“Let’s just assume, James, that for Heronsdene it’s all for the best.”
AUTUMN HAD JUST begun to finger the trees, sending cool breezes to sway branches and cast leaves scudding down the street, on the day Beulah Webb, matriarch of her tribe, was laid to rest in Heronsdene churchyard.
When Maisie arrived in the village at half past ten, the High Street was already narrowed by vardos from near and far, jostling for position, lined up almost to the crossroads at the edge of town. Some gypsies came in old lorries, swaying from side to side along the country roads, while others walked across fields from farms close to Heronsdene. The women clustered together, clad in black, all color banished from their clothing. The ritual of a funeral, as at so many gypsy gatherings, demanded that the women and the men be parted, each to their own, for the duration of the day. As she walked closer to the church, Maisie could hear the cries and lamentations of those directly related to Beulah. Grief was expected to be voiced aloud, the pitch of each gypsy’s wail in direct proportion to the mourner’s relationship to the departed one. Paishey was surrounded by women, who held her by the arms as she cried to the heavens for Beulah to come again.
On the street, villagers stood and watched, most from doorways, standing back into the shadows to diminish their presence in deference to the gypsy throng. There were no complaints, no mutterings that they should go, or speculation as to what they thought they were doing, taking over the street. Word had gone round that young Pim Martin, the baker’s son, who they’d all thought had died in the war, was with them now, had been taken in by the travelers, and the gypsy being laid to rest was the one who had saved him. Knowing their debt, the people stood back, giving their streets up for just one day, all signs warning NO GYPSIES having been removed for the duration.
Soon the crowd outside the church began to quiet, with one or two pointing to the road. The descending silence allowed the gentle clip-clop of horses’ hooves to reverberate toward the church, as Beulah’s vardo came into view, with Webb at the reins, dressed all in black and without a hat, his hair swept back. Next to him, Beulah’s lurcher lay with her head across his thighs. As he drew up alongside the church, opposite the place where his family had met death in a fiery hell, men came forward to help unhitch the vardo, one of them taking the horse away until after the funeral. The weeping began again as Beulah’s coffin was taken from her traveling home. With Webb leading the pallbearers, the rom, shoulders braced to hold her weight, carried her into the church for the service, which would be followed by removal of the coffin to the burial site. She would be committed to earth next to the graves of Jacob, Bettin and Anna van Maarten.
Maisie remained at the back of the church. Though she knew gypsies who were not of Beulah’s tribe questioned her presence, she would see one of those she knew nod in her direction, to explain, and thought they might be saying, Beulah made her welcome; she’s a diddakoi, one of us on her mother’s side. And staring up at the stained glass windows, Maisie remembered, just, her grandmother’s funeral. When she died, her father had given word of her passing to a band of water gypsies, who had taken the news along the rivers and canals. On the day of her funeral, narrow boats came from near and far, her people coming to bid her Godspeed.
With the burial over, Webb hitched Beulah’s horse to her vardo once more and led the gypsies back to the clearing, where a feast of hotchi-witchi—hedgehog—stew had been prepared. Maisie walked across the empty hop-gardens and saw, at the bottom of the hill, the Londoners waiting, as the locals had in the village, to watch the gypsies gather. Billy Beale waved out to Maisie and came to greet her, with Doreen at his side.
“We just wanted to pay our respects to the old girl. We’ll go, once they know we’ve come. Most of us are packed up now, ready to catch the milk-train to Paddock Wood in the morning, then a hoppers’ train to London from there.”
“Webb will be glad that you’re all here. I’m pleased you stayed.”
Maisie turned toward the field where the gypsy horses grazed and watched one of the men move them down and into a corner, where he tied each halter to the fence to keep them in place. Webb maneuvered Beulah’s vardo into the field away from the clearing, and as he alighted from the driver’s seat and unhitched the horse for the last time, he looked down toward the Londoners. He remained still for a moment before raising a hand to acknowledge their respect, at which sign the outsiders began to walk back to the huts to complete their packing for the journey home, back to the bustle of London.
Paishey came to Maisie, taking her by the hand and bringing her into the clearing to sit with the women and partake of the funeral meal. Though the clearing was full of people, the talk was low, the natural throatiness of the language tempered in respect for the dead.
When the eating was done, and with no announcement, the gypsies started to make their way to the center of the field where Beulah’s vardo had been left. A group of women remained behind, bringing out the bowls dedicated to the washing of china and cutlery, pots and pans.
Maisie looked for the lurcher and realized the dog was not with the gypsies—in fact, she had not seen her since the funeral. Webb seemed unconcerned, and as the gypsies gathered, he began to pour paraffin around the perimeter of the vardo, which contained everything the gypsy woman had owned: her clothes, her crockery, her bed linens, her crystals, the dowsing rod, and the last bunches of Michaelmas daisies she had tied, ready to sell door-to-door. Another man came forward, running with a burning branch from the fire. He handed it to Webb, who held the torch up high for all to see, then threw it upon the vardo with a scream of despair. Maisie flinched at the eruption, as flames tore through the wood, paint peeled back, and the china, glass and metal inside crackled and spat back at the inferno.
As they watched, Paishey brought Webb’s violin to him. Once more he gently opened the case and removed the instrument from its nesting place of golden velvet. He placed the violin under his chin, drew back the bow, and began to play, each soulful note of the lament carried up on the wind and cast across the fields and along the byways that Beulah had ambled for many a year. Maisie stared into the flames as Webb played, the music growing in intensity, the rhythm changing time and again in the way that life changes, so that, as the fire leaped and scurried around and through the vardo, each refrain became a tribute to Beulah from girlhood to crone. This was the gypsy way, this fire that marked the end of a life, when all that was owned and all manner of ties to an earthly existence were destroyed. Tomorrow, when the vardo’s iron chassis was cold, the gypsies would take it with them, to rebuild. Another traveling home would rise from the remains like a phoenix from the ashes.
When the flames abated, Maisie said goodbye to Webb and Paishey. She did not tarry long with the gypsies. It was time for her to leave because, in truth, though a trickle of blood from the traveling folk ran in her veins, she knew she was not one of them. She was a Londoner, and it was time for her to go home.
As she walked through the village, she stopped at the church, where, as she expected, the lurcher was with her mistress, lying on top of the fresh earth and bounty of blooms that covered her final resting place. Maisie knelt down by the animal, who did not move but remained with her pointed nose between her front paws, eyes open wide, guarding.
“You can’t stay here, jook. Your people are moving on.”
The dog still did not even flinch, so Maisie remained awhile, stroking her coat and lulled by the sounds of the village—the birds on high, a horse being ridden along the High Street, children playing in the fields. Soon, though, Maisie stroked the lurcher once more, remembering the time when Beulah’s dog had walked with her to the MG, her glistening diamond-like eyes reflecting the moonlight.
As she drove through Heronsdene, Maisie saw Beattie Drummond, notebook in hand, interviewing Fred Yeoman outside the inn. She did not stop, to talk or pass the time of day. She was going home.
EPILOGUE
In early November, Maisie decided that the ritual she referred
to as her final accounting was long overdue on the Heronsdene case. In the interim, work had come in at a more pleasing pace, although the economic slump that gripped the country showed no signs of improvement, with evidence of a deepening crisis. Those of a certain station were able to retain the illusion that nothing had changed since the heady days of the early 1920s, and the increase in house construction remained baffling to economists. But for the poor, life became even more desperate, with labor lines growing, soup kitchens struggling to feed more mouths, factories closing, and the country in the grip of despair.
Along with that mood of hopelessness came the search for a scapegoat, with the finger pointed toward those who appeared not to belong, who were not considered “one of us.” Oswald Mosley’s particular brand of fascism was feeding upon the discontent, and it appeared to Maisie that people were beginning to take to their corners, ready for a fight. Thus she would not allow herself to breathe easy, feeling the weight of responsibility she had assumed, not only for her own financial security—as had many women of her age who would remain spinsters due to a war that had claimed a generation of young men—but for the weekly wage that kept the Beale family from want. Only when she had cleared her desk of urgent matters would she take time to reflect upon the month’s worth of events that still caused her heart to ache.
“I won’t be in the office for a few days, Billy. It’s time to write my final notes on the Heronsdene case and put it to rest.”
Billy nodded. He understood the importance of this time to his employer, and in his way was emulating her procedures, closing those cases she now allowed him to consider his own with a visit to each place of significance encountered along the way.
“I expect I’ll see you on Tuesday or Wednesday, then. I’ve got me ’ands full with this woman who reckons the shopkeeper is thievin’ from her, the one the police didn’t want to know about. And there’s that other woman who says her best friend is bein’ blackmailed and will pay us to find out.”
“Good work, Billy.” She tidied her desk and collected her shoulder bag and document case. “I just hope the weather holds. This sunshine is lovely, but that wind is going right through me.”
“And takin’ the leaves with it—’ave you seen the square? It looks like every leaf in London came to cover the paving stones.”
Maisie smiled as Billy opened the door for her. “You can leave word with my father, if you need me.”
“Right you are, Miss.”
HER FIRST STOP was not in Kent but in London. At St. Anselm’s school, she remained in her motor car and watched from beyond the gates as the school’s cadet force—an extracurricular activity for those who might one day wish to join the services—marched back and forth across the quadrangle. She thought back to the headmaster, and the way he talked about the school being an army where everyone had to fit in, play their part, and not rock the boat. As the boys clattered across the paving stones, their uniforms pressed and their boots seeming one size too big, she thought about those too young who went to war, the Pim Martins, boys treated as men when it came time to face the cannonade. After listening to the boy in charge shout, “About turn!” one last time, she pulled out into the traffic, on her way to see Priscilla.
Maisie was shown into the entrance hall of the house in Holland Park, just in time to see a gang of boys rush through in a boisterous game of tag. Tarquin, who was bringing up the rear of the unruly snake of boyhood that galloped past, greeted her in his usual manner, by leaping into her arms and kissing her on both cheeks.
“Tante Maisie, Tante Maisie, watch this! Stay where you are and watch this!” Still without his four front teeth, he clambered from her arms and ran to the top of the stairs, where he swung his leg over the banister and, holding on as if his life depended upon it, slid at some speed to the bottom of the staircase, where he promptly fell off and landed on his behind.
Soon his brothers and their friends had sprinted up to the top of the staircase, ready to slide down the banister one by one.
“Get off that banister and down those stairs immediately! You are nothing but a band of ruffians.” Priscilla walked to the bottom of the staircase, her hands on her hips, then called out, “Elinor! Do something about these horrible creatures before I have to do it myself!” She turned to Maisie, grinning. “Better not let them see me smile. I think it’s all rather fun—used to do the same thing myself.”
Elinor emerged from the upstairs rooms to inform the Partridge boys and their friends that tea was ready in the nursery.
“We’ll go into my sitting room for something a little more grown up,” said Priscilla.
Maisie accepted a glass of cream sherry, while Priscilla prepared a cocktail.
“Douglas is with his publisher this afternoon, hence the high jinks on the staircase. I daresay Simon slid down that very banister when he was a boy.” She looked at Maisie as she sat down on the pillowed sofa next to her friend, each of them having claimed one end. Priscilla kicked off her shoes and pulled her feet up under her. “Make yourself at home,” she instructed, before continuing. “Have you seen Margaret?”
Maisie shook her head. “I saw her just before she moved from London, and I thought I would drive out to Grantchester in a day or so. I’ll be sure to call first, just in case.”
“She’d love to see you.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll go, I promise.” Maisie changed the subject. “Are the boys settling in at their new school?”
“Didn’t you see that tribe out there? The school is popular with the families of diplomats, so it’s like the League of Nations, with everyone speaking a different language—as well as English, of course. They leave school early on Fridays, and each of the boys wanted to bring a friend home for the weekend, one of the boarders.”
“Will you stay here, in London?”
Priscilla shrugged. “I’m not sure. I was planning to open up the country house for weekends, but now I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t decided if I like it here. Perhaps it wasn’t such a brilliant idea to bring the family back to England just because I wanted to relive my childhood.” She shrugged. “After all, that’s what it was all about, wanting to see my boys doing the things my brothers had done, as if I could bring them back in a different way. But the fact is, my boys are who they are, their own little people. They’ve been brought up in France, on the coast, and they are each of them different. Even though they’re in a good school, for them, we might all be better off back where we were, away from this country. Even Elinor wants to go back to France. Do you know that last week she was telling me that when she was in school they were whipped for speaking to each other in Welsh? They were forced to speak English.”
Maisie sipped her sherry and was about to comment when Priscilla looked over at her, grinning. “In the meantime, before we decide whether to up sticks and scurry back to Biarritz, I am going to enjoy seeing more of you, for a start. I think I might have to take you in hand, Maisie.”
“And I think I’m doing quite well, thank you.”
“What about Simon?”
Maisie was quiet. “He’s gone, Pris. And now, even more than before, I believe cremation was the best thing. Margaret made a wise decision, though difficult. It’s over. He’s free at last.”
“And you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t say. It was as if he were imprisoned in a room where we could see him but not speak to him, as if we were caught in a vacuum of silence even if we screamed.”
“But you’ve never screamed.”
“Have you?”
“At the top of my lungs, across the Atlantic Ocean, every day for months after the war, after my brothers and parents died. I screamed all the time.”
“Oh.”
The women sat in silence, comfortable in their friendship. Then Priscilla braced her shoulders and reached toward Maisie.
“I almost forgot. I have something for you.”
“For me?”
/> “Yes. The furniture we chose to bring with us was delivered last week—what a performance, I shall be hard pushed to take it back with me—and I have a piece I think you’ll love. I want you to have it as a belated housewarming gift. I’ll have it sent to your flat next week.”
“What is it?”
“Come and have a look.”
Maisie followed Priscilla to the corner of the room, where an upright gramophone stood in the corner. The cabinet was of rich mahogany, inlaid with maple.
“Douglas has bought a new one, and this one is going begging.” She bent over it. “See, you lift the lid here, and there’s where you place the gramophone record. You wind it up with the handle at the side and then pull up the arm like this. And there’s a cupboard below where you’ll keep your gramophone records.”
“I don’t have any gramophone records.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve thought of that.” She pulled out a record and placed it on the turntable, then held up the horn, ready to set the needle in the groove. “This man is one of Douglas’s favorites. His music has been all over Paris, and he’s in great demand in the bals musettes, you know, the small dance clubs. He’s a gypsy—one of les Manouches, the travelers who live in caravans just outside Paris—and his music is quite wild and clever. I’m sure you’ll love it.”
And as the music surged into the room, Maisie smiled. “Yes, you’re right, I love it.”
MAISIE HAD DELAYED the journey to Kent until after her weaving class on Saturday. Once more, her spirits were lifted by the colors and textures around her, by swags of dyed wool that hung from the laundry racks, by the presence of Marta Jones, who had told her, in confidence, that she was considering reclaiming her family’s original name.