The Tree of Love Read online

  God Bless you, my dearest beloved daughter, and please obey me as I believe that I am doing what both your mother and Johnnie would think is right and just.”

  Her father had signed it at the bottom of the page.

  Shenda read it again, feeling it could not be true.

  Also in her envelope was the name and address of a Courier in London who would take her to France and there was quite a large sum of money for her expenses.

  *

  Now she stood in the middle of the garden, looking at the flowers and shrubs that were so familiar, and the trees she and Johnnie had climbed when they were children.

  She looked beyond to the lake where they had both learnt to swim and fish.

  But still she could not believe that she must leave the home that had always been hers –

  And all the love that had been poured into it by her beloved family.

  As Johnnie was now dead, so was the title and the house and estate would have to be sold because there was not enough income for her to keep them going. Nor would it be possible for her to live there alone.

  As her father had said in his letter, the men working on the estate – and many had been with them for years – had all gone to the war.

  Many had been killed or wounded and there was no prospect therefore of their ploughing the acres again and making the crops pay as they had done before the war.

  Just as they now looked sad and neglected, so did the house itself.

  It was almost impossible, even if she could afford it, to have the necessary repairs undertaken.

  The winter rain had seeped in through the ceilings, and the tiles had fallen off the roof, and there had been no workmen to replace them or to make sure that there was no further damage in the next tempest.

  The last few winters had been rough and very cold and when they had killed her mother, they had destroyed part of the house, which was now uninhabitable.

  Now, whenever she looked at the house, she closed her eyes, as she could not bear to see how many windows needed repairing.

  The house would one day fall down or it would be left to the next owner to restore it to its former glory.

  At the same time everything in her body rebelled against going abroad.

  How could she ever leave the England she loved so much where everything was so familiar?

  Yet she knew that her father would think of it as an adventure for her.

  When he was a young man, he had spent much time exploring the world and had visited many strange countries that seldom appeared in the geography books.

  Shenda could remember sitting on a stool at his feet while he told her stories – how he had climbed a mountain in India and how he had travelled to Nepal where few other Europeans had ever been and how he had then explored the great unknown African deserts.

  He made it all seem so fascinating, vivid and real to the small child listening to him and it was even better when she could follow his finger on the map.

  ‘If only my Papa was able to come with me now,’ she thought, ‘it would be exciting, but, if I go alone, it will be frightening and embarrassing, especially if the Duke has no wish to look after me as Papa has requested.’

  She could hardly imagine why at the moment of his victory and now busy organising the Army of Occupation, he should take the slightest notice of her.

  Yet, as her father had once said,

  “Friendship is what counts ultimately in this world. The friendship of those you meet, if only for a short time, should remain with you in your mind and your heart, never to be forgotten.”

  She knew her father had felt that about the Duke of Wellington.

  He had known him first when he was serving in India and they had apparently become friends, although her father was much older.

  He had watched the extraordinary rise of the Duke from an unknown and not particularly successful soldier.

  And now he was the greatest soldier, the greatest diplomat and, to many beautiful women, the greatest lover.

  At the same time it was one thing to admire a man and to recognise him as the greatest conqueror of his time – quite another to be handed over to him as if she were just a book or a piece of Dresden china.

  ‘If he has any sense he will refuse to have anything to do with me,’ thought Shenda. ‘If I was sensible, I would take the money Papa has left for me and spend it finding a small cottage and somewhere to work.’

  However, she was not certain what that work could be or what she might be capable of doing.

  With no prospect in sight for the future and no one to protect her as her parents had done, she would have to find a place where people were kind and understanding.

  Equally she was well aware that her mother would be shocked at the idea of her being unchaperoned.

  Even if she were to live in a small cottage in a small village, people would know that she was alone and consider it imprudent and actually improper.

  ‘I suppose I shall have to go to France,’ she sighed.

  Then her whole being flowed out to the garden – to the flowers she loved and always bloomed year after year just for her – and above all to her many memories.

  There had once been white pigeons on the lawn and a golden fountain that she had loved as a child.

  What was more hurtful than anything was to have to leave her beautiful stallion.

  She had ridden Samson every day since her father had given him to her on her sixteenth birthday.

  If Samson was permitted to do so, he would follow her unbridled and un-led anywhere she went.

  She could not bear to actually give him away and so she had asked a farmer who lived near the village if he would keep Samson for her and he had promised to do so.

  “I’ve a grandson who’ll be that ’appy to ride ’im,” he said. “I ’opes ’e’ll grow up to be as good a rider as you be, Miss Linbury, and I knows ’e’ll come to no ’arm on that there ’orse.”

  He refused to take any of Shenda’s money although she had offered some to him.

  “You be doin’ I a favour, and saving I from ’avin’ to buy me grandson a donkey,” the farmer continued. “You keep all your money in your pocket, Miss Linbury. You’ll find it goes away quick enough if you goes amongst them Frenchies.”

  Shenda had told the farmer she was going to France and that was why she was leaving her stallion with him.

  He had guessed, although he did not say so, that she was going to visit the grave of her brother.

  It was indeed something she intended to do if it was at all possible, but she had no idea where he was buried or even if the Duke of Wellington would know where.

  It was agonising to say goodbye to the garden and the lake where she had learnt to swim and where her boisterous brother had once pushed her in.

  Her mother had been angry, but her father laughed.

  “The children are growing up,” he counselled, “and they will have to look after themselves in the future. It is going to be a different world, Elizabeth, from the one we enjoyed when we were first married.”

  That was indeed true, Shenda reflected.

  The war had changed everything.

  Nothing would be the same as it had once been.

  She went into the house and climbed wearily up the stairs to her bedroom.

  One of the local women came from the village each morning to clean the kitchen and cooked Shenda’s meal at midday.

  After her father’s death, she just cooked something simple for herself at night, although sometimes she was too lazy or too tired to bother.

  Now she could hear Mrs. Smithson moving about in the kitchen, but she had no wish to talk to her.

  She realised that soon they would all want to say goodbye to her, and it would be impossible for them to do so without someone crying and they would tell her over and over again how much they would miss her.

  What she had to do now was to pack all the things she would need.

  Some of her clothes, which she decided she
would not wear again she would give away to the villagers. She had already given away a lot of her mother’s clothes, but had kept the best for herself.

  She thought she would take these with her – they were rather out of date but still serviceable.

  As she had no idea what she would do in France, it could be a mistake to be overdressed.

  Her clothes were simple and in good taste and she was well aware that if nothing else she certainly looked a lady in them.

  However, she was sure that the Duke, who had all the beautiful women of Europe around him, would find her dull and unattractive.

  There were endless rumours even in the depths of the countryside that he was enjoying himself with a great number of lovely women.

  Even before her mother had died there was always someone who had a story about the Duke, which they felt, compelled to tell her.

  As a schoolgirl, Lady Charlotte Bentinck, daughter of the third Earl of Portland, was one of the first names that Shenda had heard mentioned in connection with the Duke of Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley.

  She had not really listened and yet she remembered the gossip that Arthur Wellesley had met Lady Charlotte in London when he returned from India and that they had become lovers.

  It was only later that Shenda had understood what that actually meant.

  Now she remembered that when she was a bit older she had overheard another conversation.

  Lady Charlotte’s home in the Hôtel d’Angleterre in Brussels was the focal point of all the news, military and Social.

  Also and it had been emphasised as extraordinary, Lady Charlotte gave a party every evening for the principal visitors then in Brussels, including the Duke of Wellington.

  Shenda asked herself now, if he had been so busy with such beautiful women, was it likely that he would be willing to have her thrust upon him?

  At the same time there was nothing else she could do but to obey her father’s last request.

  Therefore she continued to pack up her clothes, wondering where they and she would eventually end up.

  *

  It was just two days later when she finally took the plunge and travelled to London.

  She had intended to go there by post chaise, which obviously would have been expensive.

  But luckily the son of one of the local farmers was going to London with a large consignment of produce to sell at Smithfield Market and kindly said that he would welcome her company on the journey.

  It was hardly the right way, Shenda mused, that her mother and father would have envisaged her starting off on a journey that was to end with the Duke of Wellington.

  Equally it would be ridiculous to travel alone and to spend so much money on doing so.

  So she had therefore thanked the young man and accepted his offer and she had sat beside him in his cart.

  Actually it was far more comfortable than she had expected and the two horses drawing the cart were spirited and far quicker than the usual farm animals.

  They reached London in less than three hours, which Shenda thought was exceptional.

  The young farmer deposited her with her luggage at the office where she could find the Courier her father had instructed her to use.

  He turned out to be an elderly but well-spoken man, who remembered her father well and was only too willing to accompany her to France.

  “I need to find the Duke of Wellington,” she told him, “but I am not very certain whether he will be in Paris, where I understand he has a house in the Champs Élysées, or with the Army of Occupation at Cambrai.”

  For a moment the Courier looked nonplussed and then he suggested,

  “I have an idea, Miss Linbury, that one of our men, who has recently been to France might know. If you let me speak to him, I am sure he will have the latest news of His Grace’s movements.”

  He left Shenda sitting in the low-ceilinged entrance to the office.

  People kept coming and going past her and it took her a little time to realise that this must be where a number of people made their reservations to travel.

  The Courier came back to say,

  “I am led to understand that His Grace the Duke of Wellington is, at the moment, at his house in the Champs Élysées, and there is no reason at all, Miss Linbury, why we cannot reach Dover this evening in time to board a ferry to carry us to Ostend.”

  This, Shenda thought with a little quiver of delight, was where the adventure really started.

  She had adored travelling with her father, although it had only been very occasionally and she had also always enjoyed travelling in her mind.

  Now it was a reality.

  She desperately wanted her father with her to make sure she missed nothing of the trip.

  It took quite a long time as the road was very rough and they did not reach Dover until it was nearly midnight.

  Although the road was being repaired in a number of places, the Courier pointed out that there was a shortage of men to do the work owing to the war.

  It was an excuse she had heard thousands of times already and she was very certain that it was something she would hear a thousand times more in the future.

  The Courier took her to a comfortable hotel, which was not expensive and the guests, who never stayed more than a night or two, were not particularly interesting.

  To Shenda’s surprise she slept peacefully.

  *

  The following day they set off soon after dawn on the first ferry to cross the English Channel.

  It was overcrowded and the service was practically non-existent, but, as Shenda had somewhere to sit, she did not worry. She was only too thankful and too excited when she stepped out onto French soil.

  She left the Courier to fight for seats on the coach for Paris that would leave as soon as it was full.

  The carriage was quick and the service where they changed horses was swift.

  They could, the Courier informed her, reach Paris in twelve hours, but it was always very uncertain what might happen en route – not surprisingly they were delayed first by a loose wheel and then when one of the horses went lame.

  It was late in the afternoon when they finally drove into the Capital City that Shenda had heard so much about.

  She was so excited at seeing the tall houses and the narrow alleys crowded with people moving around.

  After Napoleon’s last fling and his final defeat at Waterloo, the International Peace Conference had opened in July 1815 in Vienna.

  The Duke of Wellington and Viscount Castlereagh were the British delegates and Britain’s colours were flying high on the Continent.

  It was undoubtedly Wellington’s hour and he could say, as he had declared before the Battle of Talavera, “the ball is at my foot and I do hope I shall have the strength to give it a good kick!”

  But on this occasion the hour was to have its trials.

  Art was the first great French grievance.

  It seemed correct to the Allies that the art treasures seized by victorious French Armies should, after they had been finally defeated, be returned to their rightful owners.

  The Duke’s policy was deliberately temperate and he was determined not to hurt the feelings of Louis XVIII, the restored King of France.

  He did not, for one instance, go to the extreme of demanding the Bayeux Tapestries for England nor did he encourage British enterprise at the expense of the French.

  In fact, when one of his aides-de-camp at Waterloo bought the field of Agincourt and began prodding amongst the French bones, the Duke was asked to intervene.

  He commented sardonically later,

  “I gave Woodford a hint to dig no more.”

  However, despite the Duke’s moderation it took two months of bitter argument for the French Government to agree to any restitution of art treasures.

  Shenda had read in the papers about the tremendous row there had been at the Louvre.

  British soldiers had given the Dutch permission to remove everything they claimed as theirs, altho
ugh Parisian workmen refused to unhook the Italian pictures.

  When they had carried out the Venus di Medici feet first, they were accosted by outraged onlookers and Shenda had read that so much fuss was created that the Duke had to arrange for the removal of the Parisians’ favourite trophies at night, including the four bronze horses from St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.

  They had been erected by Napoleon on a triumphal arch in the Place du Carrousel.

  The Venetians had wept and booed as their beloved Byzantine horses were brought down one by one in chains from the façade of St. Mark’s.

  Therefore to spare French feelings and to avoid a similar disturbance, Wellington ordered the bronze horses to be moved at night.

  He hoped that the French would sleep whilst they were taken away and under only just a few Officers twenty civilians with their tools started to work.

  Suddenly there was a loud noise.

  The National Guard then burst right into the Place du Carrousel followed by a raging mob and stopped them.

  The following morning the Duke arrived, expecting to find the work completed and in a rage he ordered three thousand Austrians to seal off the Place du Carrousel.

  Each horse was finally brought down to uproarious cheering while the howling mob was kept outside.

  It had amused Shenda to read all this in the London Morning Post.

  She was wondering whether she would see endless empty spaces everywhere in Paris from which the countries overrun by Napoleon had recovered their treasures.

  When Shenda and the Courier had been set down after the long journey from Ostend, they took an ordinary fiacre and the Courier instructed the driver to take them to the Champs Élysées.

  It was thrilling for Shenda to be driven through the Place de la Concorde and she remembered clearly how the fearsome guillotine had once stood there with the King of France behaving with great bravery before the mob cut off his head.

  The thought of it made her shudder, but she could not help finding the Place de la Concorde itself even lovelier than she thought it would be.

  The Champs Élysées was wide and impressive and only then did she forget her interest in everything the Duke had been doing to restore the treasures of Europe.