Saved By A Saint Read online

  There was also a frightening expression in his eyes and it made everyone who worked for him feel when they saw it as if a trickle of icy water was moving down their backs.

  The Marquis drove on.

  He stopped after about two hours to change horses at a Posting inn where another team belonging to him was waiting.

  While the animals were being changed over, he drank a glass of home-made cider, having refused the wine the innkeeper offered him.

  He was in fact always abstemious both in what he ate and what he drank.

  As they started out again he was thinking of the horses that would be waiting for him in the stables at The Hall.

  He expected to be there within an hour-and-a-half.

  His secretary had sent a groom across country to alert the servants of his imminent arrival.

  It was nearly one o’clock when the Marquis turned his carriage round a corner on the highway and then pulled them up sharply.

  Just ahead there had been a collision and a bad one.

  A large overloaded coach could only just have fallen sideways on the road.

  The panic-stricken horses that had been pulling it were struggling wildly against the sharp shafts and there was a country wagon on the other side of the road with a shattered wheel.

  Somehow mixed up in the middle of it all was a pony cart with the animal that had been pulling it lying down on the ground.

  There were screams and shouts coming from the occupants inside the coach and the whole scene was one of chaos.

  The Marquis handed his reins to the groom and jumped down to the ground.

  Then he started to create order out of chaos.

  He ordered some labourers who had appeared to help free the horses belonging to the coach and two other men were told to release the shafts of the carthorse drawing the farm wagon.

  He then assisted those inside the coach who were either screaming or in tears to clamber with some difficulty onto the road.

  One woman seemed rather badly crushed by those who had fallen against her when the carriage toppled over.

  The Marquis told some boys who were watching with interest to go and find the nearest doctor.

  The biggest of the boys, who seemed older than the others, told the Marquis he knew where he lived. The Marquis gave the boy a shilling and told him to run as fast as he could.

  Delighted with his generous tip the boy set off and the Marquis looked round him.

  The men and women he had helped from the coach were standing disconsolately by the roadside.

  They were making no effort to retrieve their luggage, which had been thrown over the roof of the coach and was in the ditch. Some of the lids had come off the boxes and the contents were strewn over the grass and the road.

  The Marquis told them to retrieve their belongings.

  He then looked at the pony cart.

  Beside it a girl knelt, stroking the pony’s neck. It was lying still.

  As he reached her the girl looked up at him and he saw that she was very pretty.

  “I-I think – my p-pony is – d-dead,” she whispered in a broken little voice.

  The Marquis bent down and saw immediately that she was right.

  It was a very old pony.

  A wheel had been broken by the coach as it crashed against the wagon and it had hit the animal with enough violence to kill it.

  Undoubtedly, the Marquis thought, the pony would not have lived long anyway.

  But to the girl stroking it with long thin fingers it was a tragedy.

  “I am sorry,” he said quietly, “but I am afraid there is nothing that can be done.”

  Do – do you think that – perhaps I could – have him – b-buried?” she asked.

  “I am sure that can be managed,” the Marquis replied.

  He saw a labourer standing watching the horses belonging to the coach and they were now more or less under control.

  “There is a dead pony here,” the Marquis said to him, “and the owner wants him buried. Have you any suggestions about where this can be done?”

  The labourer realised that he was being spoken to by someone in authority and he touched his forelock.

  “I’ll do it for you, sir” he said, “if that be what’s wanted.”

  “That is what I want,” the Marquis agreed. “And I will pay you for doing so.”

  He walked back to the girl and the labourer followed him. The Marquis gave the orders because he saw that the girl was fighting back her tears.

  When the labourer took the sovereign he was offered, his eyes gleamed.

  He offered to find a friend of his who would help him with the task.

  “There be a bit of wasteland, sir,” he said “jest as you comes into the village. We’ll put ’im there.”

  “Thank you – thank you – very much,” the girl said in a breathless little voice. “I-I will – come back tomorrow – and see where you have – buried him.”

  “That’s right, miss,” the labourer said, “and don’t you worry. If you wants to put up a tombstone to ’im, I’ll do that with some wood.”

  “That is very – kind of you,” the girl stammered. “He was c-called – Ben and – I have had him – ever since I was little.”

  “Then I knows as ’ow you’ll miss ’im,” the labourer said.

  She nodded, and the Marquis said,

  “I think I had better take you home. If I can find someone to repair your cart, you will be able to collect it later.”

  “I’ll do that for you, sir,” the labourer said eagerly.

  “That would be very helpful,” the Marquis agreed.

  As another sovereign exchanged hands, he knew that the man would keep his word.

  Then he turned to the girl and said,

  “Now let me take you home. We can do nothing more here.”

  She went with him to his phaeton and the Marquis helped her into it, as the groom who had been holding the horses’ heads jumped up onto the seat behind.

  It was not easy for the Marquis to negotiate his way past the upturned coach. The wagon had now been pushed to one side, the horse having been released.

  Somehow the Marquis managed it and the road ahead was clear.

  As he drove on, he asked,

  “Tell me, what is your name?”

  “I am – Christina Churston,” she replied.

  The Marquis thought for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “I think you live on my estate.”

  “Yes – I do,” she agreed, “and I know that you are the – Marquis of Melverley.”

  The Marquis smiled and turned to look at her.

  She was, he told himself, exceptionally lovely, but she was simply dressed.

  It was then he noticed that she was wearing a black sash round the waist of her white gown.

  “I have been abroad during the war,” he said, “and since I have returned I do not think I have met your family.”

  “My – my father d-died a fortnight ago,” Christina answered. “I live at – Four Gables – just outside your Park.”

  “Of course, I remember now hearing of your father,” the Marquis remarked. “Did he not have a large collection of stuffed birds?”

  “Yes, that is right,” Christina said. “He collected them all his life and, as your father also had a collection, they used to meet and compare notes.”

  “I remember my father telling me about that.” the Marquis said, “I am very sorry to hear that he is no longer with you.”

  “I – miss him – very much,” Christina sighed.

  There was a forlorn note in her voice, which made the Marquis ask,

  “Are you telling me that you are living alone at Four Gables?”

  “I-I have my Nanny – with me,” Christina replied, “and I have – written to Papa’s brother, but his family live in Northumberland – and it is a very – very long way away.”

  “It is indeed,” the Marquis agreed, “but I do not think you ought to be alone.”<
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  “I-I am not alone,” Christina said, “but I shall miss – Ben. It was the one way I could go and visit my friends – and now I shall have to walk.”

  She spoke so naturally that the Marquis knew that she was not asking him to be generous and provide her with some other form of transport.

  By now they had turned into the village.

  There was a row of thatched cottages on one side of the road and on the other the wall surrounding the Marquis’s estate.

  He drove past his own gates.

  He remembered that further up the road there was a charming red brick Elizabethan house and he had thought when he was small that it had a funny name.

  He could not, however, remember ever having met Christina.

  “How old are you?” he asked, “if that is not a rude question.”

  “I am eighteen,” Christina answered. “I will be – nineteen in three months’ time.”

  That explained, the Marquis thought, why he had not seen her.

  He had gone off to war as soon as he had left Eton and he had thought in those days that young girls were a bore and beneath his condescension.

  Steering his horses down the short drive he pulled up outside the front door of Four Gables.

  “I am going to leave you now,” he said, “but I will come and call on you some time tomorrow and see if I can help you over the loss of your pony.”

  “That is – very kind of you,” Christina replied, “but you must not – bother yourself – when you have – so many – other things to see to.”

  The Marquis raised his eyebrows and she added,

  “The whole village has been longing for you to come home. They need your guidance on so many things that have to be done – which, of course, were neglected while you were on the Continent.”

  “Neglected?” the Marquis repeated in surprise.

  It had never occurred to him that while he was away things were not being carried on exactly as they had been in his father’s time.

  “The war has made a great difference,” Christina said, as if he had asked the question. “Now the men are coming back from the Army, they are looking for work.”

  “They will be employed, as they always have been, on the estate,” the Marquis asserted sharply.

  She did not speak and he looked at her.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” he asked.

  “I – I am – sorry – it is not – my business,” Christina answered.

  She stepped out of the phaeton as she spoke and the Marquis followed her as his groom went to the horses’ heads.

  Christina opened the front door and he walked after her into the small hall.

  “I want you to explain what you have been saying,” he said. “Is there trouble here that I do not know about?”

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  “I ought not to – interfere,” she said, “and I-I spoke without – thinking.”

  “But I want you to think, I want you to tell me the truth. What is wrong?”

  “I think you should talk – to the Vicar,” Christina responded. “He is very worried, as Papa was, about the young men having – nothing to do.”

  “I will certainly see to it,” the Marquis said. “Thank you for telling me. I will come and see you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for being – so kind about – Ben. I know you gave that man – quite a lot of money – and of course I must – pay you back, my Lord.”

  “I should be insulted if you did anything of the sort!” the Marquis smiled.

  “Then – thank you – thank you very much,” Christina said again.

  The Marquis climbed back into his phaeton, turned it round and raising his hat drove back up the drive.

  He was thinking as he went that something was unmistakably wrong.

  It was fortunate that he had found out about it, even though it was in such an unexpected manner.

  And yet the mere idea of there being anything wrong at Melverley annoyed him.

  ‘I wonder what the devil it is!’ he asked, as he drove in at his lodge gates.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The butler was waiting in the hall when the Marquis arrived.

  With him were four footmen whose livery seemed somewhat ill fitting.

  “Welcome back, my Lord!” the butler proclaimed. “It’s good to have your Lordship back.”

  “I should have come earlier,” the Marquis replied, “but I was kept in London. However, I agree with you, Johnson, it’s a joy to be back home at Melverley Hall.”

  He looked around the large hall.

  With the sun shining on the gold frames of his ancestors’ portraits he thought it looked very impressive.

  “Luncheon is ready, my Lord,” Johnson announced.

  The Marquis, however, walked towards the room that was at the far end of the hall. It was where his mother had always sat and where he had last seen his father.

  The third Marquis had died while his son was fighting in Portugal and he had been unable to return for the funeral.

  Here again everything seemed exactly as it had been when he was a child.

  The books with their leather covers on the shelves, the pieces of furniture, which were very old and had been handed down through the generations.

  The Marquis without any comment turned round and walked down the corridor to the dining room.

  This was a magnificent room that could comfortably seat a hundred people without it seeming overcrowded.

  The Minstrels’ Gallery at the far end, with its carved front, had been a delight when he was a small boy and he remembered how he had crept down stairs when his father and mother were giving a party.

  He would peep at them without being seen and he recalled how radiantly beautiful his mother had looked wearing the Melverley tiara and round her neck rows of pearls that reached almost to her knees.

  He decided that one day he would give the same sort of parties.

  But he doubted if anyone, not even those as beautiful as Daisy, would compare with his mother.

  The food he was served was excellent.

  Mr. Barlow had been wise enough to warn the cook at The Hall that his Lordship preferred small meals.

  As soon as he had finished, the Marquis said,

  “I now wish to see Mr. Waters. I suppose he is in the Estate Office?”

  Johnson hesitated and the Marquis waited.

  I-I don’t think Mr. Waters is here yet, my Lord,” he said after what seemed a considerable pause.

  “Not here?” the Marquis exclaimed. “Why not? Where is he?”

  “Mr. Waters usually comes in during the afternoons, my Lord,” Johnson replied.

  “He did not know that I was arriving today?”

  “No, my Lord. We didn’t expect your Lordship so early, so there was no reason to notify him.”

  The Marquis thought that the explanation seemed rather strange.

  There was also an expression on Johnson’s face that confirmed his conviction that all was not well.

  Without saying any more, he walked out of the dining room and down a long corridor that led to the Estate Office.

  It was at the far end of the house and, as he remembered, was a large room with its walls decorated with maps of the estate and black despatch boxes piled up in one corner.

  As the Marquis expected, there was no one there and the room seemed to him rather untidy.

  The large desk at which Waters worked was piled high with account books, one of them open.

  The Marquis glanced at it and then he saw that his Estate Manager had been working on the accounts for the month.

  While he was in France, the estate had been left in Waters’s hands.

  He sent an account every month to the Solicitors in London to obtain the wages, which was an arrangement the Marquis had put into effect before his father’s death.

  He had thought it was too much for him to cope with the day-to-day difficulties of the estate when he was in ill health.

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p; He looked at the book now and then began to turn over the pages, one by one.

  Christina Churston had said that the young men of the village as well as those returning from the war were unemployed.

  If it was true, it was something he could not understand.

  When his father was alive, everybody in the village was employed in one way or another at what they called the ‘Big House’.

  The best-looking young men started as pantry boys and rose to be footmen, while others worked in the garden or became grooms, gamekeepers, carpenters, bricklayers or blacksmiths.

  If they were fond of animals, they were found a place at the Home Farm.

  In reality Melverley was a state within a state and it had been the same all down the centuries.

  It was unheard of, unless there was something wrong with them, for the young women not to be employed at the Big House.

  The Marquis cast his eye down the list of names very carefully.

  Then he stiffened as he read, ‘Jim Hicks’.

  He remembered Jim Hicks well. He had taught him to ride when he had his first pony.

  Jim had been badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo and the Marquis had gone to find him after the battle.

  He had been taken to a ruined Church that had lost its roof and one of its walls due to French cannon fire.

  There was, however, some shelter left and the wounded had been set down on the stone floor as they were carried from the battlefield.

  It had taken the Marquis a little time to find Jim.

  When he did, he saw he had been shot in the chest and had lost a leg. There was obviously no chance of him surviving.

  As the Marquis knelt down beside him, he said,

  “I am very sorry to see you in this state, Jim.”

  With an effort, the man managed to croak,

  “Us won, didn’t us, my Lord!”

  “We won!” the Marquis confirmed, “You did splendidly and it really was a great victory!”

  Jim had smiled.

  Then he had closed his eyes and the Marquis knew that he would not open them again.

  He could remember all too well what he had felt as he left that Church.

  Jim, who had been a close part of his childhood, had gone forever.

  Now he looked again at Waters’s accounts.