107. Soft, Sweet & Gentle Read online

  Then Mrs. Kershaw and Mrs. Jones took some old brushes out of a cupboard and went towards the door.

  “Is the linen cupboard locked?” Mrs. Jones asked Dawson as she passed him.

  “It must have been at one time,” he replied, “but it’s my guess that the locks and bolts have mostly rusted and fallen off.”

  “If you ’ear a shout you’ll ’ave to find the key,” Mrs. Jones told him.

  Dawson turned to Georgina,

  “Now you cheer up, my Lady, we can’t have you upset. You’ll enjoy makin’ this house, with no expense spared, just as it ought to be.”

  Georgina thought that perhaps Alister would refuse to pay and then she told herself that if he did she would sell some of her own treasures.

  Dawson took the tray into the dining room and she heard him dust the table and shake the curtains before she went in to see if it was as bad as the drawing room.

  Actually it seemed a little better although the carpets needed beating and everything on the sideboard was dusty.

  “I’m sure you’d agree,” Dawson suggested, “that this’d look better with a coat of paint, my Lady. I never did like that dull colour and if you takes my advice you’ll make the whole place bright and clean for yourself.”

  “I will certainly try,” Georgina replied.

  “I’m goin’ to lay the table for you,” Dawson said. “Then, as you know, I has to go back to his Lordship.”

  He paused for a moment as if to prevent himself from saying something rather rude and then he went on,

  “I thinks after all you’ve been through you should go to bed early tonight. But tomorrow I’ll be round to bring your breakfast and make sure that Mrs. Kershaw and Mrs. Jones have turned up with their friends to help them.”

  “I cannot begin to thank you, Dawson. I was so unhappy before you came that all I wanted to do was to run away.”

  “That don’t sound at all like you, my Lady. You’ve faced problems before and I knows you’ll face them again. Things might not be as bad as you think at the moment. When the sun’s shinin’ tomorrow, I think some new ideas will come to you. Your father, as you well knows, would never expect a child of his to run away from the enemy!”

  Georgina laughed.

  “You are quite right, Dawson. Although I am sure we will get into trouble if we refer to his Lordship as the enemy!”

  Dawson did not reply at once and then he said,

  “Tomorrow I’ll come and have a look to see what there is in the cellar. I’ve a feelin’ there’s a bottle or two of champagne which’ll cheer you up no end.”

  “You have cheered me up without the champagne,” Georgina assured him. “Thank you! Thank you for your kindness.”

  “You eat up all the Missus prepared for you, then just go upstairs and close your eyes and it’ll be mornin’ before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’.”

  “I only hope that’s true,” Georgina murmured. “As you say I am sure I will feel stronger and better tomorrow.”

  Dawson looked at his watch.

  “I’d better be goin’, my Lady. I’ll just have a word with them two upstairs and then I’ll be off.”

  “Thank you so much, Dawson,” Georgina repeated. “I promise you I will try not to be depressed until you come again.”

  “That’s a promise I’d hope you’ll keep,” Dawson answered as he always had the last word.

  As it was nearly dinnertime, Georgina sat down at the table and looked at the dishes Dawson had brought her.

  They were all very edible, but she thought far too much for her to eat tonight and the rest would certainly do for luncheon tomorrow.

  Then she heard Dawson come downstairs and go out through the front door and she guessed that he was in a hurry to go back in case his Lordship made trouble for him because he was not in The Castle.

  Later, when she had eaten her dinner, she heard the two women leaving and she thought it would be a mistake to talk to them.

  She was quite certain that the whole village would know in the next hour or two that she had been turned out of The Castle.

  She was sure that several of her father’s employees would want to help her, but she must be careful not to start a feud between the Castle and the Dower House.

  Now that everyone had gone the house seemed very quiet and she found that Dawson had left her a lighted oil lamp in the hall.

  When she went up to the bedroom, she found that it was lit with a number of candles and the bed had been made and the dressing table dusted.

  The two women had also unpacked her case and the small amount of clothes she had brought with her were hanging in the wardrobe.

  ‘The sooner I go to sleep,’ Georgina told herself, ‘the sooner tomorrow will come. I must make plans as to which rooms are to be made habitable and then how many people I will employ to paint the whole house. I must also get the roof repaired and a great number of other things that have broken over the years.’

  She undressed and climbed into bed, finding that it was surprisingly comfortable.

  At the same time there were so many thoughts in her head that it was impossible to sleep.

  Quite suddenly she remembered that nearly every night she had read a prayer from a book her mother had once given her.

  It consisted of prayers that were said all over the world and they were many prayers from practically every religion translated into English.

  It had been beside her mother’s bed ever since she could remember and now she longed for it, but realised in the rush of coming away that she had not taken it out of the drawer by her bed.

  There were also several other religious books that her mother had treasured. They were in the writing desk in the boudoir leading off her bedroom.

  It had always been her mother’s room before she had died and Georgina had moved into it simply because she felt that her mother’s influence was still there.

  The love she had given her since the day she was born was something precious that she was afraid of losing.

  ‘I must collect my Prayer Book,’ she decided.

  Then she was suddenly scared in case now she had left that Alister who hates women would destroy some of her treasures especially those in her boudoir.

  ‘I must go and bring them here now,’ she thought.

  It was an impulse that somehow she felt compelled to obey.

  She jumped out of bed and found hanging up in the wardrobe a pair of trousers that she had worn when she was dressed as a boy. She slipped them on and found a jumper that went over them.

  Without worrying about anything else, she then ran down the stairs and out through the front door which she had forgotten to lock when she went to bed.

  It was not far to The Castle.

  A new moon was shining, but it did seem a little darker than it usually was.

  But she knew every inch of the ground surrounding The Castle.

  She also knew how she could go into the back of the building without anyone being aware of it. There was a window that should have been mended a long time ago, but it had been forgotten.

  Only last week she had mentioned to Dawson that the next time the carpenter was free he should attend to it.

  “He’s very busy repairin’ the roof at the moment,” Dawson had replied. “The rain came in last week and if we’re not careful we’ll have the whole place awash.”

  “Well, don’t forget to tell him when he has time to see to the one at the back,” Georgina had told him.

  As she walked under the stars and The Castle was looming up in front of her, she thought,

  ‘This is my home and nowhere else, not even if it was Heaven would it mean quite so much to me.’

  She thought of all the days when she had been so happy with her father and just how much they had enjoyed riding together and it seemed horrible and unfair that The Castle which had been her home since she was born was no longer open to her.

  ‘I must try to arrange to collect everything I own personally,’ she determin
ed as she turned towards the back entrance.

  She only wished that she could have one tower of The Castle for herself, but she knew that was impossible and she was certain that Alister would resent her coming and going.

  ‘I expect eventually,’ she thought, ‘he will turn me out of the Dower House as well. Then I will have to leave and go to somewhere where I know no one.’

  Because the idea was really depressing, she forced herself to try to think of what she should take away at the moment besides the Book of Prayers.

  She found that the shutter was open and so was the window behind it because the catches were broken.

  It was not difficult for her to pull them open and crawl in.

  Everything was dark and eerily silent.

  She knew that, as the footmen’s were upstairs and Dawson and his wife slept on the other side of the kitchen, no one would hear her.

  Nevertheless she took off her shoes and left them by the window and then she walked slowly up the stairs in her stockinged feet thinking it was so quiet that even the mice must be asleep.

  She reached the first floor and this, of course, was dangerous. It was possible, although unlikely, that Alister was moving about.

  However, she was sure by this time that he would be in the Master suite and fast asleep. He had said that he liked going to bed early so that it was easier to get up early.

  Georgina thought that it must be about two o’clock in the morning by now and he would therefore certainly not be expecting visitors nor would he hear her walking silently down the passage that led to the first floor.

  Her room was some distance from the Master suite and, as she opened the door, she saw that the curtains had not been pulled.

  Moonlight was streaming into the room from the window and it looked even more beautiful than it had in the daytime.

  Because it had been hers and her mother’s before her, she felt herself throb with unhappiness because from this moment on she had no right to be in it.

  She could remember so clearly her mother looking exceedingly beautiful, even though she was so ill, lying in the large canopied bed.

  And she could recall the flowers her mother had loved that scented the room, making it look so enchanting.

  As Georgina walked from the bed to the dressing table, she wondered if it would be possible for her to spirit away the mirror with its golden cupids climbing up it.

  It was an objet d’art she had loved as a child and she remembered when she was small how she would stare at herself in it so she could see her face reflected between the cupids.

  She found the book she wanted in the drawer of the table by her bed and the other books that her mother had prized were in the boudoir.

  She opened the communicating door and, just as in the bedroom, because there was no one sleeping there, the curtains were not drawn.

  Actually she had no need for light to take her to the writing table standing between the windows that looked out over the garden.

  She opened the drawer and found the two books she particularly wanted.

  Then she was aware that lying beside them was the small revolver that her father had given her as a present the Christmas before he died.

  It was an improvement on the duelling pistol she had used when she was practising with him on a target in the garden and he had made her use it on several crows that she had brought down easily.

  “A woman should be able to defend herself,” he had told her. “I want you, when you travel, to take this with you. It’s light and takes up very little room and will protect you against highwaymen or anyone else who tries to take advantage of you.”

  “It’s a lovely present, Papa, and I am absolutely thrilled with it,” Georgina had enthused.

  She thought as the revolver was so light and yet so easy to use that she would certainly take it with her the next time they went on a long journey to the North or even, although her father might disapprove, to London.

  As she took it out, she realised that it was loaded and there was also a box full of bullets, which she would need if she used it.

  ‘I am certainly not going to leave this for Alister,’ she said to herself. ‘I wonder what else there is which is very precious and I could not bear to part with.’

  She opened one or two drawers and found several photographs and a miniature of her mother that she thought she would take with her rather than wait for the servants to pack them in case they felt they were of no significance.

  As she picked up the revolver, she was thinking how carefully her father had taught her to handle it.

  And how pleased she had been when he said – and it was the biggest compliment he could ever pay her – that she shot as well as any man.

  She felt that her father would be hurt and upset at the idea of her having to leave The Castle, but there was no point in arguing with Alister, who had obviously made up his mind about her.

  Even if she had suggested having a chaperone, he was not going to agree.

  ‘I am just an exile from everything I love,’ she told herself miserably.

  Then suddenly to her surprise she heard a man’s voice shouting,

  “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

  As Georgina jumped to her feet realising that it was Alister speaking, she heard a shot.

  It seemed to echo and re-echo round the walls.

  Then she heard a second shot and, running to the door that led into the passage, she opened it.

  She saw as she did so that Alister was hanging over the stairs halfway down them.

  As she stared at him, he fell backwards and crashed onto the stairs themselves.

  She ran over to the balustrade on the landing and, looking down, she saw three men.

  One of the men was carrying a gun and he had obviously shot her cousin with it.

  The other two were carrying a huge picture which came from the drawing room. And it was one of the finest works Fragonard had ever painted and it was too large to go through the diamond-paned windows.

  The men who were stealing it were now carrying it towards the front door which Georgina could see was ajar.

  Then, as the man with the gun pointed it through the banisters and it was obvious that he was going shoot Alister again, Georgina pointed her revolver at him.

  She pulled the trigger as her father had taught her.

  She hit the man in the shoulder.

  He gave a scream of pain and fell to the ground, his gun falling from his hand.

  Then the two men carrying the picture looked up at him, dropped it and ran to the front door.

  Georgina fired at them, hitting one man in the leg and the other in the back.

  As they fell screaming onto the steps, she ran down the stairs to where Alister was lying.

  She could see, as she reached him, that his face was covered with blood and it must have been from the second shot the man had fired.

  He was unconscious.

  It was then, as she looked through the open door, she could see in the bright moonlight a covered cart outside drawn by two horses.

  A man who had obviously been in charge of them was running towards the man who had collapsed on top of the marble steps.

  The intruder she had shot in the leg was gasping,

  “Get me away. Get me away before they find me!”

  Georgina looked down and saw Dawson, who had obviously heard the shots, coming from the kitchen and he was wearing a black dressing gown.

  “They have shot his Lordship, Dawson! And he is unconscious!”

  “The devils were stealing one of our best pictures,” Dawson cried angrily, pushing the Fragonard to one side.

  “They are all wounded,” Georgina told him, “but it would be wiser to let them get away.”

  Dawson, who had reached the front door, saw that the second man Georgina had shot was crawling down on his hands and knees. Another man was being half-carried and half-dragged towards the cart.

  “If they’ve killed his Lordship,�
� Dawson cried, “they’ll hang for it!”

  “He is still unconscious and losing a lot of blood,” Georgina cried, “but he is not dead. If it is known that people can break into the house and steal pictures so easily, it might happen again.”

  “I see what you mean,” Dawson replied. “I’ll just go and get Lever and he’ll help me carry his Lordship up to his bed.”

  Georgina looked down at Alister.

  She wished that she had a handkerchief to wipe his face.

  Then she saw that there was one in the pocket of the long black robe he was wearing.

  She wiped the side of his head and face.

  She could see that the bullet had cut a line from the side of his cheek up to his forehead.

  But she was certain that the bullet had not entered his head.

  Blood was also coming from his arm, but there was no point in her trying to prevent it from doing so.

  She merely crouched down on the stairs beside him and thanked God that he had not been killed by the thieves.

  Dawson had left the door open and she could see the last wounded man being helped by the driver into the back of the cart with the other men lying on the floor.

  As the cart drove away, she thought that she had been wise in letting the thieves go.

  They must have seen the lengthy description of the treasures of The Castle in the newspaper just as Lady Lawson had done and then they had doubtless learnt in the village that there were only a few servants in The Castle.

  Alister was still lying with his eyes closed when Dawson came back with Lever.

  He was a sturdy man who brought in the coal and wood when it was wanted and he was capable of doing any job requiring strength and perseverance.

  He and Dawson picked up Alister without too much difficulty and carried him to his bedroom.

  There was only one candle by the bed and Alister had obviously lit it when something had alerted him to the fact that there were people moving about downstairs.

  While Dawson and Lever put Alister down on the bed and pulled off his dressing gown to look at his arm, Georgina lit the other candles in the room.