Rosy Is My Relative (10 page)

In the middle of a complicated and derogatory exploration of Lord Fenneltree’s family tree, during which she had only got as far back as the fifteenth century, she suddenly found herself lifted into the air and whirled away in what Rosy fondly imagined to be an exhilarating waltz. Lady Fenneltree’s piercing screams for help, Rosy misinterpreted as cries of approbation, and so she waltzed happily on. She was pleased with herself. Never, she thought, had she danced so well. True, she fell heavily on several occasions, but she held Lady Fenneltree high so that she should come to no harm. She had accomplished one rather uneven circuit of the ballroom, followed by the rapt and horror-stricken gaze of the assembled company, when the band, realising suddenly that they were aiding and abetting rather than soothing the elephant, stopped playing. Rosy was glad. She was not as young as she used to be, the ballroom was large and Lady Fenneltree was heavy. She decided that she had done enough to entertain the guests and could now round off her act. She deposited the unconscious Lady Fenneltree on a haunch of venison, fourteen bottles of champagne and the remains of a salmon, raised her trunk proudly in the air and uttered a long and imperious trumpet. The effect of this on the company was curious and instantaneous. They decided that this monstrous beast, having tasted the blood of Lady Fenneltree, was now about to attack in earnest. For a moment they remained rooted to the spot with terror, and then all broke and ran. They scattered across the ballroom like hares and, such is the confusion that affects the human mind in moments of crisis, some of them, instead of running away from Rosy, actually ran towards her. Among them, putting on a pretty turn of speed for one of his corpulence, was the Master of the Monkspepper Hunt. Even in her condition Rosy recognised him. She beamed with pleasure, for was he not the kind man who bad helped her with her act when she performed in the meadow? Uttering a small squeal of delight she fielded him with some dexterity with her trunk as he passed, and lifted him aloft. Adrian, fearing that the Master might meet the same fate as Lady Fenneltree, decided to intervene.

“Rosy!” he roared above the pandemonium. “Put him down!” Rosy was somewhat surprised, for she had not nearly finished with the Master. She had intended, as a finishing touch, to drop him into the minstrels’ gallery. But she was beginning to feel tired, and if Adrian told her to drop the Master, who was she to disobey? So she uncurled her trunk and all seventeen stone of the Master of the Monkspepper Hunt hit the parquet with a resounding crash. Adrian closed his eyes and prayed for death. Then he opened them again. Lord Fenneltree was standing by him, plucking his sleeve.

“Dear boy,” said his lordship, “I fear you were right. The whole thing has been a mistake.”

Looking round at the wrecked ballroom, at the screaming, hysterical guests, at Lady Fenneltree unconscious with her head pillowed on a salmon, at the Master of the Monkspepper Runt lying unconscious–possibly dead–on the floor, Adrian could not find it in his heart to disagree.

Adrian could never remember with any clarity how he managed to get away from Fenneltree Hall unscathed. He dimly recollected that he and Lord Fenneltree had managed to get Rosy out of the wreckage of the ballroom and back to the stables. He remembered Lord Fenneltree saying that in his considered opinion it would be safer if Adrian and Rosy “slipped off” before either Lady Fenneltree or the Master, or both, regained consciousness, and the next thing he knew was that he and Rosy were walking down the moonlit road away from Fenneltree Hall, the coloured trap rattling behind them. Rosy, who was now suffering from a hangover and wanted to sleep, kept sighing lugubriously at all the untoward activity which was making her head ache. Adrian’s head was also aching, but for different reasons. He had a few sharp things to say to Rosy in due course, but he wanted to put as much distance between them and Lady Fenneltree’s wrath as possible, and so he kept Rosy walking at a brisk pace. Although it was a beautiful night, with the moon full and high and the sky like a dew-drenched spider’s web of stars, it was cold, and the fast pace helped to keep them both warm.

After walking for three hours Adrian felt that they were reasonably safe, at least for that night. But he wanted to find a place where he and Rosy could conceal themselves the following day, for he knew Lady Fenneltree to be a woman of iron determination and he felt sure the would not rest until he and Rosy had been pursued, caught and transported back to Fenneltree Hall. And an interview with Lady Fenneltree was the last thing that Adrian wanted to face at that juncture.

The road had meandered through open fields and small copses; not the sort of country to offer the type of concealment that Adrian wanted. Now, to his dismay, he found that they were climbing up to a vast, wild piece of moorland where it would have been difficult to conceal a small dog, let alone anything the size of Rosy. Hoping that the moorland would soon end and that they would find a wood on the other side, Adrian pressed on. But the moor seemed to grow bigger and bigger until, in the cold light of dawn, it stretched away on every side as far as the eye could see, purple and brown and green, offering no place to hide at all. Then, as the sun rose, the whole moorland seemed to catch fire. At first little coiling fingers of mist started to twist up from the heather and gorse, and then these wisps merged together into gauzy curtains. Within minutes this thickened and the whole landscape disappeared into the grey haze. Rosy became quite invisible at a distance of twenty feet, but Adrian felt sure that as soon as the sun rose higher the mist would disappear, so now was the time to have a rest and something to eat. He led Rosy off the road and down into a hollow, and here he unpacked his kettle and soon had it boiling over a small fire. He made himself some tea and cut himself some bread and cheese. Then he presented Rosy with several loaves of stale bread. She viewed these with disdain, turning them over and over with her foot and sighing, deeply. Than she went to the back of the trap and laid her trunk on the firkin of ale, and Adrian, for the first time in his association with Rosy, lost his temper. He leapt to his feet ran forward and slapped Rosy’s trunk as hard as he could and Rosy, astonished at this unkind act from her god, backed away uttering a squeal out of all proportion to the pain the blow had given her. She was astonished and hurt; all she had wanted was a small nip of ale to wet her dry mouth and ease her aching head, and here was Adrian going berserk.

Keep away from that beer you . . . you . . . you bloody
elephant
, you,” snarled Adrian. “That’s all you damn’ well think of, booze, booze, booze.”

He covered the firkin up with a blanket and went and squatted morosely by his fire glaring at Rosy.

“I suppose you won’t really be satisfied until you’ve killed me,” he went on sarcastically. “Not content with invading my life and disrupting it, you then frighten half the horses in the city, terrify the Monkspepper Hunt and damn’ nearly
kill
the Master, and then go on to wreck one of the stately homes of England, dancing round with Lady Fenneltree in your trunk as though she was some low circus performer. They’re probably offering enormous rewards for our capture even now. And look at the damages: that chandelier alone must have cost a hundred and fifty pounds. But does all this worry you? Do you feel the faintest shred of remorse? No, not you. All
you
think about is getting boozed up again.”

He paused and poked the fire viciously. Rosy flapped her ears and waved her trunk to and fro. Although she missed the finer points of Adrian’s condemnation of her actions she was a perspicacious elephant and gathered from his tone of voice that he was, for some reason that escaped her, annoyed. She was very fond of Adrian and she would have liked to do something to make him feel better. She wondered if she stood on her head whether this would take his mind off his problems. She was just about to test this out when Adrian started talking again, so she paused politely to listen.

“What I’m going to do with you, you damned animal, is to get you down to the coast by hook or by crook, and then I’m going to give you to the first person that’s fool enough to want you. And I don’t care what they do with you . . . they can do anything they
like
with you . . .” Adrian paused and searched his mind for a suitably terrible fate for Rosy. “They can put you in a
lumber yard
, for all I care. They can
stuff
you and put you in a museum. That would probably be the safest place for you. I don’t care
what
happens to you as long as you get out of my life.”

Adrian paused for breath and Rosy, to show him that she bad been attending carefully to everything he said, flapped her ears and gave a small squeak.

“It’s no good pleading,” said Adrian austerely. “My mind’s quite made up. I have decided that the one thing I
don’t
want in my life is an elephant, particularly one which has an infinite capacity for drink and staggers through the countryside leaving a trail of destruction behind her. As soon as we reach the coast our association is at an end. I have suffered more than any normal human being can be expected to suffer and still remain normal. So, while I still have some sanity left, you must go. Now shut up and eat your bread. It’s all you’re going to get.”

So saying, Adrian pushed some more twigs on to the fire, rolled himself up in a blanket and tried to get half an hour’s nap before the mist lifted. He was so physically and mentally exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep almost at once, and slept blissfully on for two hours. When he awoke with a start the mist had disappeared and the moorland was flooded with sunlight. He sat up and looked about him, and what he saw made him leap to his feet in alarm. Some fifty feet away, parked by the side of a small stream, was a brightly coloured if slightly battered-looking caravan, with red and white check curtains drawn tightly over its windows. Rosy was leaning against it, a look of ecstasy on her face, scratching herself so that the whole caravan shook and rocked. From inside the caravan a shrill voice was endeavouring to make itself heard above the rasp of Rosy’s scratching.

“Go away, I command you,” shrilled the voice. “Foul demons of the pit, desist. In the name of Nebuchadnezzar and the ten Seals of Solomon, avaunt! In the name of Erasmus and the Sacred Pentacle of Promethus . . .”

“Rosy!” shouted Adrian. “Come away from there.”

Rosy sighed deeply as she left the caravan. It seemed to her that recently Adrian was always telling her not to do the things she liked doing. Adrian approached the steps that led up to the door of the caravan.

“I say!” he called. “You in there . . . I’m extremely Sorry . . .”

“Avaunt!” screamed the voice. “Avaunt, you demon, in the name of . . .”

“I’m not a demon,” shouted Adrian irritably. “Will you come out and let me explain?”

“No, no,” screamed the voice. “You can’t catch me like that . . . I’m only a poor, old woman and you’re trying to lure me out so that you can snatch the soul from my body . . . avaunt, I say . . .”

“Oh, do shut up,” said Adrian in exasperation. “I’m not a demon and I don’t want your soul. Why don’t you come out and let me explain?”

“If you’re not a demon,” said the voice cunningly, “how did you rock the caravan?”

“It was my elephant,” explained Adrian. “She was scratching herself against the side.”

“A likely story,” said the voice.

“Well, if you open the door and
look
you’ll see her,” said Adrian.

“How would I know it was an elephant?” asked the voice. “I’ve never seed one.”

Adrian took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Madam,” he said at last, “I merely wanted to apologize to you for any inconvenience that my elephant may have caused by scratching herself on your caravan. If you cannot accept the apology in the Christian spirit in which it is offered, I’m sorry. And now, good day to you, I must be on my way.”

“No, no, don’t go, I’ll come out,” screamed the voice. “I never seed an elephant.”

There was a long pause during which Adrian could hear various spells being muttered in the interior of the caravan, and then the door was opened a crack and a face like a walnut peered out, surrounded by straggling grey hair. It belonged to one of the tiniest old ladies that Adrian had ever seen. She looked, Adrian decided, exactly like a minute witch. She was dressed in a faded black velvet skirt, a tattered scarlet blouse and the had a thick black woollen shawl around her shoulders. She looked Adrian up and down, mumbling with her toothless gums.

“Good morning,” said Adrian.

“Well, where is it?” enquired the old lady.

Adrian gestured to where Rosy was standing, endeavouring to uproot a gorse bush under the mistaken impression that it was edible.

“Eeeeeeeee!” said the old lady, expelling her breath in a long gasp of wonder. “Did you ever? The size of it . . . did you ever?”

“She’s quite tame,” explained Adrian. “She was just scratching herself against your caravan.”

“I never seed anything like it,” said the old lady. “A wondrous beast . . . truly wondrous.”

“You wouldn’t, I suppose, be wanting an elephant for your type of . . . er . . . work?” asked Adrian hopefully.

“Work?” said the old lady, bristling indignantly. “I don’t
work
.”

She stumped into the caravan and reappeared carrying a board which she hung on a hook by the door.

“That’s me,” she said proudly, jerking a thumb at the board. “Finest witch in these parts.”

On the board was written in slightly shaky capitals the legend:

“Oh,” said Adrian, surprised that the old lady had in fact turned out to be a witch. “How very interesting.”

“Yes,” said the old lady, “I’m on my way to the Tuttle-penny Faire is that where you’re going?”

“No, I’m on my way down to the coast,” raid Adrian. “As a matter of fact I’m not altogether sure where we are at the moment. Could you tell me the best way to go?”