Aurora Read Free

the very one who would give her a battle.”
    “Why don’t you start advertising again? He may be about the countryside somewhere. He may not have heard of Bernard’s death, and not realize he is now Lord Raiker.”
    “What, roaming the countryside for eleven years? Hardly. One would have heard of Kenelm, I am convinced. I sometimes wonder if he went to America. We are practically on the coast. I wouldn’t have a notion how to go about advertising in America.”
    “You would hire an agent, I expect.”
    The word “hiring” had the immediate effect of lessening Lady Raiker’s interest in finding her brother-in-law. She was not precisely purse-pinched, but she had a certain  natural tendency to behave as though she were, and her interest was diverted to the roses, where she discovered some slugs that sent her looking for her gardener.
     
    Chapter Two
     
    Lady Raiker returned to her chair, complaining that she had found the gardener under a tree, smoking a pipe if you please, while the slugs ate up every petal on her roses.
    “What is it?” she asked in alarm, as she observed that her sister was staring toward the shrubbery, and pointing.
    “Oh, the gypsies are back,” Marnie said, unperturbed. But the swarthy-faced hag that smiled at them through broken teeth looked dangerous to the younger lady.
    “Quick, get Mimi!” Aurora said.
    “They won’t eat you, you know,” her sister scoffed. “They come annually, usually about this time, in the spring. No doubt we will find a few chickens missing in the morning, but you need not worry about a slit throat. This one is the matron of the crew. She tells fortunes. How it brings it all back! She foretold Bernard’s death last year—she told me there was a dark cloud on my horizon, and within two weeks he was gone. Already he was complaining of the earache. Let us hear what she has to say this time.”
    “Fortune, missie?” the old hag asked, advancing from the shrubbery when Marnie beckoned her. “Gypsy tell your fortune, yes?”
    “Yes, please,” Marnie replied, and held her hand out. Aurora flinched to see her sister’s dainty white fingers taken in that disreputable brown hand, and kept looking to Mimi, who had released the kitten and was coming closer, staring in fascination at the woman. While the old lady traced along the palm’s lines and muttered to herself, Aurora regarded her closely. The hair sticking out from the front of her bright kerchief was grizzled, once black, now iron-gray. The face, the colour of café au lait, was lined and the eyes cunning.
    “Tall gentleman friend coming,” the gypsy said, smiling and shaking her head for emphasis. “Coming mighty soon, yes, missie. Good friend coming. Big dark man—handsome. He got troubles too. You got troubles. Big dark man and little gold lady help the troubles go away.” She peered slyly up to Marnie’s gold curls and blue eyes to see how this prophecy went down. As the lady was smiling in girlish delight to hear of a handsome gentleman coming her way, the gypsy went on. “Here’s death going away, and life coming,” she chanted, tracing some lines on the palm. The memory of Bernard seemed to fade into the distant past as she spoke. “Happiness in your future.” She added a few details regarding watching out for dark moons and such obscure mumbo jumbo as left her listeners quite at sea, then she turned to Aurora.
    “Tell the fortune, missie?” she asked. Aurora was repelled by the woman, but still some curiosity compelled her forward, and she held out her hand. The old gypsy shook her head doubtfully. One would think there wasn’t a line to be seen from the look of uninterest the hand evoked. “Life is slow coming.” she said at last. “No good here—no bad too. Long time no husband for missie. One day he comes. One long day from now.” Intercepting an angry glance from her client, she added a little good news, hoping to increase her reward. “The dark clouds have gold linings.