Born to Trouble (12 page)

She moved her head once, then said, ‘I – I feel frightened.’

Realising the admission was some kind of a breakthrough, he warned himself to go carefully. ‘Of course you do. Anyone would. I got caught by a couple of gamekeepers once some years ago when I was in the fields. They said I’d been poaching –’ they had been right too ‘– and they beat me to within an inch of my life and left me in a ditch. The first time I went into the fields again after that, I was running scared, but it got better as time went by.’

She continued ruffling the dog’s fur, her head drooping and her eyes on the ground. ‘That’s different.’

‘You’re right, it is.’ He rubbed his mouth, his pity for the child swamping him. ‘But what I mean is, you can’t let this spoil everything. You have to fight back. You got away, didn’t you? That was the first step. Lots of people wouldn’t have had the guts to do that.’

Slowly now, she turned towards him. ‘But I left my little brothers.’

‘Because you had to. We all have to do things we’d rather not do because we’ve got no choice.’

He watched her consider this, before she said haltingly, ‘They – they won’t understand that.’

‘They will one day when you tell them. And you will tell them when you’re older.’ He didn’t know why he said that, but it seemed right. ‘And they’ll be older too, capable of understanding why you couldn’t stay.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know so.’

His reward for the lie was the way she smiled at him as she touched him, naturally and of her own volition. ‘Thank you.’

He looked down at her small fingers gripping his arm and smiled back. And that was the beginning of their friendship.

The next morning all was bustle and unbelievable noise as the travellers departed. The poultry was gathered into large wooden crates which were slung between the back wheels of caravans or wedged on the rear of a cart, the sound of the birds’ squawks and indignant cries adding to the mêlée. It was a morning of men shouting at horses, dogs barking incessantly, women yelling at enraged and screaming children, and an incessant rumbling as one after another the caravans and carts began to roll on their way. Large and small, like ships at sea, the exodus continued.

Most of the carts were heavily laden, the most trusted, stoical horses straining as they pulled their loads over the uneven ground, and in the caravans the wives and mothers leaned out of the half-doors, holding the reins, as their menfolk led the horses on their way Children were everywhere, some peering out at the scene beside their mothers or balanced precariously on top of a cart laden with furniture, others sitting on the shafts of the vehicles or running behind. Youths led ponies and horses which the families hoped to trade at the next town or village, and dogs ran back and forth between the horses’ legs, miraculously escaping the lethal hoofs.

Pearl was amazed at how swiftly the camp had got underway, but she supposed it was part and parcel of the gypsies’ lives. Perched beside Freda in the back of the cart which Byron was driving, the sun hot on her face and the air full of shouts and cries and men whistling to their dogs, she felt a moment’s panic at the thought of moving further away from James and Patrick. But slowly a sense of, if not exactly peace, then inevitability stole over her.

She was sitting on a sack of oatmeal with a stack of pots and pans at her feet, and as one of the wheels of the cart bumped down into a pothole, jerking her so she rose up in the air and landed back on the sack with a little gasp, Byron turned his head, his deep brown eyes meeting hers. ‘All right?’ He grinned at her and she smiled back as she nodded. ‘It’ll be easier when we get nearer Chester-le-Street and the Great North Road. The roads are always better nearer the big towns.’

‘Is that where we’re stopping again? Chester-le-Street?’ She had heard of this place. Mr McArthur had sent Seth and Fred and Walter there one time on some business, and Seth had been full of the way the railway line crossed the deep valley of the Chester Burn, on an impressive eleven-arch brick and stone viaduct, nearly a hundred feet high and hundreds of yards long. She had wondered what business Mr McArthur had, so far away, but when she enquired, Seth had changed the subject. He had talked about the viaduct for days though.

‘We’re only stopping there overnight. It’s Consett we’re making for,’ Byron said over his shoulder. ‘The red town.’

‘Red town?’

‘That’s what it’s known as. The dust from the ironworks is red and it covers everything.’

‘It’s horrible.’ Freda wrinkled her nose. ‘I hate the towns, they’re so dirty and they smell.’

Byron laughed. ‘The townfolk think we’re the dirty ones. Anyway, there’s a summer fair held on the outskirts of Consett at the end of the month, and there’s always plenty of buyers for the horses. We’ll get some good trading done there, dirt or no dirt. You’ll be able to sell your baskets and mats, and I dare say there’ll be some fine ladies who will be after having their fortunes told.’

‘They have hurdy-gurdies and swingboats and coconut shies and all sorts.’ Freda beamed at Pearl, her disgust with the towns forgotten. ‘It’s a branch of Dai’s family who run the fair. They travel all round the country, so we get to see our cousins and aunts and uncles. Last year, Byron got drunk and had a fight with Aunt Lily’s eldest.’

Byron’s head shot round. ‘That wasn’t my fault! Erin started it – you know he did.’

Freda ignored her brother’s glare. ‘Dai and Dad were furious with him ’cos once they started, all the other lads joined in and we ended up leaving before the end of the fair.’

‘I told you, it wasn’t my fault.’

‘Whoever’s fault it was, you shouldn’t have drunk so much of Uncle Noah’s brew. Dad said it has the kick of a mule.’

‘Shut up, Freda, or I’ll make you walk.’

Byron didn’t turn round but his voice was a growl and his shoulders were hunched. Freda grinned at Pearl, completely unabashed at her brother’s fury. Pertly, she said, ‘Dai said you’d got to have us with you.’

Aiming to pour oil on troubled waters, Pearl pointed to a sunny woodland slope beyond the track they were following, where hundreds of foxgloves, tall and magnificent, waved their dappled bells in the breeze. ‘Aren’t they lovely? I’ve never seen so many.’ Apart from the odd walk Tunstall way, she had never seen anything of the countryside and certainly not what she termed real countryside, like this. The scent of wild flowers and trees was sweet on the lazy air, and just a mile or so before, they’d passed fields of ripening corn rippling in the warm breeze. ‘I can understand why you prefer to travel around rather than live in houses.’

‘No true Romany could live in one place for long.’ Byron seemed glad of the change of subject. ‘Neither would they be idle or expect anything they haven’t worked for. Those who give us a bad name are not of the blood: we’re not thieves or vagabonds.’

Pearl thought about the poaching she had seen but already she had lived with the gypsies long enough to understand that they considered it their right to hunt for food as their ancestors had done for hundreds of years. The land belonged to every man and woman, that was the way they looked at it, and be it a farmer’s field, an estate owned by the gentry or wild land, it was the same to them. It was a convenient way of thinking, she admitted, and when last night there’d been a communal feast and venison had been on the menu, she had felt on edge until it was all gone and no trace of the young deer remained, but that was the Romanies’ way and that was that. Certainly it didn’t seem wrong in the same way as her brothers’ thieving had, but she didn’t doubt there was a gamekeeper or two who would disagree with her.

‘It can be hard in the winter.’ Freda entered the conversation again. ‘We stay inland then, Penrith way. We were snowed in for weeks last year.’

Pearl wanted to ask a thousand questions. How did the camp manage with food? And what about fuel, if all the woodland was knee-deep in snow? How did they provide hay for the horses and shelter for the animals in the worst of the winter? Were there any friendly farmers in the district, and did they winter in the same location each year? Questions buzzed in her head but she didn’t voice any of them.

She would find out soon enough. Mentally nodding to the thought, she shut her eyes and let the glare of the sun play over her face for a minute or two before reaching for the wide-rimmed black hat Corinda had lent her until she could get a straw bonnet to protect her fair skin. None of the gypsy girls seemed to have need of protection from the sun, their complexions ranging from a light tawny shade to a deep, dark brown.

Everything about her proclaimed she was different, that she would never be able to fit in. The thought had been in the back of her mind for days, but now it was jabbing away like a needle into soft flesh.
And she had to fit in.
This tribe of people who had taken her in, this strange clan who looked so fierce and yet could be so gentle, they were the only folk in all the world she could trust. If Byron hadn’t found her, she would have surely died, curled up in that tree – and that would have been the end of all her problems.

‘Look, over there.’ Freda caught her arm, pointing to a field of scarlet poppies blazing their glory with every twist and turn of their silky heads amid the corn. ‘I love to see the poppies, don’t you?’

Pearl nodded. She didn’t tell the gypsy girl she had never seen a full field of the crimson flowers before, only the odd one or two blooming alongside bindweed and purple spear thistle when she had taken her baby brothers for a walk Tunstall way. Distant elms shimmered beyond the golden corn, and above, the deep blue sky provided a breathtaking contrast of colour.

Pearl felt something swell in her breast and travel to her throat. Whatever happened in the future, she was glad Byron had found her.
She wanted to live.
It was as though she was answering a question within herself which had been there since she had first woken up in the Romany caravan. There would be more days like this, when the sky was so high that even the larks seemed unable to reach it, and the light was so bright it wiped everything dark clean away.

Byron turned round again, his eyes tight on her as he said, ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’

She smiled at him, the ache in her heart easing still more at his obvious concern. ‘It’s all so beautiful,’ she said softly. ‘I never knew it was so beautiful.’

May 1908

The first eight years of the new century had seen changes within the world in general and England in particular. There were many men of influence who believed that with a new King on the throne and a victorious conclusion to the Boer War, Britain was set to grow more powerful than she’d ever been.

These same stalwarts of the Establishment were not so happy about the changes in other areas. The disgraceful affair of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst forming a new militant movement called the Women’s Social and Political Union stuck in many a man’s craw. Everyone knew giving the vote to women would not be safe. Men and women differed in mental equipment, with women having little sense of proportion, as one MP put it.

Equally dangerous was the notion to put more of these machines called motor cars on the road. The agreement between the Hon. Charles Rolls and Mr Henry Royce to sell motor cars under the name Rolls-Royce was nothing to get excited about. Rattling about the countryside and frightening the horses, whatever next? So said the members of the old guard as they sat in their gentlemen’s clubs, smoking their cigars and drinking fine brandy, their coach and horses waiting outside.

There were many too within the Romany community who sensed the winds of change beginning to blow. The towns of the Industrial Revolution were growing, swallowing large parts of the surrounding countryside. Hamlets were turning into large villages and large villages into small towns. Some of the old Romany routes and byways were being lost, and the old folk in particular felt it keenly, becoming fierce in their desire to protect their heritage and discourage anything they saw as a watering-down of their way of life.

None were so passionate in this regard as Halimena. Always a woman of indefatigable opinions, she had become more dogmatic and bigoted with each passing year, and Pearl’s presence within the camp and especially her own family was a constant thorn in her flesh. A gorgie living with them, learning their ways and secrets, summed up everything that was bad about their changing world, and the old woman never missed an opportunity to make her feelings known. It was due to her relentless opposition that Pearl had not been taught the Romany language, something which did not trouble Pearl particularly but which did serve as a constant reminder to both her and the others that she was not one of them. Not that a reminder was needed. One only had to look at Pearl to see she was different.

Now eighteen years old, the beauty which had been apparent in the child was fully developed in the woman. Although only five foot four inches tall, Pearl carried herself very straight and with a natural grace that was not lost on an observer. Her thick, dark-brown hair fell to her shoulders in glossy waves and the colour touched on a deep chestnut in places. The smooth natural cream and pink of her skin had changed to pale honey from a life in the fresh air, but this only served to accentuate the cornflower-blue vividness of her heavily lashed eyes and the redness of her full lips. Even the palest of the gypsy girls looked dark next to Pearl, their jet-black hair and deep brown eyes adding to the contrast. This was not without its problems in that it brought Pearl to the attention of outsiders when they stayed in any one place for more than a few weeks, the local male population in particular. At those times Byron was never far from her side.

It was Byron that Pearl was thinking of as she deftly skinned and prepared several rabbits for the pot late one cool May afternoon. She had taken over the cooking, cleaning and washing for the family a couple of years ago, leaving Corinda free to weave the mats and baskets they sold. Try as she might, Pearl had never become as adept as the gypsies at these tasks, but had discovered she had a natural gift where cooking was concerned. Even Halimena had been heard to give grudging praise on one or two occasions, ostensibly when Pearl was not within earshot. Corinda had been generous in sharing the Romany knowledge of natural herbs and plants and cooking methods which could enhance a dish, but she was the first to say Pearl could make the most ordinary dish extraordinary.