Zaida, The Mysterious Prophetess Of The Golden Orient

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Title:     Zaida, The Mysterious Prophetess Of The Golden Orient
Author: Edith Nesbit [More Titles by Nesbit]

THIS is the story of how we were gipsies and wandering minstrels. And, like everything else we did about that time, it was done to make money for Miss Sandal, whose poorness kept on, making our kind hearts ache.

It is rather difficult to get up any good game in a house like Miss Sandal's, where there is nothing lying about, except your own things, and where everything is so neat and necessary. Your own clothes are seldom interesting, and even if you change hats with your sisters it is not a complete disguise.

The idea of being gipsies was due to Alice. She had not at all liked being entirely out of the smuggling affray, though Oswald explained to her that it was her own fault for having been born a girl. And, of course, after the event, Dicky and I had some things to talk about that the girls hadn't, and we had a couple of wet days.

You have no idea how dull you can be in a house like that, unless you happen to know the sort of house I mean. A house that is meant for plain living and high thinking, like Miss Sandal told us, may be very nice for the high thinkers, but if you are not accustomed to thinking high there is only the plain living left, and it is like boiled rice for every meal to any young mind, however much beef and Yorkshire there may be for the young insides. Mrs. Beale saw to our having plenty of nice things to eat, but, alas! it is not always dinner-time, and in between meals the cold rice-pudding feeling is very chilling. Of course we had the splendid drawings of winged things made by our Flying Lodger, but you cannot look at pictures all day long, however many coloured chalks they are drawn with, and however fond you may be of them.

Miss Sandal's was the kind of house that makes you wander all round it and say, "What shall we do next?" And when it rains the little ones get cross.

It was the second wet day when we were wandering round the house to the sad music of our boots on the clean, bare boards that Alice said--

"Mrs. Beale has got a book at her house called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' You might ask her to let you go and get it, Oswald. She likes you best."

Oswald is as modest as any one I know, but the truth is the truth.

"We could tell our fortunes, and read the dark future," Alice went on. "It would be better than high thinking without anything particular to think about."

So Oswald went down to Mrs. Beale and said--

"I say, Bealie dear, you've got a book up at your place. I wish you'd lend it to us to read."

"If it's the Holy Book you mean, sir," replied Mrs. Beale, going on with peeling the potatoes that were to be a radiant vision later on, all brown and crisp in company with a leg of mutton--"if it's the Holy Book you want there's one up on Miss Sandal's chest of drawerses."

"I know," said Oswald. He knew every book in the house. The backs of them were beautiful--leather and gold--but inside they were like whited sepulchres, full of poetry and improving reading. "No--we didn't want that book just now. It is a book called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' Would you mind if I ran up to your place and got it?"

"There's no one at home," said Mrs. Beale; "wait a bit till I go along to the bakus with the meat, and I'll fetch it along."

"You might let me go," said Oswald, whose high spirit is always ill-attuned to waiting a bit. "I wouldn't touch anything else, and I know where you keep the key."

"There's precious little as ye don't know, it seems to me," said Mrs. Beale. "There, run along do. It's on top of the mantelshelf alongside the picture tea-tin. It's a red book. Don't go taking the 'Wesleyan Conference Reports' by mistake, the two is both together on the mantel."

Oswald in his macker splashed through the mud to Mrs. Beale's, found the key under the loose tile behind the water-butt, and got the book without adventure. He had promised not to touch anything else, so he could not make even the gentlest booby-trap as a little surprise for Mrs. Beale when she got back.

And most of that day we were telling our fortunes by the ingenious means invented by the great Emperor, or by cards, which it is hard to remember the rules for, or by our dreams. The only blights were that the others all wanted to have the book all the time, and that Noel's dreams were so long and mixed that we got tired of hearing about them before he did. But he said he was quite sure he had dreamed every single bit of every one of them. And the author hopes this was the truth.

We all went to bed hoping we should dream something that we could look up in the dream book, but none of us did.

And in the morning it was still raining and Alice said--

"Look here, if it ever clears up again let's dress up and be gipsies. We can go about in the distant villages telling people's fortunes. If you'll let me have the book all to-day I can learn up quite enough to tell them mysteriously and darkly. And gipsies always get their hands crossed with silver."

Dicky said that was one way of keeping the book to herself, but Oswald said--

"Let her try. She shall have it for an hour, and then we'll have an exam. to see how much she knows."

This was done, but while she was swatting the thing up with her fingers in her ears we began to talk about how gipsies should be dressed.

And when we all went out of the room to see if we could find anything in that tidy house to dress up in, she came after us to see what was up. So there was no exam.

We peeped into the cupboards and drawers in Miss Sandal's room, but everything was grey or brown, not at all the sort of thing to dress up for children of the Sunny South in. The plain living was shown in all her clothes; and besides, grey shows every little spot you may happen to get on it.

We were almost in despair. We looked in all the drawers in all the rooms, but found only sheets and tablecloths and more grey and brown clothing.

We tried the attic, with fainting hearts. Servants' clothes are always good for dressing-up with; they have so many different colours. But Miss Sandal had no servant. Still, she might have had one once, and the servant might have left something behind her. Dora suggested this and added--

"If you don't find anything in the attic you'll know it's Fate, and you're not to do it. Besides, I'm almost sure you can be put in prison for telling fortunes."

"Not if you're a gipsy you can't," said Noel; "they have licences to tell fortunes, I believe, and judges can't do anything to them."

So we went up to the attic. And it was as bare and tidy as the rest of the house. But there were some boxes and we looked in them. The smallest was full of old letters, so we shut it again at once. Another had books in it, and the last had a clean towel spread over what was inside. So we took off the towel, and then every one said "Oh!"

In right on the top was a scarlet thing, embroidered heavily with gold. It proved, on unfolding, to be a sort of coat, like a Chinaman's. We lifted it out and laid it on the towel on the floor. And then the full glories of that box were revealed. There were cloaks and dresses and skirts and scarves, of all the colours of a well-chosen rainbow, and all made of the most beautiful silks and stuffs, with things worked on them with silk, as well as chains of beads and many lovely ornaments. We think Miss Sandal must have been very fond of pretty things when she was young, or when she was better off.

"Well, there won't be any gipsies near by to come up to _us_," said Oswald joyously.

"Do you think we ought to take them, without asking?" said Dora.

"Of course not," said Oswald witheringly; "we ought to write to her and say, 'Please, Miss Sandal, we know how poor you are, and may we borrow your things to be gipsies in so as we get money for you---- All right! You go and write the letter, Dora."

"I only just asked," said Dora.

We tried the things on. Some of them were so ladylike that they were no good--evening dresses, and things like that. But there were enough useful things to go round. Oswald, in white shirt and flannel knee-breeches, tied a brick-coloured silk scarf round his middle part, and a green one round his head for a turban. The turban was fastened with a sparkling brooch with pink stones in it. He looked like a Moorish toreador. Dicky had the scarlet and gold coat, which was the right length when Dora had run a tuck in it.

Alice had a blue skirt with embroidery of peacock's feathers on it, and a gold and black jacket very short with no sleeves, and a yellow silk handkerchief on her head like Italian peasants, and another handkie round her neck. Dora's skirt was green and her handkerchiefs purple and pink.

Noel insisted on having his two scarves, one green and one yellow, twisted on his legs like putties, and a red scarf wound round his middle-part, and he stuck a long ostrich feather in his own bicycle cap and said he was a troubadour bard.

H.O. was able to wear a lady's blouse of mouse-coloured silk, embroidered with poppies. It came down to his knees and a jewelled belt kept it in place.

We made up our costumes into bundles, and Alice thoughtfully bought a pennyworth of pins. Of course it was idle to suppose that we could go through the village in our gipsy clothes without exciting _some_ remark.

The more we thought of it the more it seemed as if it would be a good thing to get some way from our village before we began our gipsy career.

The woman at the sweet shop where Alice got the pins has a donkey and cart, and for two shillings she consented to lend us this, so that some of us could walk while some of us would always be resting in the cart.

And next morning the weather was bright and blue as ever, and we started. We were beautifully clean, but all our hairs had been arranged with the brush solely, because at the last moment nobody could find it's comb. Mrs. Beale had packed up a jolly sandwichy and apply lunch for us. We told her we were going to gather bluebells in the woods, and of course we meant to do that too.

The donkey-cart drew up at the door and we started. It was found impossible to get every one into the cart at once, so we agreed to cast lots for who should run behind, and to take it in turns, mile and mile. The lot fell on Dora and H.O., but there was precious little running about it. Anything slower than that donkey Oswald has never known, and when it came to passing its own front door the donkey simply would not. It ended in Oswald getting down and going to the animal's head, and having it out with him, man to man. The donkey was small, but of enormous strength. He set all his four feet firm and leant back--and Oswald set his two feet firm and leant back--so that Oswald and the front part of the donkey formed an angry and contentious letter V. And Oswald gazed in the donkey's eyes in a dauntless manner, and the donkey looked at Oswald as though it thought he was hay or thistles.

Alice beat the donkey from the cart with a stick that had been given us for the purpose. The rest shouted. But all was in vain. And four people in a motor car stopped it to see the heroic struggle, and laughed till I thought they would have upset their hateful motor. However, it was all for the best, though Oswald did not see it at the time. When they had had enough of laughing they started their machine again, and the noise it made penetrated the donkey's dull intelligence, and he started off without a word--I mean without any warning, and Oswald has only just time to throw himself clear of the wheels before he fell on the ground and rolled over, biting the dust.

The motor car people behaved as you would expect. But accidents happen even to motor cars, when people laugh too long and too unfeelingly. The driver turned round to laugh, and the motor instantly took the bit between its teeth and bolted into the stone wall of the churchyard. No one was hurt except the motor, but that had to spend the day at the blacksmith's, we heard afterwards. Thus was the outraged Oswald avenged by Fate.

He was not hurt either--though much the motor people would have cared if he had been--and he caught up with the others at the end of the village, for the donkey's pace had been too good to last, and the triumphal progress was resumed.

It was some time before we found a wood sufficiently lurking-looking for our secret purposes. There are no woods close to the village. But at last, up by Bonnington, we found one, and tying our noble steed to the sign-post that says how many miles it is to Ashford, we cast a hasty glance round, and finding no one in sight disappeared in the wood with our bundles.

We went in just ordinary creatures. We came out gipsies of the deepest dye, for we had got a pennorth of walnut stain from Mr. Jameson the builder, and mixed with water--the water we had brought in a medicine-bottle--it was a prime disguise. And we knew it would wash off, unlike the Condy's fluid we once stained ourselves with during a never-to-be-forgotten game of Jungle-Book.

We had put on all the glorious things we had bagged from Miss Sandal's attic treasures, but still Alice had a small bundle unopened.

"What's that?" Dora asked.

"I meant to keep it as a reserve force in case the fortune-telling didn't turn out all our fancy painted it," said Alice; "but I don't mind telling you now."

She opened the bundle, and there was a tambourine, some black lace, a packet of cigarette papers, and our missing combs.

"What ever on earth----" Dicky was beginning, but Oswald saw it all. He has a wonderfully keen nose. And he said--

"Bully for you, Alice. I wish I'd thought it myself."

Alice was much pleased by this handsome speech.

"Yes," she said; "perhaps really it would be best to begin with it. It would attract the public's attention, and then we could tell the fortunes. You see," she kindly explained to Dicky and H.O. and Dora, who had not seen it yet--though Noel had, almost as soon as I did--"you see, we'll all play on the combs with the veils over our faces, so that no one can see what our instruments are. Why, they might be mouth-organs for anything any one will know, or some costly instruments from the far-off East, like they play to sultans in zenanas. Let's just try a tune or two before we go on, to be sure that all the combs work right. Dora's has such big teeth, I shouldn't wonder if it wouldn't act at all."

So we all papered our combs and did "Heroes," but that sounded awful. "The Girl I Left Behind Me" went better, and so did "Bonnie Dundee." But we thought "See the Conquering" or "The Death of Nelson" would be the best to begin with.

It was beastly hot doing it under the veils, but when Oswald had done one tune without the veil to see how the others looked he could not help owning that the veils did give a hidden mystery that was a stranger to simple combs.

We were all a bit puffed when we had played for awhile, so we decided that as the donkey seemed calm and was eating grass and resting, we might as well follow his example.

"We ought not to be too proud to take pattern by the brute creation," said Dora.

So we had our lunch in the wood. We lighted a little fire of sticks and fir-cones, so as to be as gipsyish as we could, and we sat round the fire. We made a charming picture in our bright clothes, among what would have been our native surroundings if we had been real gipsies, and we knew how nice we looked, and stayed there though the smoke got in our eyes, and everything we ate tasted of it.

The woods were a little damp, and that was why the fire smoked so. There were the jackets we had cast off when we dressed up, to sit on, and there was a horse-cloth in the cart intended for the donkey's wear, but we decided that our need was greater than its, so we took the blanket to recline on.

It was as jolly a lunch as ever I remember, and we lingered over that and looking romantic till we could not bear the smoke any more.

Then we got a lot of bluebells and we trampled out the fire most carefully, because we know about not setting woods and places alight, rolled up our clothes in bundles, and went out of the shadowy woodland into the bright sunlight, as sparkling looking a crew of gipsies as any one need wish for.

Last time we had seen the road it had been quite white and bare of persons walking on it, but now there were several. And not only walkers, but people in carts. And some carriages passed us too.

Every one stared at us, but they did not seem so astonished as we had every right to expect, and though interested they were not rude, and this is very rare among English people--and not only poor people either--when they see anything at all out of the way.

We asked one man, who was very Sunday-best indeed in black clothes and a blue tie, where every one was going, for every one was going the same way, and every one looked as if it was going to church, which was unlikely, it being but Thursday. He said--

"Same place wot you're going to I expect."

And when we said where was that we were requested by him to get along with us. Which we did.

An old woman in the heaviest bonnet I have ever seen and the highest--it was like a black church--revealed the secret to us, and we learned that there was a Primrose _fete_ going on in Sir Willoughby Blockson's grounds.

We instantly decided to go to the _fete_.

"I've been to a Primrose _fete_, and so have you, Dora," Oswald remarked, "and people are so dull at them, they'd gladly give gold to see the dark future. And, besides, the villages will be unpopulated, and no one at home but idiots and babies and their keepers."

So we went to the _fete_.

The people got thicker and thicker, and when we got to Sir Willoughby's lodge gates, which have sprawling lions on the gate-posts, we were told to take the donkey cart round to the stable-yard.

This we did, and proud was the moment when a stiff groom had to bend his proud stomach to go to the head of Bates's donkey.

"This is something like," said Alice, and Noel added:

"The foreign princes are well received at this palace."

"We aren't princes, we're gipsies," said Dora, tucking his scarf in. It would keep on getting loose.

"There _are_ gipsy princes, though," said Noel, "because there are gipsy kings."

"You aren't always a prince first," said Dora; "don't wriggle so or I can't fix you. Sometimes being made a king just happens to some one who isn't any one in particular."

"I don't think so," said Noel; "you have to be a prince before you're a king, just as you have to be a kitten before you're a cat, or a puppy before you're a dog, or a worm before you're a serpent, or----"

"What about the King of Sweden?" Dora was beginning, when a very nice tall, thin man, with white flowers in his buttonhole like for a wedding, came strolling up and said--

"And whose show is this? Eh, what?"

We said it was ours.

"Are you expected?" he asked.

We said we thought not, but we hoped he didn't mind.

"What are you? Acrobats? Tight-rope? That's a ripping Burmese coat you've got there."

"Yes, it is. No we aren't," said Alice, with dignity. "I am Zaida, the mysterious prophetess of the golden Orient, and the others are mysterious too, but we haven't fixed on their names yet."

"By jove!" said the gentleman; "but who are you really?"

"Our names are our secret," said Oswald, with dignity, but Alice said, "Oh, but we don't mind telling _you_, because I'm sure you're nice. We're really the Bastables, and we want to get some money for some one we know that's rather poor--of course I can't tell you _her_ name. And we've learnt how to tell fortunes--really we have. Do you think they'll let us tell them at the _fete_. People are often dull at _fetes_, aren't they?"

"By Jove!" said the gentleman again--"by Jove, they are!"

He plunged for a moment in deep reflection.

"We've got co--musical instruments," said Noel; "shall we play to you a little?"

"Not here," said the gentleman; "follow me."

He led the way by the backs of shrubberies to an old summer-house, and we asked him to wait outside.

Then we put on our veils and tuned up. "See, see the conquering----"

But he did not let us finish the tune; he burst in upon us, crying--

"Ripping--oh, ripping! And now tell me my fortune."

Alice took off her veil and looked at his hand.

"You will travel in distant lands," she said; "you will have great wealth and honour; you will marry a beautiful lady--a very fine woman, it says in the book, but I think a beautiful lady sounds nicer, don't you?"

"Much; but I shouldn't mention the book when you're telling the fortune."

"I wouldn't, except to you," said Alice, "and she'll have lots of money and a very sweet disposition. Trials and troubles beset your path, but do but be brave and fearless and you will overcome all your enemies. Beware of a dark woman--most likely a widow."

"I will," said he, for Alice had stopped for breath. "Is that all?"

"No. Beware of a dark woman and shun the society of drunkards and gamblers. Be very cautious in your choice of acquaintances, or you will make a false friend who will be your ruin. That's all, except that you will be married very soon and live to a green old age with the beloved wife of your bosom, and have twelve sons and----"

"Stop, stop!" said the gentleman; "twelve sons are as many as I can bring up handsomely on my present income. Now, look here. You did that jolly well, only go slower, and pretend to look for things in the hand before you say them. Everything's free at the _fete_, so you'll get no money for your fortune-telling."

Gloom was on each young brow.

"It's like this," he went on, "there is a lady fortune-teller in a tent in the park."

"Then we may as well get along home," said Dicky.

"Not at all," said our new friend, for such he was now about to prove himself to be; "that lady does not want to tell fortunes to-day. She has a headache. Now, if you'll really stick to it, and tell the people's fortunes as well as you told mine, I'll stand you--let's see--two quid for the afternoon. Will that do? What?"

We said we should just jolly well think it would.

"I've got some Eau de Cologne in a medicine-bottle," Dora said; "my brother Noel has headaches sometimes, but I think he's going to be all right to-day. Do take it, it will do the lady's head good."

"I'll take care of her head," he said, laughing, but he took the bottle and said, "Thank you."

Then he told us to stay where we were while he made final arrangements, and we were left with palpitating breasts to look wildly through the Book of Fate, so as to have the things ready. But it turned out to be time thrown away, for when he came back he said to Alice--

"It'll have to be only you and your sister, please, for I see they've stuck up a card with 'Esmeralda, the gipsy Princess, reads the hand and foretells the future' on it. So you boys will have to be mum. You can be attendants--mutes, by jove!--yes that's it. And, I say, kiddies, you will jolly well play up, won't you? Don't stand any cheek. Stick it on, you know. I can't tell you how important it is about----about the lady's headache."

"I should think this would be a cool place for a headache to be quiet in," said Dora; and it was, for it was quite hidden in the shrubbery and no path to it.

"By Jove!" he remarked yet once again, "so it would. You're right!"

He led us out of the shrubbery and across the park. There were people dotted all about and they stared, but they touched their hats to the gentleman, and he returned their salute with stern politeness.

Inside the tent with "Esmeralda, &c.," outside there was a lady in a hat and dust-cloak. But we could see her spangles under the cloak.

"Now," said the gentleman to Dicky, "you stand at the door and let people in, one at a time. You others can just play a few bars on your instruments for each new person--only a very little, because you do get out of tune, though that's barbaric certainly. Now, here's the two quid. And you stick to the show till five; you'll hear the stable clock chime."

The lady was very pale with black marks under her eyes, and her eyes looked red, Oswald thought. She seemed about to speak, but the gentleman said--

"Do trust me, Ella. I'll explain everything directly. Just go to the old summer-house--_you_ know--and I'll be there directly. I'll take a couple of pegs out of the back and you can slip away among the trees. Hold your cloak close over your gown. Goodbye, kiddies. Stay, give me your address, and I'll write and tell you if my fortune comes true."

So he shook hands with us and went. And we did stick to it, though it is far less fun than you would think telling fortunes all the afternoon in a stuffy tent, while outside you know there are things to eat and people enjoying themselves. But there were the two gold quid, and we were determined to earn them. It is very hard to tell a different fortune for each person, and there were a great many. The girls took it in turns, and Oswald wonders why their hairs did not go gray. Though of course it was much better fun for them than for us, because we had just to be mutes when we weren't playing on the combs.

The people we told fortunes to at first laughed rather, and said we were too young to know anything. But Oswald said in a hollow voice that we were as old as the Pyramids, and after that Alice took the tucks out of Dicky's red coat and put it on and turbaned herself, and looked much older.

The stable clock had chimed the quarter to five some little time, when an elderly gentleman with whiskers, who afterwards proved to be Sir Willoughby, burst into the tent.

"Where's Miss Blockson?" he said, and we answered truthfully that we did not know.

"How long have you been here?" he furiously asked.

"Ever since two," said Alice wearily.

He said a word that I should have thought a baronet would have been above using.

"Who brought you here?"

We described the gentleman who had done this, and again the baronet said things we should never be allowed to say. "That confounded Carew!" he added, with more words.

"Is anything wrong?" asked Dora--"can we do anything? We'll stay on longer if you like--if you can't find the lady who was doing Esmeralda before we came."

"I'm not very likely to find her," he said ferociously. "Stay longer indeed! Get away out of my sight before I have you locked up for vagrants and vagabonds."

He left the scene in bounding and mad fury. We thought it best to do as he said, and went round the back way to the stables so as to avoid exciting his ungoverned rage by meeting him again. We found our cart and went home. We had got two quid and something to talk about.

But none of us--not even Oswald the discerning--understood exactly what we had been mixed up in, till the pink satin box with three large bottles of A1 scent in it, and postmarks of foreign lands, came to Dora. And there was a letter. It said--

"My dear Gipsies,--I beg to return the Eau de Cologne you so kindly lent me. The lady did use a little of it, but I found that foreign travel was what she really wanted to make her quite happy. So we caught the 4.15 to town, and now we are married, and intend to live to a green old age, &c., as you foretold. But for your help my fortune couldn't have come true, because my wife's father, Sir Willoughby, thought I was not rich enough to marry. But you see I was. And my wife and I both thank you heartily for your kind help. I hope it was not an awful swat. I had to say five because of the train. Good luck to you, and thanks awfully.

"Yours faithfully,
"CARISBROOK CAREW."

If Oswald had known beforehand we should never have made that two quid for Miss Sandal.

For Oswald does not approve of marriages and would never, if he knew it, be the means of assisting one to occur.

[The end]
Edith Nesbit's short story: Zaida, The Mysterious Prophetess Of The Golden Orient

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