‘It was true, every word,’ answered Mrs. Lee; ‘it was wonderfully true. She described the man that I was to marry, and had she spoken with your dear father’s portrait in her hand she could not have been more accurate. She told me how many children I should have; but, what is more extraordinary, she named not only the year but the month of the year in which I should be married. And it came to pass exactly as she had predicted.’
‘And what more did the gipsy tell you, mother?’ said Alice.
‘No more, my love,’ answered Mrs. Lee, but with a note of hesitation, which made me suspect that more had been told to her by that old gipsy than she was now willing to reveal.
Meanwhile there was much laughter amongst the passengers at the other end of the deck. I could occasionally distinguish an hysterical giggle uttered by Mrs. Webber, and once a deep unquiet Ha! ha! delivered by her husband.
‘A ship seems a strange place for gipsies and fortune-telling,’ said Alice. ‘Why is that woman going to Australia, I wonder? Are there any of her tribe there?’
‘Probably some ancestor of hers was transported,’ answered Mrs. Lee. ‘He left descendants, and the woman is going to settle down amongst them. Gipsies were constantly being transported for theft of all sorts when I was a girl, in days when there were convict ships and when unhappy wretches were banished for life from their country for crimes which are now visited with a few months’ imprisonment. I am amazed that there should be any gipsies left. There was more prejudice against them than even against the Jews. They were hunted from town to town, the parish eye was never off them, and they were really so wicked, they committed so many sins, that it is amazing there should be any survivors of the prisons.’
Whilst Mrs. Lee was thus speaking, Mrs. Webber came sailing out of the crowd with a flushed face and a smile of excitement. Her flowing robe of white cashmere fluffed out in ample winding folds as she advanced, and she approached with an airy, floating gait that was like dancing.
‘Oh, Miss C----,’ she exclaimed, eagerly bending towards me, ‘I have been having my fortune told; and, do you know, the ugly creature is a witch; she is positively a witch! She has told me some extraordinary things, I assure you. My poor husband was silly enough to “hem” once or twice as though her prophecies disquieted him. Now, Miss C----, I want you to let the woman tell you your fortune.’