Phillpot, of course.’ He seemed quite upset that I should ask! I gathered that Major Phillpot was God locally. Mrs Lee was some kind of dependant of his, I suppose, whom he provided for. The Phillpots seemed to have lived there all their lives and more or less to have run the place.
As I wished my old boy good day and turned away he said:
‘She’s got the last cottage at the end of the street. You’ll see her outside, maybe. Doesn’t like the inside of houses. Them as has got gipsy blood don’t.’
So there I was, wandering down the road, whistling and thinking about Gipsy’s Acre. I’d almost forgotten what I’d been told when I saw a tall black-haired old woman staring at me over a garden hedge. I knew at once it must be Mrs Lee. I stopped and spoke to her.
‘I hear you can tell me about Gipsy’s Acre up there,’ I said.
She stared at me through a tangled fringe of black hair and she said:
‘Don’t have nought to do with it, young man. You listen to me. Forget about it. You’re a good-looking lad. Nothing good comes out of Gipsy’s Acre and never will.’
‘I see it’s up for sale,’ I said.
‘Aye, that’s so, and more fool he who buys it.’
‘Who’s likely to buy it?’
‘There’s a builder after it. More than one. It’ll go cheap. You’ll see.’
‘Why should it go cheap?’ I asked curiously. ‘It’s a fine site.’
She wouldn’t answer that.
‘Supposing a builder buys it cheap, what will he do with it?’
She chuckled to herself. It was malicious, unpleasant laughter.
‘Pull down the old ruined house and build, of course. Twenty—thirty houses, maybe—and all with a curse on them.’
I ignored the last part of the sentence. I said, speaking before I could stop myself:
‘That would be a shame. A great shame.’
‘Ah, you needn’t worry. They’ll get no joy of it, not those who buys and not those who lays the bricks and mortar. There’ll be a foot that slips on the ladder, and there’ll be the lorry that crashes with a load, and the slate that falls from the roof of a house and finds its mark. And the trees too. Crashing, maybe, in a sudden gale. Ah, you’ll see! There’s none that’ll get any good out of Gipsy’s Acre. They’d do best to leave it alone. You’ll see. You’ll see.’ She nodded vigorously and then she repeated softly to herself, ‘There’s no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy’s Acre. There never has been.’
I laughed. She spoke sharply.
‘Don’t laugh, young man. It comes to me as maybe one of these days you’ll laugh on the wrong side of your mouth. There’s never been no luck there, not in the house nor yet in the land.’
‘What happened in the house?’ I asked. ‘Why has it been empty so long? Why was it left to fall down?’
‘The last people that lived there died, all of them.’
‘How did they die?’ I asked out of curiosity.
‘Best not to speak of it again. But no one cared to come and live in it afterwards. It was left to moulder and decay. It’s forgot by now and best that it should be.’
‘But you could tell me the story,’ I said, wheedlingly. ‘You know all about it.’
‘I don’t gossip about Gipsy’s Acre.’ Then she let her voice drop to a kind of phoney beggar’s whine. ‘I’ll tell your fortune now, my pretty lad, if you like. Cross my palm with silver and I’ll tell your fortune. You’re one of those that’ll go far one of these days.’
‘I don’t believe nonsense about fortune-telling,’ I said, ‘and I haven’t any silver. Not to spare, anyway.’
She came nearer to me and went on in a wheedling voice. ‘Sixpence now. Sixpence now. I’ll do it for sixpence. What’s that? Nothing at all. I’ll do it for sixpence because you’re a handsome lad with a ready tongue and a way with you. It could be that you’ll go far.’
I fished a sixpence out of my pocket, not because I believed in any of her foolish superstitions but because for some reason I liked the old fraud even if I did see through her. She grabbed the coin from me, and said:
‘Give me your hand then. Both hands.’
She took my hands in her withered claw and stared down at the open palms. She was silent for a minute or two, staring. Then she dropped my hands abruptly, almost pushing them away from her. She retreated a step and spoke harshly.
‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of Gipsy’s Acre here and now and you won’t come back! That’s the best advice I can give you. Don’t come back.’
‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I come back?’
‘Because if you do you’ll come back to sorrow and loss and danger maybe. There’s trouble, black trouble waiting for you. Forget you ever saw this place. I’m warning you.’
‘Well of all the—’
But she had turned away and was retreating to the cottage. She went in and slammed the door. I’m not superstitious. I believe in luck, of course, who doesn’t? But not a lot of superstitious nonsense about ruined houses with curses on them. And yet I had an uneasy feeling that the sinister old creature had seen something in my hands. I looked down at my two palms spread out in front of me. What could anyone see in the palms of anyone’s hands? Fortune-telling was arrant nonsense—just a trick to get money out of you—money out of your silly credulity. I looked up at the sky. The sun had gone in, the day seemed different now. A sort of shadow, a kind of menace. Just an approaching storm, I thought. The wind was beginning to blow, the backs of the leaves were showing on the trees. I whistled to keep my spirits up and walked along the road through the village.
I looked again at the pasted-up bill advertising the auction of The Towers. I even made a note of the date. I had never attended a property sale in my life but I thought to myself that I’d come and attend this one. It would be interesting to see who bought The Towers. That is to say interesting to see who became the owner of Gipsy’s Acre. Yes, I think that’s really where it all began … A fantastic notion occurred to me. I’d come and pretend to myself that I was the man who was going to bid for Gipsy’s Acre! I’d bid against the local builders! They’d drop out, disappointed in their hopes of buying it cheap. I’d buy it and I’d go to Rudolf Santonix and say, ‘Build me a house. I’ve bought the site for you.’ And I’d find a girl, a wonderful girl, and we’d live in it together happy ever after.
I often had dreams of that kind. Naturally they never came to anything but they were fun. That’s what I thought then. Fun! Fun, my God! If I’d only known!
It was pure
