The same happened at the next three farms and then they moved on to call on the villagers.
First of all the Earl called on an old man who had retired from being secretary and manager to his father and who had obliged him by undertaking the payment of the pensioners on that part of the estate.
He was lying on a bed in the living room when they entered his cottage.
He apologised because he was no longer able to get up and walk about.
“Stay where you are, Brent,” the Earl said, “I have some very good news for you.”
The Earl explained he could now afford to treble the pensioners’ weekly allowances and to backdate them for six months.
Mr. Brent nearly fell off his bed.
“I cannot believe it, my Lord,” he said, “and those on the estate who have suffered for so long will hardly believe it either.”
“I feel the same,” the Earl answered. “I know you will want to break the news personally to those who live here, and I have brought you a small present in gratitude for all you have done for me these past two years.”
He had put two hundred pounds into an envelope which he handed to Mr. Brent so that he would not be embarrassed. He however guessed what it contained and was exceedingly grateful.
Looking round his very small cottage, the Earl saw that there were no luxuries and he was doubtful if Mr. Brent, like the rest of the people on the estate even had enough to eat.
When they rode on he said to Kristina,
“I told Brook we would not be back in time for luncheon, so we are going to stop at an inn which is only about half-a-mile further on.”
“I have never taken luncheon – at an inn,” Kristina replied, “so it will be something new for me.”
The Earl was amused at how interested she was in the small black and white building. The inn stood on a village green and was called the Pig and Whistle.
The proprietor was almost overcome when he realised the Earl was to take luncheon with him and he and his wife hurried to see what they could provide for the meal.
The Earl and Kristina sat outside at a wooden table. It was where the elderly citizens drank their draughts of beer in the evening, when they could afford it.
Now the Earl learned from the proprietor of the Pig and Whistle that he had very few customers. He was even thinking he would have to shut up the inn because he could no longer run it profitably.
The Earl told him that he would pay for any repairs that were necessary and until the inn was back on its feet again, he need not pay any rent.
“In fact,” the Earl told him, “because things are now better for me and I want you all to participate, I will pay you back three years rent to get you started so that you will be able to lay in larger supplies of beer and wines.”
The proprietor was speechless, but his wife came out from the kitchen to tell the Earl over and over again that he had saved their home.
When they left she curtsied and kissed his hand and Kristina remarked to the Earl,
“Because these people are so grateful – and are crying with happiness – it makes me want to cry too.”
“Don’t you dare! I want women to smile and look pretty – they look so plain when they cry.”
“You should really feel sorry for them – and want to wipe away their tears.”
“I have done so in the past,” the Earl said without thinking, “and it is something I did not enjoy.”
There was silence while Kristina looked at him.
“Were they crying because – you were unkind to them?” she asked.
The Earl wondered whether he should tell her the truth. Then he thought it was good for her to gain some knowledge of the social world in which she was now living.
“To be frank,” he answered, “they were crying because I was leaving them.”
It was obviously an answer that Kristina had not expected. She puzzled over it for a moment before enquiring,
“You were leaving them – because you did not want to see them anymore?”
“Shall I say I had become a little bored.”
“But they were not – bored with you,” Kristina insisted. “So they wanted you to stay with them?”
“Just as you and I want to explore new countries, so I enjoy making new acquaintances.”
She was quiet as they rode on.
“When you have come to know them,” Kristina said after a while, “you think you know all about them and so you ride away to find someone else who is even more exciting.”
The Earl thought she had worked it out rather neatly so he replied,
“I am sure many women feel exactly the same. If you had a great number of young men running after you, you might soon find it monotonous and think there was someone better-looking and more interesting just round the corner.”
He was speaking lightly but Kristina was obviously taking him seriously.
“I suppose it could happen,” she mused, “if one was single. But if one was married, it would be impossible to look elsewhere.”
The Earl thought cynically that this was something which had not bothered a great number of women of his acquaintance.
He did not say anything and yet once again Kristina seemed able to read his thoughts.
“Are you – thinking,” she said in a hesitating voice, “that after you have come to know me well – you might find me boring – and look for someone else?”
“I am not saying anything of the sort. When one is married one of course hopes that, as in the fairy story, one will live happily ever after.”
“But we have not started – by being happy.?
The Earl thought he was getting out of his depth in this conversation. He quickened the pace of his horse a little and replied,
“Now you have forgotten that we are two strangers who met only yesterday for the first time. We have only just become acquainted with each other and we are not really certain whether we like or dislike what we see. It really all depends on what happens today, tomorrow and for several weeks, months and years to come.”
Kristina gave a little laugh.
“I do hope I am complicated enough for it to take all that time to discover me,” she said, “but I have a feeling that – you are going to be very difficult.”
“Why should you think so?” the Earl questioned.
“Because to begin with you are not what I expected you to look like. Nor have you behaved as I expected you to behave.”
“I do hope that is two steps in the right direction, but I am curious to know what you thought I would look like.”
Kristina looked at him with her head on one side like a little bird.
He felt her pose was exceedingly attractive.
“When Papa told me I was to marry an Earl,” she said, “I thought he would be very proud, reserved and stuck-up with his own importance.”
“I do hope I am not like that!”
“I thought too that he would be very severe-looking and would condescend to me and most people to whom he spoke and definitely would bully his servants.”
The Earl laughed.
“I know very few Earls who behave like that, but perhaps one or two Dukes do when they grow old!”
“When you were so nice to the farmers and the proprietor of the inn,” Kristina continued, “it was difficult to think of you as an Earl sitting in a high chair with a coronet on your head.”
The Earl gave a longer laugh.
“If that is what you expect you are going to be disappointed. My coronet is in the safe and will not be taken out until I am asked to attend the next Coronation.”
“I would like to see it one day – but I am very relieved you do not wear it.”
“Now I know what you expected of me,” the Earl replied, “it will make me feel as if I am not playing my part as I should and this thought reminds me that you have forgotten something very important.”
“What is it?”
“That you are now a Countess and how do you suppose a Co
untess should behave?”
“I never imagined myself being a – Countess, but because I read so many fairy stories with my mother when I was a child – I did think that perhaps one day I would be a Princess.”
“And that would be when you found Prince Charming and if I have to emulate him, who I remember in my books was a precocious but talented young man, I shall have to look to my laurels!”
Kristina did not reply.
He thought that any other woman would have declared that he was of course the Prince Charming of her dreams.
They rode on for a little while before Kristina asked,
“Where are we going now?”
“To another farm in another village which is the largest one on the estate and you will see the Church where I am told the steeple has collapsed.”
“How could such a – terrible thing happen?”
“You know the answer – it is quite simply a lack of money. So before you think of giving away everything you possess, just imagine what you would look like if in a few years time you did not have a penny to your name.”
He was speaking lightly but Kristina glanced at him quickly and then away again.
“Were you very unhappy because you were so poor?” she wanted to know.
“What I really minded was not being able to do anything for the people you have just met. But you saw how brave they were and how they struggled on despite the fact I could do nothing for them and every month of every year it grew worse.”
“We must never let that happen again.”
“That is what I hoped you would say, but I think if we are to do everything properly we shall have to spend a great deal of your own money, when the money your father gave me is exhausted.”
“I thought that was what we agreed to do last night.”
“But you have just made it clear to me that we are still strangers and I am frightened that if you find me boring or worse still unpleasant, you might run away again.”
Kristina made a little gesture with her hands,
“I know now that last night – I was foolish. It was only because I was frightened of you – as the Earl. But now you have shrunk down – to a real person and that does make a big difference.”
The Earl considered her comment for a moment before he said,
“I am delighted to be a real person, but perhaps I should really ask to be the Prince Charming of your dreams?”
Kristina laughed.
“He was not real and I think I knew even when I was quite small – that men were not really like him.”
The Earl was not certain whether this was a compliment or not. At the same time he was aware that despite her childlike appearance, Kristina possessed an active brain.
She could put her thoughts into words in a way he had never expected. He found most women could talk of nothing but love when they were with him. Or else they would be complaining about quite trivial issues, which were of no interest to anyone except themselves.
He had always been certain that women read very little. Except of course the social columns of the newspapers and the magazines in which they would frequently see a photograph or sketch of themselves.
As they trotted on he enquired,
“I suppose you read quite a lot.”
“Whenever I get the chance. We did have quite a good collection of classic authors at the Convent. But I want to explore your library – just as I want to explore you.”
“As an Arab would say – ‘everything I have is yours’.”
“Including your books, I would hope, but I must warn you that I am a very fast reader and when we can think of ourselves instead of others, we must fill up the shelves with every new book that is published.”
“I shall be most interested to see what your favourite reading is. I have the idea that you were not allowed romantic novels in the Convent.”
“No, of course not. Mother Superior would have been horrified at our reading anything so frivolous. Occasionally the girls were brave enough to smuggle in a novelette, but I much prefer history books and of course authors like Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.”
“You will learn quite a lot from the latter about this new world into which you have been introduced and about which you know very little.”
“That is what makes everything – so exciting.”
She was looking around her as she spoke.
Again the Earl thought any other woman would have said it was he who made everything new and exciting.
‘She is just a child,’ he told himself again. ‘Equally she has a very quick and alert brain. She would undoubtedly become bored with anything that was always monotonously the same.’ It was what he always suffered from himself.
He thought as they entered the village that this was the most extraordinary day he ever had ever known in his whole life.
The called at the shops where the Earl found, as he hoped, that Brook had paid all the long overdue bills.
They looked at the cottages which were all in need of repair with holes in the thatch and windows cracked and every one of them needed painting.
Next they visited the Church.
The Earl had already learned that the Vicar, who had died after he had gone abroad had not been replaced. His father had not paid for a new one to take his place.
The Church door was open and so they walked in to find that there were holes in the roof where the tiles had fallen in and there was a mass of rubble in the pews.
The altar was still standing. As no one had taken away the gold cross, it was still there, as were the candles.
Although they were valuable, the Earl appreciated that as they were consecrated no one would be brave enough to steal them. It was traditional that bad luck would pursue anyone who stole from a Church for the rest of his life.
“How could the Church – have been left like this?” the Earl heard Kristina whisper beside him. “Where can the people pray – if they cannot come here?”
“I think they all pray for manna from Heaven,” the Earl replied, “which now we are able to give them.”
“The children have nowhere to be taught about God,” Kristina added in a shocked voice.
“I realise that and so one of our first tasks will be to repair the Church and I expect that the Vicar’s house will be almost as dilapidated. Then I will ask the Bishop to provide us with a new Parson.”
“I cannot imagine anyone letting a place that is holy – falling into such a bad state,” Kristina said.
“We will have it repaired at once and perhaps, as you know more about Churches than I do, you should supervise it.”
He saw by the expression on Kristina’s face that this idea had not occurred to her.
“I do not think I could,” she said, “I might do something wrong.”
“We will do it together – I know exactly how the Church looked when I was a small boy as I came here every Sunday with my mother. We will restore it as it used to be – as soon as possible.”
“You understand – you do understand,” Kristina exclaimed.
She spoke with a warmth in her voice which he had not heard before.
Equally it was obvious what she had been thinking, that because he was a typical aristocrat who had been thrust upon her by her father, he would only be concerned with the needs of the body and not with the soul.
They walked towards the altar.
As they reached the steps, Kristina suddenly knelt down. They were dusty and covered with chippings of stone from the fallen steeple.
She closed her eyes and put her hands together and the Earl could see that she was praying.
The sun coming through the window behind the altar shone on her golden hair as she had pulled off the cap she was wearing when they had been galloping.
He thought it would be difficult to find anyone who looked so lovely and she was obviously so very different from the beautiful women he had known in his past.
There was a childish innocent look about her as she prayed
and it made it difficult for him to realise that she was indeed a woman and his wife.
He stood gazing down at her.
After several minutes she crossed herself and rose to her feet.
She smiled at the Earl quite unselfconsciously. She was not, he thought, in the least embarrassed at having prayed in front of him. To her it was a completely natural way to behave in a Church.
She made a genuflection to the altar and walked past him.
It was as if she knew that their time in the Church was over and that they must return to the world outside.
They had tethered their horses to a fence which was broken in several places.
Without thinking the Earl put his hands round Kristina’s waist and lifted her onto the saddle. It was only as he was doing so that he remembered that she did not wish to be touched.
She had made sure that at every place they had stopped there was a mounting-block.
Now as he sat her on her horse he did not feel her shrink away from him. He thought however, although he was not sure, that she held her breath.
He lifted the reins off the fence and placed them in her hands before mounting his own horse and they started to ride up the drive.
“We have done a lot of hard work today,” the Earl said as the Hall came into sight. “I think we both deserve the excellent tea which I expect Brook will have prepared for us.”
“We should not be hungry after such a nice luncheon, but I am greedy enough to say I am indeed hungry.”
Kristina spoke quite naturally and the Earl thought that he had jumped one hurdle successfully. She was either unaware that he had touched her or perhaps was unaffected by it.
As they rode over the bridge the water was glittering in the sunshine and Kristina gave a cry and pointed down. Coming from under the bridge were two white swans and behind them were three small cygnets.
“I am so glad they are still here,” the Earl remarked. “I used to feed them when I was a child and I was afraid that when times were so bad that they would have flown away.”
“Perhaps they flew back when they heard you had come home.”
“It would be nice to think that is true, but we must have some more swans and that is another item to put on our list.”
Kristina laughed,
Learning to Love Page 9