The Spirit of Love Read online

  Author’s Note

  This is the five hundredth book I have written and I have chosen for it my favourite period – the Regency.

  I owe dozens of plots for my books to my dear friend, the late Sir Arthur Bryant. He used to laugh when I told him that I plagiarised his brilliant books and said that he was delighted for me to do so.

  I owe so much to his books The Years of Endurance 1773-1802, The Years of Victory 1802-1812 and The Age of Elegance 1812-1822.

  When Sir Arthur gave me his last book, The Spirit of England, he inscribed it,

  ‘To Barbara who understands so well.

  With the affection and admiration of the Author.

  I must therefore dedicate this, my five hundredth book, THE SPIRIT OF LOVE

  To Sir Arthur Bryant

  One of our greatest historians whose books, fascinating, human and inspiring, will live forever in the hearts

  Of those who love ENGLAND.

  Chapter One ~ 1814

  As the open carriage turned into a road where a great number of people were moving about, there was the sound of music in the distance.

  Odella Wayne, who was sitting on the back seat, bent forward to see if she could discern where this delightful music was coming from.

  When she could see what was happening and that people were moving hastily to clear the road, she gave an exclamation.

  “It’s the circus!”

  The maid, who was sitting opposite her, then exclaimed,

  “Miss Odella, how ever so excitin’!”

  The coachman, an elderly man who had been driving the Rector for many years, pulled the horse to one side.

  “We’ll ’ave to wait ’ere, Miss Odella,” he said over his shoulder, “till they passes by.”

  “That is a good idea, Thompson,” Odella replied, “and it will give us an excellent view of them as they go past us.”

  She realised that Emily, the maid, was straining to see what she could over her shoulder.

  “Come and sit beside me, Emily,” she suggested kindly. “You will have a much better view from this seat.”

  “Oh, thank you, Miss Odella,” Emily answered. “I’ve always been mad about the circus ever since I were a child.”

  Odella smiled, knowing that it was not so many years ago.

  When she had made up her mind, since her father was away from home, to go shopping in Portsmouth, she had ordered the carriage that he usually travelled in.

  She suggested to the housekeeper, Mrs. Barnet, that she should come with her, but the elderly woman replied,

  “I ’ave to refuse, Miss Odella. I’ve got too much on me ’ands to do. When the Master’s away, it’s me one chance of gettin’ ’is study really well cleaned. You know ’ow he goes on if we disturb ’is books when ’e’s at ’ome.”

  Odella smiled.

  “I am sure you are right to take the opportunity,” she agreed. “Papa does get very upset if we move his books, especially those he is using for his research.”

  The Rector was writing a history of the village of Nettleway, which was his Parish.

  As he required a great many books for reference, they were piled up on every table in the study and on the floor as well.

  She could easily understand Mrs. Barnet’s desire to make everything clean while she had a good chance.

  “There are some things I want to buy in Portsmouth,” Odella said, “so I will take Emily with me. I know Papa would not like me to go there alone.”

  “I should think not indeed!” Mrs. Barnet declared as if Odella had suggested something improper. “And your dear mother, God rest her soul, would never have let you go into the town on your own.”

  That was certainly true because Portsmouth at the moment was very different from the Portsmouth of old before the war.

  Now that the tide seemed to have turned against Napoleon Bonaparte and every day the Duke of Wellington was sending home most encouraging reports of progress on all fronts and so people were very much more cheerful than they had been the previous year.

  And last spring and summer the roads to Portsmouth and Plymouth had been filled with troops.

  There were the jangling Household Cavalry with splendid accoutrements on excellent horses who were to travel with them to their destination.

  There were Reserve Battalions marching to reinforce their Regiments, who were by now veterans of the Peninsular War and several detachments of rosy-cheeked Militiamen under raw young Ensigns ‘in fine new toggery’.

  They came through the villages, their drums and fifes playing, with little boys running excitedly behind them.

  The housewives rushed to their cottage doors and windows to see them passing and the older women mourned over the ‘young lambs going to the slaughter’.

  The older men and those who had returned wounded to England muttered that they did not know what was ‘a-comin’ to ’em’.

  Odella and her father often talked of the carnage awaiting them after they had crossed the English Channel and she wondered what the soldiers would think when they saw the barren tawny shores of the Peninsula for the first time.

  The men who returned would come to tell the Rector of their experiences, feeling that he was the one person in the village who would understand all that they had been through.

  They would describe all too vividly and in detail the stink of Lisbon and what they felt as they marched out of the Belem Barracks on the long mountain track to the frontier between Portugal and Spain.

  Some of the stories they told had made Odella want to cry, but others were very funny.

  One young man who had returned home only slightly wounded was the doctor’s son, Tim Howland.

  He described vividly to the Rector, whom he had known since he was a child, what he and the men with him had experienced.

  Bug-bitten, footsore and dusty, they had finally found themselves among the tattered cheery veterans who were to be their comrades.

  “It was then that our education began,” Tim related.

  The Rector raised his eyebrows and he went on to explain,

  “I and a large number of others were taken by Major O’Hara of the Rifles to where we could look down from a rocky height at the enemy on the plain below.

  “‘Those are the French,’ he barked out in his Barrack yard voice. ‘You must kill those fellows and not allow them to kill you. You must learn to do as these old birds do and find cover where you can. Remember, recruits, you have come here to kill, not to be killed. Bear this in mind – if you don’t kill the French first, they will kill you!’”

  “That was certainly plain-speaking,” the Rector remarked.

  “That is what we thought at the time,” Tim replied. “And it was true enough, as we were to find out for ourselves.”

  After what she had heard, Odella had then always prayed for each consignment of men as they arrived.

  Marching behind the drums and fifes, the soldiers obviously were enjoying the cheers of the crowd.

  They appreciated the young girls who ran out to thrust flowers into their hands or give them kisses and she wondered how many would return and how many would be buried in unmarked graves.

  At the beginning of his great offensive in May 1813, the Duke of Wellington had under his command more than fifty thousand British troops and nearly thirty thousand Portuguese.

  Now, by the following February, Wellington had a firm foothold across the Pyrenees in the South-West of France and the people of Spain had become our friends and allies.

  “Oh, miss, oh, do look!” Emily cried.

  As the music grew louder, it was certainly not the fifes and drums that Odella had heard so often.

  Now she leant over her side of the carriage to look up the road and she was not surprised that Emily was feeling so enthusiastic.

  There was a colourful parade coming down the street towards them.

  It was led by a tall man wearing a red coat and black top hat, which he raised every so often to the women waving to him.

  He was riding a fine black horse and behind him there were four other horses ridden by pretty young women wearing ballet skirts that revealed their shapely legs.

  On their heads they wore glittering crowns and fluttering feathers and what looked like flashing jewels.

  Emily was so thrilled that she rose off the seat beside Odella and then, kneeling on the opposite seat, which had its back to the horses, she could see better without obscuring her Mistress’s view.

  Nearer and nearer they came.

  Now Odella could see that the band was being carried on a wagon drawn by two white horses and they were driven by a man wearing the skin and head of a tiger.

  Cymbals were clashed to make the loudest noise possible and the big drum boomed out to the delight of the crowd.

  The bandsmen were all dressed in fairy costumes.

  This wagon was followed by some clowns who cracked jokes with the passers-by and waved balloons on sticks in front of the children. They whisked them away, however, before the boys could catch them.

  With their white faces, exaggerated red lips, and strange pantaloons, it was impossible not to laugh at them.

  Every movement they made and every word they uttered brought peals of laughter from those they were passing.

  On another wagon covered not like the others in scarlet but in glittering silver, came a spectacular figure.

  Seated on what appeared to be a golden Throne, she was dressed in a shimmering gown that caught the sun’s rays and glittered with every moveme
nt she made.

  It covered not only her body but also her head and she wore over her face what Odella recognised as a yashmak.

  Her eyes were revealed, but beneath them there was a veil of rose-pink gauze.

  In one hand she held a large crystal ball and in the other a pack of cards.

  “She be the fortune-teller, Miss Odella!” Emily gasped. “I’ve ’eard about ’er.”

  Odella thought that she certainly looked the part.

  Then, just as they reached a point on the road where they were watching from, the man in the red coat called a halt.

  He drew in his horse, as did those behind him, and the two wagons came to a standstill.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen!” he called out in a voice that seemed to echo round the houses and hushed the crowds into silence. “Friends of Portsmouth. This afternoon at three o’clock there will be a performance of the circus in Lincoln Field and another at six. Come and join us! Come and see the brilliance of our ballerinas on horseback and the way that our clowns can make you laugh and consult Madame Zosina, who will tell you what wonderful surprises await you in the future.”

  He paused for a moment to say even more impressively,

  “Because we all wish ‘good luck’ to the brave men fighting for us against Napoleon, Madame Zosina will tell the future of every Serviceman for half the price that she charges to the rest of us.”

  There were loud cheers at this.

  Madame Zosina bent her head in acknowledgement, first to one side of the street and then to the other.

  “Three o’clock!” the Ringmaster shouted out. “And don’t be late!”

  Then the band struck up a bright tune and they were off again with the people waving to them on the pavements and from the windows.

  They were accompanied by a crowd of small boys running excitedly beside the horses and the wagons.

  As they disappeared round a corner of the street, Emily gave a deep sigh,

  “That were lovely, Miss Odella, I’d love to ’ave me fortune told.”

  She looked pleadingly at Odella as she spoke.

  Because Odella was fond of the girl, who was only just seventeen and a year younger than herself, she replied,

  “If we can complete our shopping quickly, perhaps we can then go to the circus.”

  Emily clasped her hands together.

  “Oh, Miss Odella, do you mean that? It’ll be somethin’ I’ll remember all me life!”

  “I hope you will have a great deal more than that to remember,” Odella remarked. “As we don’t have to hurry home to give my father his tea, we will go to the circus, but we must finish our shopping first.”

  The carriage was already moving and Thompson turned at the far end of the street.

  Odella had made a list of the things that were wanted both by Mrs. Barnet, who was short of cleaning materials, and by Betsy the cook.

  Betsy had been at the Rectory for many years and was always complaining that the local shops did not stock the special ingredients she wanted for more exotic dishes.

  It was an old complaint that Odella had heard a hundred times before.

  She had therefore brought with her now a list of exactly what Betsy really wanted.

  Although it took time, they managed to purchase almost everything they required before it was a quarter to three.

  Odella was aware that, while she was asking for first one thing and then another, Emily was steadfastly watching the clock.

  She was desperately afraid that, if they were late, they would not be able to obtain seats in the ring of the circus.

  Odella thought, however, that it was most unlikely that the circus would be full up in the afternoon.

  It was in the evening, when the shops were closed and people had nothing else to do, that they would flock to Lincoln Field, where the circus had been set up. And then every seat would be taken.

  When finally Odella told Thompson where to take them, Emily was almost jumping for joy.

  “Now, what do you want to do, Emily?” Odella asked her. “Shall we go into the Big Top and watch the clowns and the horses, and I expect there will be monkeys too, or do you want to visit Madame Zosina first?”

  Emily thought it over and, as she was not very quick-witted, it took her some time.

  “I thinks, Miss Odella,” she replied at last, “we should go to Madame Zosina first. There won’t be many people waitin’ to see her early in the afternoon and later ’er might leave afore we gets to ’er.”

  Odella laughed, thinking that this was good reasoning on Emily’s part.

  “Very well,” she smiled, “It is Madame Zosina first.”

  When they arrived at Lincoln Field, it was easy to see Madame’s tent.

  It stood away from the others by itself and instead of being like the other tents, it was red with her name emblazoned on it in gold lettering. And outside the tent there were two large palm trees each standing in a tub.

  Odella purchased their tickets at a booth and she and Emily went inside.

  There was a row of chairs on either side of the tent entrance for those who were waiting to go into the inner sanctum.

  Madame Zosina was hidden from their gaze by a glittering curtain rather like the gown she wore and the veil that covered her hair.

  Odella realised how everything was designed to excite the imagination and anticipation of those who consulted the famous fortune-teller.

  There were two sailors waiting to have their fortunes told and, almost as soon as Odella and Emily had sat down, another sailor came out through the glittering curtain.

  He went up to those who were waiting and as the nearest one jumped up to take his place behind the curtain, he said to him,

  “She be marvellous! That’s what she be. And you’ll be proud to know me afore I’m very much older!”

  The man he was speaking to then disappeared through the glittering curtain.

  His friend, who was left behind, laughed.

  “If she’s told you you’re goin’ to be an Admiral, well, you just shouldn’t believe all you hears!”

  “You’ll be surprised,” the other young sailor retorted.

  Then he walked jauntily out of the tent into the sunshine and the sailor he had just been talking to moved up nearer to the curtain.

  In case someone came and tried to steal a march on them, Odella moved into the seat next to him and Emily rapidly came up beside her.

  They had only just done so when three girls came into the tent and hastily took chairs on the other side.

  “We’re goin’ to have to wait,” one of the girls whispered.

  “’T’ll be worth it to know the future,” another girl replied. “I wants to know if Bert’s serious or not. He talks an awful lot, but he don’t say what I wants to hear.”

  Odella smiled to herself.

  She reflected that it was not very difficult to tell the fortunes of the village girls, which was something that she had quite often done herself.

  Ever since she had been a child, she had somehow known things about people without being told.

  She had been a fortune-teller for her father at the Bazaar they held every summer for the Church and again when they wanted to raise money for the many festivities at Christmas.

  The village people thought that she was brilliant at her fortune-telling and believed every _­word she told them.

  Her mother had warned her always to be very careful and not raise people’s false hopes.

  “I know, darling, that you sometimes see things that other people cannot see and that is a gift direct from God. But you must not abuse it. You must not promise things that cannot be fulfilled for people who do not acquire what they are wishing for as it can make them very unhappy.”

  Odella had understood her mother implicitly.

  She had therefore always been very ambiguous in her fortune-telling.

  Unless she was absolutely convinced that what she said would actually happen, she did not raise the person’s hopes.

  It had been difficult for her since the scale of the war had increased.

  Almost every cottage in the village had someone fighting on the Peninsula against the French.

  Although she had never revealed it to anyone, she had somehow been fully aware of the deaths of several young men. And long before their relatives had been informed, Odella knew that they had died in the service of their country.

  But she had on two occasions been quite certain that a man would return back to his home after his family had finally given him up for lost.