Born to Trouble (9 page)

Flatly refusing to stay outside, Halimena followed her long-suffering daughter-in-law into the caravan once her grandson had laid the child on his sisters’ bed and left. Looking down at the little girl, she stated, ‘She’s in a bad way.’

Corinda nodded. She hadn’t needed her mother-in-law to point that out. The child was burning up and clearly unaware of her surroundings.

‘If they come looking for her and find her here, it’ll mean trouble, you know that.’ Halimena sniffed. ‘She’s got the smell of death on her.’

Ignoring Halimena, Corinda began to examine the child for injuries. When she lifted the cotton dress and saw the bloodstained underwear sticking to the little body, her head shot up to meet her mother-in-law’s eyes, and for once Halimena was silent. Carefully now, the two women stripped the little girl, but they had to soak and bathe the drawers from her. Once they had done so, they were silent for a moment. Then Halimena said, ‘This is bad, Corinda. Byron should never have brought her here.’

‘What was he to do then? Pretend he hadn’t seen her?’ Corinda had spoken too sharply and she knew it, but she was feeling sick to her stomach. For someone to do this to a small child! She had been violated – and savagely, too. Goodness knew what damage had been done. She now drew in a great long breath, her voice quieter when she said, ‘Would you get your box?’

Halimena nodded. ‘She’ll need careful tending.’

‘I’ll stay with her. Madora is quite capable of seeing to the meals and so on, with your help.’

When Halimena said no more but left to fetch her chest of herbs and potions which she used to treat every malady under the sun, Corinda knew the little girl’s condition had affected her mother-in-law too.

Once a soothing and healing ointment consisting of elderflower, green willow bark, foxglove and other ingredients in home-cured lard had been applied, and Corinda had spooned a few drops of Halimena’s nettle and barley tea into the child to bring her temperature down, she covered the little figure with a loose sheet and stepped outside, where Byron was waiting. Halimena had told only Mackensie and Byron what they’d found. Although Mackensie was shocked and upset, it had been Byron who’d been most deeply affected. Probably because he had found her, Corinda thought now, saying, ‘She’s lying quiet but I’ll sit with her for the time being.’

Byron rubbed his hand across his mouth. ‘Will she be all right? She will get better, won’t she?’

Corinda stared into her son’s kindly face – for he was kind, was her Byron – and she couldn’t answer him.

His voice harsh, Byron said, ‘And there’s some out there who call
us
savages. How old do you think she is?’

‘Hard to tell, she’s a thin little thing. Nine, ten, mebbe a bit older. We’ll know more if—’ Corinda paused and then went on ‘—when she’s able to speak.’

Over the last hour, thunder had begun to rattle the distant hills, gathering stormclouds showing deep grey against an increasingly sullen sky. Corinda looked up as the first fat raindrops began to fall. ‘It’s as well you found her when you did, love.’ She guessed – rightly – that his grandmother had made her feelings known to him. ‘Whatever happens, you did the right thing.’

His shoulders lifted in a shrug but she saw something relax in his face. ‘Do you think the law’ll come sniffing about?’

So that’s what Halimena had berated him with. Concealing her anger, his mother reached out and placed her hand against the side of his face for a moment. Such gestures were rare; they were not a demonstrative family. ‘Whether they do or whether they don’t, we’ve done nothing wrong. Remember that.’ The heavens had opened, the rain a deluge now. Turning from him, she went back inside the caravan.

Byron continued to stand for a few moments more before making his way – not to the tent, where Madora had the meal waiting – but across the campsite to the wood beyond, Rex at his heels.

By the time he reached the other side of the wooded area, the cloudburst was past. It had left pockmarked patterns on the dry soil, the much-needed drops of water yielding the gratifying smell only fresh rain on parched ground can give. He sat down overlooking a pale shimmering field of freshly mown hay, others behind it making a mosaic against grainfields which had mellowed to the bronze of harvest. Rex dropped down beside him without a sound. He always knew when his master was troubled.

Dog roses rambled abundantly in the hedgerow, but Byron was oblivious to their sweet perfume. At sixteen he was well versed in the ways of the world, since gypsy children were born wary and shrewd, and trusted no one but their own kind – but this act of brutality to a child had turned his stomach. That being said, he knew he had brought danger into their community. He would have known this even if his grandmother had not laboured the point.

His mother had said he’d done the right thing. He sat quite still, thinking about this, long hours of poaching having taught him how to become as still as stone. Only the next days and weeks would tell if that was true.

A small shrew emerged along the hedgebank, rearing up on its hind legs to sniff the summer air with its long, twitching snout. His grandmother believed that a painful disease of the limbs resulting in lameness would occur if a shrew ran over a person’s leg. To remedy this she had told them the creature must be buried alive in a hole bored into ash bark, and she was adamant that the tree had the power to cure the ailment if its leaves or twigs were rubbed against the affected area. Byron had had many shrews run over him in his time when they’d been intent on pursuing their insect prey, but he had never followed his grandmother’s advice and he was as healthy as the next man.

His eyes narrowed as he watched the little creature clutching a grass stem, its attention focused on a big fat grasshopper. He had proved that his grandmother was not always right. Besides which, and this was the crux of the matter, he couldn’t have lived with himself if he had done anything else.

The girl would have died if she had been left.

He breathed out slowly, the barely perceptible sound enough to send the shrew scurrying for cover and for Rex’s eyes to focus on his master’s troubled face. The child was safe now. If nothing else, he had enabled her to be cared for by his mother, and if the law came in their great hobnailed boots shouting the odds, he would tell them how she had been when he’d found her, and ask them if they could guarantee her safety if she was returned whence she’d come. They wouldn’t pin this on him; he wouldn’t let them. Nor would he let that little child be given back without setting a cat amongst the pigeons. Someone should pay for what they’d done.

His hand reaching into his trouser pocket, he brought out his whittling knife and a small wooden owl he had been working on. From a young boy he had cut and hand-polished pieces of oak and beech, making rough platters and ornaments which he’d sold at fairs and markets. As he’d grown older he had fashioned cradles on rockers, and stools, as well as the smaller items, and they always sold well and for a good price. He loved the look and the smell and the feel of wood; in fact, sometimes he thought he was only truly happy when he was working at his sideline – as his father disparagingly called it. For generations the Locks had been horse dealers, travelling all over the country and as far as Ireland as they plied their trade. As the firstborn male he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. So were Algar and Silvester, to be fair, but if one of his brothers had expressed an interest in something else, it might have been considered. Not so with the eldest son.

Shaking his head as though to clear his mind, Byron began whittling, and after a while the wood worked its magic, soothing and calming his spirit.

The child might not have been reported missing if she had been hurt by those she lived with, and even if that was not the case, there was nothing to say the police would look for her here. If they did come, there wasn’t a man, woman or child within their community who would breathe a word if he spirited her away until the coast was clear. She was in his safekeeping now.

His shoulders came back and his head lifted, and buoyed up by this train of thought, he stuffed the knife and the little wooden owl back into his pocket. It would take more than a few coppers with their truncheons and whistles to prise her away if he didn’t see fit.

Feeling something of the conquering hero, and with his grumbling stomach reminding him about the meal waiting for him, he returned to the camp, only to find that Madora – with the prickliness of all sisters when their efforts are unappreciated – had given his dinner to one of their neighbours’ dogs.

It was a full week before Pearl really became aware of her surroundings. For four days after Byron had carried her into the gypsy camp she was delirious most of the time, then came a period where she slept deeply and was too exhausted to open her eyes. But on the eighth day when she awoke and stared into the strong, compassionate face of the woman who had been attending her, her mind was her own again.

‘Don’t be frightened.’ Corinda smiled at her, gently stroking a tendril of hair from Pearl’s forehead. ‘You’re with friends, you’re safe.’

She remembered this voice, it had featured in her dreams. It had been cool, soothing; when it had spoken, she had felt comforted. She tried to speak but her mouth was too dry. The woman held a cup of water to her lips, and when she had swallowed, Pearl whispered, ‘Where am I?’

‘I told you, with friends. My son found you in the woods. You were –’ there was a brief hesitation ‘– you were hurt. Do you remember?’

So it hadn’t all been part of the nightmares. Her mother
had
sold her to that man. Pearl shut her eyes but not before a tear had slipped down her face.

‘Don’t worry.’ Corinda sat down on the bed, her hands gripping those of Pearl. ‘You’re all right now. Do you understand? No one will hurt you here.’

She was tired. She was so, so tired. She tried to force her eyelids open but it was beyond her.

‘That’s right, sleep a bit. Sleep’s the best medicine, and soon you’ll be feeling like yourself again.’

The voice continued to speak as she let herself slip into the place where she didn’t have to think, but just before she allowed oblivion to take her, Pearl was conscious of thinking the lady was wrong. She would never feel like herself again.

It was another two days before Pearl ventured outside the caravan. The damage to her coccyx was the main problem. It had set up an inflammation in her back and pelvis which made every movement extremely painful and kept her temperature volatile. But in those two days she learned a lot about where she was and the people she was with. The caravan was so spotless you could have eaten off the floor, and from the tiny window next to her bed she could see the Romanies going about their business.

Besides the caravans, all with little ladders going from the ground to the small doors, she could see a number of round tents in various sizes. An indefinite number of dark-eyed, olive-skinned children tumbled about, sometimes playing games or often sitting together making wooden clothes pegs or small baskets which she watched them fill with wild flowers early in the morning, presumably to sell that day.

On the whole the children were poorly dressed but clean. None wore shoes but then it was the height of summer. From what she could see of the women, it appeared the younger ones were like a host of brightly coloured butterflies, their blouses of pink or mauve or bright blue over a full-pleated skirt of indeterminate hue, and their strings of beads and long earrings catching the sunlight as they moved about the camp. The older women were invariably clothed in black or dark colours, but some of them had a brightly coloured scarf knotted about their neck or waist, and wore black hats with long feathers coming from the brim. In comparison the men’s garments were decidedly unimposing, their trousers, shirts and waist-coats occasionally enlivened by a scarlet or gaily spotted necktie. On their heads sat workingmen’s caps, full-brimmed hats, even a top hat on one old gentleman. But what struck Pearl most about the gypsies as she peered out of her window was their smiling faces and laughter, the noise and general coming and going seemingly good natured and with purpose.

The day before she got up out of bed, Corinda sat with her while she ate her evening meal of stew and a kind of flatbread flavoured with herbs. When she had finished and Corinda had removed the bowl, the older woman took Pearl’s hands in hers. They had spoken the day before about how Pearl had been found by Corinda’s son and that only he, Corinda and her husband and an old grandmother knew of the nature of her injuries. As far as everyone else was concerned, Corinda had quietly said, she had been beaten badly. Pearl had nodded, knowing it was meant kindly, but once the camp had settled down for sleep she had lain awake with tears running down her face, feeling dirty and ashamed.

That feeling intensified now when Corinda said, ‘Pearl, I think you understand I need to ask you about what happened. Who attacked you and where have you come from? Where is your family?’

She had known this moment was coming. Twice before, Corinda had broached the subject, but she had been feeling poorly then and when she had started to cry, Corinda had said it didn’t matter. But of course it mattered. Before she had woken up in the gypsy camp she had never met any real live Romanies, but she had heard talk about them. It was well known that they had their own language and their life was a mystery to non-gypsies; some of the folk in the East End had spoken of them disparagingly as nothing less than itinerant thieves and natural vagabonds, loose in their morals and without cleanliness or decent habits. From what she had observed, once she was able to look out of the window, Pearl knew this was not the case. Certainly her daughters’ virtue was dear to Corinda. She had not said this directly, but the normal sleeping arrangements for the girls and the fact that the old grandmother acted as both chaperone and guard once the sun went down spoke volumes. When she compared the gypsies’ life to the higgledy-piggledy herding together of men, women and children in the East End, along with the squalor and filth and brutality such conditions evoked, she knew who were the civilised beings. And what must this woman be thinking about her?