107. Soft, Sweet & Gentle

by Barbara Cartland

  The new maids with the help of the footmen had cleaned every room and they looked, Georgina thought, exactly as they had when her mother had been alive.

  There were flowers in the drawing room, in fact in all the rooms, even in the passages.

  There had been a rather bare boudoir attached to the Master suite which was now a blaze of flowers and they extended into the patient’s bedroom as well.

  ‘Perhaps he hates flowers,’ Georgina thought as she played the piano to him.

  But she knew that they inspired her to play better than she had ever played before.

  She thought that such melodies must awaken him to reality, even though she thought at times that he had left this world for good.

  That evening, when talking to him, she said softly,

  “You must wake up now and see what’s happening. You will be surprised, perhaps angry, but The Castle has never looked so beautiful nor has the garden. There were two foals born today and both of them will, I think, be magnificent jumpers as their mother has been.”

  She paused for a moment before she went on,

  “I could not resist a gallop early this morning on one of your faster horses. But he is waiting for you and feeling a bit despised with only a woman on his back. But I am quite certain that he will win every race you enter him for and he needs you as does everyone else on the estate.”

  She bent forward and touched his cheek gently.

  “Wake up, Alister,” she whispered. “Do wake up. Your world is very exciting and I pray you will be pleased when you see it and not be angry.”

  The next day the doctor came again and, having examined his patient, he was even more encouraging than he had been previously.

  “His pulse is steady and you will see that he will soon be back in this world again, however much he may be enjoying slipping away from us.”

  “I hope you are right,” Georgina sighed.

  That night before she retired to bed she went in as she always did to look at Alister.

  The candles burning by his bed and the scent of the flowers seemed almost overwhelming.

  She knelt down beside him and murmured,

  “Oh, Alister, hurry and wake up. There are such exciting things going on. I have so much to show you.”

  As she spoke, she wondered if he would disapprove of it and tell her, as he had told her before, that he would not have her in his house.

  ‘Why should he change,’ she asked herself, ‘just because he has been ill?’

  Then, on an impulse, she bent forward and said,

  “Get well, even if you are angry with me. It will be better than you lying here looking so handsome, so young and yet you have gone away to some other world where we cannot reach you.”

  She felt as she spoke that he was like a child who had to be loved to be reassured.

  She had talked to him so often and in a way he had become part of her and she now felt entirely responsible for him.

  “Get well! Get well and come back to us,” she whispered.

  It was a call that came from the very depths of her heart.

  Then, as she rose to go to her room, Alister opened his eyes and she gave a little cry of astonishment.

  “Where am – I?” he said in a voice she could hardly hear. “What has – happened?”

  “You can speak!” Georgina cried. “Oh, Alister, I thought you would never come back to us.”

  Her voice broke and there were tears in her eyes as she bent over him.

  She felt that he was a child who depended on her and by some miracle she had saved him.

  He now looked up at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  Then he muttered,

  “I am – tired. I must go to – sleep.”

  Georgina drew in her breath and, as she realised that Alister had gone to sleep, she bent forward and very lightly kissed his cheek.

  The next morning when the doctor came, she met him on the doorstep to tell him exactly what had happened.

  “He spoke and asked where he was,” she told him excitedly.

  “I came as soon as you sent for me. As I have come without my breakfast, I would be very grateful if I could have something to eat when I have seen our patient.”

  “But of course,” Georgina replied. “I would expect Dawson has thought of that already.”

  They went upstairs together.

  As she now drew back the curtains, Georgina heard Alister replying to the doctor’s questions as if he had not been unconscious for so long.

  “What – happened – to me?” he asked jerkily.

  The doctor smiled.

  “You will hear it from your wonderful nurse who has looked after you all the time you have been lying here ignoring our efforts to get you back on your feet.”

  “I remember some men stealing a picture – ”

  “That is right,” the doctor agreed. “And when you tried to stop them, they shot you. They would have killed you if it had not been for Lady Georgina. She not only saved your life but she kept talking to you every day. No other nurse in the world could have done better.”

  “I heard her and I heard her music,” he answered.

  “You will hear a great deal more now that you are fully conscious,” the doctor said.

  He then gave Georgina and Dawson a number of instructions before he left and said that he would be back early in the afternoon.

  “Give him anything he wants,” he told them. “He is now on the mend and will soon be his old self again.”

  He drove away without saying any more.

  Georgina thought it meant that she would soon be out of The Castle and back to the Dower House.

  Yet somehow she could not believe after she had been so close to him and he meant so much to her that he would do so.

  When he then fell asleep, she realised that it was because he was tired and not because he was unconscious as he was breathing quite normally.

  When finally she went to bed, she felt that they had passed the crossroads and now he would really improve.

  *

  Georgina woke early and crept into Alister’s room to find that he was still asleep and she thought that it was a normal sleep as it had been last night.

  She realised it was not yet six o’clock and the sun was just coming up over the trees.

  She had a sudden yearning to be riding.

  After yet another look at her patient, she put on her riding clothes and slipped out through the back door of The Castle that led to the stables.

  Then ten minutes later she was riding Sunlight over the paddock and into the fields that led to the wood.

  Now the sun was in her eyes and the clear fresh air touched her cheeks.

  She was thinking that now Alister had come back to normality everything was very wonderful.

  At the same time deep in her heart she was afraid, desperately afraid, that once again he would send her away.

  She wanted to stay.

  She wanted to be with him.

  She wanted to look after him as she had been doing as if he was a child and not a man who could hurt her and make her desperately unhappy.

  She had actually not been to the Dower House for two days and, because Alister was getting better, there was so much to see to in The Castle.

  Also she had loved playing to him, telling him with music that he must get well and that the world outside was waiting for him.

  ‘Now I can say it in words,’ she reflected.

  But she was afraid that he would not want to hear them and that, as soon as he was well enough, he would send her away.

  It was then, as she was riding back to The Castle, she admitted to herself that he meant more to her than just a patient the doctor had given her.

  She had talked to him not only about the estate but about herself and she had told him secrets that she could not have told anyone else.

  Because he had been unconscious she felt he would never remember them and they were safe in his keeping.


  As she turned for home, she had a full view of The Castle with the sun glinting on the mullioned windows.

  There was just enough breeze to raise the Standard, which was flying from the highest tower, to show that the Earl was in residence.

  ‘My home! The place I love best in all the world,’ Georgina sighed to herself.

  It was then that she knew, although she hardly dare admit it to herself, she not only loved The Castle but the man who now owned it.

  She thought of him as a child who had been injured who wanted her compassion and she had given him not just that but tried with her brain, her heart and her soul to make him well.

  She did not know why, but somehow he had drawn from her the very depths of her being.

  In giving him her heart, she had lost it.

  ‘How could I be so crazy and so stupid as to love a man who hates me because I am a woman?’ she asked herself. ‘He turned me away before he was wounded and will turn me away once he is himself again.’

  It was something that she had never thought would happen to her but it had.

  She had loved him because he was so helpless and she had thought that he might die.

  She had loved him because he had been like a child who depended on her.

  And in giving back his brain she had also given him everything she owned, in fact herself.

  When she reached the steps, she gave her horse to one of the grooms.

  “Had a nice ride, my Lady?” he asked.

  “Yes, lovely,” Georgina replied.

  She patted Sunlight and wondered, because it did not belong to her but to Alister, if in the future she would be able to ride him again.

  As she walked slowly to the front of The Castle, she recognised that it was part of her heart.

  Not only because she had been born there and lived there, but because everything about her was somehow part of The Castle too, not just her body but her brain, her heart, her prayers and in fact all of herself.

  She realised now that this was how it had always been, but she had not been able to put it into words, not even to herself, until now.

  But she knew that now Alister was better he might send her away again.

  She thought that if he did so she would perhaps be able to disobey him.

  She could hide in the cellars or in the towers and The Castle was big enough for him never to know that she was there.

  But because it was her home and because it was everything she had always loved, now that her father and mother were dead, she felt that she must cling to it.

  Otherwise she might as well die.

  ‘If they had shot me instead of Alister,’ she mused, ‘it would not have mattered particularly.’

  Then she knew that was in a way blasphemous.

  She had done so much for The Castle just as The Castle had done so much for her.

  It could not be dismissed by a bullet from a burglar and nor could she throw it away by saying that she would live elsewhere.

  ‘I love it,’ she pondered, looking up at the towers silhouetted against the sky, ‘just as I love the man who now owns it although he is not interested in me.’

  It was with a tremendous effort that she managed to walk into the hall and smile at the footman who wished her ‘good morning’.

  Then she went up the stairs and along the corridor that led to the Master suite.

  By this time Dawson would have woken Alister, shaved him and brought him his breakfast.

  She went first to her own room and changed from her riding habit into one of the pretty dresses that had belonged to one of her cousins.

  She tidied her hair and then she went through the communicating door into the Master suite.

  She walked towards the bed as she had done every morning.

  She gave a little gasp as she realised that the bed was empty and for a moment it went through her mind that something disastrous had happened.

  Then, as she turned towards the window, she saw Alister sitting at a table wearing his dressing gown and reading a newspaper.

  “You are up!” she managed to cry.

  He smiled at her.

  “Come and sit down,” he said. “I have ordered breakfast for us in the sunshine. Dawson has promised me that I will be able to go downstairs tomorrow as long as I am a good boy and don’t do too much today.”

  “You can really move!” Georgina exclaimed.

  “As you can see I have managed to walk here,” he replied. “I suggest you eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

  Feeling as if she was in a dream, Georgina sat down beside him.

  Now the colour was back in his face.

  Although he was thinner than he had been before, he was still exceedingly good-looking.

  Despite her resolution to be as quiet as possible, she could not help herself from saying,

  “I hope you are not doing too much. You must be careful of yourself, Alister.”

  “I thought that you were begging me to get better quickly as you had so much to show me,” Alister replied.

  “Did you hear me – say that?” she stammered.

  “I knew you were talking to me,” he answered. “I did not know at first who it was, but someone was talking to me, pulling me back from somewhere I wanted to go but was unable to do so.”

  “Did you really feel that?” Georgina asked.

  “At first I did not understand what you said when you talked to me,” he replied. “But afterwards I had an idea of what it was and I waited for it and, believe it or not, I could hear your every word.”

  “So you really knew that I was talking to you?”

  “Yes, I knew it was you, Georgina.”

  She remembered the secrets she had told him about herself and the passionate way she had begged him to get well quickly.

  Now she felt embarrassed and the colour rose in her cheeks.

  As she looked away from him, she had no idea how lovely she looked in the sunshine streaming in through the window.

  “You actually told me a great deal while I was unconscious,” Alister admitted. “But now I want you to tell me all over again so that I don’t miss anything.”

  “I cannot believe that you really heard me talking to you,” Georgina murmured.

  “Of course I heard you. I knew that you wanted me and would not let me go to where I wanted to go.”

  “You really wanted to leave us?”

  “I don’t know whether it was just something that happened to me,” he replied, “or whether my mind told me that I was facing a choice between Heaven and earth.”

  Then he smiled.

  “As you can see, I have chosen earth and now I am asking you to tell me what has happened. I gather both from you and Dawson that much has changed.”

  “I am not going to tell you now because I think it may be too much for you. As it was impossible to engage a nurse locally, I was the only one to do it so I don’t want you to have a relapse.”

  Alister laughed.

  “Now you are eluding me. I am feeling like my old self, except that I am little tired. I know that the doctor told me that I must spend the day in bed, but tomorrow I will be different.”

  “If you have finished breakfast,” she suggested, “I think you should go back to bed now.”

  “I will do so on one condition.”

  “What is that?” Georgina asked.

  “That you come and talk to me and tell me all the things I could not quite understand when you were saying them before.”

  “Of course I will do that,” she promised, “but let me call Dawson to take you to bed.”

  “If you help me, we can manage without Dawson,” he replied.

  He started to rise as he spoke.

  Instinctively Georgina rose to her feet and put her arm round his back so that he could rest on her shoulder.

  Slowly, very slowly, they walked towards the bed.

  As they reached it, she then helped him out of his dressing gown.

  As he lay back again
st the pillows, she pulled the bedclothes over him.

  “Now rest,” she told him, “and don’t worry about anything. Everything is perfect.”

  “Of course it is,” Alister replied, “because you have arranged it. Now I suggest you play to me as you played when I was unconscious.”

  “You heard the music?” she asked excitedly.

  “Of course I heard it and it told me everything I wanted to know even more implicitly than you told me in words.”

  Georgina gave a little laugh.

  “I don’t believe this is happening. I prayed and prayed that you would get well, but I did not imagine it would be so quickly.”

  “And I have a feeling that your prayers are always answered.”

  “I wish that was true,” Georgina murmured.

  She walked to the piano and sat down and, without thinking, she played the tunes she had played when he was unconscious.

  It must have been a quarter of an hour later that she realised he was fast asleep.

  As Dawson came into the room, she put her finger to her lips so that he did not speak.

  He picked up the breakfast plates and put them on a tray and took it away.

  When he was outside the room, she followed him.

  “I think you should send for the doctor,” she said.

  “He be coming at midday,” Dawson replied. “His Lordship’s recovered exactly as I knew he would.”

  “Yes, and so quickly,” Georgina agreed.

  “That’s how it happens, my Lady, and now he’ll be up in a few days. If you asks me, he’ll be ridin’ before the end of the week.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Georgina retorted.

  “I’m not askin’ for a bet on it, as your Ladyship’ll lose your money. But it’s good news and that’s what the doctor’ll say when he arrives.”

  Alister was still asleep when the doctor came and, when Georgina told him all that had happened, he was delighted.

  “Now that he is well on the way to recovery,” he said, “I can see that my services are no longer needed.”

  “You saved him!” Georgina exclaimed.

  “It is you who have done that, Lady Georgina. And if ever anyone was born to be a nurse by nature that is exactly what you are.”

  “I suppose it’s a compliment,” Georgina answered, “but if you are thinking of giving me a new career, I would point out that people like him are the people I have loved.”