Barbara Cartland - Look with the Heart

The Vicarage, which was beside the Church, was only about a hundred years old.

The window frames and doors were badly in need of paint and, as Erlina knew, there was a hole in the roof that had not been repaired.

Gerry rushed out and raised the knocker on the front door.

He knocked twice before a window opened and the Vicar put out his head.

“Who is it?” he asked. “What do you want?”

“It is me, Erlina Sherwood. Our house is on fire and, as we have nowhere to go, we have come to you, Vicar.”

“Goodness gracious!” the Reverend Piran Garnet exclaimed. “I will come downstairs at once.”

It took some minutes for him to dress before he opened the front door.

The Vicar, a middle-aged man, had always been respected and loved by his parishioners and now there were very few remaining.

As he saw that Gerry was waiting for him on the doorstep, he put his arm round the boy and pulled him close.

“What has happened, Gerry?” he asked.

“The house caught fire, Vicar,” Gerry answered, “and already there is almost nothing left – nothing at all.”

Erlina thought afterwards that it was characteristic of the Vicar to have taken everything in his stride.

He sent the Dawes’s to the kitchen and asked them to make some coffee for Erlina and themselves.

And he found a glass of cider for Gerry to drink.

After Nobby had been put in the stable, they went into the sitting room.

“It was Dawes who accidentally started the fire,” Erlina explained to the Vicar, “and he is terribly upset about it. But once the flames had taken a hold in the strong wind, there was nothing that anybody could have done to stop it.”

“I can understand that,” the Vicar nodded. “I will go up to the house first thing in the morning to see if any of the furniture can be saved.”

Erlina shook her head.

“There is no chance of that. Gerry and I managed to carry a few things out of the hall, but it was too dangerous to attempt to rescue anything from any of the rooms.”

The Vicar wisely did not let them talk for long.

He took them upstairs and told Gerry to get into bed with one of his two sons.

By taking his daughter into his bed with him and his wife, he provided Erlina with a bed too.

She knew only too well that there were no habitable rooms on the top floor as the roof leaked and there was no one left in the village to do the repairs even if the Vicar had been able to pay for them.

Before Erlina fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, she was wondering despairingly where she and Gerry could go.

How and where would they be able to live in the future?

‘Please God – help us,” she prayed, “please – please. ’

*

When Erlina, with dark lines under her eyes, came down for breakfast the next morning she found Gerry already seated at the table.

The Vicar’s two children were also there and Mrs. Garnet was bringing in their breakfast from the kitchen.

She put the plates down in front of the children before kissing Erlina.

“I am so sorry,” she said, “sorrier than I can possibly say. How can such a dreadful thing have happened to you and Gerry?”

“I have already spoken to old Henry,” the Vicar said. “He saw the fire through the trees last night and walked up at dawn to see what had happened.”

“That was kind of him,” Erlina remarked.

She knew that Henry was an old man from the village who found it difficult to walk far.

“I am afraid he came back with bad news,” the Vicar continued. “The fire is subsiding simply because there is now nothing more left to burn.”

It was only what Erlina had expected.

At the same time she felt that it was a dagger-thrust in her breast.

“Henry gave the horses water and some food,” the Vicar went on, “and told me that the chickens were all right.”

Erlina could not even smile her thanks.

“Now don’t start worrying until you have had some breakfast,” Mrs. Garnet said. “Thank Heaven, we have hens, otherwise we would be starving to death like everyone else who is left in this benighted place!”

As she finished speaking, she walked back into the kitchen.

Erlina looked at the Vicar.

“Have you heard anything from the Marquis?” she asked him in a low voice.

The Vicar shook his head.

“We are living only on what the Bishop can send me out of charity,” he replied. “He has written to his Lordship, but there has been no reply.”

“I cannot believe it!” Erlina cried. “How can he behave in this appalling manner to you as well as to everyone else in the Parish?”

“I cannot understand it myself,” the Vicar agreed, “and Meldon Hall is becoming almost as dilapidated as we are!”

There was no need for him to say anything further.

Erlina had talked and talked about the dreadful conditions in which they were all living and there were no words left to describe the behaviour of the Marquis of Meldon with.

When the old Marquis had died five years ago, his son had come into the title and the large estate. And everyone had expected things to go on as they always had in the past.

It had only been a question of when the new Marquis would come back to his home.

He would, they thought, reorganise the lives of the villagers as his father and grandfather had done before him.

Practically every man and woman worked in some capacity on the estate or in the ‘Big House’ as had always happened in so many villages throughout the country.

After six months had passed everybody began to be even more apprehensive.

And they asked nervously what was going on at Meldon Hall.

First of all, there was no sign of the Marquis.

Then Mr. Cranley, who had been the Manager in charge of the house and the estate for years, began to give the workers notice to leave.

“What’s ’appening? Why be us sent away?” they asked him indignantly.

Because it was so traditional, their fathers, their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers had all worked at Meldon over many years.

It was extremely difficult for Mr. Cranley, who was a kindly and warm-hearted man.

He had to explain that the new Marquis had no intention of spending any money on his estate.

He also would not keep any servants in the house, which he did not intend to visit at any time.

“But why? Why?” everybody asked forlornly over and over again.

Mr. Cranley could give them no explanation whatsoever.

Then, as a year passed by and then another, all the able men had left the village in search of jobs.

They had to find work elsewhere to keep themselves and their wives and children.

What was more, the cottages, which desperately needed repair, began to fall down from endless neglect.

Finally, after five years, there was hardly anyone left in the village except for four men who worked for Sir Richard Sherwood.

Then they too began to leave after he become so desperately ill.

“’Tis just like this, miss,” they explained to Erlina, ‘Our friends ’ave gone and there be nowhere in the village now the inn’s closed where us can even stop and ’ave a drink.”

“I know that,” Erlina replied, “but we need you. How can we work our land if you are not here?”

“I understands your feelings, miss,” one man said, “but the Missus says ’er’s not walkin’ two miles for a shop and you knows as Mister Geary’s gone broke.”

There was nothing that Erlina could say to comfort any of them.

She had wished despairingly that her father was well enough to even talk with the men.

But Sir Richard was a dying man because he had suffered a severe stroke for no apparent reason when he had seemed so fit and vigorous.

When he did die, she was left with Gerry to look after and the Dawes’s who had nowhere else to go even if they wanted to.