Love, To A Fault! Poem by David Lewis Paget

They met at the Station of Henley Scarp
Set deep in the countryside,
He told her he'd meet her in London Town
When the hue and the cry had died,
The train pulled in with a blast of steam,
The carriages ground to a halt,
He was sure to tell her to change her train
When she pulled in at Bishops Fault.

They stood at the empty platform then,
And ventured a parting kiss,
He'd always remember the touch of her lips
As a promise of future bliss,
The guard appeared with his little flag
And signalled the train away,
As he hurried on back to the waiting car
On that fresh, first day in May.

He checked his watch, it was four o'clock,
They wouldn't have missed him yet,
He'd need to be back in the servant's hall
Before the sun had set,
He'd planned to travel by minor roads,
By farms and bullock tracks,
It was only an hour and a quarter there,
And then he could relax.

The sun was settling rather low,
The light had begun to fade,
He cursed at the rutted cattle tracks
And the dust trail that he made,
He gripped the wheel with a sudden fear
That turned his knuckles white,
As the Riley bounced and it slid out there,
Unsure, in the fading light.

He found his way to the highway then
With a mile or so to go,
No matter how fast he drove, it seemed
He was only going slow,
And then he saw in the mirror there
The blue and flashing light,
The sound of a siren, chasing him,
His face was pale and white!

The tyre that blew at the corner, sent
Him cannoning off the wall,
Into the trunk of an ancient oak
At the gates of Mourden Hall,
They pulled him out of the twisted wreck
Unconscious there, he bled,
He didn't wake up for a fortnight then
His wrist was chained to the bed!

He lay in a daze, unable then,
To think, or even speak,
Everything passed him by in a haze
He was there for a further week,
But then in the dock, the magistrate
Passed sentence, said, 'I find,
That a year in a cell might just suffice
To clear your muddled mind! '

He did his time in a Yorkshire gaol,
Spent months in a draughty cell,
Fretting and worrying day by day,
Just where was Alice Parnell?
He hadn't been able to contact her,
He wondered what she would say,
Down in the heart of London Town -
Did she think that he'd walked away?

He never once mentioned her name in there,
He couldn't be linked to her,
He knew it would implicate her
In the heart of the whole affair,
He asked the warders for papers there
In case she had advertised,
They said he was welcome to read them all
When he got out, next July!

His time was finally up, he walked,
And headed for London Town,
Checked at the flat he'd rented there,
She hadn't been seen around,
He walked the streets with a broken heart,
Had even been seen to cry,
Then caught a train back to Mourden Hall,
To check with the Butler, Guy.

Guy was a grim, and daunting man,
Was not impressed with his friend,
For prison was such a disgrace, a shame,
Brought friendship to an end,
But when he was asked where Alice was,
Had she been seen at the Hall?
He lowered his lip and looked quite sad,
'I see her, right by the wall.'

'Right by the wall of the cemetery,
I see her there every day,
But what has she got to do with you? '
(He said that he'd better not say!)
For days, he stood by the cemetery wall
Walked back and forth for a week,
But Alice was never around for him,
The future was looking bleak.

And still he wanders the city streets
To look for her, every day,
His Alice, a dream, like a puff of steam
From the train that she took, last May.
A stone by the cemetery wall is writ
With the following words: 'She died;
In the Awful Disaster at Bishops Fault
With a hundred and ten beside! '

11 October 2009