The First Supper
Gratia sat at the table surrounded by members of Gale’s family. Five younger brothers and three sisters, two grandmothers, a grandfather and Gale’s mother.
As each person entered the room, they shot her a curios glance, but no one had yet actually spoken to her. Gale’s mother began filling each person’s bowl with a large ladle of rich vegetable soup. There was chatter from each end of the table as various men and women exchanged stories of the day’s work and town goings on.
Laid out before her was a veritable banquet of cooked and raw meats, breads of dozens of different grains, large dishes filled to the brim with vegetables and stew. The way she was feeling, she could quite happily have eaten the whole lot by herself. She reached out for a large hunk of white buttered bread but sharply drew back her empty hand as the whole table turned to stare at her.
Seeing her flushed cheeks, Gale cleared his throat and began to recite grace. The minute the last syllable escaped his lips the whole table seemed to come alive with people’s hands reaching out for bread and vegetables. Gale flashed her a smile and nodded for her to tuck in.
As the last few scraps were claimed from the carcasses, and the larger bones from the meats dropped under the table for the hounds that lay in wait with greedy jaws, Gale stood and beckoned to Gratia to follow him. Reluctantly, aware that the rest of the table was watching her, she stood gracefully and left the room. He led her up a huge flight of stairs and across a landing to a mahogany door. Swinging it wide, Gale’s arm swept out, gesturing for her to enter. Her eyes lit up as she saw the four-post bed with deep scarlet drapes circling it. The curtains ware made of velvet and swept all the way to the floor. There was a clay bowl next to a pitcher full of water. A huge teak chest-of-draws stood against one wall and a vanity table with gilded mirrors stood opposite. She let out a soft gasp and turned to Gale’s smiling face.
“It pleases you?”
For a minute she stood, completely speechless. She had never seen such a room, such space.
“Oh, very much. Very much indeed.” Her lips lifted into a dazzling smile.
“Then I bid you a goodnight, and pleasant dreams.”
Before Gratia had time to catch her breath and return the kind wishes, the door had closed and she found herself alone in the room fit for royalty.
Gratia awoke with the dawn, reluctantly easing herself from the feather-soft bed and drawing back the curtains. From the window of the room she could look out across fields and fields of dew-misted grass. A little distance away was the outskirts of Lariaan itself.
With the impatience and enthusiasm of a young child, she splashed cool water over her face and pulled on her dress. Flinging open the door she steadied herself from falling down the stairs in her hurry to get outside and be a part of the crowds.
As she reached for the front door, she was aware of someone watching her. She turned briefly to say 'good morning' and saw that it was Gale’s mother standing in the kitchen doorway. A stern look was etched on her chubby face, silver hair tightly wrapped behind her in a bun that did nothing to soften the woman’s features.
“Aye, you run now, and don’t you be thinking of coming back here if you know what’s good for you.”
Her sharp words cut through Gratia’s sunny mood like a hot knife through butter. Completely bemused by the woman’s glare, she became unsure of what to say.
“But, I–”
“And don’t you go thinking I don’t know what you are, you gypsy vermin!”
Gratia went numb. She had been right all along. Gale had known she would not be welcome in his house and yet he had still brought her here. Brought her here to humiliate her, to remind her of what people thought of gypsies.
“I, but–”
Her eyes began to sting with searing hot tears.
“Go on, get out of here. You’re scum, that’s what you are, and I’ll thank you never to show your face at my door again.”
Shaken by the cold look in the woman’s eyes, Gratia staggered backwards into the door, fumbling with the handle.
“How dare you speak like that to a guest under my roof!” Came a thundering voice from the top of the stairs.
The old woman’s face became a mask of shock, her eyes betrayed the slightest glimmer of fear.
“You make a mockery of my hospitality? You dare to make a mockery of my hospitality? Put shame upon my family?”
It was Gale. He was starting to descend the staircase, never taking his eyes from his mother, but Gratia could stand it no longer. If the old woman had intended to make her feel ashamed, it had certainly worked. Scorching tears began to flow from her eyes. Pulling at the door, she fled down the path, determined to put as much distance between herself and that ghastly house.
“No! Wait!” Gale’s anger was temporarily forgotten as he saw the stream of brightly coloured crimson silk disappear through the doorway. Jumping the last of the stairs, he broke into a run towards the front garden. She couldn’t leave now, not like this. It was all so wrong.
Tripping and stumbling, blinded by her own tears, Gratia started down the lane that would eventually lead to the cobbled town streets. Her heart was pounding in her chest and there was a lump in her throat that made it hard for her to breath steadily. Instead it came in gasps, trickling droplets of moisture running down her cheeks and salting her lips.
She heard a voice calling her from behind. “Wait! Please wait!” It was Gale, he had come after her but there was no way she would stop, not to be humiliated and tortured again. She was in enough pain as it was. She had always wondered why her family chose to live such a sheltered existence, out of sight from the rest of the world, and now she knew. They had been right all along, she should never have left.
Suddenly her feet felt nothing but thin air, and a tight grip spread across her waist. Gale had picked her bodily off the ground and swung her around to face him as he stopped. Grabbing her right wrist tightly, they stood face to face. For a minute, Gratia was so shocked that he had put an end to her flight that she stood perfectly still. Then another batch of warm tears danced down her cheeks. Her head spun with a whirlpool of black thoughts. The nursery rhyme she had heard as a child taunting her, stinging as it had when the town children had cornered her in her home valley.
“You gypsy girl, you shan’t be mine, you gypsy girl, you shan’t be mine, you gypsy girl, you shan’t be mine. My mother said I never should, play with the gypsies in the wood. You gypsy girl, you gypsy girl. Your hair won’t curl and your shoes won’t shine, you gypsy girl you shan’t be mine. You shan’t be mine, you shan’t be mine.”
Her cheeks burned violently and she looked away in shame.
“Hey, hey. Slow down there.” Gale’s voice took on a velvety softness. He stroked the tears gently from her cheek with his thumb. After a moment he released her hand and stood back awkwardly, unsure quite what to say in the gloomy face of her misery.
“I’m sorry. She has a lot of anger inside her. That is no excuse, I know. The way she treated you was inexcusable, but she is an old woman and she listens to rumour and gossip. She is old, it is all she has left.”
Gratia glared at him with frosty coldness but made no attempt to speak. The truth was that the knot in her throat was so painfully tight that it would have been impossible for her to have made a sound.
“I– look, I know that this isn’t how you expected things to be. I–”
Finally, with a shaky voice that held as much weight as a feather in a summer’s breeze, she spoke.
“I expected nothing.”
Gale’s brow furrowed into an even deeper frown as he heard the trembling of her voice. What happened to the bold young woman he had met yesterday morning? The woman whose courage and wit had a sharpness that could cut a man open? All her pride seemed to have turned to shame, her courage now a melted shyness. Surely gypsies were used to far worse insults then being turned from someone’s house. Surely they had thicker skins than that. But the young girl who had been so sure of herself only a few hours before was now a portrait of pitiful misery, fragile and vulnerable.
Gale sighed.
“Will you at least accept my apology?”
“What have you done that could possibly warrant my forgiveness? If anything, it should be me who begs your forgiveness. I have intruded upon your household, abused your hospitality, and obviously outstayed my welcome. Your mother was right to turn me from your door. Now if you will excuse me.”
She started again, brushing past him with an air of fake composure. Gale’s arm shot out and grabbed her wrist once more, pulling her back to face him.
For one, drawn out moment he gazed into her watery eyes, searching for any shred of emotion that might betray her thoughts. All he saw was pain, and even that was being repressed. Her features were hardening into a stone-like mask, hiding any feelings that might give her away.
Gently, his grip loosened and she stepped away from him. Reaching for a purse of money that hung around his belt, Gale dropped it on the dusty ground by her feet. There was a chinking of coins. Gratia looked down at it, her features remaining blank, then slowly and deliberately she looked right back at him.
“I do not kneel in the dirt for anyone, sir.”
And with that, she turned and walked off down the path, leaving Gale Ashfain to reclaim his charity.
