Angel's Touch (11 page)

For
the marquis, the sessions were nothing short of torture. All the
time he was with the boy, he was unable to forget the vision of
Margaret’s face, unable to drive out the haunting memories. He
could only hope that familiarity would lessen the sensation. He had
not yet subjected himself to the added torment of approaching
little Margaret, though he promised himself to do so as soon as he
could meet his son on comfortable terms.

They
left the schoolroom, and Salmesbury very quickly found a fresh
source of discomfiture as Braxted had to make an obvious effort to
adapt his youthful bounding energy to his father’s halting pace.
Everything, it seemed, conspired against the closeness he was
trying to establish. His limping progress was a fresh arrow that
soon became so deep an irritant that he must express it.

As
they slowly traversed the long gallery towards the grand staircase,
he muttered fretfully, ‘I am a poor hand at this. Perhaps we should
have stayed in the schoolroom.’

Braxted was silent, looking at the injured leg. At last he
ventured a glance up at his father’s face.

‘
Does it hurt you?’

A
short laugh was surprised out of Salmesbury. He looked down and
recognised in the boy’s face only the academic interest of
childhood. There was no sympathy there. It was oddly
comforting.

‘
Like the devil sometimes,’ he answered with a rather twisted
smile.

In fact the accident
had smashed the bone of his thigh and thrown it slightly out of
kilter with his hip. Although the surgeons had saved the leg, the
bone had knit unevenly and he could no longer move his leg forward
without an awkward manipulation of the hip. He was therefore
unbalanced on his feet and any undue exertion or move put a strain
on both the limb and the hip above it.

Braxted was examining
the leg and the cane that aided his father as he walked, with the
detached look of one who merely desires information.

‘
Will it get better?’

‘
I
don’t know,’ Salmesbury answered truthfully. ‘Probably not in the
long term, the doctors tell me.’

‘
If
it gets worse, will they cut it off?’

‘
My
God, I hope not!’

‘
They would if it got gangrene in it,’ said the child
prosaically.

‘
It
is more likely to lead to gout.’

‘
Mr
Eastleigh calls that the drinking man’s disease.’

‘
Very true,’ agreed the marquis solemnly. ‘I had better not
overindulge in the port, had I?’

‘
I
never heard that you drunked,’ Braxted announced unconcernedly. ‘So
I dare say it will be gangrene, after all.’

‘
I
thank you,’ said his father wryly. ‘Perhaps you would care to
prophesy a few more disasters for me.’

The
child looked up, grinning suddenly. ‘Oh, no, I think one leg is
enough for any man.’

There was an answering twinkle in Salmesbury’s eye. ‘I cannot
agree with you. I had by far rather keep the two.’

The
boy burst into laughter, and for the first time in many months a
little of the pressure lifted from about Salmesbury’s
heart.

When
they eventually reached the gardens, however, talking together with
much less constraint, the marquis was brought up short by a very
odd sight indeed.

‘
What in the world—?’ he uttered, staring.

Braxted followed the
direction of his gaze across to the outskirts of the park where the
first few trees broke up the smooth lawns that rolled before them.
Strung between two trees some yards apart was a long rope. Attached
to this by a pair of leading strings was the Lady Margaret
Haverigg, chasing between the two trees at her stumbling run, while
some distance off her nursemaid stood, unconcernedly chatting to a
gardener who was leaning on his rake, puffing at a clay pipe.

‘
That’s how Kittle keeps her now,’ explained Braxted. ‘Ever
since Peggy ran off into the woods that day.’

‘
Does she indeed?’ demanded the marquis wrathfully. ‘We’ll
soon see about this.’

He set off at once,
limping as fast as he was able, oblivious to the dull ache that was
at once set up in his hip.

‘
Peggy don’t mind it,’ the boy said, keeping pace beside
him.

‘
Well, I do. Do you think I will have my daughter tied up as
one would a dog? Outrageous!’

‘
Kittle says she may guard her better this way.’

‘
Oh, indeed? Pray, is
that
how she guards the child,
ignoring her while she gossips with a fellow servant? The woman is
not even looking at her.’

In fact the nurse was
now looking in their direction with, as they were able to observe
as they came nearer, a not unnatural trepidation. Before they could
reach the place, the gardener had gone off about his business and
Kittle was rapidly closing the distance between herself and her
charge. Peggy, however, having caught sight of her brother, had set
up a delighted squeaking.

‘
Wissen! Wissen!’ she shrilled, straining against her
leash.

Braxted abruptly broke into a run. Just as the nurse came up,
he reached the little girl, whose arms stretched out ready to
clutch him as he bent over her, laughing.

‘
Are
you a dog, Peggy?’ he cried gaily. ‘Woof! Woof!’

‘
Oof! Oof!’ she echoed.

‘
Peggy’s a do-og! Peggy’s a do-og!’ chanted her
brother.

‘
Peddy a do-yod! Peddy a do-yod!’ mimicked the infant, without
the smallest understanding of what he meant.

At any other time,
Kittle would have scolded such impertinence in Master Wystan in no
uncertain terms.

But
her attention was all on the approaching marquis, and she scarcely
heard the squeals and giggles as Braxted threw himself to the
ground and began to play with his sister, tickling her and teasing
her with his new chant.

Kittle was a motherly-looking woman of some thirty years of
age, whose eyes dilated nervously as she watched the approach of
her employer.

‘
What, may I ask, is the meaning of
this—this
bestial
usage of her ladyship?’ demanded Salmesbury in a voice of
ominous quiet.

‘
My
l-lord?’ faltered the woman.

‘
And do not try to foist your feeble excuses
of
guarding
the
child on to me. You may have fooled Braxted, but you do not pull
the wool over my eyes.’

‘
Oh,
your lordship does not understand,’ began Kittle in a whining tone.
‘I only—’

‘
I
understand well enough,’ interrupted Salmesbury coldly. ‘Your
desire is to escape an irksome duty because Lady Margaret is now
old enough to use her legs, though I doubt she will run you off
your feet.’

‘
My
lord, I did it for the child’s good, I swear it.’

‘
Be
silent!’ ordered the marquis, his black eyes snapping. ‘Do you take
me for a fool? Even if I did not already know that Braxted was
obliged to perform your part because you were too busy gossiping
that other time, I should not now doubt the evidence of my own
eyes. Go to the house at once.’

Dissolving into tears, the nurse hesitated. She glanced over
to where Peggy was bouncing on her brother’s chest, although
Braxted, even as he cheerfully endured this indignity, had half an
ear cocked to what was going on between the two adults.

‘
But—but Miss Peggy. . .’ ventured the nurse. ‘I mean, Lady
Margaret—shan’t I—?’

‘
You
may leave her to me,’ Salmesbury said, his face softening as he too
looked over to see the children so merry together. Then he recalled
his injury. He could never manage Peggy alone. He called after the
nurse who had started disconsolately off.

‘
Send Hoff to me, if you please. Then go and see Inskip and
await me in the office.’

Braxted, meanwhile,
had risen and untied the leading strings to release his sister, and
he now took her by the hand and led her over to their father.

‘
Do
you mean to turn her off, sir?’ he asked.

‘
Certainly,’ Salmesbury said, but his eyes were on Peggy’s
pretty baby face with the yellow curls escaping from under her lace
cap, and the big blue eyes looking up at him in open curiosity. He
doubted very much whether the infant was aware of his
identity.

‘
Hello, Peggy,’ he said gently.

The little girl stuck
a finger in her mouth and edged closer to her brother, but her eyes
never left the face so far above her.

‘
Wissen,’ she muttered, and, when her
brother did not respond, she pushed at him, quite violently, saying
crossly,
‘Wissen,
Peddy want to pay.’

Wystan had been looking thoughtfully after the retreating
nurse, but another little fist hitting at his chest brought the
boy’s head round.

‘
Stop it, Peggy!’

‘
Peddy want to pay!’

‘
Not
now,’ said the boy, his eyes going to his father’s face where he
discovered an amused smile.

‘
An
insistent young lady, your sister,’ said the marquis, as another
demanding ‘Wissen’, accompanied by a buffet, escaped the child’s
lips.

Braxted grinned. ‘She’s shockingly stubborn.’ Then he
frowned, casting another quick glance at the disappearing figure of
Kittle. ‘And that’s why—’

Puzzlement hit Salmesbury as he broke off. ‘What is it,
Wystan?’

The boy looked at him
doubtfully.

‘
Come, I shan’t bite. What is it you wish to tell
me?’

‘
Well, sir, it’s Kittle. Turning her off, I mean,’ he said in
a burst of candour. ‘I think you’ll catch cold at it, that’s
all.’

‘
How
so?’

‘
It’s Peggy, see. She’s all right now ’cause I’m here,’
explained the child. ‘But if Kittle don’t come, back, or—or she’s
not there when Peggy goes back to the nursery…’

He
left the sentence unfinished, but the implication was clear enough.
The marquis cast his now frowning eyes over to where the infant had
left off plaguing her brother in favour of investigating a
butterfly which had fluttered down on to a nearby patch of wild
flowers.

‘
She
is so fond of Kittle?’ he asked, still watching the little
girl.

‘
There’s no one else, see,’ Braxted said.

Though he spoke in a matter-of-fact way, the words sent a
sliver of pain into Salmesbury’s chest. Here was yet another
instance of his neglect. If he could not give his daughter a
mother, he should at least have ensured that the substitute was
worthy. He sighed heavily. There was no end to his self-inflicted
punishment.

He
noticed Braxted watching him curiously and forced a smile to his
lips. ‘Come, you collect Peggy and we will start for the house. I
will have to think this over.’

The
butterfly having flown out of reach, Lady Margaret made no
objection to being removed from its vicinity, but trotted happily
at her brother’s side, able, even with her unsteady gait, to keep
pace with their much slower father.

By
this time the unaccustomed exertion had begun to tell on the
marquis, and he was obliged, after crossing the lawn, to sink down
on the low stone wall that ran up to the ornate double stairway
which marked the entrance to the house.

‘
I
am sorry, children, but I must rest awhile,’ he said faintly, and
immediately came under the scrutiny of his son’s intelligent
gaze.

‘
Are
you very bad? Shall I fetch Inskip to you?’

‘
No,
no, Hoff will be here presently,’ Salmesbury said, and managed a
self-deprecatory smile. ‘I had meant him to carry Peggy, you know,
but perhaps he will after all have to play nursemaid to
me.’

‘
Oh,
I can carry Peggy piggy-back,’ Braxted said offhandedly. ‘Hoff may
help you, by all means.’

‘
Let us hope he is not obliged to
carry
me
piggyback.’

Braxted found this
idea so exquisitely humorous that it was some time before he could
speak. His laughter was infectious and Peggy soon joined in,
shrieking with mirth.

But
even while the marquis smiled in sympathy, images crossed his mind
of the many occasions when his faithful groom had in fact borne his
weight, after he had collapsed in exhaustion in those early
attempts to get back upon his feet that Hoff had himself bullied
him into making. But for Hoff, he would probably be bedridden to
this day, for he had been able to find no incentive in himself at
that time for resuming his life, and no representations by his
doctors or certain members of his family had served to induce him
to throw off the invalid. Only Hoff, who had guided his first steps
when, as an infant not much older than Peggy was now, he had
tottered into the stables to look at the horses, had been able to
persuade him to learn to walk all over again. Hoff, who was, he
knew, as successful at pacifying the daughter as he had been the
father. His eyes were on the little girl.