107. Soft, Sweet & Gentle Read online

  Older still and continuing to ride astride, she took part in the steeplechase that her father had arranged for his friends and neighbours.

  Although she did not win the steeplechase, she did at least complete the course.

  The Earl was congratulated by all and sundry on having such a sporting daughter.

  When she was twelve, she would, if she had been a boy, have been sent to Eton, but, as she was obliged to stay at home, her father found Tutors who taught her the same subjects she would have learnt at School.

  What was more the Earl insisted on her learning the languages of other countries, as he believed that only by speaking to people in their own tongue could one be able to understand and appreciate them properly.

  At fifteen Georgina could speak fluently most of the languages of Europe. She was having a special teacher in Urdu in case she wished to go to India and Japanese too.

  By now she was such a good rider that she could ride the same horses as her father rode and she could take them over the jumps on their private Racecourse.

  She could shoot pheasants and other game almost as well as he could.

  What she lacked, but she would not admit it, were friends of her own age and, although a certain number of his friends brought their sons to The Castle, the daughters were never invited.

  Of course Lady Georgina was talked about in the County, but, as she never accepted an invitation from their neighbours and lived in her own world that was barred to strangers, her life revolved round her father.

  As the Countess was unable to travel or even to go to London, the Earl made her as happy as he could at The Castle.

  She would, if she felt well enough, come down to luncheon and take a great interest in what her husband and daughter had done during the morning.

  She rested in the afternoon before tea at four-thirty in the drawing room and at six o’clock she retired to her own bedroom.

  Naturally Georgina went to see her, but she found that her father’s conversation was far more interesting than anything her mother had to say to her.

  The Earl, before he inherited, had travelled a great deal around the world.

  It was when Georgina was just sixteen that he first suggested they should pay a visit to Africa and then they would visit Egypt and Turkey.

  By this time many of her teachers had told the Earl that she knew just as much as they did and if it had been possible and women were admitted, she should have gone to a University.

  “She has a man’s brain, my Lord,” one teacher said, “and it will soon be hard for anyone to teach her anything she does not already know.”

  Because he thought it diplomatic, he added,

  “In fact she is just as clever, my Lord, as you are yourself and no man could ask more of his – son.”

  As he spoke the last word, the teacher knew that he had made a mistake and quickly changed it to ‘daughter’.

  He had known instinctively by the expression on the Earl’s face that what he wanted, above all things, was to have that particular compliment paid to his son.

  The visit to Africa, which should have been a great success, was, however, a disaster.

  The Earl contracted a foreign disease of the throat, which was to trouble him for the rest of his life and it was down to Georgina to not only nurse him but to take him home sooner than they had expected.

  It was when they arrived back they found that the Countess had been upset by the winter weather, although she seldom went out in it.

  She was under the doctor’s orders to do as little as possible and above all she had to stay in bed.

  Georgina moved from one patient to the other and she found them both difficult to talk to or entertain.

  Her mother died unexpectedly one night and was found in the morning by her lady’s maid.

  But her father was not well enough to arrange the funeral or to invite the relations.

  Because she was so well trained, Georgina found no difficulty in compiling a list of the relatives who should be informed of her mother’s death. She ordered the coffin as well as arranging the burial ceremony that was to take place in the grounds.

  Because it was the middle of winter and because few of the Earl’s relatives had seen the Countess for a long time, not many took the long journey to The Castle.

  The Countess’s family lived in the far North and they wrote to say that it was impossible to come South at that moment and they could only send their condolences.

  When finally the funeral took place, there was only a sprinkling of relatives and the mourners consisted mostly of the people on the estate and the inhabitants of the local villages that the Earl owned.

  It was only when they went back to The Castle that Georgina realised she must take over the household and save her father from exerting himself.

  She found it very interesting and not particularly a great burden. In fact, as she was aware herself, there was not usually enough for her to do.

  When her father had run everything, like the rest of the staff, she had had to obey him, but now she could give her orders and they were dutifully carried out.

  She made some alterations in the household, which she had often thought was out of date.

  It was an unbelievable joy when her father was well enough for him to come down to meals and to talk to her as they had always conversed after dinner.

  Because he was finding that his eyes were tired, he made Georgina read the newspapers to him and they had long discussions on political and social topics, which she found entrancing.

  Neither she nor the Earl realised that what they were discussing and their points of view would certainly not have happened with any other girl of her age.

  At eighteen Georgina was really lovely. She had her mother’s perfect pink and white skin and her golden hair.

  But because she was always dressed as a boy and behaved as a boy, it had always been cut very short.

  Nevertheless, because it was naturally curly, it did not strike anyone as being strange or if it did they were too polite to say so.

  That, of course, extended to the way she dressed.

  As she was always riding astride or shooting with her father, it would have been almost impossible to wear a skirt and so she wore riding breeches.

  She expected to be reprimanded, but her father said nothing when she dined with him dressed as a man and wore riding clothes during the day.

  It was easy to tell his valet to provide her with new shirts and it was only a question of a year or two before her wardrobe consisted entirely of male attire.

  Yet now she had to face the fact that she was alone and she was not certain of what lay ahead for her in the future.

  As her father had now died, it was obvious that the next Earl of Langfield would take his place.

  And as far as Georgina was concerned, she was not certain who that was or where he could be found.

  She had informed all the relatives of her father’s death and, as she expected, only a very few of them had come to the funeral.

  The weather was very bad and, just as her mother had died near Christmas, her father had done the same and she could hardly blame them for staying away.

  At the same time when most of them refused to come back to The Castle before they returned home, she realised that they thought her strange and anyway they had no wish to be involved in a discussion as to who was to become the next Earl of Langfield.

  There was food and drink arranged in the drawing room, but she had been aware that the visitors who were enjoying it were mostly local farmers and tenants.

  Georgina realised that she now had to find out who she would hand over The Castle to and be told where on the estate she could live.

  The Dower House, which had not been lived in for years, was in a sad state of disrepair and she thought if she had to go and live there it could be made more comfortable if money was spent on it.

  She was not yet certain how much it would cost and she had learnt from one of her father’s s
urveyors that the roof needed a great deal doing to it and most of the rooms required repainting.

  She had intended at one time to look at the house, although it had never struck her until now that she perhaps would have to live in it.

  But she had been so busy with the horses and with a great number of other matters that had to be dealt with in her father’s absence.

  It was only now that she had time to think about herself.

  In fact because she had lived so exclusively at The Castle and, because in all the years of her life it had been the one place she knew so well, it was terrifying to realise that now she would have to go away.

  ‘But where can I go?’ she asked herself.

  She knew that The Castle and the land round it had filled her whole life and been her world ever since she was old enough to think.

  She was sensible enough to realise that her father had not only thought of her as a boy and let her dress as one but he had also made certain that she spent her time only with men.

  His friends, her Tutors and the majority of servants like his Managers and his secretaries were the people she talked to and the people she knew.

  It was only now that she realised that, if she paid a visit to a farmer on the estate, his wife would look at her shyly because of the way she was dressed.

  Therefore she usually left them alone and the same applied to the neighbours who had long given up inviting her to their parties and she only came into contact with them when they were invited to The Castle.

  Looking back, she saw that her father had treated her exclusively as if she was his son.

  He gave her orders which she was expected to obey immediately.

  She rode with him, went out shooting with him and fished in the streams where there were small trout.

  It was a general rule that almost from first thing in the morning until late in the evening she was with him.

  There were always situations to be seen to over the estate and she had been to numerous Horse Fairs with her father.

  As she was always dressed as a boy, instinctively anyone who spoke to her called her ‘sir’.

  It was only now that Georgina was wondering if she should remain as a pseudo young man or become, as she felt she really ought to, a girl.

  She was nearly twenty.

  When she thought it over, she had done nothing in the past few years that was in the least feminine.

  Looking back, she would find herself talking to her father’s friends, who were inevitably men he had known since childhood. They talked mostly of their possessions in the country, although occasionally they would discuss the political situation.

  Georgina had listened to them and found that what they were saying was extremely interesting, but she had known at the back of her mind that they were treating her as a boy and not a girl.

  They were often rather embarrassed by her situation in the house and the way she was dressed.

  ‘I suppose now that Papa is dead,’ she thought, ‘I will have to change myself into someone very different. But I really don’t know how to do it.’

  Once again she was thinking whether she would be allowed to stay on the estate, even if she could afford to repair the Dower House.

  But, if she did live there, could she really bear to see someone else giving orders to the staff when she had always given them?

  Perhaps what had mattered so much to her father would be either altered or neglected. More important still would anyone living at The Castle and knowing about her position there want her to watch them making alterations and perhaps being uncomfortably inquisitive?

  ‘What am I to do? What on earth am I to do?’ she asked herself again and for the first time in her life she was afraid of the future.

  It was then that she heard the wheels of a carriage.

  She thought that it must be someone leaving, who had been partaking of refreshments in the dining room.

  She had seen, when she returned from the funeral, that there were only a few carriages outside the front door.

  She had stayed behind after other people had left the Church to thank the Bishop, who had come to bury her father and she had also asked him if he would come up to The Castle before he left for home.

  The Bishop had refused as he was so busy, but he had talked to her saying what a splendid man her father had been and how much he admired the work he had done on his estate.

  The Bishop had been very charming and it was only at the end of the conversation he had said to Georgina,

  “What are you going to do now, Lady Georgina? I realise that this must have been a terrible shock to you. I hope that you will be able to stay on at The Castle until you have decided where you will go.” Thinking of it now, she realised until that moment she had not actually considered where she should go and when.

  For one thing she was not certain who the next heir would be. Her father had a great number of relatives he did not see from one year to the next and some of them lived in the very South of England.

  Others lived abroad and there were some of the family in Scotland, but, because he had been pre-occupied with his enormous estate and his invalid wife, the Earl had made little effort to keep in touch with his large family.

  Because it hurt him to think that he had no son to take his place, he had deliberately not calculated who, amongst his cousins, was the prospective heir.

  Also, because he had not thought of dying while he was comparatively young, he was certain that Georgina would be married long before there was any need to look for an heir.

  He was determined not to lose her companionship until he absolutely had to, as she was the son he never had.

  Her companionship and her interest in everything he said and did made her much more indispensable in his daily life than even his son might have been.

  ‘What can I do now,’ Georgina asked herself, ‘to find out who is taking Papa’s place and whether he will want my help or just be glad to be rid of me?’

  She was apprehensive of the answer.

  She crossed the room to look once again at the big pile of letters on her father’s desk. The servants had put them there as they arrived, knowing that she would deal with them when she had the time.

  She was sure that many of the letters would need a reply, but she had no wish to read them yet. They could wait just as she was having to wait to learn of her own future.

  Now she thought about it, she realised, as far as she was aware, that there had been no family relations at all in the Church.

  However, there had been quite a number of people and it was impossible for her to be certain of who they all were, as she supposed that the Deacon or someone who had been at the door would have told any relatives to join her in the family pew.

  But she had been alone during the Service and then, when the coffin had been carried to the family vault, she had gone with it.

  With the sole exception of the Parson and the men carrying the coffin, there had been no one else.

  ‘One cannot blame them,’ she thought, ‘because the weather was so bad.’

  At the same time she was sure that her father would have been deeply hurt at the lack of interest his relatives were showing him.

  ‘What I have to do now,’ Georgina said to herself, ‘is to see how much money I have left and make certain what in the house is mine.’

  She shuddered at the idea.

  But her father’s Solicitor had written to say that he would call the day after the funeral to discuss her father’s will with her.

  She had no idea what he had said or what he had given her.

  The one subject they had never discussed was what would happen to her in the future and she knew that it was because her father had no intention of dying yet.

  There was no reason why he should have died if he had not caught that very unpleasant disease of the throat while he was in Africa.

  Although they had visited the same places and been together all the time, she had been fortunate enough to rem
ain well and healthy.

  ‘I suppose that I should read these letters,’ she told herself, ‘instead of worrying myself and asking questions I have no answer to.’

  She walked towards the desk and, as she did so, she was aware that there were voices coming from the hall.

  She was surprised that it was a woman’s voice she could hear above the rest and, as far as she had noticed, there had been no woman in the dining room where the refreshments were laid out.

  There had certainly been no female relative at the funeral and the voice, talking animatedly, grew louder.

  Georgina now realised that someone with a great deal to say was coming towards the study.

  She wondered who on earth it could be. If it was someone local, she felt that they had no right to impose themselves on her at such a time and anyway she could not understand why the butler had not sent them away.

  Dawson, who had been at The Castle ever since she could remember, would never allow a stranger to impose on her at this delicate moment.

  The men who had come to her father’s funeral and doubtless lived locally would have left without coming to The Castle, knowing that she would be the only person there and would naturally be exceedingly upset.

  The voice grew louder still.

  Then, as the door opened, Georgina saw a woman she did not for the moment recognise.

  She was elegantly dressed in black with a feather hat and cape trimmed with black fur.

  “Lady Crawford, my Lady,” Dawson announced in a stentorian voice.

  Then a vision in black pushed past him into the room and for a moment Georgina could only stare at the newcomer with astonishment.

  Then the shrill voice she had heard in the passage piped up,

  “My dear Georgina, how can I apologise enough! But we had a breakdown on the road and by the time the wheel was repaired the Service was over. I am so sorry, so very sorry to have missed saying my last prayers for your dear father.”

  It was with an effort that Georgina realised that it was her aunt, who had not been to The Castle for many years, although she had often written to her father.

  “It is so kind of you to come,” she managed to say.

  “Of course we would come today,” Lady Crawford replied, “and now here is Vivien, my daughter, and my son, Edward.”