Journey To love

CHAPTER ONE - 1885-1

CHAPTER ONE

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1885Lord Hallam was leaving for London and the whole house was in turmoil.

He had been one of the most successful Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs that England had ever produced.

He believed that when he retired and moved to the House of Lords he would no longer be concerned with diplomacy. However whenever there was a crisis in foreign parts, invariably he was called back to duty.

As he was an extremely active and intelligent man for his age, he could not refuse.

What he disliked most was leaving his daughter, Shana, alone in their country house.

There were plenty of relatives who would have been only too willing to come and stay with her, but when her father was not at home she preferred to be on her own.

“I find them such a bore, Papa,” she told him, “after being with you. If they are my female relations they talk and talk about how wonderful it was when they were young and that is of no interest to me at the moment.”

Her father had laughed.

“Of course not and I promise you, my darling, that as soon as my book is finished we are going to London. I will give you a ball and you will undoubtedly become the debutante of the Season.”

Shana thought she would be rather an old one as she was already nearing nineteen, but she did not want to upset her father by saying so.

She was perfectly happy in their charming house in Hertfordshire. They had many well-bred horses to ride and a large acreage of land to cultivate and there were woods that she found entrancing.

The garden was always a blaze of flowers while in the winter they flourished in the greenhouses.

Shana had been born when her father was an older man than most bridegrooms. He had been late in marrying because his political work kept him so busy.

He had thought when finally he fell in love with the daughter of the Duke of Larington that he would have a large family.

Unfortunately his wife, who was a widow, could only produce one child. It left her in such ill-health that she died when Shana was only fifteen.

Lord Hallam then devoted himself to his daughter and she adored him.

Because she had inherited her father’s brain, she was able to help him work on his autobiography and his voluminous correspondence.

Shana loved assisting him in the mornings and she would help to supervise the farms on the estate working for many hours in the large library.

The last thing Lord Hallam wanted at the moment was to be asked to go abroad again.

Yet when the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, went down on his knees to beg him to go to Paris on an urgent diplomatic mission, he found it impossible to refuse.

“I will be back as soon as I can,” he said to Shana as the carriage came to the door.

“Take care of yourself, dearest Papa,” sighed Shana, “and do not stay up too late at night.”

Lord Hallam groaned.

“That is inevitable. There is no one who can talk more than the French and they become even more voluble when it is dark than they do in the daytime!”

They both laughed and then Shana saw her father into his carriage, which was a large and exceedingly comfortable one.

She was just about to shut the door after kissing him goodbye when he bent forward,

“Do not forget to give old Bob the tobacco I left for him. I know he is looking forward to it.”

“I won’t forget,” Shana promised.

She closed the carriage door herself although there was a footman waiting to do it and waved until her father was out of sight.

With a deep sigh she walked back into the house.

There were beautiful flowers in the hall and vases filled with them in the drawing room. The mere sight of flowers always made her feel happy.

She told herself that while her father was away she would have more time to spend in the garden.

She would miss him so much, but at the same time the old servants who had been with her family for years would look after her.

She had grown used to being alone.

She was, in fact, quite honest when she said that she did not really enjoy being with other people. Anyone looking at her would have thought it was an extraordinary statement from a girl who was so beautiful.

Her mother had been a beauty in her time and her father was a very handsome man. It was therefore not surprising that Shana had inherited much of their looks.

Perhaps Fate had added the rest.

Her hair was her most unusual feature.

Although it was very fair there were touches of gold which shone in the sunshine, sometimes in a way that was almost blinding for those looking at her.

Her eyes should have been blue, but instead they were the green and gold of a spring which ran through the gardens and into the small lake at the far end by the wall.

She had a small heart-shaped face.

There was something about Shana which made her stand out, not only from other girls of her age, but also from women who were much older.

She loved reading and could play the piano extremely well.

She enjoyed above all the discourse and arguments she had with her father. They discussed everything new which appeared in the newspapers and everything old in the history books.

One activity they especially enjoyed together was finding some new volume for the family library, which had been started by Lord Hallam’s great-grandfather and added to by every succeeding generation.

The Hallams had originally lived in Huntingdonshire and then conveniently, as far as the present head of the family was concerned, they had moved to Hertfordshire so as to be near to London.

It was certainly a blessing for Shana’s father as he could leave his office in Whitehall and drive to the country in about two hours.

*

‘Now what shall I do?’ Shana asked herself and then she remembered the last words her father had said to her.

Bob Grimes kept an ancient Public House in the small village which lay at the bottom of their drive. He was now an old man and had known her father ever since he was a boy.

Lord Hallam thought it rather touching that he admired him so overwhelmingly and he never forgot his birthday or any other anniversary which occurred during the year.

Even if his Lordship was in some foreign parts, a card would come from Bob Grimes. His name would be scrawled rather untidily at the bottom of it as he could not write very well.

When he took over the Public House called the Rose and Crown it had been his wife who had managed everything for him and she had made it very much more attractive to casual visitors than it had ever been.

It was possible, thanks to Mrs. Grimes, for customers to partake of luncheon or supper at the Rose and Crown and when there was a wedding in the village there was nowhere else where the reception could be held.

‘I will go and see Bob at once,’ Shana told herself.

She knew the old man would be very interested to know, if he had not been told already, that her father had gone abroad again.

It was a lovely day despite the fact that it was the beginning of October and Shana did not need a heavy coat and was warm enough in the dress she was wearing.

One of her father’s dogs who would never leave his side attached himself to her and they walked down the drive of ancient oak trees.

She was carrying the tobacco which her father had brought down from London. He often gave some to old Bob when he remembered.

It was a special tobacco that could not be bought in the village and Bob would enjoy every puff of it in his large pipe.

Shana walked through the lodge-gates which were both occupied by pensioners who had once worked on the estate and it was just a short walk to the beginning of the village.

First there were just the thatched cottages, some of them black and white which were very picturesque and next there was the shop which had for sale almost everything that anyone could want.

On the other side of the road there was the village Church, which had been there since Norman times and a little further on was the village green.

Facing it was the Rose and Crown which was also a delightful black and white building with a tiled roof and a large stable yard at the rear.

There were only a few people about at this hour of the morning, as the men would have gone to work and the women would not yet have started their shopping.

Shana had to wave to only a few women in their cottage gardens as she walked across the green with the dog running ahead of her with his nose down.

The door of the Rose and Crown was open and she walked straight in.

There was no sign of anyone in the bar so she looked in the dining room, where she saw that a large table had been laid out in the centre of the room.

She wondered who it could be for.

Then thinking Bob and his wife must be in the kitchen, she walked in to find Bob standing at the stove in which only a small fire was burning.

He turned round as she entered and exclaimed,

“Miss Shana! I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I have brought you a present from my father. It is the tobacco you like so much.”

“That’s so kind, very kind. But I don’t know what to do, Miss Shana, and that’s a fact.”

“Why, what has happened?” Shana enquired.

She noticed as she spoke that he looked very harassed. The few grey hairs he had left were standing up on his head and he was not smiling happily as he usually did.

“It be the missus,” Bob told her. “Why, is she ill?”

“Her’s broken her leg, Miss Shana. Her fell down the stairs and we had a job, I can tell you, getting her up again.”

“I am so sorry to hear this,” Shana sympathised. “And of course I will go and see her.”

“I thinks her’ll be asleep after what the doctor gave her to stop the pain. But I don’t know what to do without her.”

“I see you have a large table out in the dining room,” Shana remarked. “Have you a party coming today?”

“I have indeed,” Bob replied. “And who’s to cook for ’em, I’d like to know. I’ve promised ’em a good meal and how am I goin’ to keep me promise without me wife?”

“Surely there is someone who can come in her place,” Shana asked.

“Not to cook the sort of food his Lordship requires,” Bob answered.

He made a sign of anguish before he continued,

“I were so proud when he comes here a few days ago and asks if he can bring his shootin’ party for luncheon! ‘Of course, my Lord,’ I says, ‘it’ll be a privilege to have you.’ He told I what he wants ’em to eat, and the missus and I were as pleased as punch to think us’d have ’em under our own roof.”

“And who is your guest?”

“The Marquis of Kilbrooke,” Bob replied on a note of triumph. “I never thinks he’d be wantin’ to come ’ere. But then ’is father never shot this end of the estate. I thinks it be too far for ’em to go back to the Hall for luncheon.”

Shana now knew who was coming and was almost as impressed as Bob.

The Marquis of Kilbrooke had only recently inherited the title after his father’s death and his magnificent house was about four miles away from the village.

Shana’s father had of course known the previous Marquis, who had been ill for many years before he died and she had not been to Brooke Hall since she was a small child.

She remembered it was enormous and had thought that anyone who lived in it must be a King!

The Marquis’s illness, which was a stroke, made it impossible for him to communicate with those around him. There had therefore never been any opportunity for Shana to see the Hall again and it was only last year, just before Christmas that the Marquis had finally died.

Now his son had inherited.

She had heard a good deal about the Marquis. He was a man of about twenty-seven, who had been talked about in London and had been the focus of gossip in the County.