The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Read online

  Addressing the end one, the woman commanded, ‘Stop that clawing, Betsy.’ The cat sheathed its claws and the dog on which it was sitting opened its mouth and yawned. Then the woman, putting her hand to her shoulder on which sat a rook, its feathers gleaming like polished blacklead, said, ‘Hooky,’ and the bird flew lopsidedly, owing to its clipped wing, from her shoulder and alighted on the back of the first cat, then proceeded to jump from one furry back to another. This done, the bird dropped onto the grass and began pecking vigorously, only to be brought up by the trainer’s voice yelling, ‘Round, Hooky!’

  On this, the bird circled the company of dogs and cats before finally coming to a standstill in front of them.

  As the fat lady passed them she said, ‘He’s comin’ on fine, Martha. You’re a marvel, a real marvel.’

  For answer, the small woman wagged her head from side to side: she knew she was a marvel and she knew she was fitted for better set-ups than this. Oh yes, the time would come when her strange ability was not advertised on a strip of canvas bearing the words: Martha Newbourn, Amazing Animal Trainer, but would be on a wide board emblazoned in gaslight, advertising the acts of a circus, and she would perform under a big tent which would be full of people.

  The fat lady came to a stop at the foot of the steps leading into the first of the three caravans. She did not attempt to go up them but, poking her head forward into the doorway, called, ‘I got it, Georgie.’

  The voice that came back to her was thick and weak saying, ‘Thanks, Frances.’

  ‘She’s enjoyed her trip to town.’

  Again the voice said, ‘Thanks, Frances.’

  Taking the medicine bottle from her basket, Frances Travers handed it to Emma, then pushed her up the steps and into the caravan.

  José Layaro Molinero, known among his companions as Georgie, or Mollo, turned slowly onto his side in the bunk and held his hand out to his daughter, and she, placing the medicine bottle in it, said, ‘This’ll make you better. When you drink it all, it’ll make you better.’

  He did not look at the bottle but laid it behind him on the narrow bunk; then touching her arm lightly, he said, ‘Sit…Sit, my Emma.’

  Emma sat on the stool at the head of the bunk, her face on a level with her father’s, and she smiled at him as she said, ‘It was lovely in the town. The sun was shinin’ and everybody was nice to us and no-one called after Mrs Travers today. But that was perhaps ’cos the boys were all at school.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to go to school, my Emma?’

  Her head to one side, the child thought for a moment, then said, ‘Some time, but not all the time, not when I’m practising. Did you hear that I whipped out the pegs?’

  ‘I heard…I want you to go to school, Emma, and learn to read and write.’

  ‘But you learned me. I can do my name.’

  ‘Your name is nothing, it is only the beginning. I had the chance to go to school, but I scorned it. I, too, preferred the whip, but…but it was a big mistake. The whip leads you nowhere, only to the end of it, and the end stings. You understand? No, no, you don’t. But my Emma, me…I want you to learn, to learn your letters. And a lot more things. You are like me, you would be quick to learn. I was quick to learn what I thought was all I needed, and that was the language. I was but ten when I came to this country, but ten, three years older than you are now, but I…I learned the language. I speak good, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes, Dada, you speak good.’

  ‘But’—he shook his head slowly now—‘I do not speak too good. There is another way to speak and I want you to be learned that way…Do you know you have a grandmama?’

  Her eyes widened and her lips moved into a smile as she nodded at him, saying, ‘Yes, you have told me, in Spain.’

  He hitched himself slowly up onto his elbow now and brought his face close to hers as he said, ‘You have another grandmama, Emma. She is here in…in this country.’

  ‘Here?’ Her eyes grew wider, and he nodded at her and repeated, ‘Here. She is your mama’s mother.’

  ‘My mama’s mother? And she is here?’ Emma now looked towards the open door of the caravan, and he put in, ‘Not here, but not so far away.’

  ‘We are going to see her?’

  ‘No, not me. I not go to see her, but you go. She…she doesn’t like me.’ He smiled faintly now.

  ‘Then I don’t like her.’

  He patted her hand, saying softly, ‘She has good reason. My Eliza, she ran away from her mother to marry me, and her mother never want to see her again.’

  ‘She don’t want to see me then.’

  ‘Oh, I think she will.’

  ‘I won’t go to see her without you. And anyway, I can’t go ’cos Mr Travers is learnin’ me to get right for the fair day. When the big fair comes we will join them like last year, and Mr Travers says…’

  ‘I don’t want you in the big fair day.’

  ‘But, Dada.’

  ‘No more. No more.’ He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘El latigo, it is finished for both of us.’

  ‘The whip? Why?’

  ‘Because, my Emma—’ he was holding her two hands now on top of the striped blanket and he pressed them down into it as he said, ‘Better things, better things for you besides the whip, or the knife.’

  Slowly he eased off his elbow and lay back, and his breathing became heavy, accentuating the silence that had fallen between them.

  Presently, she said softly, ‘Dada.’ And he answered, ‘Yes, my Emma?’

  ‘I would rather go to my grandmama in Spain.’

  He made a sound like a throaty laugh now and he raised his eyes up towards the painted roof of the caravan just above his head as he said, ‘And so would I, my Emma, so would I, but…but it cannot be. Spain is too far away, and…and your Spanish grandmama…well, she would be too old to bother. She will be nearing…oh—’ he screwed up his eyes as he reckoned his mother’s age, and then said, ‘coming up to seventy years, my mother will be.’

  Turning his head, he gazed at his daughter. ‘You have her eyes, kindly eyes,’ he said, ‘but’—now he pursed his lips slightly—‘you have her temper too. Oh yes, my Emma, you have her temper too. You smile, but yes, you are your Spanish grandmama’s other self. Your mama, she had no temper, my Eliza had no temper, she was…What was she, my Eliza? She was agreeable. Oh yes, agreeable. And you too are agreeable.’ He nodded now at Emma. ‘You have her hair, like the chestnut shell when rubbed, only darker.’ He put out his hand and stroked the thick long waves that fell below the child’s shoulders and he said now, ‘Always look to your hair. Wash it. Whenever you come to a river, wash it, ’specially if the river is runnin’ fast. And…’

  Of a sudden he began to gasp, and she stood up and, bending over him, said, ‘Take some of your new medicine, Dada, it will make you better.’

  After a moment he gasped, ‘Bring…Robert…or Annie.’

  She scrambled down the steps of the caravan and ran to where two young boys, looking startlingly alike, were practising tumbling on the grass and she called to them, ‘Andy! Billy! Where is your dada?’

  They stopped and together they pointed to the next field where a man was riding a horse bareback. One minute he was sitting on it, next standing on its back, and the next minute he had done a back somersault and landed on his feet, and all the while his wife held the horse by a long rope.

  Running to the gate of the field, Emma called, ‘Uncle Tummond! Aunty Tummond! Dada wants you.’

  They both stopped, turned, and looked at her; then the woman, going to the horse, unloosened the rope and followed the man towards her.

  They did not ask her any questions but they passed her, and she followed them. She liked the man she called Uncle Tummond, but she was a little afraid of his wife who could eat fire. She was a fearsome sight, his wife when eating fire. And she was teaching her sons, too, to eat fire. At present, though, they were just tumblers.

  She did not follow the couple into the caravan but
sat on the steps and listened to their voices. Her father’s voice came to her, distant, saying, ‘You sent it off?’ And the answer came, ‘Yes Georgie, six days ago. It caught the Edinburgh mail that would drop it off at Newcastle. The coach went out on the dot, like every day, at six minutes afore two. It would be in Newcastle that night and get to that place beyond Gateshead Fell the next day.’

  ‘There’s been time to answer.’

  ‘Perhaps they cannot write.’ It was Auntie Tummond speaking now, and her husband answered, ‘They could have got a preacher or somebody.’

  ‘That’s if they ever see a preacher up there in the wilds.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, woman! How far did you say it was from the town, Georgie?’

  ‘Oh.’ Her father’s voice came faintly now, hesitantly saying, ‘About five miles from the city of Newcastle. Beyond Gateshead Fell there…there was a village…Fell-burn. Yes Fell-burn, above that. Above that.’

  ‘Well then, the letter should have got to her all right. Perhaps she has died, Georgie.’

  ‘Perhaps…but no, no. Alive she was when Eliza died. And she can write. I sent letter to her then, an’ she return a bitter letter. No, I do not think she died…Robert.’

  ‘Yes, Georgie?’

  ‘I don’t want my Emma to travel; I…I want her to grow up in a…a home.’

  ‘There’s worse homes than this, Georgie.’ It was Auntie Tummond’s voice again. ‘She’d be well looked after, we’d see to that.’

  ‘I know, I know, Annie, and I…I do…do thank you, warmly I do, but I promised Eliza she would never go into the show. Play the whips, yes; learn to use ’em, yes; but not for the show. Eliza, she’s very upset when I show Emma how to throw the knife, but Emma take to both the knife and the whip.’

  ‘Aye, she’s amazin’ for her age. An’ Georgie, that’s why Sep wants her in the show; just for this once when the fair comes. You see, you’re a big miss, Georgie, like Eliza was. Things haven’t been goin’ too well. It…it would do him a favour if you let her go in just this once. I would see…in fact I promise you, Georgie, it’ll just be this once.’

  ‘No, Robert, no. I…I know you are not askin’ for yourself, if it were so I would say yes, because I owe you, always have, and now you give me shelter to die in.’

  ‘Nonsense. Nonsense.’ Annie Tummond was speaking again. ‘It’s share and share alike. The lads like sleeping under canvas and so does Emma. Oh yes, she does, she prefers the canvas to this any day. You know yourself she’d rather sleep outside then sleep in your wagon…Oh! now, now; don’t distress yourself.’

  When Emma heard the sound of her father’s harsh coughing she rose from the steps and looked towards the open half of the door, and when the coughing subsided she leant forward towards the lower half of the door and strained her ears to what her father was now saying. But the words came muddled and all she could make out of them was, ‘Promise me, Robert, promise me.’ And Mr Tummond’s voice answering, ‘It’ll be as you say, Georgie, it’ll be as you say.’

  Two

  The people of the town were very kind: some sent flowers, some even followed the small cortège to the graveyard. The remarks they made about the Spaniard were all kindly: some of them could look back over the fifteen to twenty years that the Travers Travelling Show had come each year to join the big fair, besides putting on its own displays. The Spaniard had always seemed a handsome-looking man and strong. He had no spare flesh but people were amazed at the strength of his arms as he manipulated the whips, some only three feet long, others ranging fifteen to twenty feet. They recalled how the women in the audience would squeal when the whip trapped the legs of a husband or brother, never of themselves, but so gently that the captives felt no hurt.

  And they recalled too how he threw the daggers all round the lovely young girl who was his wife. It had been a great pity, they said, and very strange that she too should die in this very place only eighteen months back. He was being buried on top of her. Now wasn’t that unusual? Not unusual for townsfolk but for travelling show people. Well, it was something to remark on.

  The townspeople also remarked to each other that all the members of the Travers Travelling Show were superior-like people, that is superior to gypsies and such. Some had even warned their children not to tease the fat lady, although she seemed so good-natured that she didn’t appear to mind.

  But what surprised those townspeople who were following the coffin which was laid on the flat cart and draped with a many-coloured shawl, the whole being drawn by a horse, was that the travelling people had allowed the child to be present. The little girl, they noticed, was walking between the fat lady and the fire-eater; and she wasn’t dressed all in black, but in a brown coat and a green bonnet. For that matter, none of the travelling people were in black. Of course it was understandable, they supposed, black clothes cost money, and the travellers usually dressed gaily even if the colours were faded with many washings.

  Emma was crying. She knew she was crying inside but her face was dry. There was a terrible pain in her chest and also a feeling of resentment. This latter was centred round the apothecary: she had laid such stock on that bottle of medicine and she had seen that her dada had taken every drop of it. But it hadn’t helped, he had died. Like her mama had died.

  When she stood by the graveside and watched the long plain box going into the ground and listened to the parson’s voice, she knew that he was telling lies. If her dada was going into heaven he wouldn’t be going into the earth, they would have put wings on him like in the windows of Christ Church, the one with the tall spire. She had been in there; Mrs Travers had taken her when out for a dander one day. She had liked the church. It was very nice and very big, but it made you seem smaller than you were. No, she didn’t believe this parson. There was something wrong somewhere.

  The clods were dropping on her dada, hitting him. No-one had ever hit her dada; they were frightened to because he could use the whip so well.

  Something exploded in her chest. She heard someone yelling. She didn’t know it was herself until Uncle Tummond lifted her up, saying, ‘There, there. There, there,’ and carried her away.

  She cried on and off for three days, while those about her kept talking, talking. When she finally stopped crying she slept for a long while, and when she woke up everybody seemed different. They spoke to her in low voices, their words kindly, and she knew they were saying goodbye.

  Auntie Tummond woke her up one morning from the straw pallet at the head of the caravan, told her to dress, and then gave her a mug of milk and a shive of bread, after which both she and her husband sat on the edge of the bunk and, looking at her, said, ‘Emma, you’re going to your grandma the day.’

  She made no reply, just swallowed the mouthful of bread and continued to look at them. And now it was Uncle Tummond who said, ‘Your dada wanted it, we…we didn’t. We wanted you to stay, everybody wants you to stay, but Georgie made us promise to send you to your grandma’s. She…she lives on a farm and it’ll be very nice, animals and all that. Your dada wrote to her, so—’ he gulped in his throat before ending, ‘so she should be expecting you, likely waiting for you.’ He looked at his wife as if for confirmation, but Annie Tummond was staring at the child and it was she who now took from the pocket of her voluminous skirt a little leather pouch and placed it on the stool in front of her. She shook it gently and from it there sprayed a number of golden sovereigns.

  ‘This is your dada’s savings. He…he wanted you to have it. There are fourteen sovereigns. It is quite a bit of money and you must take care of it. I’ll pin it to the inside of your bodice. And don’t let anyone know it’s there until you get to your grandma’s.’

  Emma looked down at the golden coins; then silently she picked up one in each hand and then extended her arms towards the couple sitting on the bunk, and at this they both shook their heads vigorously, saying, ‘No, no! It is for you.’

  ‘Dada would have given you them.’

  ‘He has give
n us enough, his cart and horse and odds and ends…’

  ‘Not the whips and his knives?’

  ‘Well’—Annie Tummond shook her head—‘he didn’t say anything about them.’

  ‘I want them, please. Please.’

  She leant towards them, and Robert Tummond, putting out his hand, patted her arm, saying, ‘All right, all right, you’ll have anything you want, but they’ll be a bit of weight.’

  ‘I can carry them.’ Now rising to her feet, she asked simply, ‘How do I go?’

  ‘Well, we’ve been talking about it,’ said Robert Tummond. ‘There’s two ways: either by the express from London which calls at the Reindeer and then goes on to Newcastle, but it comes in here on three in the morning. And then there’s the Highflyer. That stops at the Black Boy and that’s a bit later, just on five, but it only goes as far as Durham, and Charlie who knows these parts says its longer from Durham to Fellburn village than ’tis from Newcastle to the village, so we think the earlier one would be better for you. We don’t know exactly what time it goes out but we’ll have to be there close on three. And don’t worry’—he put out his hand—‘you’ll be in the charge of the guard, and they are nice fellows. And there’ll be lots of people travellin’ and they’ll look after you. You’ll have the address of your granny pinned on your coat, and when you get to Newcastle, well’—he blinked now before adding—‘the guard will likely put you on another coach or carriage. Oh he’s sure to put you on something that’ll take you to the village. Now’—he forced a grim smile to his face as he ended—‘it’ll be a great adventure. Don’t you think so, Emma? A great adventure.’

  She stared back at these two dear friends, then pushing the stool aside, she threw herself towards them, and again she was crying.

  They were all there with the exception of Septimus Travers for, as he said, somebody had to stay and look after the camp. But then Emma knew he wasn’t pleased that she was going to her grandma’s. And she also knew it would have been fruitless to tell him that she too wasn’t pleased that she was going to this strange grandma’s. But if her dada said she had to go then she must obey her dada. She had always obeyed her dada …