Finding a Sovereign

Jones Eric

Description

A truly uplifting story about how Adam Warkin, probably the poorest boy in Dorset in the 1870s, makes good, finding love and a career, with surprising and delightful adventures along the way. 'Finding a Sovereign' tells the story of a boy, born into poverty, who makes his way in the world, using his honesty, integrity and good nature, despite his youth and ignorance. Pursuing his dream of seeing Queen Victoria in person one day, he experiences unexpected and dramatic outcomes, including being orphaned, robbed and cheated. Yet brave, bold Adam comes through it all, helped by the woman who taught him to read, whose kindness he never forgets.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Conrad Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839781582
• Langue: English

Extrait

Finding a sovereign
Eric Jones


Finding a Sovereign
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2020
Tel: [phone] www.theconradpress.com 
 [e-mail]
ISBN 978-1-839781-58-2
Copyright © Eric Jones, 2020
The moral right of Eric Jones to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.


Remembering our dear friend,
Sally Mills


1
Not much to live on, plenty to live for
September 1878
P overty in itself, so we are told, is relative. One can be as poor as a mouse in a church when the harvest is over, and yet be content, even happy, with one’s lot. A child with loving parents, some food to eat, the warmth of a cuddle and a scattering of laughter-filled moments, is rich indeed, though money be hard to come by.
A child deprived of the close comforts of a mother who cares, with food on the table and clothes to wear, a handsome bed in which to sleep, but nobody to stroke your hair when one is falling asleep, or read a story from the myriad of books on the nursery shelf, might as well be as poor as the barefoot waif. Crying oneself to sleep, without much to look forward to on the morrow, is poverty of a kind. Smiling back into the face of a loving parent, who sits by your side until sleep takes you into a happy dream, is wealth untold.
But of course absolute poverty is hardly relative; it is absolute.
And so it was with Adam Warkin, a boy of seven with spindly legs and arms, the sallow look of someone who could have derived some benefit from a warm pie-crust, or a chunk of well-buttered bread, but with the smile of an angel when sat beside his mother or father in their tiny grey cottage. Adam was unencumbered with brothers or sisters, of whom there had been two born before him, neither of whom had survived more than a few weeks.
Adam loved to skip along the single village road, happy in his own skin, eager to earn a penny or two, carrying shopping or walking a dog, but happy too simply saying, ‘Hello, can I help?’ to any villager, whether there was a penny in it or not. His smile was known and enjoyed by all whom he met, his teeth were strong, his fingers nimble but his shoes well-worn.
The Warkins knew real poverty, living in virtually one room behind a flimsy wooden front door, with a small bedroom above, with access to a well nearby, a few homely utensils and pieces of furniture but frankly, not much else. The uncurtained window, in the downstairs room, let in light, but also allowed the cold air and unwelcome wind to permeate their living-space. There was not often a fire to cook by, or to warm the tiny family in their home.
Adam’s mother, Louise, would make bread or occasionally cook a small piece of pork. She would also boil vegetables and serve whatever came into the mix on three wooden plates, the only ones the family of three possessed.
She was thirty-one, friendly and smiling, with brown hair tied back revealing her smooth skin. Her eyes lit up when she laughed or tried to make things comfortable for the three of them, wearing a twice-turned dress, and a short blue woollen coat, when the dress did not provide much warmth or comfort.
Father, Henry Warkin, would have liked to work regularly but was not a strong man and could only bring in the occasional sixpence, doing odd jobs for the vicar at the nearby church, or a neighbour with some pennies to spare needing wood chopped, a patch of garden dug over or a fence painted. He was not feckless or lazy, but lacked the energy, or good health, which would have encouraged him to seek anything more permanent.
Two years older than Louise, he too had dark brown hair, with emerging streaks of grey, covered almost permanently with a wide-brimmed brown felt hat given to him eleven years earlier, in lieu of cash payment, for moving furniture, when a young couple arrived new in the village. They had been Mr and Mrs Redman, although Mr Redman had died after just four years in 1871, the year of Adam Warkin’s birth.
Henry Warkin’s brown trousers, the leather belt, the long dark grey coat and a couple of shirts were all he owned. His boots were, fortunately, strong, but would not last for ever. He was kind but could not offer his wife, and child, much beyond what they now possessed. He was not greedy for more, and so his son, too, grew up to be content, and occasionally joyful, when a small bonus of extra food, clothing or comfort came their way.
The Warkins lived in the village of Melton Ford, in Dorset. With just one hundred and eighty residents it was hardly likely to offer much in the way of employment to Henry Warkin, but today he had found a day’s work at the blacksmith’s, just beyond the village on the Weymouth Road, where a shilling could be earned in ten hours, holding the horses still while they were shod, collecting wood for the fire or keeping Tom, the blacksmith’s furnace alive and hot. A shilling was enough for a day, but it could not often be repeated, certainly not tomorrow!
Young Adam could not resist his daily skip along the single village road, after he had helped his mother with some washing, hanging out the shirts and vests she had washed, or her apron, or their thin sheets once everything had been thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed. He ran, skipped and jumped his way past the houses of others, all of whom he knew, holding on to his oversized flat cap, when he jumped across the stream. He waved and smiled at his father, carrying a bundle of wood, and they earnestly discussed how much more could be carried or collected in a single day.
He offered to pick some apples from a tree, belonging to the elderly lady, in the cottage alongside her orchard, and was offered a bag of apples in payment for his welcome assistance, as well as three home-baked scones and tuppence. He raced another local boy, young Will, and the boy’s sister, Helena, from the blacksmith’s yard around the back of the village houses, along the leafy lane back to the main road, finishing back at the blacksmith’s. He was out of breath, but he came in first, even carrying a bag of apples, and they all laughed, quenching their thirsts with handfuls of water from the nearby stream. All of this welcome occupation took up his morning, a morning well spent.
He smiled, returning to the cottage and to his mother who was folding three sheets, and a couple of shirts, before lunching on some bread and cheese which she shared with Adam. Father returned when sundown approached and the evening was spent exchanging stories of the day, smiling, and even laughing, as they retold what they had seen, the antics of the birds and cats they’d come across, the people they had met. They felt rich with the pennies they had earned, each one of which went into the tin, on the mantle, above where there was no fire.


2
Plenty to live on, not much to live for
T wo hundred miles away from Melton Ford – and exactly fifty years earlier, in 1828 – a nine-year-old girl sat on an ornate chair, with a book on her lap. She was wearing a silk dress with pure cotton underwear, trimmed with lace.
Her lustrous hair was well cared for, clean and brushed, and two biscuits lay, uneaten, on a plate nearby. Her tutor sat alongside her, monitoring her reading skills, for she was never alone but always lonely. Poor Princess Alexandrina of Kent was indeed as lonely as ever.
‘Can we not go outside?’ said the young girl to her tutor, the formidable Louise Lehzen, a haughty German lady, sitting bolt upright in the adjacent chair. ‘We could listen to birds singing out there and look at the trees.’
‘You know that is forbidden, unless your mother or Sir John grant permission,’ said Madame Lehzen.
Indeed venturing outside, on a whim, to see trees or flowers, or anything else in Kensington Palace garden, was unthinkable.
‘But I never see anybody of my own age,’ said the girl. ‘Just you and the servants, and sometimes my mother when she comes down to check on me.’
‘And that is the way your mother requires it to be.’ Louise Lehzen knew that enjoying the company of other children, of the same age, was completely out of the question, so that, for Alexandrina, a weary shroud of loneliness covered her days, seeing few adults other than strict and humourless servants and a stiff mother-figure, actually her mother, the widowed Duchess of Kent just once or twice, for an update on her reading or writing skills, or to glance perfunctorily at a drawing or painting just completed.
The Duchess had been widowed in 1820, when Alexandrina was less than a year old. She was, by royal standards, a poor relative of her brother-in-law, King George IV, whom she, and her young daughter, seldom saw.
And the girl was poorer still, lonely, pampered but bullied by strict adults, developing a temper which burst into tantrums when she was compelled to practice playing the piano, or return to her studies. By the age of seven her tutor had been given a formidable list of books that the young princess should read, including twenty religious texts, twenty-seven French books, classical Latin and grammar volumes, Ovid, Virgil and Horace as well as the poetry of Pope, Cowper, Shakespeare and others. The list would have daunted the most eager student at Eton itself.
It was a never-ending cycle of lessons, in French, English (for German was the first language of the family, although Alexandrina herself preferred to speak English), history, geography, some dance, some reluctant piano practice and a great deal of silence.
‘We shall take a short walk,’ said Madame Lehzen, ‘keeping strictly to the gravel paths in the gardens. And you will hold my hand, a