“No,” I said firmly. “They have to eat. Do you want them to starve?”
“No, but they should not poach. It’s stealing in a way.”
“Don’t tell, Amaryllis. My father would be angry and turn them away. They must be very poor.”
Amaryllis nodded. It was always easy to arouse her compassion.
The next time I saw him was in the kitchen at Grasslands.
Claudine took a special interest in Mrs. Trent and was always sending something over to her. I had heard Claudine say that Mrs. Trent had never been the same since the death of her grand-daughter Evie. She just seemed to lose her grip on life. Amaryllis never liked going there very much which I thought odd for she was always eager to share our comforts with the people of the estate. They liked to see her, too. She had the face of a ministering angel, and was also patient listening to accounts of their ailments. She had more aptitude than I for that sort of thing. “You’re the ideal sister of mercy,” I told her. And so she was … except at Grasslands.
I asked her why she did not like going there and she said that Dolly had an odd way of looking at her.
“She makes me shiver sometimes,” she said. “I’ll look up and her eyes will be on me—at least the one that is wide open. And I always wonder what that other eye can see. It is almost as though it sees what other people can’t.”
“I always thought you were so reasonable and logical,” I said. “I don’t expect you to have flights of fancy.”
“That’s how I feel… just uncomfortable. So will you go and take them whatever my mother wants to send to them?”
Although I was not the perfect visitor of the sick, I did like going to Grasslands—just as I did to Enderby. It was not that I wanted to spend a good deal of time with Mrs. Trent and Dolly or Aunt Sophie; but the uncanny atmosphere which prevailed in both houses intrigued me.
“We are lucky to have two such houses in the neighbourhood,” I said to Amaryllis.
“It is not the houses,” she replied. “It’s the people in them. I wouldn’t mind Grasslands at all without Dolly.”
I thought a good deal about what she had said and I wondered why Dolly was so interested in Amaryllis, because most people simply thought Amaryllis sweet and angelic, and paid more attention to me. Dolly did, however, have a certain interest in me. Once she said: “You were ever such a lovely baby.”
“Do you remember me then?” I asked.
She nodded. “You were so pretty … and could you scream! If you couldn’t have what you wanted … You should have heard.”
“I probably did hear myself.”
“And when you smiled … oh you were lovely then.”
But even so her real interest was in Amaryllis.
So it was that I took the sloe gin to Mrs. Trent.
I looked in at the front door and there was no one there so I went round to the back. I could hear voices. The door was open so I went in.
In the Grasslands kitchen, seated at the table, his legs stretched out before him, sipping from a tankard, his guitar on the table before him, was Romany Jake.
Dolly was sitting at the table some little distance from him.
He rose when he saw me and said: “Well, if it isn’t the lady from the big house.”
Dolly said: “Oh Jessica, it’s you then.”
She needed no answer to the obvious so I put my basket on the table and said: “Young Mrs. Frenshaw thought your grandmother might like to try her sloe gin.”
“She’ll appreciate that,” replied Dolly. “Would you like a little wine?”
“No thank you.”
Romany Jake surveyed me with his laughing eyes. “Too proud to sit down with a gypsy?”
“I never thought …” I began; but he had turned to Dolly.
“Perhaps you should be taking your guest into the parlour which is more suited to her.”
I said firmly: “I will take a little wine, Dolly … here.”
“You are as gracious as you are beautiful,” he said. “Grace and beauty. What a joy to find the two together!”
“Jake brought in a basket I ordered,” said Dolly, explaining his presence.
“And how is your grandmother today?” I asked, as she poured out a little wine which she handed to me.
“She is brighter, thank you. I’ll tell her you called. She’ll like the sloe gin.”
Romany Jake, who had kept his eyes on me, then raised his glass. “A long and happy life to you, Miss Jessica,” he said.
“Thank you.” I lifted mine. “And to you.”
“Jake was telling my fortune,” said Dolly.
“I hope it was a good one.”
“I have told Miss Dolly what I tell all… and there is no great skill in it. What comes to you is largely of your own making. The good life is there … if you have the wit to take it.”
“It is a comfortable way of looking at life if you believe it,” I said.
“And wouldn’t you believe it, my lady Jessica?”
“I suppose you are right in a way, but so many things happen in life that one has no control over. Acts of God they call them.”
Dolly said: “Earthquakes, floods, death …”
“I wasn’t only thinking of them,” I said.
“She is wise, our lady Jessica.”
“Jake told me I had a good life ahead of me … if I took the right road to it,” said Dolly.
“That applies to us all,” I retorted.
“Ah,” said Romany Jake, “but we don’t all have the opportunity to take the golden road.”
“If it is golden why should we turn away from it?”
“Because it is not always seen for what it is at the start. You have to have the wisdom to see it and the courage to take it.”
“Shall I?” asked Dolly.
“It is for you to decide, Miss Dolly.”
He held out his goblet and she went to him to refill it.
There seemed to me then a sense of unreality in that kitchen. I wondered what my family would say if they could see me sitting at a table drinking wine with Dolly and Romany Jake. He seemed to guess what I was thinking and to be amused by it.
He said: “Look at me now. Romany Jake, sitting at this table drinking wine with two ladies. Now if I were a man who turned away from his opportunities, I’d have touched my forelock and declared myself to be unworthy of the honour.”
“I have a feeling that in your heart you think yourself worthy to sit down with the highest in the land,” I said.
“And what would a lady like you know of a poor gypsy’s heart?”
“I think Mr. Cadorson, that I know a little about you.”
“Well, it is clever you are and I’ve never doubted that. You’ll have a great life because you’re bold and you are going to take what you want with both hands. It will be a lucky man who shares that life with you.”
He looked at me very steadily when he said that. I felt myself flushing.
“And what of me?” asked Dolly.
“You are more timid than my lady Jessica. She has a fine opinion of herself, this one. She’s precious … and she knows it. And she will make sure others don’t forget it either.”
“You are still talking about her” interrupted Dolly somewhat peevishly. “Why are you so interested in her?”
“I am interested in the whole world—you, gentle Miss Dolly, and the not so gentle lady Jessica …”
With that he set down his goblet and picked up the guitar. He strummed a few bars and began to sing a song about beautiful ladies. We sat there in silence watching and listening.
Then he started to sing about a high-born lady who was discontented with her life until she met a gypsy in the woods. Then she left the luxury of her home and all that went with it to live a life of freedom under the moon and the stars and the sun … among the trees of the forest.
His tenor voice vibrated with emotion; and all the time he was singing his eyes were on me and I was sure he was singing for me rather than for Dolly.