“I wants no reward, my Lord,” Willy said. “I just want to know Miss Ula’s not dead, as they says ’er be. ’Er more kind to me than anybody’s ever bin – since me Ma died.”
His voice broke and, as if he did not wish the Marquis to see him crying, he put his knuckles in his eyes and left from the room.
The Marquis rose to his feet with an expression on his face that would have surprised his grandmother.
*
Ula, travelling with the gypsies, found that the days seemed to stretch out.
It was difficult to know how long the wheels of the caravans had been moving beneath her and how many nights she had sat around the campfire in some quiet wood or in the corner of an uncultivated field.
She slept in a caravan with Zokka and her small sister, the two girls sleeping in one bed, while Ula had the other.
Like all caravans, which to the gypsies were sacred, it was spotlessly clean inside and so were the clothes, although a little worn, that Zokka had lent her.
They were about the same size and, although Ula was not aware of it, she looked very attractive in the full short red skirt and the white blouse with a velvet corset which encircled her small waist and laced up the front.
Because she was fair, despite the fact that she always hid in the caravan if they passed through a village, Ula covered her hair with a coloured handkerchief.
There was little she could do about her fair skin and the blue of her eyes.
She was far too frightened, however, of being discovered by her uncle not to be prepared at any moment of the day to creep inside the caravan if ever a carriage and horses came into sight.
She was frightened, too, that her uncle might hire the Bow Street Runners to help in his search of her.
She also had the terrifying feeling that in fact her uncle might be less persistent in his pursuit of her than Prince Hasin.
But while the thought of him terrified her in the daytime and she started at the sound of an unknown voice, at night she thought only of the Marquis.
When the only sound in the caravan was of the two girls’ soft breathing, she would lie awake thinking of his handsome face.
She recognised that, whatever happened to her, she would love him for the rest of her life.
She loved everything about him, his laughter, his keen perception and witty brain, his square shoulders and strong hands.
Even though she knew they were an affectation, she loved even his drooping eyelids and drawling voice.
“I love him –
I love him
!” she murmured into her pillow.
She wondered if he ever thought of her now that she had disappeared.
Or was he too busy with the lovely Georgina Cavendish or any other of the beauties who would be eagerly waiting for his attention.
Sometimes she would dream that he was holding her in his arms and she need no longer be afraid either of her uncle or of Prince Hasin.
Then she remembered her uncle’s threats that he would accuse the Marquis of abducting a minor.
Even if the Earl could not prove the Marquis to be guilty, it would cause such a scandal and the Marquis would loathe the publicity that such an assertion would entail.
What it meant, Ula argued to herself, was that she must not only avoid her uncle and Prince Hasin but also the Marquis whom she loved.
If she was found in his presence, it might do him harm.
Then, because she could not help herself, the tears would run down her cheeks, for if she could never see the Marquis again, the world seemed an unutterably dark and empty place without sunshine.
When morning came, she told herself she had to be brave and make plans for the future, even if she was a fugitive.
She wondered if, when she arrived back at the little village where she had lived all her life, somebody would be kind enough to let her stay with them until she could find work and be able to keep herself.
She was sure old Graves and his wife whom her father had pensioned off just before he was killed would help her.
They were a dear old couple and Graves had gone on working in the garden even after he had retired.
Mrs. Graves, however, was too rheumaticky and old to scrub the kitchen any longer or climb the stairs to help with the beds.
‘They loved Papa and Mama,’ Ula thought. ‘I know they would help me, but I must earn some money quickly, for they could not afford to feed me out of their tiny pension.’
It was, however, a comforting thought to know that, like the Graveses, many people in the Parish had loved both her father and mother.
They would, she was certain, wish to save her from having to marry a man like Prince Hasin.
At the same time, she was aware that she would have to be very very careful that they were not involved in such a way that her uncle could make them suffer for their kindness to her.
In the meantime she was extremely grateful to the gypsies.
In order to pay her way, she helped the women make wicker baskets in which they could put the clothes pegs they sold from door to door in the villages.
Being able to sew well, Ula also made a number of colourful little bags from the rags the gypsies accumulated while they were passing through the countryside.
The girls said that they would fill them with potpourri or lavender as soon as they had the opportunity.
Because Ula was a blood sister of the gypsies, they treated her as one of themselves and were not shy or tongue-tied as they were usually with strangers.
They told her their troubles and she also learnt some of their magic spells.
When Zokka and her sister crept away from the campfire when the moon was full to send out a wish that they might have a handsome lover, Ula went with them.
Even though she knew that such a wish was hopeless, she could not help thinking of the Marquis and praying that by some miracle he would love her a little.
“Just a little – a very little – ” she whispered, looking up into the brilliance of the full moon.
But when she returned to where the rest of the gypsies were sitting, she told herself that she was asking the impossible and that the Marquis was as far out of reach as the moon itself.
Ula could never remember afterwards how long it was before they reached the County in which she had been born.
Something within her responded immediately to the rows of fruit trees and the undulating countryside with the River Avon silver as a moonbeam moving through it.
The gypsies assured her it was no trouble to take her to the small village where she had lived with her father and mother.
“It’s on our way,” they said, “and we’ll wait until we’re certain you have somebody to stay with before we leave. If there is no one, you’ll come with us.”
“You have been so kind to me already,” Ula sighed, “I must not impose on you any further.”
“You’re not imposing,” the gypsies said simply, “for as your blood’s our blood, you belong to us.”
“Of course you do!” Zokka said and kissed her.
The caravans drew into the small field where the gypsies Ula had known as a child had always camped.
She hoped that by some marvellous coincidence they might be there, but she knew that it was too early in the season for them, as they had always come later in the year.
There were still faint marks where the fires had singed the grass and the caravans rested in the shelter of the trees, before Ula alighted.
Moving a little way along the side of the road, she saw the gabled black and white house that had been her home for seventeen years.
For a moment she could see it only through her tears. Then, as she went a little nearer, she was aware that it seemed to be uninhabited.
She had expected that as soon as she had left and her uncle had sold everything her father and mother had possessed to pay their debts, another incumbent would have been appointed in her father’s place.
Looking at the house now, it was obvious that the windows were all closed and uncurtained, while the garden was a riot of flowers with a wildness that had never been there before.
‘It seems strange,’ Ula thought.
Then with a sudden lift of her spirits an idea came to her that she might be able to hide in the house.
She moved nearer and nearer, creeping along the side of the hedge that bordered the garden.
Then, when she came to the gate that led into it, she saw working in the distance a bent figure she recognised as old Graves.
He was there in the back garden which was kept for the growing of vegetables.
Because she was so pleased to see him, Ula opened the gate and ran along the path that was badly in need of weeding, through the lilac and syringa bushes and on until she reached him.
He was little changed except that he had less hair than she remembered and what was left of it was dead white.
As he saw her, he straightened up and asked wonderingly,
“Be that you, Miss Ula?”
She pulled the handkerchief off her head.
“Yes, Graves. Don’t say you have forgotten me!”
“’Course not,” he said stoutly, “but I ’ears as ’ow you were lost.”
“How did you hear that?” Ula asked quickly.
“Two men come ’ere askin’ for you. Grooms, I thinks they was.”
“Are they still here?” Ula asked in a frightened voice.
Graves shook his head.
“Nay, they be gone – three days since and when I says I ain’t seen a sign of you, they goes back where they comes from.”
Ula thought that they were very likely her uncle’s grooms and she said with a little sigh,
“Nobody must know that I am here. Who is living in the house?”
“Ain’t no one,” Graves replied. “New Vicar said t’were too small for ’e and moved into the old Manor next the Church. You remembers it, Miss Ula?”
“Yes, of course,” Ula agreed.
The Manor House was certainly bigger and very much more impressive than the little Vicarage, which had been quite large enough for her father and mother.
From where she was standing she could see the ancient grey Church where she had been christened and it gave her a feeling of security almost as if her father was beside her.
“If there is nobody living in the house, Graves, I would like to go inside.”
“I’ve got the key, Miss Ula, as I keeps me tools in there.”
She looked at him for explanation and he went on,
“Bishop says I gotta be caretaker of the old Vicarage, as they now calls it, in case they might want it again. I grows a few vegetables in the garden, but I can’t do as much as I used to do.”
“No, of course not,” Ula said sympathetically, “but I would like to go into the house.”
The old man fumbled in his pocket until he found the key which he then gave to Ula.
“I will look around,” she said, “and then I want to talk to you.”
“I’ll be ’ere, Miss Ula, don’t you worry. You’ll find some of the things they couldn’t sell upstairs in the attic. I ’ad ’em put there for safety.”
Ula gave him a smile, then, because she could not wait, she hurried towards the back door and opening it walked into her home.
Almost instantly she felt as if her mother and father were beside her and she no longer need be afraid.
The rooms on the ground floor were all empty, except for a few pieces of carpet that had not been worth selling and an occasional curtain that had been too tatty to fetch even a penny or two.
Ula, however, was seeing the rooms as she had last seen them.
Her mother was doing the flowers in the vases in the sitting room, while her father was writing his sermons at a desk in the room next door.
Then she went up the stairs.
Although the big bed and the white furniture which had graced her mother’s bedroom had gone, she felt as if the walls vibrated with the love that had existed between two people who had adored each other.
She felt the same in her own small room which was next door and which had always seemed to her to be filled with light and laughter.
“
I have come home
,” she said aloud as she walked down the passage and up the small twisting staircase that led to the attic.
As Graves had said everything that had not been saleable had been put upstairs.
There were cracked bowls and china ewers from the bedrooms, there were saucepans and pans from the kitchen.
Hanging on the wall were several gowns of hers and her mother’s which must have been too small for anyone in the village.
Or perhaps where her mother was concerned, they were superstitious about wearing the clothes of a dead woman.
‘At least I have something to wear,’ Ula thought.
Then at once she could see that the gowns were in fact not very suitable for somebody who had to earn their living by working in the fields!
This was the most likely job to be found in the neighbourhood or else scrubbing floors.
But she did not worry about that now while there were other memories to be found.
Books from her father’s study, mostly religious treatises, and what she felt was very precious, the Bible he had always used personally.
She was holding it in her hand and looking down at his name inscribed in his firm handwriting, when she heard somebody moving downstairs.
Instantly, like an animal that is being hunted, she was alert and tense, standing very still, listening.
There were footsteps moving too swiftly for it to be Graves.
Then she thought that the old man must have been mistaken.
The men who had come in search of her several days ago had been clever enough to reason that sooner or later she would turn up.
They had waited for just this moment and she felt a sense of panic sweep over her.
She looked around and saw that the only possible place for her to hide was behind some packing cases which were standing in the centre of the attic.
They were doubtless filled with more broken china and unusable utensils like those that were scattered on the floor.
Swiftly as a fox hiding from those who were hunting it, she ran to the crates and crouched down behind them.
She was hoping that anyone who stood just inside the door would not see her.
Even as she made herself as small as possible, she heard the footsteps coming up the stairs.