74. Love Lifts The Curse Read online

  “What I want you to do,” he went on, “is to keep him quiet and make certain that he does not toss and turn about, which he is very likely to want to do.”

  Jacoba was just going to ask how she could prevent him when his doctor continued,

  “I have given him a herbal remedy, which in my opinion is far more effective than any drug and Cook on my instructions is mixing a great deal more.

  “If he is restless, you must make him drink it.”

  “I will – try,” Jacoba promised.

  “I am sure you will be very effective, Jacoba. You realise that I have to trust you? The servants would be too afraid to gainsay him in any way.”

  Jacoba smiled.

  “I too – am frightened of him!”

  “I realise that,” the doctor replied, “but you have not so much to lose as they have. You can therefore be braver and, if necessary, dictatorial!”

  His eyes were twinkling and Jacoba stifled a little laugh.

  “I will do my best, I promise you – but you must not expect miracles.”

  The doctor put his hand on her shoulder.

  “You are a good girl,” he said, “and I trust you. I will be back as soon as I possibly can, but it will not be for a few hours. Ask the servants for anything you want and I will order a footman to be always on duty outside the door.”

  As he spoke, he pulled his watch from his pocket.

  There was a look of consternation on his face.

  “I must go at once,” he said. “And I am very thankful that I can leave you in charge.”

  Before Jacoba could reply he had hurried from the room.

  As he closed the door behind him, she looked across at the bed.

  Incredible though it seemed, the Earl was now in her charge and she had to look after him.

  She walked nearer to the bed and stood looking down at his white face on the pillow.

  It seemed extraordinary that this man who had shouted at her, frightened her, caused her through his anger to faint away, was now so still and silent.

  Unexpectedly she found herself feeling sorry for him. It seemed wrong that the poachers who were no more than simple thieves should have assaulted him in such a horrible fashion.

  How could they have thrown him into the river?

  ‘It was a very wicked thing to do!’ Jacoba thought angrily.

  She could not bear to think of such violence taking place in the beauty of Scotland.

  ‘You must get well,’ she said to the Earl, speaking without words, ‘and perhaps you will forget the way you have been treated and be happy again and enjoy the magnificence of your castle.’

  She was not certain why this was what she wanted for him.

  But she had always hated suffering and pain. She felt that it was somehow an insult to Nature, which was in itself so lovely and perfect.

  “We must make you well,” she said softly to the unconscious Earl.

  She recognised that she meant not only physically well but also well in mind, heart and soul.

  ‘Then,’ she told herself, ‘he will stop hating women.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Earl stirred and was vaguely aware that someone was instantly beside him and was preventing him from turning on his side as he wished to do.

  He felt very strange and his head hurt abominably.

  He wanted to ask what had happened.

  Then someone gently raised his head and a soft voice said,

  “Drink this and you will feel much better. Try to drink please. It will do you so much good.”

  He thought vaguely that it must be his mother who was speaking to him.

  He then wondered what had happened to him and if he had been hurt in any way.

  Then darkness seemed to cover him and he slipped away into it.

  *

  “You are to go out into the fresh air,” Doctor Faulkner said, “and don’t come back for at least an hour-and-a-half!”

  Jacoba gave a little laugh.

  She was becoming used to the doctor giving her orders as if she was a raw recruit on the parade ground.

  But she knew that she had to obey him.

  “The Earl has been very quiet,” she reported, “and Angus only came to me once during the night for me to give him your herbs.”

  Doctor Faulkner had arranged that Angus, who was the Earl’s valet, should sit up with him at night while Jacoba slept.

  But she was to be with him in the daytime.

  As he had already made clear, the doctor had a number of other very ill patients on his hands and he was unable to spend much time with the Earl.

  It was now the third day that he had been unconscious.

  As soon as Jacoba had gone, he and Angus redressed the Earl’s wound as they did every day.

  The doctor could see that he was definitely improving and rather quicker than he had dared to hope.

  “His Lordship is a strong man,” he said to the valet.

  He had thought, as Jacoba walked towards the door, that she looked very lovely.

  The weather had grown warmer and she was wearing a thin gown, which was very simple if a little old-fashioned, but at the same time it suited her.

  Her hair with its touches of red seemed to hold the sun’s rays in it.

  “You are quite sure you don’t need me?” she had asked before she left the room.

  “What I am concerned with is you,” he answered. “You need to be out in the fresh air and get some sunshine on your cheeks.”

  “I will do that,” she promised.

  She gave a little whistle and the two spaniels that had been lying beside the Earl’s bed jumped to their feet.

  They followed her out into the corridor and then, as she hurried along it and down the stairs, they scampered ahead of her.

  The gardens, which were very beautiful, she had already partially explored in the brief intervals she had been able to go outside while the doctor was dressing the Earl’s wound.

  Now she thought that she would explore the village.

  So she walked up the long drive, the spaniels enjoying the walk.

  They were now very friendly towards her and she often thought, when they nuzzled against her, that they were apologising for having been so ferocious when she had first appeared.

  The village was small and she thought very pretty.

  It consisted of only one street in which there was a Church and a Post Office, where the proprietor also sold groceries, and there were a butcher and baker.

  There was another shop that contained every miscellaneous object anybody could possibly want and at the far end of the village was a small school with a playground.

  It was all very simple.

  The cottages that lay directly outside the main gates of The Castle were, Jacoba was sure, occupied by the Earl’s gillies as well as his butler.

  Because she had heard from Ross so much about his wife and family, she stopped at a gate and it led into a pretty garden filled with flowers.

  As she did so, a woman came to the door looking at her curiously.

  Jacoba smiled at her.

  “I think you may be Mrs. Ross,” she said, “or perhaps she lives in one of the other cottages?”

  “I’m Mrs. Ross,” the woman replied, “and you’ll be the young lassie from The Castle.”

  “That is right!” Jacoba answered.

  The woman came down the paved pathway and opened the gate.

  “Come awa in,” she invited. “I’d like to make you a cup of tea.”

  Jacoba accepted the invitation with enthusiasm.

  She was not surprised to find that while the cottage was primitive it was spotlessly clean.

  There was a spinning wheel which she looked at with interest.

  “I spin the wool when the sheep have been sheared,” Mrs. Ross explained, “and I knit clothes for the bairns to keep them warm in the winter.”

  “That is very clever of you,” Jacoba commented.

  “All the women make wha
t they can,” Mrs. Ross said. “Money’s scarce and the goods in the shop are too expensive for the likes of us.”

  Jacoba was interested.

  She asked her what sort of goods the women made.

  Mrs. Ross then ran quickly to the cottage next door and, almost before she realised what was happening, Jacoba found herself surrounded by women.

  They were all showing her what they had made and at the same time staring at her curiously.

  The objects they produced were certainly very cleverly produced.

  There were black cock’s feathers fashioned into an ornament for a hat and shells from the beach had been made into a little boat.

  There were all kinds of knitted garments from slippers to bedsocks, shooting stockings and children’s clothes.

  “When the tourists pass by, we sometimes sell things,” one of the women explained, “but there’s no a lot to see this far North, except for The Castle.”

  “And I suppose that his Lordship does not allow them inside,” Jacoba said.

  “Nay, nay!” they replied in shocked voices. “And if he sees folk on the drive he has them sent awa.”

  As she talked to them, Jacoba learnt how Hamish McMurdock’s proposal that they might market the lobsters, crabs and salmon had been welcomed by the local people.

  “We all hoped so much that his Lordship would agree to Mr. Hamish’s scheme,” Mrs. Ross said. “It would have put money in the fishermen’s pockets and they had a real hard time of it last year with the weather.”

  “But his Lordship refused to consider it,” Jacoba said as if to herself.

  She was beginning to guess now why Hamish had been so angry with his uncle and why he had sent her to him as his revenge.

  “I’ve heard,” Mrs. Ross carried on a little nervously, as if she was afraid that she might be speaking out of turn, “that you be nursin’ his Lordship. Does he no realise you’re doin’ it and you be a lassie?”

  Jacoba knew it was a question that had made them all curious.

  “His Lordship is still unconscious,” she said, “and I am sure when he does find out what is happening I shall have to go away.”

  She rose to her feet as she spoke and added,

  “That is why I want to see as much of Scotland as I can. It is so beautiful! I feel as if everything within me responds to the hills and the glens in the same way as I love the pipes when I hear them each morning.”

  “How can you say that,” one woman who was more dour than the others asked. “You’re a Sassenach and the Sassenachs dinna understand us.”

  Jacoba hesitated a moment.

  Then she replied quietly,

  “My mother was a McKenzie. That is why I was called Jacoba.”

  They all stared at her.

  “A McKenzie! Then you’re one of us!”

  “That is what I like to think I am,” Jacoba answered.

  She knew from that moment that they welcomed her amongst them.

  Mrs. Ross and two of the other women gave her presents and, although she protested, she knew that they would be hurt if she did not accept them.

  “You are very kind,” she sighed, “and I shall treasure these when I have to go back to England.”

  “You should stay here with us,” Mrs. Ross said. “A could teach you to spin and maybe you could take your work to Edinburgh and earn some money for it.”

  “That is something I would really like to do,” Jacoba replied.

  She knew as she spoke that the little money she had with her would not last long and she would have to go back to England and find a regular job.

  She thanked the women for their kindness to her and walked on down the village.

  When she reached the school, she realised that she must now go back to The Castle.

  Dr. Faulkner had been so kind in taking her place at his patient’s bedside and she must not make him late for his next appointment.

  Because she was afraid that was what she would do, she hurried down the drive with the delighted spaniels still scampering along beside her.

  She was breathless by the time she reached The Castle.

  She ran up the stairs as fast as she could only pausing to draw breath before she opened the door into the Earl’s room.

  Doctor Faulkner was standing at the window looking out to sea and he turned as she entered.

  He thought with her cheeks flushed and her hair curling over her forehead from the wind she looked just like Persephone.

  “I hope I have not – kept – you waiting,” Jacoba said in a low voice.

  “You are looking as I wanted you to look,” the doctor replied, “Did you have a good time?”

  “I talked to Mrs. Ross and the other women in the cottages,” Jacoba answered. “They gave me these lovely presents. I felt embarrassed at taking them, but they insisted.”

  “Then they have accepted you and they are astounded that you are here in The Castle when they have been forbidden to go near it.”

  Jacoba glanced towards the bed.

  “How is his Lordship?”

  “His arm is distinctly better,” the doctor said, “and I think that he is now beginning to come back to consciousness.”

  “Will he be in pain?” Jacoba enquired.

  “His head will still be tender and he will undoubtedly have headaches when he begins to move about. But, as I have said before, he is very strong and there will be no permanent effect from the damage.”

  “I am glad about that,” Jacoba answered.

  Equally she realised that if the Earl was getting better so the time when she could no longer stay in The Castle was approaching.

  The doctor could read what she was thinking from the expression on her face.

  “I am sure that his Lordship will be very grateful for what you have done for him,” he said.

  “I doubt it,” Jacoba replied, “but, please, if you can, make him understand that – I cannot leave – unless he will – pay my – fare.”

  She was embarrassed at having to say it and the colour came into her face.

  Then she added,

  “Of course, I could try to walk back, but I am afraid it would take a – very long – time.”

  The doctor laughed.

  “I expect there would be plenty of men more than willing to give you a lift! But that is something I cannot allow.”

  He looked at his watch and exclaimed,

  “I am already late and I must be on my way. I will come back this evening, but it is not really necessary.”

  “Please come,” Jacoba pleaded. “I am afraid, even now – that I might do something wrong.”

  “You are the best nurse I have found for a long time,” the doctor assured her.

  He put his hand on her shoulder as they reached the door.

  “You are to go out for at least an hour this afternoon when Angus comes on duty,” he insisted, “and you are not to worry about his Lordship during the night. If he needs the herbs, Angus can manage.”

  He was gone before Jacoba could say any more.

  She closed the door and went to stand beside the Earl’s bed.

  He was certainly looking better and was not as pale as he had been at first.

  At the same time he still looked young and exceedingly handsome.

  She was suddenly aware that she did not want him to get better too quickly.

  She liked nursing him and she liked being in The Castle and it was frightening to think that she must leave it for the world outside where nobody wanted her.

  She stood looking down at the Earl for a long time.

  Then, as she was about to turn away, he quite unexpectedly opened his eyes.

  For a moment Jacoba could hardly believe it had happened.

  Then he said in a voice that seemed to come from a long distance away,

  “W-what has – happened?”

  Jacoba bent a little nearer to him.

  “You were hurt, my Lord,” she told him softly, “but now you are getting well and will soo
n be on your feet again.”

  She was not certain if the Earl understood her.

  And after what seemed a long time he said,

  “I-it was – the – poachers.”

  “Yes, the poachers, my Lord,” Jacoba replied. “But they have gone away and there are two men protecting the river to prevent any more coming.”

  She thought that the Earl understood.

  He closed his eyes and did not speak again.

  *

  Jacoba went out in the afternoon just as Doctor Faulkner had told her to do and Angus took her place in the bedroom.

  She went into the garden, which was just below The Castle and g gate at the end of it led onto a stretch of level ground just above the beach.

  There was a jetty jutting out into the water from which the Earl could step into a boat and row out to sea.

  It was something that Jacoba longed to do, especially as the sun was shining and the sea so smooth.

  She walked to the end of the jetty and, looking down, she could see small fish swimming in the clear water and crabs crawling in and out of the rocks that lay on the bottom.

  It made her remember Hamish’s idea of creating an industry and making money for the villagers.

  She was well aware why the Earl would not consider such an idea as it would mean strangers coming near him – and perhaps women.

  ‘How can he be so foolish when he is so young as to cut himself off from the world?’ Jacoba asked.

  Yet she could guess how deeply he had been hurt by his disastrous experience at the hands of two women.

  But he was wrong to hate the entire female sex.

  The doctor had told her about his unhappy marriage and the lady who had jilted him at the last minute by running away with another man.

  “It was cruel of her!” Jacoba had said.

  “Yet it was better than a second unhappy marriage,” Doctor Faulkner had replied.

  “I suppose that is true,” Jacoba agreed.

  At the same time it was wicked to have made him look a fool, which was, of course, what any man would have felt in the same circumstances.

  “I suppose the truth is,” Doctor Faulkner had mused, “that the Scots, despite the fact that they are strong and excellent fighters, are also very sensitive.”

  Jacoba did not reply.

  She had not told the doctor that her mother was a McKenzie.