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

CHAPTER TWO

It was of course the Reverend Adolphus who had put the idea into Natalia’s head.

She had been twelve years old and was walking with her father along the side of the lake. They wended their way through the silver birch trees which were just coming into bud.

A strong wind was blowing the waters into silver ripples and the clouds were heavy on the tops of the mountains.

But Natalia could only listen enthralled to the story her father was telling her about the Crusaders.

It was one of his favourite subjects, and because he had a Scholar’s command of words he could make her feel the excitement which fired the noblemen of England and other Christian countries when they decided they must defend the Holy City of Jerusalem from the infidels.

Natalia used to imagine crowds of men assembling in the Castles of their Liege Lords.

There, inspired with the desire and the will to go on the long and dangerous journey, they left behind them their wives, families and everything familiar.

She could visualise the ships setting out in style filled with horses and men, flying pennants and bedecked with flags.

Their Commander, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, led the British contingent on what must have seemed to many a hopeless mission.

It was thinking of the courage of those that attempted such a feat which made Natalia’s eyes shine and her blood quicken as she learnt how much over the centuries they had achieved.

Her father told her about the hospital in Jerusalem which had been founded more than a hundred years earlier to care for Christian pilgrims.

He told her how the Knights Hospitallers had been driven out first to Rhodes and from there to Malta.

He described their ceaseless fight from that small island against the Barbary pirates who infested the Mediterranean and who held at one time more than twenty-five thousand Christian prisoners in Algiers alone.

He made Natalia see as clearly as if she had been there the magnificent Auberges built in Rhodes and Malta to house the Knights of each country, men not only of great courage, but of culture, intelligence and breeding.

Then the Reverend Adolphus had said sadly:

“Napoleon overran Malta sixteen years ago, dispersed the Knights and stole all the treasures they had accumulated over the centuries.”

“Oh, Papa! But they cannot be vanquished forever!” Natalia exclaimed in concern.

“Certainly not forever,” her father replied. “The Order still exists in other European countries and the ideals they stood for and the bravery which has lifted men’s hearts all through the ages will survive.”

“I am glad!” Natalia cried. “I could not bear all that wonderful courage to be wasted.”

“That could never happen,” the Reverend Adolphus remarked. “Never forget, my dearest, the desire to combat the forces of evil is something which should animate us all.”

Natalia considered what he had said, then she asked quietly: “You mean, Papa, that we should each of us fight physically and mentally against what we think is wrong.”

“And for what we believe is right,” the Reverend Adolphus added. “I often think, Natalia, that we are too prone to accept conditions as they are instead of trying to improve them.”

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 have 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.”