The Gypsy’s Prophecy Was a Calculated Ruse
A young woman recounts how a chance encounter at a local gypsy camp shaped her romantic future, only to learn the 'fate' she experienced was actually a series of elaborate deceptions.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
When I was in the graduating class at school, four of us decided to walk out to a gypsy camp on the outskirts of town to have our fortunes told. It was October, and we were romantic, merry, and a little frightened. The gypsy woman told each of us our fortune. When my turn came, she told me that at a concert I had dropped a blue fan, and the gentleman who picked it up was to be my husband. She described him—black eyes, black hair, and a deep dimple in his chin. A few weeks later, at church, a man sitting in the pew behind me handed me a prayer book with a flower pressed into the page to mark the place. He had the exact features the gypsy had described. We eventually married. But one evening, when I spoke of the strange prophecy, my husband Robin confessed: 'There was no prophecy. I had been in love with you for weeks. I paid the gypsy five dollars to say just what I told her, gave the old lady two to get me into the pew behind you, and bribed my friend to introduce us.' It was all very wrong, I know—but it was him, and that made all the difference.
“I thought it was the hand of fate that guided me, or I’d never have spoken to you or let you introduce you, or deceived uncle.”
While this reads like a classic piece of period fiction, it highlights the Victorian obsession with 'destiny' and the ways in which social life in small towns was often orchestrated by men exerting control under the guise of romantic 'fate.'
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