The black rotund cooking pot had been drawn across a blazing fire. Paishey and a woman Maisie knew as Esther were adding greens gathered from the hedgerows, first leaning forward toward the pot and then turning back to plates that held different ingredients. Maisie thought Esther even more gypsy-like than Paishey or Beulah. Her ruddy skin was framed by hair that had been pulled back at the crown, then pushed forward with carved wooden combs, giving the impression that she was wearing a mantilla, with jet-black tresses piled on her head before cascading veil-like across her shoulders. Each woman wore a copious white apron covering her waist-gathered skirt. The apron, Maisie knew, was worn less to protect clothing from stains and splashes than to provide a barrier between the body of the cook and the food to be eaten. In gypsy lore, if food came in close proximity to a woman’s body, it was considered mokada—sullied—and not worth the eating.
Beulah was sitting on the same log as before, so Maisie stopped to wait for the old woman to become aware of her presence. The dog moved toward her mistress and nudged her elbow, and Beulah turned, beckoning Maisie to sit beside her. The lurcher settled at Beulah’s side, remaining ever watchful.
“Sit, rawni,” instructed Beulah. “Jook caught us a nice couple of shoshi.” She nodded toward the pot. “You’ll have a full belly tonight.”
“I’ll be glad of that,” said Maisie. She did not have a deep knowledge of the gypsy dialect but knew enough to understand that the dog had caught a brace of rabbit. Maisie waited to be spoken to again.
“So, you’ve been to see the sap up at the house.” Beulah nodded toward Sandermere’s mansion.
Sap: snake.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What’n be your business?”
“I know a man who wants to buy the whole estate.” Maisie swept her hand around to indicate the breadth of the buying. “He wants it to be a clean chop” A clean sale. She knew this sale wouldn’t be sealed gypsy-fashion, with a banging together of knuckles to bind the agreement and barely a word spoken. Instead there would be offers and counteroffers, punctuated by pages of land law utilizing long-outdated vocabulary, and mazelike codicils to protect both parties. Indeed, if trust had been involved at all, she would not have a job.
Beulah reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of wood. She held it to her mouth and began to chew. She was quiet for a moment, then regarded Maisie, shaking her head. “The moosh is a dinlo.” The man is a fool. She stopped chewing and put the wood back in her pocket.
“Have you had dealings with him?” asked Maisie.
At that moment, Webb came into the clearing holding an armful of wood. He set the fuel alongside the fire and nodded to his wife, Paishey, and to Esther. The women took a couple of logs each and added them to the fire, holding their white aprons lest they be caught by sparks spitting out from the wood.
Beulah shook her head. “Not directly.” She pronounced it direckly, her eyes on Webb as she spoke.
Maisie turned and found that, once again, he was watching her, this time with eyes narrowed as a gust of wind pushed gray woodsmoke in his direction.
“Hello, Mr. Webb.” Maisie smiled, just enough, she hoped, to break the shell of ice that always seemed to envelop Beulah’s son.
He touched his hat in greeting and left the clearing, returning with more wood. She thought it might be better if she delayed the asking of questions until bellies were full and the warm fire had worked magic on aching backs. She had only picked for a short time, but already she felt the soreness in her hands and arms where rough hop-bines had scored the skin, leaving welts that stung when she washed. These people—men, women and children—had worked for days, and even after the picking was done the women had gathered flowers to bind into bunches, or made lilies of colored tissue paper to sell door-to-door, while the menfolk hunted or fashioned clothes pegs from wood to take to market.
Soon the rich aroma of a broth well simmered teased Maisie’s taste buds and caused her stomach to rumble. The women brought enamel plates from their respective vardos and gathered to dish up the meal. At the edge of the clearing, children lined up to be washed from bowls set aside for the purpose, and the men began to come in from their work.
Maisie followed the conversation, spoken in an English that was scoured of embellishment and peppered with dialect. For the most part, their stories mirrored those of the Londoners. They spoke of the hops in this garden or that, of the farmer, the tallyman, and how much they had earned. They talked of the clouds in the distance and were glad their tarpaulins were at the ready. Beulah complained of a toothache that had spread to her jaw, and one of the children squealed when a hot, wet flannel cloth was rubbed along his arms.
She heard Paishey telling Esther that the gorja-rawni—the woman who was not a gypsy—who had smiled upon her little Boosul, had turned her back today as they passed on the way to the tap. Esther put her hands on her hips and shook her head. She wagged a finger, telling Paishey that the woman wasn’t any different from all the rest of them and would probably cook her baby for tea if she had the chance, because she was—as likely as not—a beng, a devil. Maisie stared into the fire. Was it worth putting the story right? Should she tell them that the woman grieved for her own lost daughter, had felt warmed as the gypsy baby nestled in her arms, and was now shrouded in a chill of prejudice that enveloped her because her people didn’t trust the gypsies and were wary of them? No, probably not. She would keep her counsel. After all, the tribe suffered too, from the virulence of fear.
Paishey brought a plate of rabbit stew with a wedge of bread for Beulah, who pointed to Maisie and nodded, indicating that a plate should also be offered to their guest. A portion was brought for the outsider, and as steam wafted up from her food, Maisie’s mouth watered and she smiled at Paishey. “Thank you. This smells lovely.” Paishey said nothing, acknowledging the gratitude with a brief nod, and continued handing round enamel plates, with those of the men holding a good third of a measure more than the women.
There was little talk as the company devoured the awaited meal. Then the empty plates were cleared and slops from the pot taken to the edge of the clearing for the dogs, though Beulah’s jook was fed first, on account of her catching the tribe’s end-of-day meal.
Maisie made her move. “Why are the people in the village so afraid, Aunt Beulah?”
Beulah laughed, though it came out as a cackle, making her sound like a chovihanni, a witch. “Them’s too afraid of their own shadows. Them’s looking over their shoulders, waiting for the ghosts to see them.”
“What ghosts? What do you mean?”
Beulah shook her head. “Them ghosts that feed on all of us, the ghosts of them as we’ve done wrong by”
“But that could be anyone anywhere. There’s someone in every village who has done something wrong, but those places don’t feel like Heronsdene.”
Now the gypsy woman sighed, and Maisie, drawn to look over her shoulder, saw Webb walking toward them. Beulah turned to her and said, “It’s all a long time gone, but not what they hold of it.”
Webb leaned forward to whisper in Beulah’s ear, and Maisie watched as some of the gypsies, men and women, went to their tents, returning with fiddles and tambourines, wooden sticks and whistles. Paishey emerged from her vardo with a violin case in her arms, which she passed to Webb. Maisie noticed that the other rom carried their fiddles with much less care than Paishey and Webb had demonstrated. And even as Webb clicked open the case and lifted his violin from the faded golden velvet in which it was cocooned, it was with reverence, as if the instrument were a religious icon.