Barbara Cartland: Look with the Heart

In my travels all over the world I have met a great many Healers. I talked to one who was 160 years old in the woods in Nepal when I was at the foot of the Himalayas.

There were others beside the Ganges, one near the Diamond Mines in Hyderabad and another in the exquisitely beautiful Lake Palace at Udaipur.

They, all of them, tried to give the Light Force through their hands or their concentration to the person who needs their help.

In this country, the two Healers I found who work in the same way believing in the light that comes from God are Graham Wyley and Joseph Corvo, who is a genius and works on his patients with Zone Therapy.

Fennel was believed to have a great effect on the eyes from the time of the Greeks who not only believed in its effectiveness in healing eyes, but also used it during their Olympic Games as a wreath to put round the head of the Victor.

Erlina Sherwood stood looking helplessly at the flames soaring higher and higher into the sky.

She could hardly believe that her home was being irretrievably destroyed.

There was a resounding crash as part of the roof fell in and she felt her brother’s hand slip into hers.

“I don’t think we can save anything more,” he sighed.

“No, we must – not go near – it again,” Erlina managed to say.

There was just a small number of chairs and pictures, which she and Gerry, who was eleven, had managed to pull into the garden.

As it was in the middle of the night and they were some distance from the village, no one had come to help them.

The old servants, Dawes and his wife, could only stand motionless staring at the flames and weeping.

It was in fact Dawes who had caused the fire.

He had got out of bed in the night and the candle he had left burning by his bedside had toppled over onto the bed.

He did not realise at first that the bedclothes were burning and, when he did, he tried to put out the fire himself.

When the blaze became too strong for him to cope with, his wife ran screaming out of the back door.

It was only then that he hurried as fast as she could through the house to wake Erlina.

He told her what had happened and had admitted that it was all his fault.

Erlina quickly woke her brother, who was sleeping in the next room.

They pulled on some clothes and ran rapidly downstairs.

By this time the flames were completely out of control.

Sherwood House was very old, in fact it had been built in Tudor times and the wooden beams and floors were dry and quickly caught fire.

Erlina and Gerry had only managed to bring half a dozen pieces out through the front door and into the garden.

The flames were speedily destroying everything she knew and loved.

Another part of the roof then fell in with a deafening crash.

Then there was just the crackle of the flames with the skeleton of the walls silhouetted against night sky.

“What are we going to do?” Gerry asked.

It was a question that Erlina was already asking herself.

She knew that she had to think of the two old servants as well.

“We will have to drive into the village,” she said. “Thank goodness the horses are safe and untouched.”

The stables were fortunately built at some distance from the house and it was obvious that the flames would not reach them.

“What shall we do about the Dawes’s?” Gerry asked.

“We will take them with us,” Erlina replied. “Go and put Nobby between the shafts of the pony cart.”

Gerry ran off.

He was only young, but he was a sensible and helpful little boy.

Erlina walked towards the old couple.

“’Tis really terrible – terrible!” the old woman was sobbing. “Everything’s been burnt, everything !”

Her voice was almost incoherent and Erlina could do nothing but pat her shoulder.

“We have to be brave,” she murmured.

“‘T’were my fault, miss,” Dawes said. “There’s no one to blame but me.”

“It is something that might have happened at any time,” Erlina said consolingly. “The house is so old that I think I always knew that if there was a fire nothing could save it.”

Mrs. Dawes was still sobbing and the tears were running down the old cook’s cheeks.

Erlina felt like crying herself, but she knew that it would do no good.

“I have sent Master Gerry to fetch the pony cart,” she said. “We will then drive into the village and ask the Vicar if we can stay with him for the rest of the night.”

She did not wait to hear what the Dawes’s had to say, but walked off towards the stables knowing that she must help Gerry.

He had already brought Nobby , who was a most reliable old pony, out of his stall and she helped Gerry fit him between the shafts.

The pony cart was old like everything else they possessed.

She thought despairingly that, unless they were to lay down on the straw with the horses, they would not have a roof over their heads.

“Have you fastened the shaft on your side?” she now asked Gerry.

“I think it is all right,” he answered. “It is difficult to see in the dark.”

There were stars overhead, but no moon.

Erlina knew, however, that Nobby would find his way over to the Vicarage without any trouble.

She climbed into the pony cart and picked up the reins.

Then, as Gerry would have joined her, she told him,

“Lock the door of the stables. We don’t want the horses let out tomorrow if people come up here to look at the fire.”

“I don’t suppose they will want to walk so far,” Gerry commented, “except, of course, for the Vicar and his family.”

Erlina did not answer. She only waited while he closed the stable door and had pushed the bolt into place.

Gerry then climbed into the pony cart and Erlina drove carefully out from the stables and down the cobbled way to the front of the house.

The Dawes’s were waiting where she had left them, but there was now even less of the house standing than there had been before.

She could not bear to look at it.

She did not want to know that everything she possessed, including all her clothes, would soon be nothing but ashes.

There was just the small number of things that she and Gerry had rescued lying on the grass some way from the fire.

She wished that they had had time to bring the pictures of their ancestors from the dining room and drawing room.

She had always loved the one of her father, who had been the fifth Baronet. Gerry was now the sixth.

Erlina pulled the pony cart to a standstill.

She then told Mr. and Mrs. Dawes to climb in and Gerry jumped out so that Mrs. Dawes could get in first.

She was still crying and Erlina tried to think of something comforting to say.

But the words would not come to her lips.

Gerry told Dawes to sit beside his wife and he sat next to Erlina.

They then drove off down the drive.

Erlina did not want to look back at the blazing building against the dark foliage of the trees behind it.

She could, however, still hear the crackle of the flames and a faint breeze was blowing burning cinders over the lawn.

Then there was only the clip-clop of Nobby’s hoofs on the gravelled drive.

When they reached the gates, the fire was out of sight.

Then there were only the stars overhead and, when they turned into it, the darkness of the village with its empty and ruined cottages.

Erlina drove the pony trap on until they came to the grey Norman Church where she had been christened and later confirmed.

Her mother and father were buried in the churchyard in the family vault and it contained all the previous members of the family who had lived in Sherwood House since it was first built.