‘This is sad nonsense,’ said Alice; ‘and I am a little weary of standing. Shall we return to our seats, dear?’
I wished to hear Mrs. Webber’s fortune told, but Alice was not to be kept standing, and together we walked to our chairs at the after-end of the deck and seated ourselves. Just then Mrs. Lee came up from the saloon. She inquired what the passengers were doing.
‘They are having their fortunes told, mother,’ answered Alice.
‘By our staring gipsy friend, no doubt,’ said Mrs. Lee, addressing me. ‘Well, certainly life at sea is very dull, and you cannot wonder that people should try to kill an hour, however stupidly.’ I fetched a chair, and she sat down. ‘And yet,’ continued she thoughtfully, letting her eyes rest upon her child, ‘I ought to be one of the last to ridicule fortune-telling. When I was a girl of sixteen I was walking with my mother—where we then lived—on the outskirts of Gateshead, when we came across a gipsy encampment. A dreadful old hag stumbled out of a group of dirty people, and begged to let her tell me my dukkerin, as she called it—strange that I should remember the word after all these years! My mother was for going on, but I stopped and put a shilling into the old creature’s hand, and she told me my fortune.’
‘Was it a true fortune?’ said Alice.
‘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?’