The Black Opal (32 page)

“And they are obviously great friends of yours.”

“Yes, very good friends.”

“As friendly as Lucian and myself, I suppose?”

“Yes, I suppose so. It’s difficult to make comparisons.”

“Lucian is a good man, you know. That marriage was so wrong. That sort of thing has an effect on people. Nothing would please me more than to see him happy. He ought to be. He has a great capacity for happiness.

But that wretched affair hangs over him. I’d like to see a complete break from the past. It is difficult, because there are always . consequences. “

“Do you mean Bridget?”

“Not so much Bridget. That woman in the nursery.”

“Jemima Cray.”

She nodded.

“While she’s here, we shall never be able to put the past behind us. She’s a constant reminder.”

“I understand that, but this is your house. I suppose if you told her to go, she would have to do so.”

“I would send her straight away and tell her to go, but Lucian won’t hear of it.”

“Why not?”

“Some promise she gave to Laura to stay. She holds that over us, though it isn’t mentioned often. I have said to Lucian, ” Laura is dead. We care for the child. Why do we have to keep that woman here?

”

But he says it was Laura’s wish, so the creature stays. I don’t like her at all, but I suppose, because of this deathbed promise . “

“She is very fond of the child, and the child of her.”

“I don’t doubt that. All the same …” She put her hand over mine.

“I

think, my dear, that between us, you and I might do something about all this. “

I was astonished, but she smiled at me serenely.

I knew then that, if Lucian asked me to marry him, I should have the whole-hearted approval of Lady Crompton.

I spent the next morning in her company, but she made no further reference to Lucian’s marriage. Instead she showed me some of the tapestry work which she did before it became such a strain on her eyes.

In the afternoon her rheumatism was very painful and, apologizing profusely, she told me she would have to retire to bed and rest. Could I amuse myself ?

I said I could quite happily, and decided to take a walk.

It was inevitable that my footsteps should turn towards Commonwood House. It was the first time since my visits to the Grange that I had

been out alone. Had I been, I should probably have found the impulse to take another look at the house irresistible. Now was my chance.

There it was sad and derelict, yet so familiar. Mingling emotions rose in me at the sight of it.

Walk past it, I advised myself. What good will be achieved by going closer? It only saddened me. But when I approached, I found myself turning in at the gate. Just a quick look, I promised myself, and then I would hurry away.

I walked up the drive. I could scarcely see the house for the overgrown shrubs. It had that eerie look of old ruined houses. I could imagine that eyes watched me from the cracked windows. Eyes of those who had once lived there in the past-Mrs. Marline, Miss Carson, the poor, sad doctor.

Go back, I told myself. What point is there? But I went on.

I approached the door. I saw the broken hinge. I stopped myself from pushing the door open and instead walked round the house. I noticed the damp on the walls, the smudges of dust on the windows. I wondered to whom it belonged now? Henry? Why did he leave it like this? Where was Henry now? Lucian did not know. They had lost touch when Henry had gone to Aunt Florence with his sisters.

I was in the garden where Tom Yardley had found me under the azalea bush. It was withered now, smothered by the weeds. There was the spot where Tom Yardley used to wheel the chair. I looked back to the french windows of the room in which she had died.

It was too depressing. It was foolish of me to have come. What was I achieving by this?

I looked towards the woods and saw a column of smoke rising to the sky.

The gipsies, I thought. They must be there now.

My spirits lifted at the thought. I had to see if it was the z6i

same clan who had come before. I wanted to escape from this feeling of desolation which the house had cast upon me. I wanted to see the children playing round the caravans.

A hedge separated the garden from the edge of the wood. I remembered there had been a spot where I had scrambled through as a child. I found it. I did the same and walked through the trees until I came to the clearing.

There were the caravans. The children were playing on the grass: women were squatting around, chipping wood for their clothes pegs. Nothing had changed.

Could it really be that they were the same band? I had heard that gipsies returned to the same spots all over the country. If this were so, and I could see Rosie Perrin and Jake, it would be most interesting.

As I approached, I saw the caravan on the wheels of which sat a woman.

She looked remarkably like Rosie Perrin, but then there was a similarity among these gipsy women.

The children had noticed me. I knew that because of the silence which had fallen on them. They were watching me. The women looked up from their chipping.

Then a voice I remembered well cried out: “Well, if it isn’t Carmel come back to see us!”

I ran forward. The woman sitting on the steps was indeed Rosie Perrin.

She came down the steps and we stood smiling at each other.

“Where have you been, Carmel?” she said.

“To Australia,” I answered.

She gave that hearty laugh which 1 remembered so well.

“Come up. Come up, and tell me all about it.”

1 followed her up the steps and into the caravan. It was just as I remembered it. She bade me sit down, her eyes gleaming with pleasure and excitement.

“You went away when the trouble started. 1 heard all about it. It was big trouble. Commonwood is a house haunted by tragedy.”

I told her about Toby who was my father and how we had gone to Australia.

She nodded.

“He did not want you mixed up in that. You, a child. And the other children went away too.”

I told her everything that had happened to me, that I knew that Zingara was my mother, and how I had come to visit the Grange.

“And you have been coming here ever since?” I asked.

She nodded.

“We have seen the house falling into decay. What good is it now? It is a ruin. Nobody will live there. It will fall right away into nothing.”

“Why? Why?”

“Because houses have lives of their own. Something happened there and the memory lives on. I feel it when I go near. Sometimes I look that way and a sighing comes to me.”

“Sighing?”

“It is in the wind … in the air. It is an unhappy house.”

“It is only bricks and mortar, Rosie.”

She shook her head.

“We gipsies feel these things. It will be like that until…”

“Until what?”

“Until it can be made happy again.”

“It would have to be razed to the ground and another house built there. A new Commonwood.”

“And made into a happy house.”

“It was never a really happy house, Rosie. Mrs. Marline would not let it be.”

“She is dead now,” said Rosie.

“Rest her soul. She made unhappiness in her life and in her death. There was more pity for the poor doctor than for her.”

“I cannot bear to think of him. Even before I knew what had happened to him … all through the years, when 1 have been so far away, even now and then I would remember.”

“Ah, my child, what happened yesterday can at times decide what will happen today. There are never-to-be-forgotten yesterdays in all our lives. But this is a happy meeting between us. Let us enjoy it. Tell me what has been happening to you.”

So I told her in detail about the trips with Toby, and of Elsie, who had been a surrogate mother to me; how Elsie was, in fact, Toby’s wife and how, though they were fond of each other, they were not contented to live together as husband and wife.

She nodded wisely.

“He was that sort of man. I know that from Zingara. Many loved him. He was a man who gave much and received love in return. You had a wonderful father, Carmel, and you have a wonderful mother. I say that, though perhaps all would not agree.”

“Where is Zingara now?”

“She is no longer on the stage. She gave that up. I shall tell her that I have seen you again. Tell me where you are living and I will let her know. Then she will write to you. She is clever. She can write. A gentleman had her taught, He came here to study us at first hand. He was going to write a book about the gipsies. He rented one of the caravans and lived among us for a whole year. We did not mind. He paid us well and he amused us. Of course, he noticed Zingara. She would have been about eight years old at that time. The loveliest creature you ever saw.”

Rosie paused and smiled into the distance.

“He taught her to read and write. She loved that. She always liked to know that bit more than anyone else. She read and read. And when this man went away and wrote his book, he did not forget her. He brought a man down and she danced and sang and that was how she started. She comes back to the camp to see me now and then.”

“I wish she were here now. Should 1 write to her?”

She paused.

“I tell you what we shall do. You will write down where you are staying and I will have it sent to her. She will then do what she thinks is best to do.”

“I think that is a good idea.”

I took a pencil from the little receptacle I carried and tore a sheet from a small notebook.

“I’m Carmel Sinclair, not March, now,” I said.

“My father thought I should have the same name as his.”

I wrote down the Hysons’ address and gave it to her.

She nodded and put the paper in her pocket.

Then she made some fragrant tea like that which I had had before in this caravan, and we sat drinking and talking. There was so much I had to tell her still and she asked many questions.

Then I realized that I had been absent for a long time and Lady Crompton would be wondering what had become of me.

Gertie was married the following week. There was breathless excitement throughout the house. It had all been planned, down to the smallest detail. The reception was to be at the house after the ceremony, and then Gertie and Bernard were going to Florence for three weeks’ honeymoon. When they returned they would settle into the house which was waiting for them.

Lucian, Lawrence and Dorothy were present and the Hysons had invited numerous friends; and then there were Bernard’s connections. Aunt Beatrice was worried as to how they were all going to get into the house.

Gertie was in a state of ecstasy and Bernard was clearly a very contented man.

It was two days before the great event when I received a letter in an unknown handwriting. My heart beat fast as I looked at it, for something told me it was from Zingara.

I was right.

My dear Carmel [I read], 1 was delighted to have your address from Rosie. For so long I have wondered about you. You will see from the address above that I am living at a place called Castle Folly in Yorkshire. It is not a real castle, but you will see it when you come to visit it-which you will soon, I hope.

You would have to stay a while, for you could not make the journey there and back in a day. Send me a note please and say when you will come.

Zingara (I am Mrs. Blakemore now).

I re-read the letter and I thought: I will write to her at once. I will go just as soon as I can. I should have to wait until after the wedding, of course, and then perhaps I could hardly leave Aunt Beatrice immediately. She would miss Gertie, although it would only be for a short while. But I would write and fix a date . perhaps a week ahead. That would give time for the wedding and a little interval.

So that was what I did.

There was an enthusiastic reply from Zingara. She was greatly looking forward to seeing me. As for myself, I could hardly wait to go.

The wedding was over. There had been none of those hitches which Aunt Beatrice had greatly feared. The married couple had left for Florence, and we all missed Gertie very much. I had always known what a difference her coming had made to Aunt Beatrice, but now 1 saw it was even more than I had realized.

She admitted to me that she was a selfish old woman because good fortune had given her Gertie while robbing her own mother of her; and she could not help rejoicing in that.

“Gertie and I were always such pals in the old days,” she said, ‘but

now, to have her here so close . like my own daughter, really. It’s my gain . but I do think of my poor sister. “

“She has James,” I said.

“I never thought they would go gallivanting off to Australia. Now I’m going to stock the young people’s house with everything they’ll want when they come home. You must help me, Carmel.”

“I will, but I have to pay this visit to Yorkshire. It is someone I have to see.”

I did not say it was my mother. I had told no one that. I should have to wait until I had understood Zingara’s reactions before I imparted that information.

Lucian thanked me for visiting his mother.

“She said she so much enjoyed having you there. It was good of you to go.”

“I enjoyed it. She was charming to me.”

He looked at me thoughtfully.

“There’s a good deal I want to talk about,” he said.

“We must meet… some time soon.”

I thought: Weddings have an effect on some people. There was some purpose behind that remark. Perhaps it was because of all the hints I had received from Gertie that I wondered if he really did care enough about me to want to marry me. I was unsure of myself and of him. There was something that held me back . something I did not understand.

When I remembered the boy he had been and how I had adored him then, I wanted him to be just like that now. He had changed. Something had happened . there was his marriage, of course. What was it Rosie had said? Our yesterdays must leave their mark upon today.

How different it was with Lawrence! I felt I knew exactly what he was thinking, exactly how he would react to any situation. There was no mystery about Lawrence.