Sword to the Heart (Bantam Series No. 13) Page 3

  He sighed and Natalia said:

  “But Papa, you have often said in Church that we must love our enemies.”

  “Love does not mean accepting what is wrong or refraining from punishing ill-doers,” her father replied. “We have to be strong in ourselves, to be upright, and above all, courageous, as the Knights were.”

  He paused and added with a faint smile:

  “I often think that when we tell children that they have a guardian angel to watch over them, we give them the wrong image.”

  “And what is the right image, Papa?”

  “I think that instead of an angel, soft and gentle with white wings,” the Reverend Adolphus had replied, warming to his theme, “that we each of us have a special Knight who fights on our behalf against evil and all the dangers that encompass us.”

  “A Knight!” Natalia echoed softly.

  “Yes, indeed,” her father went on, “a Knight with a sword in his hand! For love is not only a sentimental and romantic emotion; it is also an unsheathed sword that must thrust its way to victory.”

  After that Natalia was never afraid when she walked through the woods alone or sometimes had to find her way home blindly through the thick mist which would rise unexpectedly from the lake.

  She believed that her Knight—her guardian Knight—was with her, accompanying her and watching over her. Sometimes she would even talk to him and sense rather than hear his answers.

  So when she was summoned to the Drawing-Room to meet the tall, handsome stranger whom her mother introduced as a relative, she recognised him!

  ‘No wonder,’ she thought to herself after her very first glance at Lord Colwall, ‘he seems familiar.’

  He was just as she had visualised her Knight would look.

  As she stared up at him, her eyes very large in her small pointed face, she had seen not the elegance of his fashionable clothes, nor the crisp whiteness of his frilled cravat, but a shining armour, a plumed helmet and a naked sword in his hand.

  “This is Natalia, Cousin Ranulf,” she heard her mother say. “She is fifteen, and she is our only child, but even so, we try not to spoil her.”

  It seemed to Natalia that Lord Colwall looked at her surprisingly searchingly. She felt as if his eyes penetrated deep into her very heart.

  She curtsied, then found it impossible to look away from him, or even to drop her eyes modestly as she knew she should do. Never had she imagined that any man could be so handsome!

  “I wish to speak with you and your husband alone,” Lord Colwall remarked abruptly to Lady Margaret.

  Her mother turned towards Natalia.

  “I am sure, darling, you have something to occupy you in the Study. I will call you before His Lordship leaves so that you may say good-bye.”

  With an effort, Natalia found her voice.

  “May I please,” she asked, speaking to Lord Colwall, “go and look at your horses?”

  “You like horses?” he asked.

  “I love them!”

  “Then I will send you one.”

  She stared at him in astonishment.

  “You will send me a horse?” she questioned. “One like those you have outside?”

  “A better one.”

  She had gone from the room, her head in a whirl, hardly believing that she could have heard him aright.

  When a month later, the horse arrived, it had only confirmed her conviction that Lord Colwall was the Knight who had been sent to look after her, to guard her and to bring her an almost inexpressible happiness.

  Her father and mother had not told her for two years that her future had been decided that afternoon when Lord Colwall had come so unexpectedly to the Vicarage.

  She only knew that her whole life had changed.

  From having a few lessons a week with old Miss Grimsdown who lived in the village and who had long retired from teaching, her days were now filled with visiting teachers, two of whom came from as far away as Penrith.

  There was a French teacher who spoke with a Parisian accent, which her mother considered most important. There were teachers for Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Geography, the fundamental rules of English grammar, and Music.

  There was a teacher of Latin who thought her father’s methods were hopelessly out of date and who made what had been a joy and an interest into hours of laborious boredom.

  The Vicar, however, had been insistent upon one thing; he and no-one else should teach his daughter History and the Classics, and it was these lessons which Natalia prized above all others.

  She did, however, try to learn from the other teachers because, although nothing had been said, she sensed that this new tuition was connected with Lord Colwall and she wanted, above all things, to please him.

  “How could anybody be more kind than to give me you as a present?” she asked her horse.

  He was a high-spirited three-year-old who had arrived at the Vicarage complete with a groom to look after him.

  Inevitably Natalia christened him “Crusader,” and sometimes she thought that she herself was embarking on a special crusade. Whom she was fighting or for what cause, she was not quite certain!

  “How can we afford all these expensive things, Mother?” she asked her mother once, and was surprised when Lady Margaret did not reply immediately.

  “Someone is helping your father and me in this matter,” she said at length a little evasively.

  Natalia said no more. She had felt sure without being told who that someone was, and when eventually her mother told her the truth, it was what she had always suspected.

  Only one person could have thought of her well-being, or cared enough to plan her education.

  ‘I must work hard so that he will be proud of me,’ she told herself when she first started on the new regime.

  When finally she reached her seventeenth birthday and her mother told her that all this preparation was because Lord Colwall wished, when she was old enough, to marry her, she knew she had worked because she loved him.

  She loved him because from the very moment she first saw him she had been sure he was the Knight who had been in her thoughts and her dreams for over three years.

  She loved him for his thought of her, for the trouble he had taken in planning her education, and most of all because he had given her Crusader.

  “His Lordship told us when he came here,” Lady Margaret had said in a hesitant, worried voice, “that when you were old enough, he desired to make you his wife.”

  Natalia did not answer. It seemed as if the small room in the Vicarage was suddenly filled with a golden unearthly light.

  She could feel her heart beating loudly in her breast and yet she could not speak, could not find the words in which to answer her mother.

  “Of course, darling,” Lady Margaret was saying, “when you meet him again, you may not care for His Lordship. In which case Papa and I would have to explain that despite all he had done, a marriage between you was not possible.”

  Still Natalia did not speak, and after a moment Lady Margaret went on:

  “But if it was not against your wishes, it would be in fact the sort of marriage I had always hoped and prayed you might make. It would be wonderful for me that you should live in the house I always loved and which as a girl was the most exciting place I ever visited.”

  “You have often ... spoken of the ... Castle, Mama,” Natalia managed to say.

  “It is so magnificent—a dream Castle,” Lady Margaret said. “Of course Cousin Ranulf’s mother was dead, but his widowed Aunt, Lady Blestow, always played hostess when there were visitors.

  “We had very gay parties at Christmas and in the summer. There was a great Ball-Room where we could dance until the early hours of the morning, and lovely gardens where there were endless amusements for young people.”

  “You have told me about it very often, Mama,” Natalia said in a faraway voice.

  “I never dreamt in those days my daughter would ever live there! But even so, Natalia, Papa and I h
ave talked it over and we would not compel you to do anything you do not wish to do.”

  “But I do wish to marry Lord Colwall,” Natalia said, feeling as if the words came winging from the depths of her heart.

  “I had hoped,” Lady Margaret continued, “that he would visit us again, but perhaps it is best for him to wait until you are grown up. He will see then how much you have altered since he first saw you, and I know he will be interested, Natalia, to discover how talented you are.”

  She gave a little laugh.

  “Your Papa has always said that if you had been a boy, he is certain that you would have done very well at Oxford and gained a degree.”

  “When can I be ... married, Mama?”

  There was a note of impatience in Natalia’s tone, and now her mother saw that her eyes were shining as if a light had been lit behind them.

  “I do not know exactly, Natalia,” she replied. “I write to His Lordship every month telling him of your prowess. I know when he came here he spoke of waiting until you were eighteen. That will mean another year at least, and I can assure you that Papa and I are in no hurry to lose you.”

  “No, of course not, Mama,” Natalia said, almost as if it was expected of her. “At the same time, if I have only a year before I am married, then there is so much more I must learn; so much I must read. Oh, dear! How shall I get it done?”

  Lady Margaret gave her a fond smile.

  “I do not think, Natalia, that Lord Colwall will marry you entirely for your intellectual abilities. At the same time your Papa has always said that women should be educated as well as men. I must say I have often regretted that I cannot follow his more erudite arguments, or understand everything he tries to impart to me.”

  Natalia had bent to kiss her mother’s cheek.

  “Papa thinks you are perfect, Mama,” she said fondly, “and I hope that His Lordship will find me as agreeable.”

  Lady Margaret gave a little sigh.

  “I am sure he will, darling,” she said, but she sounded almost as if she convinced herself rather than her daughter.

  Because she was so anxious to shine in Lord Colwall’s eyes Natalia persuaded her father to take not only the Morning Post but also The Times.

  “I shall never have time to read two newspapers, Natalia,” the Reverend Adolphus protested.

  “But I have!” Natalia answered. “I must be up to date, Papa, with what is happening in the world outside.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “Pooley Bridge is so isolated that we might be living on an island in the Atlantic.”

  “Now, Natalia, that is not fair,” her father protested. “You and your mother visit Penrith at least once a month and there are some very agreeable people in the neighbourhood, including my own family.”

  “Yes, I know, Papa, and I am not complaining,” Natalia answered, “but I wish that Lord Colwall had thought it part of my education that I should go to London or perhaps even to Europe!”

  She paused and said:

  “Can you imagine, Papa, what it would be like to see Rome, or Athens?”

  “I am sure your husband will take you to both these places when you are married,” the Vicar answered. “It would be disappointing for him if you had seen them already with someone else.”

  A little shadow cleared from Natalia’s face.

  “Yes, of course, that is what His Lordship intends,” she said. “How clever of you, Papa, to realise it. And naturally I would much rather go with him than with anyone else in the world.

  “But you must tell me the whole history of the Colosseum, the Forum, and Acropolis and the Parthenon, in case however clever His Lordship may be, he does not know as much as you.”

  “I am sure he will know a great deal more,” the Reverend Adolphus declared modestly.

  At the same time he dropped a light kiss on his daughter’s hair. “But however interesting the Ancient World may be,” Natalia went on, “and you know how much their histories delight you and me, Papa, I must also be knowledgeable on current affairs.”

  There was a little frown between her eyes as she said:

  “There are more letters in The Times today about the cruelty of very young children being employed in the mines. I think you should read them, Papa.”

  “I will, indeed,” the Reverend Adolphus replied. “I suppose they have not published my letter about the iniquity of ‘Strappers’ being used to whip into wakefulness the children who labour on the looms.”

  “It has not appeared yet,” Natalia answered, “but there is a letter from Lord Lauderdale insisting that climbing boys are essential if chimneys are to be cleaned, and that people who say it is cruel to use children of five or six years old are talking rubbish!”

  The Reverend Adolphus gave a snort of sheer fury.

  ‘Lord Lauderdale should be thrust up a chimney himself!” he declared. “I only wish I could meet His Lordship and tell him what I think of him.”

  He spoke so violently that Natalia gave a little laugh.

  “Oh, Papa, I love you in your militant mood,” she exclaimed. ‘If you only could be in the House of Lords I really believe that you would rout Lord Lauderdale!”

  As she spoke she remembered that Lord Colwall was a member of the Upper House.

  She wondered why she had never seen his name amongst those who spoke on the subjects which interested her and her father, and on which they both felt so intensely.

  Journeying now in the Dritchka chariot on the last day of their journey as they passed through the fruitful vale of Evesham, Natalia said almost triumphantly:

  “There has been no talk in the newspapers of agricultural trouble in Herefordshire.”

  “No, I have noticed that,” her father replied. “It started early last month in Kent and then spread into Sussex and Hampshire.”

  “There has been a great deal about the Dorchester labourers in The Times,” Natalia said. “The men are receiving only 7 shillings per week, but they used no violence beyond breaking up a number of threshing machines.”

  “I read that,” her father said. “They behaved with restraint and actually said: ‘We do not intend to hurt the farmer but we are determined that we shall have more wages’.”

  “Nevertheless, two of the men were sentenced to death,” Natalia said in a low voice.

  “It is disgraceful,” the Vicar said angrily, “when a man cannot speak up for himself without being tried for his life or transported!” He pursed his lips before he continued:

  “I read the case of one man called Legge who was transported because he was declared by the Prosecutor to be ‘saucy and impudent’ and to have talked ‘rough and bobbish’.”

  “I read that too,” Natalia said. “Yet his character, which included a testimonial from a clergyman, was said to be exemplary.”

  “How could they do anything so unjust?” the Reverend Adolphus asked. “Legge had five children whom he supported without Parish help on 7 shillings per week. His cottage was given to him, but no fuel.”

  “I am sure Lord Colwall would never tolerate such cruelty on his estate!” Natalia exclaimed.

  “No, of course not,” her father agreed quickly. “But I have noticed that there has been trouble in Gloucester which is not far from Colwall.”

  “But there had never been one word either in The Times or the Morning Post about Herefordshire,” Natalia said quickly. “I am sure Lord Colwall cannot have a threshing machine.”

  “Let us hope not!” the Reverend Adolphus said in heartfelt tones. “A landowner near Canterbury wrote that in his parish, where no machines had been introduced, there were twenty-three barns. He calculated that in three barns fifteen men would find good, steady employment threshing corn by hand until May.”

  “And they make extra money!” Natalia exclaimed.

  “A man threshing by hand over the winter can earn from 15 to 20 shillings per week,” the Vicar replied.

  “It is easy for us to imagine,” Natalia said quietly, “what
the sight of one of those hated machines can mean to men like that! Are you surprised they destroy what to them is a monster of injustice?”

  “I do not think,” her father said firmly, “that the labourers over the whole country are getting either a fair deal or a fair hearing.” He added positively:

  “You must speak to His Lordship when you are married, Natalia, and see that on the Colwall estate at least there is justice and a living wage for those who work there.”

  “I am sure His Lordship is most generous,” Natalia said softly, thinking of how kind her future husband had been to her.

  She could feel the softness of the ermine inside her cloak which had kept her warm against the bitter winds and sleet they had encountered soon after they started on their journey South.

  She remembered the gowns of silks and satins that had been sent to the Vicarage at the same time as the cloak.

  There had also been nightgowns like gossamer, petticoats and chemises so fine they could pass through a wedding ring.

  She then realised her trousseau must have cost an almost astronomical sum of money, and she thought that her mother’s quite obvious lack of enthusiasm was due to her feeling that Lord Colwall had been extravagant.

  Lady Margaret’s reaction was in fact because she considered the gifts had been sent in a somewhat arbitrary manner, but Natalia was overcome by such kindness.

  The way they travelled, the flowers that had awaited her at each stopping place, the money that had been expended on her over the years, and above all Crusader could only, Natalia thought, have been provided by a man who was unbelievably generous, in thought as well as in deed.

  They stayed the last night of their journey at a black and white Inn in Tewkesbury.

  Although she was a little tired after so many miles on the road, Natalia had accompanied her father to the Norman Abbey, which the Reverend Adolphus said he had always longed to visit.

  The great rounded arches, the stained-glass windows, and the immensely high Chancel had made Natalia feel that she offered her heart up to Heaven in gratitude for all that was happening and all that lay ahead of her.

  As she knelt beside her father, she had told herself she could never thank God enough for the happiness she had known as a child and the happiness that would be hers in her married life.