The Black Opal (2 page)

“Nanny was wrong. She could have sworn Mistress would have had that baby out of the house in next to no time. But, for some reason, she had to do what the doctor wanted.”

So 1 stayed in Commonwood House and what was most extraordinary was that I was to share the nursery with the Marline children.

“You was more my little baby than anyone else’s,” Sally said.

“I took to you and you took to me. Nanny couldn’t forget how you’d come. You didn’t belong here, she said.

She couldn’t bring herself to treat you like the others, never had and never would. “

I knew that well enough. As for Mrs. Marline, she scarcely ever glanced at me, though once or twice, when 1 caught her doing so, she looked quickly away. The doctor was aloof on the rare occasions when I encountered him, but he always gave me a vacant smile and sometimes patted my head and said, “All right?” to which I would nod nervously and he would nod in return and quickly pass on, as though eager to get away from me.

Adeline was always gentle. She liked babies and helped me when I was small. She used to hold my hand when I was learning to walk; she showed me pictures in the nursery books and seemed to delight in them as much as I did.

Estella was in turn friendly and hostile. It seemed that she sometimes remembered Nanny’s contempt for me and shared it. At other times she treated me like a sister.

As for Henry, he took little notice of me, but, as he appeared to have no time for any girls or people younger than himself and that included his sister it was not hurtful in the least.

It was some time before they decided I must have a name. I had always been referred to as ‘the Child’, or by Nanny as ‘that gipsy’.

Sally told me how it had come about. Sally was interested in names.

“Ever since I heard mine meant ” Princess”. That’s Sarah, see? Well, they was going to call you Rose. Tom Yardley was always telling how he’d gone out to look at the roses he’d just planted when he found you under the azalea bush. So they thought Rose would be a good name for you. 1 didn’t like it. You wasn’t a Rose to me. There are lots of Roses. You were somehow different. I thought you had something of the look of a little gipsy. Once I’d heard of somebody who was a gipsy called Carmen … no, it was Carmel, I think. And, do you know, when I

found out Carmel meant a garden, well, it was right, wasn’t it? You couldn’t be anything else but Carmel. Wasn’t you found in the garden?

“Carmel,” I said.

“That’s her name. Couldn’t be anything else.” Nobody minded much and they all started calling you Carmel. Then March . it was March when Tom Yardley found you. So, you could say I named you. “

“Thank you. Sally,” I said.

“There are a lot of Roses.” So there I was. Carmel March, origins unknown, living in Commonwood House by the grace of Dr. Marline and suffered with something less than grace by his masterful wife and Nanny Gilroy.

It was perhaps not surprising that I grew up to be what Nanny Gilroy called ‘pushing’. In that household, where I had to fend for myself in a way, I had constantly to make people understand that I did not intend to be treated as a person of no importance. I had to make them understand that, although my origins might be obscure, I was as good as any of them.

In those early days, my domain was mostly the nursery where Nanny Gilroy made a distinct difference in her treatment between me and the others. I was the outsider, and although I had to admit the truth of this, at the same time I had to show them that there was something rather special about being a person of mystery. I was there on sufferance because of a strange idea the doctor had got into his head about orphan children, and for an even stranger reason that Mrs. Marline had let it pass, so I was defiant. I told myself I was as good as any of them. This made me assertive.

“Gipsy blood!” commented Nanny.

“Weren’t they always pushing in with their clothes pegs and trying to tempt you into crossing their hands with silver in return for their telling you some trumped-up tale about the great fortune that would be yours?”

1 wondered a good deal about the gipsies and tried to find out all I could. 1 discovered they lived in caravans and travelled from place to place. To me they were mysterious and romantic people. And it was almost certain that I was one of them.

Miss Mary Harley used to come to the house to teach us.

She was the vicar’s daughter very tall, angular with untidy, wispy hair which kept escaping from the hairpins which were intended to control it. She was nervous and self-effacing, and, I know now, not very effectual. But she was kind and, as I was very appreciative of any kindness which came my way, I was fond of her.

She came because Mrs. Marline had said the children were too young to go away to school and Miss Harley would do very well until that time came.

Miss Harley was very pleased to come. I had heard Nanny Gilroy comment to Mrs. Barton, the cook, that she would be glad of the money. There wasn’t much of that to spare at the vicarage, and not surprising with that barn of a place to keep up and three daughters to marry off and none of them much to look at. Everyone said the vicarage family was as poor as their church mice, and the money would come in handy.

Miss Harley taught me my letters and I used to sit with Adeline, whom I soon overtook-and I was very contented during these sessions.

Outstanding in all my childhood memories was my first meeting with Uncle Toby.

1 liked to go into the garden alone and my steps often took me in the direction of the azalea bush. I would imagine that March morning when I was placed there. I would picture a hazy figure stealing into the garden, creeping silently so as not to be heard. And there was 1, wrapped up in a shawl. Carefully, lovingly, I should have been placed under the bushes and whoever had left me would i3

kiss me tenderly, because she it must have been a she, for it was women who were concerned with babies must have been very unhappy at leaving me.

Who was she? A gipsy, Nanny had said. She would have big earrings in her ears and her hair would be black and curly, hanging down over her shoulders.

And while I stood there, someone came very close to me. He said:

“Hello! Who are you?”

I turned sharply. He seemed enormous. He was indeed very tall. He had fair hair bleached by the sun, I discovered later-and his skin was golden brown. He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen and he was smiling.

“I’m Carmel,” I said with that dignity I had learned to assume.

“Well, that’s fine,” he said.

“Now, I knew there was something special about you. WTiat are you doing here?”

“I’m looking at the azalea bush.”

“It’s a very nice one.”

“It gave Tom Yardley a lot of trouble once.”

“Did it then? But you like it?”

“I was found under it.”

“Oh, so it was there, was it? Do you come here often to look at it?”

I nodded.

“Well, I suppose you would. It’s not everyone who’s found under an azalea bush, is it?”

I hunched my shoulders and laughed. He joined in my laughter.

“How old are you, Carmel?”

I held up four fingers.

He counted them solemnly.

“Four years old? My word! That’s a fine age to be! How long have you been it?”

“I came in March. That’s why I’m Carmel March.”

“I’m Uncle Toby.”

Whose Uncle Toby? “

“Henry’s, Estella’s, Adeline’s. Yours too, if you’ll have me.”

1 laughed again. I was apt to laugh without any definite reason when I was happy; and there was something about him which made me so.

“Will you?” he went on.

I nodded.

“You don’t live here,” I said.

“I’m visiting. I came last night.”

“Will you stay here?”

“For a while. Then I’ll be off.”

“Where?”

“To sea … I live at sea.”

“That’s fishes,” I said disbelievingly.

“And sailors,” he added.

“Uncle Toby! Uncle Toby!” Estella was running towards us. She flung herself at him.

“Hello, hello!” He picked her up and held her up above him while they laughed together. I was jealous. Then Henry came up.

“Uncle Toby!”

He put Estella down and he and Henry started talking together.

“When did you come? How long will you stay? Where have you been?”

“All will be revealed,” he said.

“I came last night after you were in bed. I’ve been hearing all about you, what you’ve been doing when I wasn’t here. And I’ve made the acquaintance of Carmel.”

Estella glanced rather derisively in my direction, but Uncle Toby’s smile was warm.

“Let’s go in,” he said.

“I’ve got lots to tell you and lots to show you.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Estella.

“Come on then,” said Henry.

Estella clung to Uncle Toby’s hand and pulled him is

towards the house. I felt suddenly left alone, and then Uncle Toby turned to me and held out his hand.

“Come along, Carmel,” he said.

And I was happy again.

Uncle Toby’s visits were the happiest times of my early days. They were not very frequent but all the more cherished for that. He was Mrs. Marline’s brother, which never ceased to amaze me. There could not be two people less like each other. There was none of her austerity about him. He gave the impression that nothing in the world ever bothered him. Whatever it was, he would overcome it, and he made one feel that one could do the same. Perhaps that was at the root of his charm.

The household was quite different when he was there. Even Nanny Gilroy softened. He used to say things to them all which he could not have meant. Lies, I thought? Surely that was not very good. But whatever Uncle Toby did was right in my eyes.

“Nanny,” he would say, ‘you grow more beautiful every time I see you.

”

“You get along with you. Captain Sinclair,” she would say, pursing her lips and bridling. I think she really believed it.

Even Mrs. Marline changed. Her face softened when she looked at him and I continued to marvel that he could be her brother. The doctor was also affected. He laughed more. As for Estella and Henry, they were always hanging round him. He was kind and especially gentle with Adeline. She would sit smiling at him so that she really looked quite beautiful in a strange way.

What enchanted me was that he always made a point of including me. I fancied he liked me more than the others but perhaps that was what I wanted to believe.

He would say: “Come along, Carmel.” And he would take my hand and press it.

“You keep close to Uncle Toby.” As if 1 needed to be asked to do that!

“He is my Uncle Toby,” Estella reminded me.

“He’s not yours.”

“He says he will be my uncle if I want him to, and I do.”

“Gipsies don’t have uncles like Uncle Toby.”

That saddened me, because I knew it was true. But 1 refused to accept it. He never made any difference between me and the others. In fact, I think he made a very special point of showing that he wanted to be my uncle.

When he did come to the house, he always made a point of spending a great deal of time with the children. Estella and Henry were having riding lessons and he said I ought to have them too. He set me on a pony with a leading rein attached to it and led us round and round a field. That was the height of bliss to me.

He used to tell us stories of what he did at sea. He took his ship to countries all round the world. He spoke of places of which I had never heard: the mysterious East, the wonders of Egypt, colourful India, France, Italy and Spain.

I would stand by the globe in the schoolroom, turning it round, and would cry out to Miss Harley: “Where is India? Where is Egypt?” I wanted to know more about those wonderful places which had been visited by the even more wonderful Uncle Toby.

He brought presents for the children and wonder of wonders for me, too. It was useless for Estella to tell me that he was not my Uncle Toby. He was mine . more than theirs.

My present was a box in sandalwood on which sat three little monkeys.

He told me they were saying: “See no Evil, Speak no Evil, Hear no Evil,” and when the lid of the box was lifted, it played “God Save the Queen’. I had never possessed anything so beautiful. I would not let it out of my sight. I kept it by my bed so that in the night I could stretch out my hand and feel it was there, and the first thing I did on waking was to play that tune.

Commonwood House was enchanted territory when he

was there; and when he went away it became dull and ordinary again.

Yet still it was touched with the hope that he would come back.

When he said goodbye I clung to him; he seemed to like that.

“Will you come back again soon?” I always asked.

And his reply was always the same: “As soon as I am able.”

“You will, you will?” I demanded earnestly, knowing the inclination of grown-ups to make promises they never intended to carry out.

And to my almost unbearable joy, he replied: “Nothing would keep me away, now that I have made the acquaintance of Miss Carmel March.”

I stood listening to the sound of the horses’ hooves and the wheels of the carriage which was taking him away. Then, as we went into the house, Estella said: “He’s not your Uncle Toby.”

But nothing would convince me that he was not.

One day, during the spring following Uncle Toby’s visit, Henry came in and announced: “The gipsies are in the woods. I saw their caravans as I came past.”

My heart began to pound. It was years since they had been this way not since the time of my birth.

“My patience me,” said Nanny Gilroy.

“Something ought to be done about that lot. Why should they come here and pester honest folk?”

She looked at me as she spoke, as though I were responsible for their coming.

1 said: “They’ve got a right. The woods are for everybody if they want to go there.”

“Don’t give me any of your sauce. Miss, if you please,” said Nanny. ‘ You might have your reasons for being fond of suchlike. 1 and there