Love and a Cheetah

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1878-1

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1878Ilesa finished arranging the flowers in the Church and, standing at the Church door to admire her work, she thought that they looked very lovely.

It had been a joy to have so many looking colourful and happy now that it was May.

There were not only the usual bright spring flowers but also those that bloomed at the beginning of the summer.

She took a last look round the little Norman Church where she had been baptised by her father and confirmed when she was twelve year’s old.

She then walked towards the West door.

There she stopped to look back again and admire the Altar covered with Arum lilies that had come from the garden.

There were also a dozen or more golden azaleas and she knew that the one person who would have appreciated them more than anyone else would have been her mother.

She could never remember a time when every room in the Vicarage had not been filled with flowers.

Because the people in the village had loved her mother, they had always brought her the first flowers that came out in their small but well-kept gardens.

Closing the Church door behind her, Ilesa walked from the porch down past the ancient tombstones that were almost swallowed up by wreaths of moss.

Beyond these was the lych-gate that led into the Park.

And far away in the distance she could see a glimpse of Harlestone Hall where her father had been born and brought up.

The sixth Earl of Harlestone, as regards his three sons, had kept firmly to established English tradition.

Robert, his eldest son, who would inherit the title on his death, had taken a Commission in the family Regiment,

Henry, his second son, had entered the Royal Navy as a Midshipman and had risen by sheer merit to gain command of a Destroyer, a new addition to the British fleet.

Mark, his third son, following tradition went into the Church and was offered the choice of any of the Livings on the Harlestone Estate.

The Honourable Mark Harle had accepted the situation because it was what he had been brought up to expect.

He had also unfortunately accepted his father’s decision as to whom he should marry and the Earl had chosen for his eldest son the daughter of a celebrated Peer, who had money and assets of her own.

His second son had totally refused to be hurried up the aisle and had managed to remain unmarried. He, however, lost his life in a battle at sea when his Destroyer was sunk.

Mark had married when he was only twenty-two and his bride was the daughter of a gentleman who found Harlestone Hall and the Earl himself somewhat imposing. The young couple had nothing in common and had been unhappy from the very start.

Although no one said so openly, it had been a relief when after six years of arguing and wrangling with each other, she had, in one exceptionally cold winter, contracted pneumonia from which she did not recover.

She had left behind a daughter aged five who had grown up to be very like her mother.

Once Mark was free and the prescribed year of mourning had ended, he had wasted no time.

He was now the Vicar of Littlestone and he married the girl who he had always loved, but had been too shy to approach.

She was the daughter of a neighbouring Country Squire and they had met at a party given by her parents.

Elizabeth was so beautiful that he had been convinced that she would never look in his direction.

However she had in fact loved him ever since she had been a child.

Elizabeth had managed to remain unmarried and her parents were too fond of their daughter to force her into doing anything against her inclinations.

Elizabeth and Mark were married quietly in the country and after an ecstatic honeymoon they had settled down in Littlestone to make the village a happy place.

Their daughter, Ilesa, was born a year after they were married and the only sadness in their lives was that Elizabeth could have no more children.

They, however, found Ilesa enchanting.

All through her childhood she could not remember a time when the Vicarage was not filled with love and happiness.

It was only as her half-sister, Doreen, grew older that there was anything to disturb the calm serene atmosphere.

Being like her mother, Doreen had always wanted things that she could not have, such as Parisian dresses, a stately home and endless jewells.

It was a relief therefore when her grandfather, the Earl, insisted on her going to a smart Seminary for Young Ladies in London.

She then went to what was known as a ‘Finishing School’ in Florence.

And the two schools certainly changed Doreen’s life.

She had always found the Vicarage confining and she was not interested in the lives of the villagers or in anything that concerned her father’s vocation.

While the old Earl was alive, she spent most of her time at Harlestone Hall.

She loved the big rooms and high ceilings and, whenever possible, she slept in one of the State bedrooms with its huge four-poster bed.

“I do like grandeur!” she said to her small half-sister, who did not understand what she was talking about.

Finally, when she was seventeen, Doreen had ‘come out’ in London as a debutante.

She was presented at Buckingham Palace to Her Majesty Queen Victoria by one of the Earl’s sisters, who had no daughters of her own.

At the end of her first Season Doreen had married Lord Barker and it was considered an excellent match at the time despite the fact that he was very much older than she was.

From that moment, her father, stepmother and half-sister saw very little of her.

They did not miss her for the simple reason that she had always been somehow out of place in the Vicarage of Littlestone.

Elizabeth Harle had tried in every way to be a mother to her stepdaughter, but she knew privately that it was the one big failure in her life.

When two years ago she had died, Doreen had not even come back to Harlestone Hall for the funeral.

She did, however, send an enormous if somewhat flamboyant wreath of spring flowers.

It looked incongruous among the smaller but loving tributes that had been sent by the local villagers.

There were little bunches of wild flowers from the village children, which Ilesa found very touching.

Because they all knew how much Elizabeth Harle had loved flowers, the whole of the neighbourhood had contributed. They stripped their gardens of every leaf and blossom as a profound tribute to her and her memory.

To Mark Harle it was a dreadful blow that left him dazed and he found it hard to believe that he had lost someone who he had loved so dearly.

Ilesa understood, but there was little that she could do to comfort him. She only tried in every way that she could think of to take her mother’s place.

She arranged the flowers in the Church, she visited the sick in the village and comforted the bereaved.

She also tried to find employment for the local youngsters when they left school.

It had, the year before, come as a disaster to the whole village when the new Earl of Harlestone had closed the Big House.

It was not unreasonable because Robert had been recently appointed Governor of the North-West Frontier Province in India and this meant that he would be living in India for the next five years.

“It’s no use, Mark,” he had said to his brother, “I cannot afford to keep up the house as well as meet my expenses in India, which will undoubtedly be very heavy.”

“What is to happen to the people who have always worked in The Hall?” Mark Harle had asked him. “Some of them have worked for us loyally and diligently for over thirty years and in one or two cases even longer.”

“I know, I know,” his brother Robert replied testily. “But I just cannot find the money anywhere!”

The two brothers had sat up talking all night.

Finally, on the Vicar’s insistence, the Earl had agreed to retain four of the oldest servants to act as caretakers.

Watkins, the Head Gardener and then Oakes, the Head Gamekeeper, were to keep their cottages.

“I am sure I can find local work for them to do,” the Vicar offered, “and I will help with their pensions, which will at least keep them from starving.”

“You know you cannot afford to do that!” Robert protested. “The best thing we can do is to sell something.”

His brother looked at him in consternation.

“Sell?” he enquired. “But everything in the house is entailed onto future generations of the family.”

“There must be a few things that are not,” Robert argued, “and there are some outlying plots of land that could be disposed of, even though we will not be paid much for them.”

Finally, one way and another, the Earl found the means to allow Watkins and Oakes enough to live on.

The Vicar encouraged the gardener to grow fruit and vegetables that could be sold in the local market.

Oakes was to keep down the vermin and sell what rabbits, pigeons and ducks he could shoot or trap.

“It will not bring in much,” Mark confided to his brother, “but perhaps enough even to pay a youth to help them. At least it will keep them busy.”

He gave a deep sigh as he added,

“I just don’t know what the village is going to do. As you well know, Robert, the great ambition of all the young people has always been to be taken on at the Big House.”

“I know, I know!” Robert agreed. “But I can hardly refuse to become Governor of the North-West Frontier Province, which is a great honour, simply because the village wants me to stay in England!”

What he said was meant to be a joke, but there was still a bitter note in his voice.

“The real trouble,” Mark said soothingly, “is that the Harles have never been rich and Papa was extravagant, especially where horses were concerned.”

“That is true,” Robert nodded, “and I suggest that you have the choice of two horses that you most want and I will sell the rest.”

“Must you really sell them?” the Vicar asked. “It seems a pity when there is such a very fine collection in the stables at the moment.”

“I know, but I can hardly take them to India with me and they will be a bit long in the teeth when I come back.”

Finally the Vicar took four of the horses and the rest were sold mostly to locals.

Ilesa cried when she saw them being taken away. She had always been allowed to ride any horses she liked in her grandfather’s stables.

She had grown to greatly love the animals and there was nothing that she could not do with them.

“Miss Ilesa’s got a right way with ’orses,” the grooms would say.

She was allowed to mount the most obstreperous stallions and even those that were not fully broken.

She well knew that she had as they said, ‘a way with’ the animals and the horses would always obey her even though some of the stable lads were too nervous to mount them.

The only good thing about closing up Harlestone Hall was that at least it was not leased to a stranger.

“If I was not still able to ride in the Park, swim in the lake and read the books in the library,” Ilesa said to her father, “I would cry my eyes out!”

“I know that, my dearest,” the Vicar replied, “and that is why we must be very grateful that, if it is closed to everybody else, it is open to us.”

There was no doubt, however, that, as the years passed, they began to take their toll on the building.

The wooden doors and window frames needed repainting and the garden, with no one to tend it, began to look just like a hayfield.

The flowerbeds were disappearing amongst the weeds and Ilesa had to fight her way through banks of nettles to pick the flowers that still stubbornly managed to push their way through them.

Two of the green houses were in danger of falling in and there did not seem to be any point in urging her father to have them repaired.