Part 38 (1/2)

Then I took the eastern direction, and soon became familiar with the most squalid haunts.

My method was to wander from street to street, looking at every poorly-dressed girl I met. Often I was greeted with an impudent laugh, that brought back the sickening mental pictures I have mentioned; and often I was greeted with an angry toss of the head and such an exclamation as, 'What d'ye take me for, staring like that?'

These peregrinations I used to carry far into the night, and thus, as I perceived, got the character at my hotel of a wild young man. The family solicitor wrote to me again and again for appointments which I could not give him.

It had often occurred to me that in a case of this kind the police ought to be of some a.s.sistance. One day I called at Scotland Yard, saw an official, and asked his aid. He listened to my story attentively, then said: 'Do you come from the missing party's friends, sir?'

'I am her friend,' I answered--'her only friend.'

'I mean, of course, do you represent her father or mother, or any near relative?'

'She is an orphan; she has no relatives,' I said.

He looked at me steadily and said: 'I am sorry, sir, that neither I nor a magistrate could do anything to aid you.'

'You can do nothing to aid me?' I asked angrily.

'I can do nothing to aid you, sir, in identifying a young woman you once heard sing in the streets of London, with a lady you saw once on the top of Snowdon.'

As I was leaving the office, he said: 'One moment, sir. I don't see how I can take up this case for you, but I may make a suggestion. I have an idea that you would do well to pursue inquiries among the Gypsies.'

'Gypsies!' I said with great heat, as I left the office. 'If you knew how I had already ”pursued inquiries” among the Gypsies, you would understand how barren is your suggestion.'

Weeks pa.s.sed in this way. My aunt's ill-health became rather serious: my mother too was still very unwell. I afterwards learnt that her illness was really the result of the dire conflict in her breast between the old pa.s.sion of pride and the new invader remorse. There were, no doubt, many discussions between them concerning me. I could see plainly enough they both thought my mind was becoming unhinged.

One night, as I lay thinking over the insoluble mystery of Winifred's disappearance, I was struck by a sudden thought that caused me to leap from my bed. What could have led the official in Scotland Yard to connect Winifred with Gypsies? I had simply told him of her disappearance on Snowdon, and her reappearance afterwards near the theatre. Not one word had I said to him about her early relations with Gypsies. I was impatient for the daylight, in order that I might go to Scotland Yard again. When I did so and saw the official, I asked him without preamble what had caused him to connect the missing girl I was seeking with the Gypsies.

'The little fancy baskets she was selling,' said he. 'They are often made by Gypsies.'

'Of course they are,' I said, hurrying away. 'Why did I not think of this?'

In fact I had, during our wanderings over England and Wales, often seen Sinfi's sister Videy and Rhona Boswell weaving such baskets.

Winifred, after all, might be among the Gypsies, and the crafty Videy Lovell might have some mysterious connection with her; for she detested me as much as she loved the gold 'balansers' she could wheedle out of me. Moreover, there were in England the Hungarian Gypsies, with their notions about demented girls, and the Lovells, owing to Sinfi's musical proclivities, were just now much connected with a Hungarian troupe.

VII

SINFI'S DUKKERIPEN

I

The Gypsies I had never seen since leaving them in Wales, and I knew that by this time they were either making their circuit of the English fairs or located in a certain romantic spot called Gypsy Dell, near Rington Manor, the property of my kinsman Percy Aylwin, whither they often went after the earlier fairs were over.

The next evening I went to the Great Eastern Railway station, and taking the train to Rington I walked to Gypsy Dell, where I found the Lovells and Boswells.

Familiar as I was with, the better cla.s.s of Welsh Gypsies, the camp here was the best display of Romany well-being I had ever seen. It would, indeed, have surprised those who a.s.sociate all Gypsy life with the squalor which in England, and especially near London, marks the life of the mongrel wanderers who are so often called Gypsies. In a lovely dingle, skirted by a winding, willow-bordered river, and dotted here and there with clumps of hawthorn, were ranged the 'living-waggons' of those trading Romanies who had accompanied the 'Griengroes' to the East Anglian and Midland fairs.

Alongside the waggons was a single large brown tent that for luxuriousness might have been the envy of all Gypsydom. On the hawthorn bushes and the gra.s.s was spread, instead of the poor rags that one often sees around a so-called Gypsy encampment, snowy linen, newly washed. The ponies and horses were scattered about the Dell feeding.