My Own True Love (8 page)

"What are you doing?" she whispered at Toma.

He made a sweeping gesture toward the crowd. "You said you wanted to play."

"Not here. Not now!"

"If not here, where? If not now, when?" the ring piped up.

"I don't need any comments from you, thank you!"

"I didn't say anything."

"I wasn't talking to you!" Sara heard the panic in her voice and tried to get the better of it. "I mean, aren't you supposed to go on now?"

Toma left her to walk to the front of the stage. While Sara watched in horror, he bowed to the audience, then announced, "A fine gypsy musician to entertain you while I prepare for the death-defying feats to come." He glanced back at her for an instant, smiling encouragement. "Ladies and gentlemen," he went on to the waiting audience, "the incomparable Sara!"

As he stepped back there was a sprinkling of applause. She could feel people staring, waiting, but she couldn't look at them. She took a step forward, then another. She took the guitar from the bag without quite realizing she was doing it. Her blood felt frozen in her veins. It was the same cold fear of facing an audience that she'd always had, but this time she couldn't let it matter. The ring was right, as much as she hated to admit it. She had to do it. Her future in the past depended on it. She looked into Toma's eyes once more as she made it all the way to the front of the stage. He had given her a chance. She had to do it for him. He was there for her no matter what.

Nothing else matters,
she thought. Which was also the title of a painfully beautiful love song she just happened to know how to play acoustically. It was as if Toma's caring fueled her courage. She didn't let herself think about the crowd as she began to play.

Toma wasn't anywhere in sight when she finished the song. She'd gone through it by rote, without any great feeling, but at least she'd gotten through it. A few people applauded. Sara looked up in surprise.

She was more than surprised. She liked it. She smiled.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

She ignored the ring, even if it did mirror her own thought. She managed to look at the audience for a second longer, and give them a shy smile. Then she lowered her head and played a folk song she hoped the people would find familiar. She played two more songs and got more enthusiastic response from the crowd before Toma came out carrying a round velvet cap in his hand. She watched in amazement as he held the cap out significantly and a few coins were tossed onto the stage.

They like me,
she thought,
they really like me.
She kept hold of the guitar with one hand while she scrambled to pick up the coins. Toma presented the cap to her with a flourish so she could drop the money into it. Then he graced her with a proud look before he hustled her offstage in order to get on with his own act.

She passed the ever-disapproving Sandor going up the rear steps as she came lightly down. A familiar face was waiting for her in the fenced courtyard.

"Mala?" Sara said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" Sara looked angrily at the ring. "How did she get back here?"

"Please call me Aunt Molly, dear," the woman answered. "You know I don't use my Romany name anymore. The dear late Mr. Macalpine always preferred Molly." She sighed. "May he rest in peace."

"Molly?" Sara questioned the woman who looked just like her friend.

Maybe the woman didn't look exactly like Mala; she was a little shorter and a little rounder, but her dark eyes were certainly the same. She wore a black dress, and a black bonnet covered her graying black hair. Behind them a roar of adoration went up from the crowd. Sandor must have lit the flames beneath Toma's tightrope. Sara tried not to worry about him performing the dangerous stunt. She concentrated on the woman instead.

"Aunt Molly Macalpine? My aunt?"
Must be more reincarnation stuff,
Sara decided. My
father
here looks like my father back home, only with a temper. So in this life Mala is my aunt instead of
my math teacher. Right.
Sara smiled weakly at the woman. "Hi, Aunt Molly."

Beth appeared before anything more could be said. She snatched the hat away from Sara and quickly ran the coins through her fingers. "Gawd!" the girl complained loudly. "Call this an honest living. You can't buy a quart o' gin with this."

Sara took back the cap; it felt lighter. She didn't know how much money she'd actually made, but she definitely had less now. Beth must have helped herself to a few shillings.

She held out her hand. "Hand it over." Beth grinned and unashamedly dropped three coins into Sara's palm. "We aren't going to be buying gin," Sara informed the girl. "This is for basic necessities."

"Gin's necessary," Beth answered. "Ask anyone."

"Nonsense," Molly answered. "Nothing and no one is necessary but our Lord and his Commandments. You'd be wise to heed the word of Jesus Christ, my girl.”

Beth looked at the woman as if she were about to spit on her. Molly looked at Beth as if she were about to launch into a sermon. Sara got the idea that Aunt Molly was a missionary. She didn't know what to say.

She was saved the need to when another roar went up, not from the stage this time, but from the entrance to the courtyard. Sara recognized the bellow even before she turned her head to look at the man charging toward them. She smiled wanly at Beng's approach, but Beng's anger wasn't directed at her this time.

"You!" he shouted, halting in" front of Molly. "What are you doing here,
mirame?"

Molly didn't flinch at the insult, but looked Beng squarely in the eyes. "Sara's young man asked me to have a little talk with her. As her only female relative."

"You are no relative of mine. You make me unclean just looking at you."

"Who's asking you to look at me?" Molly shot back. She pointed at Sara. "I'm here to try to save my niece's soul, not listen to your heathen ravings about cleanliness. Mr. Macalpine was the finest man I ever met. How dare you call me dirty for marrying him?"

"He was a filthy
gajo,"
Beng stormed back.

"He was my husband and I loved him!"

Sara and Beth looked at each other. Sara could tell that the little girl didn't want to hang around and listen to this argument any more than she did. Maybe they could sneak out before anyone noticed them.

Without exchanging a word she and Beth began to sidle toward the alley door.

Beng rounded on her immediately. "What's that thing? What are you doing here? You been talking to this woman?"

Sara halted her retreat and turned back to Beng. "This is a guitar," she answered calmly. "Toma let me use his stage. I haven't actually had a discussion with the lady. I'm going to go back to my tent now, all right?"

"You go to Mother Cummings," he said. "You have work to do."

"For shame!" Molly spoke up. "You keep her away from that horrible woman. No decent woman would—"

"You stay out of this!" He turned his attention back to Sara. "You do what I tell you right now."

Sara looked into his determined face and wondered what she should do. He really wasn't her father, she reminded herself. She didn't owe him explanations. "I'm getting tired of saying this, but I will say it one more time: I am not a thief. I'm not robbing anyone. Leave me alone."

While Beng gaped at her she jammed the guitar back into its bag, took Beth by the hand, and said,

"Come on, kid. We're history."

"/
don't want
to talk about it!"

Beng and Molly had followed her back to her tent. Neither of them looked as if they were going to go away. Other people in the camp had abandoned packing the wagons to gather around to stare. Sara had seen several of them make signs against evil at Molly. Molly pretended not to notice.

Sara sighed and said, "All right. Let's go inside and talk about it."

She started to go in, but Beng grabbed her arm.
"She
can't go in there."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Sara complained. "1 hate all this
mirame
stuff. My whole tribe's been accused of it for nearly two hundred years. Will you get with the program?" While Beng gaped at her she gestured at Molly. "The woman is not going to pollute everything she touches just because she married a non-Rom. Sheesh."

"I've been trying to tell them that for years, the poor heathens," Molly told her.

"They aren't heathens, they're Rom," Sara snapped at the woman's smug tone. "Go and get your things," she said to Beth while Beng and Molly looked at her with their mouths hanging open. The pair looked very like brother and sister at this moment. "I'm leaving," she told Beng before he could gather wits enough to yell at her. "I don't know where, but I'm going." She wanted to run straight to Toma, but romance wasn't the solution to her future.

"You're going, all right, to the house in St. Giles," Beng finally managed to answer. He gestured toward the wagons. "We're going to the Salisbury fair. You work for the Cummings woman until we get back." He gestured to include all the wagons again. "You make enough to see us through the winter. You be a good girl."

Oh, no, Sara thought, he wasn't putting the responsibility for caring for the whole
familia
on her. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again Molly was looking at her sympathetically.

Beng favored Molly with a contemptuous glare. "I won't stay while she's here. You just do what I say." This seemed to settle the discussion as far as he was concerned. He stomped off toward the horse corral without further comment.

"Now what?" Sara said. "What am I going to do?" She wondered if Cummings and Billy were going to come looking for her sometime soon. Mother Cummings had said she wanted the burglary done tonight. Toma couldn't protect her. He was a circus performer scheduled to leave with the others. Toma?

She looked at Molly. "You said Toma wanted you to talk to me? About what?"

Molly crossed her arms and looked belligerently at the people who still lingered near Sara's tent. "In private, dear," she said. "You aren't going to that Cummings woman," she added. "You're coming with your aunt. Right now, before Beng can stop us. I'll meet you by the fair entrance." Molly turned and walked away, head held high, before Sara could ask any questions.

Sara decided to ask questions later. It was faster just to bundle up some clothes from the tent, take Beth and the guitar, and get out before Mother Cummings's goons showed up. She missed saying good-bye to Toma the Magnificent, but that was for the best. Her heart got more caught up every time she talked to the man. It kept trying to get her brain to agree to the ludicrous idea of marrying him. Better to go with the well-meaning missionary aunt and forget all about marrying Toma.

******************

They were seated in the kitchen of the woman's very respectable inn. It turned out Aunt Molly wasn't a missionary after all, at least not professionally. She and her late husband were committed Methodists who also ran the Blue Rose inn. Now that she was a widow, Molly had decided to devote most of her time to charity work among the Anglo-Romany.

The inn's kitchen was closed for the evening, and most of the guests were in bed or conversing quietly in the common room. Beth was tucked into bed in a small room off the kitchen. Sara had been given a room next door. She'd spent part of the day helping out in the kitchen with Molly and the couple who worked for her, then had played guitar quietly in the common room while the guests ate dinner. Her second public performance hadn't been anywhere near as nerve-racking as her first, but she'd been happy to escape to the kitchen when Aunt Molly suggested a little chat.

She didn't know why she was so surprised when marriage to Toma turned out to be the subject of the conversation. "You said he'd asked you to talk to me. I'd forgotten."

Molly nodded. "He's such a respectful boy. When Beng refused to discuss the marriage with him he remembered that you had one female relative. So he asked me to discuss the marriage with you. I really think you ought to marry him, dear," she repeated. "He's really quite exceptionally good-looking."

"Yes. Yes, he is," Sara agreed. She tried not to sigh romantically. "I . . ." She let her words trail away.

How could she explain that she couldn't marry him even if she wanted to? If she had to make explanations she'd save them for Toma. For now she said, "I'll think about it."

"You don't want to disobey your father, do you?"

Sara nodded stiffly.

"I understand," Molly went on. "I know what it's like to go against your family and everything you know." She stood. "Time we got some rest, my dear. Join me in a prayer for wisdom."

Sara stood and bowed her head. When Molly had finished Sara said, "Thank you for taking me in, Aunt Molly."

The woman waved her thanks away and handed Sara one of the candles on the table. "Off to bed with you."

Gripping the candle by its brass holder, Sara followed its feeble light down the back hall to her bedroom. The room was smaller than the tent and held in the August heat like an oven, but Sara didn't mind calling it home. It had only a narrow bed with a thin mattress, a clothes chest, and a small table for her to rest the candlestick on, but it was better than any other alternative she'd been presented.

"Better than a prison hulk," she whispered as she closed the heavy door behind. "Anything's better than that."

"I couldn't agree more," Toma said, stepping out of the deep shadows by the wardrobe.

Sara jumped in surprise. Her movement snuffed out the candle, which she dropped anyway. A shaft of moonlight fell in a neat square in front of the room's only window. Toma drew her into it. She realized how much she'd missed him as she saw his angular features outlined in the silvery light. She didn't know how it was possible to get attached to someone so quickly, but it had happened.

She touched his cheek, feeling the faintest trace of stubble. "Maybe there is something to this own true love business," she said, not sure if she was admitting it to him, herself, or the ring.