A Road to Romance Read online

  Velina held the boy close.

  “It’s all right,” she said soothingly. “He will not hurt you anymore.”

  “I want me Mum!” the boy sobbed. “I want ’er!”

  “Where is your mother?” Velina enquired.

  She was holding the boy in her arms as she spoke and he was still crying against her shoulder.

  The Marquis was aware that a woman had come out of the cottage next door, having heard the noise, and was now looking over her hedge.

  “Who is that man,” the Marquis asked, “who is so cruel to this small boy.”

  “That be ’is uncle,” the woman answered, “and a nasty piece of work ’e is too! He drinks ’imself silly and then takes it out on that small child.”

  “It’s a disgrace!” The Marquis was now frowning. “Something should be done about it.”

  The woman did not answer and after a moment he asked,

  “Where are his mother and father?”

  “’Is father be killed in the war and ’is mother be attendin’ the death of her father who lived at Fairfield.”

  “Then the best thing we can do,” the Marquis said, “is to take the boy to her. He can hardly stay with a man who is as cruel as that.”

  “’E be real wicked to that poor child and ’is dog,” the woman said. “But there ain’t nothin’ we can do.”

  “Surely you have a Vicar in this village?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “No, we shares ’im with three other villages and ’e’s only able to come ’ere three times a month.”

  The Marquis knew that this had been another thing which had happened since the war when there were not so many people willing to pay the Vicar’s stipend as there had been in the past.

  He therefore said to the woman,

  “Would you be kind enough to hold these horses for a moment, while I see what I can do about that little boy and his dog.”

  The woman looked surprised.

  “There be nothin’ you can do,” she said. “If ’e’s locked them out they’ll not get into the ’ouse till it’s dark.”

  The Marquis felt that he would like to give that man some of his own medicine, but he thought it would be a mistake, as Velina was with him, to make a scene.

  “Now tell me exactly where the child’s mother is staying,” he said to the woman.

  “It be at Fairfield which be two mile up the road,” she replied.

  “And her name?”

  “Mrs. Slater.”

  The Marquis did not wait for more and he passed through the gate into the garden towards Velina.

  The boy was crying a little less now, but still there was a sob on his breath.

  Velina was still holding the boy close to her and the dog was rubbing his nose against her knee.

  She had pulled off her hat so that she could look after the boy more easily.

  The Marquis thought, with her hair shining in the sun, it made a very touching picture and one that he would like to have painted.

  He bent down and said,

  “What I am going to suggest is that we now take this boy to his mother. She lives only a little way up the road and I am sure that she would not like him treated in this cruel manner.”

  “Can we really do that?” Velina asked.

  She looked up at him with such an expression of admiration in her eyes that the Marquis thought no woman could ever look more grateful, even if he had given her a necklace of diamonds.

  He picked the boy up in his arms and urged,

  “Come along young man. I am now going to take you riding on my horse to find your mother.”

  The boy gave a little cry of delight.

  Then he said,

  “I can’t leave Jimmie.”

  “No, of course not, we will take him too and I am sure that your mother will be pleased to see you both.”

  He carried him in his arms out of the garden and placed him on Samson’s back. Despite the fact that he had been cruelly hurt, the boy was so thrilled at being on such a large horse that he stopped crying.

  He sat still staring at Samson’s head as if he could hardly believe what was happening.

  Velina picked up the dog, which was quite a small mongrel, and she could well understand that, to the boy, he was something precious and perhaps the only thing he had to love in a house of cruelty.

  The woman from the house next door was looking with astonishment at what was happening.

  “You’ll find Mrs. Slater in the second cottage on the right when you comes into the village,” she said. “’Er father were a very respected man and were the Verger in the village until ’e became too old.”

  “Thank you for helping us,” the Marquis replied. “I am sure that Mrs. Slater will thank you when she comes back. Although perhaps she will be able to stay where she is and keep the boy with her.”

  The woman shook her head.

  “No! Now her father be dead they ’as to give up the ’ouse which they lets ’im keep because ’e was so old and ’ad been a long time at the Church. I understands from Mrs. Slater afore she went away that there be another man waitin’ to go into it now ’er father’s passed on.”

  The woman was obviously glad to impart all this information and the Marquis thought she was undoubtedly the village gossip.

  That he and Velina were now taking the boy would certainly be passed from cottage to cottage after they left.

  The Marquis, having learnt all that he needed to know, turned to help Velina.

  She managed with extreme dexterity, he thought, to climb onto Fireball without any help.

  Then he handed her the dog which she put in front of her and then he climbed up onto Samson, aware that the small boy was very excited at riding anything so large.

  The Marquis managed, however, to raise his hat to the woman who had been talking to him and, as he rode off, he thought that she would have enough to gossip about for at least a week.

  Then, as they moved out of the village, the Marquis said to the boy who was sitting firmly, as if entranced, in front of him,

  “Now tell me your name.”

  “Me Mum always calls me Johnny,” he said. “But at school I be just John.”

  “Well, I think that Johnny and Jimmie are both very nice names,” the Marquis answered.

  The boy turned to look at his dog.

  “I think Jimmie likes ridin’ on a big ’orse – like I am,” he said.

  He had obviously by now forgotten how cruelly he had been struck by his uncle.

  But the Marquis was aware that there were marks on his neck that had obviously been inflicted on another occasion as well as on the lower part of his arms, which were not covered by the woolly jumper he was wearing.

  The Marquis glanced at Velina riding beside him.

  By the smile on her lips and the light in her eyes, he knew how pleased she was that he was helping the boy.

  “How long has your mother been away?” he asked Johnny.

  “A long, long time!” the boy replied, “and Uncle Simon beat me every night when I fed Jimmie because ’e was ’ungry or because he ’id in my bedroom.”

  He glanced at Velina as the boy was talking and he saw by the expression in her eyes how angry it made her.

  “Will your mother have to go back to the house you have just left,” she asked quietly.

  “We’ve nowhere else to go. It be Uncle Simon’s ’ouse and ’e ’ates us livin’ there with ’im.”

  “What happened to your father?” Velina asked him, almost knowing the answer before the boy replied,

  “Dada very brave. He be killed in the War fightin’ those wicked Frenchmen.”

  It was what she had expected and she glanced at the Marquis, who said,

  “I feel sure that we will find a better place for your mother and you.”

  Johnny, however, was not actually paying attention.

  He merely asked,

  “Make big ’orse go faster, please! I want to ride very very fa
st.”

  They had been walking down the road, but now the Marquis put Samson into a trot and Velina did the same with Fireball.

  It was rather difficult riding with only one hand and she had to hold the dog very close to her.

  She was not certain if she put it down onto the ground whether it would follow them.

  “Are you all right, Velina?” the Marquis enquired.

  “So far so good. It was brilliant of you to find out if we could take the boy to his mother. I was feeling desperate at leaving him with that horrible cruel man.”

  The Marquis thought that it would be a mistake to say too much in front of the child.

  But Johnny was not listening.

  “Faster! Faster!” he cried.

  To please him the Marquis moved at a very fast trot down the road with Velina keeping up behind.

  She thought, as she did so, how kind he was and how lucky she was to find someone so understanding.

  ‘First of all he had to save me,’ she mused, ‘and then Johnnie. He really is a remarkable person.’

  However she had to spend her time keeping Jimmie from slipping off her saddle and she was glad when the Marquis turned right and she realised that they were now in Fairfield village.

  There were not many cottages and it was easy to find the second one on the right which the Marquis realised was a little larger than the ordinary village cottages.

  He was wondering what Velina would say if the child had to go back with his mother to the house they had just left.

  There was no one to be seen in the small garden that stood in front of the house and so he dismounted and left Johnny sitting on the saddle.

  “Now hold the reins tightly,” he said, “and don’t let Samson move until I come back.”

  He had an idea that he might want to ride off on his own and he glanced at Velina as he spoke who understood.

  The Marquis opened the garden gate and walked up the narrow path towards the front door.

  Even as he did so, he thought the house somehow looked empty and, when he knocked on the door, there was no reply.

  He knocked again and then thought that he would walk round the back in case Johnny’s mother was in the kitchen and had not heard him.

  There was a narrow path taking him to the back of the house, where there was another garden, but he noticed that it was un-weeded and there were few flowers.

  The kitchen door was also closed and he was just wondering what he should do when he saw a woman come out of the next-door cottage.

  She was beginning to hang out the clothes that she had washed on the line.

  He went to the side of the garden and said,

  “Forgive me for bothering you, madam, but where is Mrs. Slater, who I understand was staying in this house.”

  The woman looked round in surprise and then took a clothes peg out of her mouth before she replied,

  “She were buried this mornin’!”

  “Mrs. Slater?” the Marquis questioned. “I thought it was her father who had died.”

  “Oh, ’e died just last week and ’er catches the same disease as ’e ’ad!” the woman replied. “I don’t know what it’s called, but it be very dangerous. When she died a few days ago, they buried her ever so quick, in case any of us got it.”

  She spoke almost indignantly as if it was annoying of her neighbour to have been so ill.

  “So Mrs. Slater is dead!” the Marquis said as if he was confirming it to himself.

  “Yes, ’er died and the Vicar says as to ’ow ’e’d tell ’er son, but he weren’t going to Merrycroft till tomorrow.”

  The Marquis realised that no one in Merrycroft, if that was the name of the village that they had just left, was aware of the tragedy that had overcome Mrs. Slater when she had gone to bury her father. In fact it was doubtful if even her drunken brother was aware of it.

  He saw that the woman who had been speaking to him was staring at him as if surprised at his appearance.

  Then she said,

  “If you be wantin’ to go into their ’ouse I thinks, being as ’ow they both died of some nasty disease, it’d be a stupid thing to do. That’s what I and the other people in the village thinks.”

  The Marquis thought that it would be a mistake for him to do so even if it was possible.

  So he thanked the woman with the washing for her information and, raising his hat politely, he walked away.

  When he went back to where Velina was waiting for him, he heard Johnny talking excitedly about Samson.

  “I think ’e could go faster than any other ’orse I’ve ever seen,” Johnny was saying, “and I’d like to ride ’im in a race. I knows ’e’d come first.”

  “I am sure he would,” Velina answered, “and when you are older you shall ride a horse as big as Samson and perhaps win a very big race.”

  As she then saw the Marquis coming through the gate, she asked him in a very different voice,

  “What has happened?”

  “I will tell you, but I think that we should move away from here,” he said.

  He was not only thinking that the house might be infectious from the disease, but thought it a mistake to let the woman next door see Johnny as it would be a story that would go round the village before nightfall.

  He therefore mounted Samson and they rode on.

  Although Velina looked at him in a puzzled way, he said nothing.

  In fact the Marquis did not speak until they were well out of the village.

  Then he said, in French, wondering if Velina would understand,

  “The child’s mother is dead. I would suppose that the only thing we can do is to take him back to his uncle.”

  He was not surprised when Velina answered him in the same language,

  “In that case he will be alone with that terrible man. Oh, please, please we cannot do that!”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” he asked still in French.

  Velina was silent for a moment.

  Then she said,

  “I am sure my Aunt Cecily would know someone on her estate who would take him in. There are always people who long for a child who are unable to have them.”

  The Marquis knew this to be true.

  And he was certain that there was someone on his own estate who would be only too willing to take such a nice little boy and his dog into their care, especially if he paid them to do so.

  At the same time he could not, at the moment, talk of his own affairs until he had won the Duke’s bet.

  So they were now saddled with Johnny and his dog unless they handed him over to a man who would beat him, perhaps even more cruelly than he had done already.

  He was then aware that, riding beside him, Velina was thinking and perhaps praying for some solution.

  Finally with a twist of his lips the Marquis said,

  “Well, since I seem to have adopted you, I suppose the only thing I can do is to adopt Johnny too and take him with us on our long journey to the North.”

  Velina looked at him.

  “Do you really mean that?” she asked.

  “I cannot think of any other solution unless I hand him over to the Police, who will undoubtedly take him to his nearest relative, who is his uncle.”

  “Please let him – stay with us,” Velina pleaded, “I will look after him and, although it might make us a little slower, I am sure he will do exactly what we want him to do. Please – please say yes, Neil!”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “I really don’t seem to have much choice,” he said. “Having adopted a sister, I now have to adopt a child who will have to be another relation of some sort!”

  He laughed because it all sounded so ridiculous.

  He thought that even the Duke would be impressed by this turn of Fate.

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Velina exclaimed. “I could not have slept if we had returned him to that awful man. I would have gone back and taken him with me.”

  “I am sure that the man your ste
pfather wanted you to marry would have been pleased if you had arrived with a child, who, of course, you might tell him is your own!”

  Velina grinned.

  “I had not thought of that. It would certainly be a surprise. But actually I think that Johnny is too old for me to say he is mine.”

  “We will soon find out,” the Marquis said. “Tell me Johnny, how old are you?”

  Johnny, who was concentrating on Samson, did not answer for a moment and then he replied,

  “Me Mum said I was seven on my last birthday and she gave me seven bars of chocolate.”

  “That was a very nice present,” the Marquis said. “I am sure you are a very sensible boy for your age.”

  “Me Mum says I’m very good,” Johnny answered, “and I ’elp ’er when she’s doin’ the washin’ and I clean the kitchen.”

  Suddenly he turned his head and said,

  “We’re out of this village now, I thought me Mum was stayin’ ’ere ’cos Grandpapa was dead.”

  The Marquis drew in his breath.

  “I am afraid that your mother has gone away and therefore, Johnny, we have to ride on to find her.”

  Johnny smiled.

  “I like ridin’ big ’orse, sir.”

  “So have you ridden a horse before?”

  Johnny nodded.

  “A boy at school ’ad a pony and ’e was kind to let me ride it lots of times.”

  The Marquis knew this was the answer he wanted.

  When they had gone on a little further, they entered another village and at once he saw a shop at the side of the road and drew in his horse.

  “You stay here in the saddle!” he ordered Johnny. “Hold on to the reins and make Samson wait for me.”

  Johnny was delighted.

  “I’ll do that, sir.”

  “If you are wise you will pat him gently with one hand and talk to him,” the Marquis said. “Horses like to be talked to and it keeps them quiet.”

  Velina wondered why he was going into the shop, which looked to her a very typical village shop that sold everything.

  The Marquis was not away for long.

  When he came back, he handed Johnny a large bag of sweets, which made him give a whoop of joy.

  Before he mounted Samson he went to the other side of Fireball and said to Velina,

  “If he is to join us, I must find him something to ride. I am told that there is a farmer, who farms about half-a-mile from here, with a pony for sale.”