Red Money. Hume Fergus
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passions held in enforced check which might burst forth on the very slightest provocation.
"It's a migrating tribe of Aryans driven to new hunting grounds by hunger or over-population," said Miss Greeby, for even her unromantic nature was stirred by the unusual picturesqueness of the scene. "The sight of these people and the reek of their fires make me feel like a cave-woman. There is something magnificent about this brutal freedom."
"Very sordid magnificence," replied Lambert, raising his shoulders. "But I understand your feelings. On occasions we all have the nostalgia of the primitive life at times, and delight to pass from ease to hardship."
"Well, civilization isn't much catch, so far as I can see," argued his companion. "It makes men weaklings."
"Certainly not women," he answered, glancing sideways at her Amazonian figure.
"I agree with you. For some reason, men are going down while women are going up, both physically and mentally. I wonder what the future of civilized races will be."
"Here is Mother Cockleshell. Best ask her."
The trio had reached a small tent at the very end of the camp by this time, snugly set up under a spreading oak and near the banks of a babbling brook. Their progress had not been interrupted by any claims on their attention or purses, for a wink from Chaldea had informed her brother and sister gypsies that the Gentile lady had come to consult the queen of the tribe. And, like Lord Burleigh's celebrated nod, Chaldea's wink could convey volumes. At all events, Lambert and his companion were unmolested, and arrived in due course before the royal palace. A croaking voice announced that the queen was inside her Arab tent, and she was crooning some Romany song. Chaldea did not open her mouth, but simply snapped her fingers twice or thrice rapidly. The woman within must have had marvellously sharp ears, for she immediately stopped her incantation – the songs sounded like one – and stepped forth.
"Oh!" said Miss Greeby, stepping back, "I am disappointed."
She had every reason to be after the picturesqueness of the camp in general, and Chaldea in particular, for Mother Cockleshell looked like a threadbare pew-opener, or an almshouse widow who had seen better days. Apparently she was very old, for her figure had shrivelled up into a diminutive monkey form, and she looked as though a moderately high wind could blow her about like a feather. Her face was brown and puckered and lined in a most wonderful fashion. Where a wrinkle could be, there a wrinkle was, and her nose and chin were of the true nutcracker order, as a witch's should be. Only her eyes betrayed the powerful vitality that still animated the tiny frame, for these were large and dark, and had in them a piercing look which seemed to gaze not at any one, but through and beyond. Her figure, dried like that of a mummy, was surprisingly straight for one of her ancient years, and her profuse hair was scarcely touched with the gray of age. Arrayed in a decent black dress, with a decent black bonnet and a black woollen shawl, the old lady looked intensely respectable. There was nothing of the picturesque vagrant about her. Therefore Miss Greeby, and with every reason, was disappointed, and when the queen of the woodland spoke she was still more so, for Mother Cockleshell did not even interlard her English speech with Romany words, as did Chaldea.
"Good day to you, my lady, and to you, sir," said Mother Cockleshell in a stronger and harsher voice than would have been expected from one of her age and diminished stature. "I hope I sees you well," and she dropped a curtsey, just like any village dame who knew her manners.
"Oh!" cried Miss Greeby again. "You don't look a bit like a gypsy queen."
"Ah, my lady, looks ain't everything. But I'm a true-bred Romany – a Stanley of Devonshire. Gentilla is my name and the tent my home, and I can tell fortunes as no one else on the road can."
"Avali, and that is true," put in Chaldea eagerly. "Gentilla's a bori chovihani."
"The child means that I am a great witch, my lady," said the old dame with another curtsey. "Though she's foolish to use Romany words to Gentiles as don't understand the tongue which the dear Lord spoke in Eden's garden, as the good Book tells us."
"In what part of the Bible do you find that?" asked Lambert laughing.
"Oh, my sweet gentleman, it ain't for the likes of me to say things to the likes of you," said Mother Cockleshell, getting out of her difficulty very cleverly, "but the dear lady wants her fortune told, don't she?"
"Why don't you say dukkerin?"
"I don't like them wicked words, sir," answered Mother Cockleshell piously.
"Wicked words," muttered Chaldea tossing her black locks. "And them true Romany as was your milk tongue. No wonder the Gentiles don't fancy you a true one of the road. If I were queen of – "
A vicious little devil flashed out of the old woman's eyes, and her respectable looks changed on the instant. "Tol yer chib, or I'll heat the bones of you with the fires of Bongo Tem," she screamed furiously, and in a mixture of her mother-tongue and English. "Ja pukenus, slut of the gutter," she shook her fist, and Chaldea, with an insulting laugh, moved away. "Bengis your see! Bengis your see! And that, my generous lady," she added, turning round with a sudden resumption of her fawning respectability, "means 'the devil in your heart,' which I spoke witchly-like to the child. Ah, but she's a bad one."
Miss Greeby laughed outright. "This is more like the real thing."
"Poor Chaldea," said Lambert. "You're too hard on her, mother."
"And you, my sweet gentleman, ain't hard enough. She'll sell you, and get Kara to put the knife between your ribs."
"Why should he? I'm not in love with the girl."
"The tree don't care for the ivy, but the ivy loves the tree," said Mother Cockleshell darkly. "You're a good and kind gentleman, and I don't want to see that slut pick your bones."
"So I think," whispered Miss Greeby in his ear. "You play with fire."
"Aye, my good lady," said Mother Cockleshell, catching the whisper – she had the hearing of a cat. "With the fire of Bongo Tern, the which you may call The Crooked Land," and she pointed significantly downward.
"Hell, do you mean?" asked Miss Greeby in her bluff way.
"The Crooked Land we Romany calls it," insisted the old woman. "And the child will go there, for her witchly doings."
"She's too good-looking to lose as a model, at all events," said Lambert, hitching his shoulders. "I shall leave you to have your fortune told, Clara, and follow Chaldea to pacify her."
As he went toward the centre of the camp, Miss Greeby took a hesitating step as though to follow him. In her opinion Chaldea was much too good-looking, let alone clever, for Lambert to deal with alone. Gentilla Stanley saw the look on the hard face and the softening of the hard eyes as the cheeks grew rosy red. From this emotion she drew her conclusions, and she chuckled to think of how true a fortune she could tell the visitor on these premises. Mother Cockleshell's fortune-telling was not entirely fraudulent, but when her clairvoyance was not in working order she made use of character-reading with good results.
"Won't the Gorgios lady have her fortune told?" she asked in wheedling tones. "Cross Mother Cockleshell's hand with silver and she'll tell the coming years truly."
"Why do they call you Mother Cockleshell?" demanded Miss Greeby, waiving the question of fortune-telling for the time being.
"Bless your wisdom, it was them fishermen at Grimsby who did so. I walked the beaches for years and told charms and gave witchly spells for fine weather. Gentilla Stanley am I called, but Mother Cockleshell was their name for me. But the fortune, my tender Gentile – "
"I don't want it told," interrupted Miss Greeby abruptly. "I don't believe in such rubbish."
"There is rubbish and there is truth," said the ancient gypsy darkly. "And them as knows can see what's hidden from others."
"Well, you will have an opportunity this afternoon of making money. Some fools from The Manor are coming to consult you."
Mother Cockleshell nodded and grinned to show a set of beautifully preserved teeth. "I know The Manor," said she, rubbing her slim hands. "And Lord Garvington, with his pretty sister."
"Lady Agnes Pine?" asked