawthorn, were ranged the 'living-waggons' of those trading Romanies who had accompanied the 'Griengroes' to the East Anglian and Midland fairs.

Alongside the waggons was a single large brown tent that for luxuriousness might have been the envy of all Gypsydom. On the hawthorn bushes and the gra.s.s was spread, instead of the poor rags that one often sees around a so-called Gypsy encampment, snowy linen, newly washed. The ponies and horses were scattered about the Dell feeding.

I soon distinguished Sinfi's commanding figure near that gorgeous living-waggon of 'orange-yellow colour with red window-blinds' in which she had persuaded me to invest my money at Chester. On the foot-board sat two urchins of the Lovell family, 'making believe' to drive imaginary horses, and yelling with all their might to Rhona Boswell, whose laugh, musical as ever, showed that she enjoyed the game as much as the children did. Sinfi was standing on a patch of that peculiar kind of black ash which burnt gra.s.s makes, busy with a fire, over which a tea-kettle was hanging from the usual iron kettle-prop. Among the ashes left by a previous fire her bantam-c.o.c.k Pharaoh was busy pecking, scratching, and calling up imaginary hens to feast upon his imaginary 'finds.' I entered the Dell, and before Sinfi saw me I was close to her.

She was muttering to the refractory fire as though it were a live thing, and asking it why it refused to burn beneath the kettle. A startled look, partly of pleasure and partly of something like alarm, came over her face as she perceived me. I drew her aside and told her all that had happened in regard to Winifred's appearance as a beggar in London. A strange expression that was new to me overspread her features, and I thought I heard her whisper to herself, 'I will, I will.'

'I knowed the cuss 'ud ha' to ha' its way in the blood, like the bite of a sap' [snake], she murmured to herself. 'And yit the dukkeripen on Snowdon said, clear and plain enough, as they'd surely marry at last. What's become o' the stolen trushul, brother--the cross?' she inquired aloud. 'That trushul will ha' to be given to the dead man agin, an' it'll ha' to be given back by his chavo [child] as swore to keep watch over it. But what's it all to me?' she said in a tone of suppressed anger that startled me. 'I ain't a Gorgie,'

'But, Sinfi, the cross cannot be buried again. The reason I have not replaced it in the tomb,--the reason I never will replace it there,--is that the people along the coast know now of the existence of the jewel, and know also of my father's wishes. If it was unsafe in the tomb when only Winnie's father knew of it, it would be a thousandfold more unsafe now.'

'P'raps that's all the better for her an' you: the new thief takes the cuss.'

'This is all folly,' I replied, with the anger of one struggling against an unwelcome half-belief that refuses to be dismissed. 'It is all moonshine-madness. I'll never do it,--not at least while I retain my reason. It was no doubt partly for safety as well as for the other reason that my father wished the cross to be placed in the tomb. It will be far safer now in a cabinet than anywhere else.'

'Reia,' said Sinfi, 'you told me wonst as your great-grandmother was a Romany named Fenella Stanley. I have axed the Scollard about her, and what do you think he says? He says that she wur my great-grandmother too, for she married a Lovell as died.'

'Good heavens, Sinfi! Well, I'm proud of my kinswoman.'

'And he says that Fenella Stanley know'd more about the true dukkerin, the dukkerin of the Romanies, than anybody as were ever heerd on.'

'She seems to have been pretty superst.i.tious,' I said, 'by all accounts. But what has that to do with the cross?'

'You'll put it in the tomb again.'

'Never!'

'Fenella Stanley will see arter that.'

'Fenella Stanley! Why, she's dead and dust.'

'That's what I mean; that's why she can make you do it, and will.'

'Well, well! I did not come to talk about the cross; I want to have a quiet word with you about another matter.'

She sprang away as if in terror or else in anger. Then recovering herself she took the kettle from the prop. I followed her to the tent, which, save that it was made of brown blanket, looked more like a tent on a lawn than a Gypsy-tent. All its comfort seemed, however, to give no great delight to Videy, the cashier and female financier-general of the Lovell family, who, in a state of absorbed untidiness, sitting at the end of the tent upon a pallia.s.se covered with a counterpane of quilted cloth of every hue, was evidently occupied in calculating her father's profits and losses at the recent horse-fair. The moment Videy saw us she hurriedly threw the coin into the silver tea-pot by her side, and put it beneath the counterpane, with that instinctive and unnecessary secrecy which characterised her, and made her such an amazing contrast both to her sister Sinfi and to Rhona Boswell.

After Panuel had received me in his usual friendly manner, we all sat down, partly inside the tent and partly outside, around the white table-cloth that had been spread upon the gra.s.s. The Scollard took no note of me; he had no eyes for any one but Rhona Boswell.

When tea was over Sinfi left the camp, and strode across the Dell towards the river. I followed her.

II

It was not till we reached a turn in the river that is more secluded than any other--a spot called 'Gypsy Ring,' a lovely little spot within the hollow of birch trees and gorse--that she spoke a few words to me, in a constrained tone. Then I said, as we sat down upon a green hillock within the Ring: 'Sinfi, the baskets my aunt saw in Winnie's hand when she was standing in the rain were of the very kind that Videy makes.'

'Oh, _that's_ what you wanted to say!' said she; 'you think Videy knows something about Winnie. But that's all a fancy o' yourn, and it's of no use looking for Winnie any more among the Romanies. Even supposin' you did hear the Welsh gillie--and I think it was all a fancy--you can't make nothin' out o' them baskets as your aunt seed.

Us Romanies don't make one in a hundud of the fancy baskets as is sold for Gypsy baskets in the streets, and besides, the hawkers and costers what buys 'em of us sells 'em agin to other hawkers and costers, and there ain't no tracin' on 'em.'

I argued the point with her. At last I felt convinced that I was again on the wrong track. By this time the sun had set, and the stars were out. I had noticed that during our talk Sinfi's attention would sometimes seem to be distracted from the matter in hand, and I had observed her give a little start now and then, as though listening to something in the distance.