The Gypsy woman held out her hands for my wraps. “Come and warm yourself by the fire. I will make a tisane for you. Something to warm the blood.”
I struggled out of the blue shawl and various other bits and pieces and took a chair, grateful to be out of the wind. Miss Allenby rested her basket on the stone-flagged floor at her feet while our hostess busied herself with cups and saucers and little pots.
At length she joined us at the table. “Miss Ailith, black tea with a bit of raspberry leaf,” she said, passing her a tiny teapot. “Lady Julia, a tisane of borage.” I peeked into the pot and was enchanted to find a pale green decoction, spotted with just a few tiny, starry blue flowers.
“How lovely,” I said. Rosalie Smith gave me an enigmatic smile.
“All herbs have their purpose, lady. They can heal or kill, but one must know their secrets.”
The conversation seemed mildly sinister to me, and I glanced sharply at my harmless-looking tisane before changing the subject.
“I confess, Mrs. Smith, I am surprised to find a Romany living so settled a life. You are far removed from the road up here, are you not?”
Another might have taken offence at the question, but not Mrs. Smith. She merely gave me one of her inscrutable smiles and poured out her own cup of tea. Very strong and black, she took it with no sugar, straining the leaves through her teeth as I had so often seen the women of her people do.
“I am here because it suits me, lady,” she said, her tone friendly. “I have a purpose here. When it is served, I will rejoin my own folk.”
“A purpose?” I sipped at the borage tisane. It was delicious. The flavour was light and reminded me of tea, but greener somehow, with a thread of something I could not quite place.
“Cucumber?” Mrs. Smith hazarded, watching me.
“Yes! It is quite refreshing,” I told her. She smiled again, clearly gratified.
“I make many tisanes, for many ailments. The villagers and farmers have learned to come to me for their troubles.”
“Are there no doctors? Not even in the village?”
Mrs. Smith shrugged, and Miss Allenby put down her cup. “There is one, but he is quite elderly. His hands tremble, and he is very often the worse for drink.”
“Besides,” put in Mrs. Smith, “the old ways are often the best, do you not agree, Lady Julia?”
I shrugged, thinking of Val’s enthusiasm for the latest advances. “They can be. I think there is much to be said for modern medicine as well.”
Mrs. Smith laughed. “You are a complicated woman, I think. You look with one eye to the past and another to a future you cannot yet see.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I asked coolly. I was well-accustomed to the Gypsy tendency to make mystical pronouncements.
Mrs. Smith turned to Ailith Allenby. “How does your lady mother?”
“Better, thank you. She asked me to fetch more of the ointment for her joints and more of the meadowsweet and liquorice tea. Her hands have been troubling her of late.”
Mrs. Smith nodded. “I will send along some quince jelly as well. Tell her to take a spoonful every day. And you will take her some fresh peppermint from the garden. Steep a handful in hot water and tell her to sip it slowly. It will stimulate the appetite.” She cast an eye over Ailith’s slender figure. “Drink a cup yourself. You will not last out another winter if you do not put meat upon those bones.”
To my surprise, Miss Allenby did not seem to resent the observation. She merely smiled and sipped at her tea. Just then there was a scratching at the door and a low, pitiful moan. I started, but Mrs. Smith waved me to my chair with a laugh.
“‘Tis only Rook,” she said, opening the door to admit a white lurcher. He was thin, with sorrowful eyes and a clutch of long, pretty feathers in his mouth.
“What have you brought me, little one? A fat pheasant for the pot?”
He dropped it and gave her a worshipful stare. She patted him and waved him toward the fire. He stretched out before the hearth, giving a contented sigh as he settled onto the warm stones.
Mrs. Smith put her prise into a basin and laid it aside.
“I will clean it later. Perhaps your ladyship would like the feathers for a hat?” she added hopefully.
They were lovely feathers, and I knew she would haggle tirelessly over the price.
“That’s quite illegal, you know,” Miss Allenby commented, nodding toward the basin. “That dog is a poacher.”
Mrs. Smith roared with laughter, holding a hand to her side. “Bless you, lady, of course he is! All Gypsy dogs know the value of a fat bird. He was of no use to my husband because he is white, but he suits me well enough.”
I had heard before that the Roma never kept white dogs as they were too easily detected when they were thieving, but I was more interested in the other little titbit Mrs. Smith had revealed.
“Your husband? Does he travel then?”
“Aye, lady. He travels with our family, but I keep a place for him here when the caravans come this way. That is his violin,” she said, nodding toward the instrument on the little table. “And the bed is wide enough for two.”
She roared with laughter again while Miss Allenby and I looked politely away. Had it not been for Miss Allenby’s company, I might have joined in her laughter. I had always had an affinity for such women—comfortable and at ease in their own skin—and I had known a few of them. My father’s particular friend, Madame de Bellefleur, and Minna’s own mother, Mrs. Birch, came to mind. But Miss Allenby was cool to the point of primness and I did not like to shock her.
She reached for her basket then and presented it to Mrs. Smith. “Godwin slaughtered a lamb, and Mama has sent along a small joint. I hope that will be sufficient?” It was a question, but only just. It was apparent from her tone that she considered the haunch a fair trade for the medicinals she had come to fetch.
Mrs. Smith peered into the basket, inspecting the lamb carefully. She put it aside and handed the basket back to Miss Allenby. “It will do,” she said at length. “The dew will be dry now. Go and cut an armful of mint. I will fetch the ointment of St. Hildegarde and the quince jelly.”
Miss Allenby rose and took up her wraps and basket. Rook the lurcher raised his head lazily when she opened the door, then laid it back down.
“He is a lazy one,” Mrs. Smith commented with a fond look at the dog. “But his company suits me.”
“It must get lonely for you,” I ventured, “alone up here, with only the odd villager for company.”
Mrs. Smith shrugged. “I told you, lady, I have a purpose. If one has a purpose, life is bearable enough, do you not think so?”
I did think so, in fact. I had spent the better part of my widowhood searching for one.
“But I think you will be lonely here,” she said suddenly, leaning toward me and pitching her voice low. “And when you are, you must come to Rosalie. You will have no greater friend on the