THE CHAINS OF FATE an utterly compelling and romantic historical saga (The Heron Quartet Book 2), page 28
‘It doesn’t look as if I’ll ever get the chance,’ I said bitterly. ‘That doxy of Dominic’s has had her claws into him for too long.’
‘Oh, Thomazine,’ Lucy wailed, clutching me, ‘how awful, to welcome him at last and have him behave like that!’
‘It’s not his fault,’ I said, walking determined to the house. ‘It’s mine, for leaving him to their tender mercies: and if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll put it right.’
When we reached the nursery, which was Hugh’s domain, we found that young man in a state of high excitement, scarcely restrained by Rose, the ample friendly Rushbrooke girl who had been his nurse since his infancy. Despite my previous doubts about him, I had become very fond of Hugh, who was an engaging, fair-haired, cherubic child with more than a passing resemblance, surprisingly, to his half-brother Francis. Most disconcerting were his eyes, far-set and the same shadowy-green, obviously inherited from somewhere in his mother’s family. He bounced up to Kit, who stood sullenly close to Peg, and bowed. ‘Hullo. I’m Hugh.’
My son glowered at him: rather disconcerted, Hugh frowned slightly. Then Kit said angrily, ‘I don’t like you!’
I felt it was high time to intervene. I grasped his shoulder and turned him to face me, forcing him to pay attention to me. ‘Kit, that was very rude. You can’t possibly dislike him, you’ve only just met him! Now say you’re sorry.’
Kit twisted away from me. ‘No! No, I won’t!’ I tightened my grip, losing my temper, and instantly he began to struggle wildly, his hands clawing at mine. His foot lashed out and caught poor Hugh on the shin: too astonished to cry, although it must have hurt more than a little, the younger boy took a step back, over-balanced and sat down with a plump of petticoats. Suddenly my rage boiled over, and with my free hand I slapped Kit’s rump as hard as I could.
It stopped him, certainly. Incredulous, his limbs ceased flailing; it was as if no one had ever spanked him before. I tightened my hold further and slapped him again. ‘I’m sorry, Kit, but you are a very rude little boy, and you’ve hurt Hugh.’
The great blue eyes stared at me and then dropped, spilling with artful tears: a sob trembled in his throat. It was a performance designed to melt the stoniest heart, but I knew that, once having asserted my authority, I must not give in. ‘Now say you’re sorry to Hugh. Go on, say you’re sorry.’
Hugh had struggled to his feet and stood gazing open-mouthed at this extraordinary apparition: he had never seen such bad behaviour before. Kit looked down at the ground, his lip wobbled pitifully, and then strengthened. His voice came clearly in the expectant silence. ‘No.’
‘Kit, say you’re sorry,’ I repeated: and again came the stubborn reply, ‘No. Let go of me!’
‘Not until you say you’re sorry.’
‘Let GO!’ Kit cried, suddenly coming to life again. He wrenched himself free and hurled himself at Peg, who seemed to welcome his frantic clasp of her skirts. She gave me a chilly smile. ‘I think he is tired and overwrought, Lady Drakelon. It would be best if I gave him his supper now and put him straight to bed. You must remember that he is very young, and has just lost his father and his home.’
‘I am well aware of that,’ I said angrily, ‘but I would have thought that however young and weary and bereaved, a properly-reared child would be better behaved. I shall speak to you about it in the morning.’ And almost too furious and disappointed to speak, I turned abruptly and went out.
Lucy and Grainne, silent and sympathetic, walked with me down the Long Gallery to the windows at its western end, shafted with red light from a sullenly setting sun. We sat down on the chairs grouped there, and stared gloomily at each other.
‘I made a mistake,’ I admitted at last. ‘Pray God not an irretrievable one: but I don’t think I should have hit him.’
‘You could do little else,’ said Grainne drily. ‘I have never seen a worse-reared child …’ Or a more ill-natured one, her silence added. I felt suddenly utterly weary, exhausted by the brief encounter, so longed-for and so totally disappointing. ‘What can I do?’ I said hopelessly: for knowing only Grainne’s friendly, open-hearted children, and the endearing Hugh, I had no conception of the power that such a thoroughly spoilt, indulged and bad-tempered infant could wield; just such a power, perhaps, as his father had possessed as a child. ‘Whatever shall I do with him?’
‘Get rid of that nurse, as she calls herself,’ said Grainne immediately. ‘As soon as possible, and tomorrow for preference. While she is here you will have no influence over him at all, he will go from bad to worse, and end by being thoroughly detested by everyone — and he deserves a better fate than that, for he’s as much your child as Dominic’s.’
‘He does look like you, a little,’ Lucy put in. ‘He has your mouth, only more bad-tempered, and your chin too, though the rest is pure Dominic. If he didn’t behave so badly, he’d be quite adorable.’
‘But if I get rid of the nurse — I mean, he so obviously loves her, she’s been as good as his mother for most of his life — I couldn’t — it would be so cruel.’
‘But kind in the long run,’ said Grainne, who had, after all, borne three children and reared them largely single-handed. ‘You will just have to replace her with yourself, and harden your heart. The first thing to remember with a child like that is, don’t give in, for once you start indulging their tantrums they become worse tyrants than Tamburlaine. Be kind but firm. If you love him sufficiently, he is little enough for that to win him in the end. But pray he has not your stubbornness, for if that is so, it will be a long, hard battle.’ She grinned at me suddenly, friendly and encouraging. ‘I will give you all the help and advice I can, but in the end it will all be up to you — for you are his mother, you want him, and you cannot let someone else do your fighting for you.’
I could see the logic of that, and felt better for her sympathy. A four-year-old child was, after all, no more than a baby: Peg would soon be forgotten, and in her absence he would surely turn to me. As I ate my supper with the rest of the family, beguiling images of that shiny dark head pressed confidently, affectionately, against me, just as Jasper and Hen did, kept interposing themselves between me and the rest of the company. But first, I had to send Peg packing, and after all my speeches to Richard Trevelyan about employing the poor and justice for labourers and servants, it seemed the height of hypocrisy to cast her out. She had obviously been a good nurse, except in matters of discipline, and that could well be Dominic’s fault. It would be just like his vindictiveness, even if it sounded far-fetched, to ensure that I had no joy in my child by turning his mind against me. I could almost hear his abrupt voice, paternally softened, death-bed weakened, adjuring Kit: ‘Do everything Peg tells you, and don’t pay any attention to your mother, she’s a bad woman, she doesn’t really want you, she went away and left us alone.’ So convincing was this chilling figment of my imagination that I shuddered: for the child upstairs was Dominic come again, his ghost, his instrument of vengeance, sent to punish me for my desertion and infidelity.
A morbid, foolish fancy, but I believed it.
After supper I had a brief talk with Mary and then went slowly upstairs, preparing myself for the coming interview with Peg: for I was even more determined now to be rid of her, hypocrisy or no. If I wanted to win Kit, I could not afford to pay the price of my scruples, to have her stay on and continue to dominate him. And if I had needed any further persuading, the small comfortably rotund figure of Rose waylaid me at the top of the stairs, curtseying urgently. ‘Mistress! Can Oi talk to you a minute?’
‘Yes, of course, Rose. What is it?’
Rose glanced round and then lowered her voice confidentially. ‘That nurse — Peg, she call harself. That in’t right, Mistress, what she tell your little mite, and Oi thought that was best to come and tell you, what she say.’ Her brown cow’s eyes gazed at me anxiously. ‘You won’t tell her as Oi said suffen to you, Mistress?’
‘No, of course I won’t,’ I assured her. ‘What is it?’
Rose took a deep breath, her face eerily lit by my flickering candle. ‘Well, Mistress, Oi hard she tell that little mite as how he warn’t to dew nawthen you tell him to dew, and as how you was a bad woman, suffen terrible it was an’ all, Oi din’t know what to say. A proper botty bitch, her be, and Oi doubt Oi can get along of she …’
‘You won’t have to, Rose,’ I said, liking her earnest simplicity. ‘Do you think you and I could persuade some sense into Kit, if she wasn’t there?’
Rose grinned at me. ‘Oi dunno, Mistress, but Oi reckon us’ll hev a hack at that. Is you a-gooin’ to git rid of she, then?’
‘I am indeed,’ I said grimly. ‘And don’t worry, Rose, it’s nothing to do with you, I’ve had it in mind for an hour or two. Have you put Hugh to bed?’
‘Yes, Mistress, and her’s put your little mite to bed too.’
‘Then can you tell Peg that I wish to see her now, in my chamber?’
‘That Oi will, Mistress,’ said Rose, bobbed a curtsey and scurried away.
I lit the candles in my chamber. The fire burned cheerfully, and the shutters and curtains were drawn tight against the chill of December. All around me was the quiet of the old house settling down softly for the night; rustles, creaks, muffled distant voices, and outside the owls shrieking and hooting in the icy park. I heard Peg’s brisk cork heels tapping along the Gallery to my door: a knock, and I ordered her to enter. She did so, very meek, her eyes downcast, and curtseyed. ‘Yes, Lady Drakelon?’
Even the faintly insolent tone of her voice was an affront. I said, more sharply than I had wished, ‘I mislike the way you have reared my son, Peg.’
‘I had Sir Dominic’s approval for everything,’ she said, not protesting or excusing, but calmly stating an incontrovertible truth.
‘That’s as may be — but the fact remains that he’s spoilt, bad-tempered, badly-behaved, and insufferably rude to all save you. You cannot tell me that Sir Dominic approved of that.’
‘Kit was not like that at Denby, Lady Drakelon,’ said the confident, deceptively meek voice.
‘I should imagine that it was because his every whim was indulged. Now when I attempt to correct him he behaves like an animal who knows no better. Is that because he is unused to correction?’
Her blue eyes flashed venom briefly and then were hidden again. ‘He is unused to you, Lady Drakelon. You must remember that he has never seen you before: it is I who has tended him, no one else, since he was a baby. He has always behaved beautifully with me.’
‘Have you, by any chance, attempted to ensure that situation continues by telling him to disobey me?’
Another glimpse of those hostile eyes, suddenly wary, confirmed that Rose had spoken the truth. I added, my voice hardening, ‘Do you deny it?’
Abruptly her gaze was fully on me, redolent with sneering dislike. ‘I do not, Lady Drakelon, and I’ll tell you, I’m only following Sir Dominic’s instructions. You need have no fear — as long as I have the care of him he will be a credit to you.’
‘Then he will just have to cease to be a credit to me — because tomorrow you pack your bags and leave.’
There was a brief, stunned silence. For a moment, Peg looked appalled. I realized with a flash of insight that she had never expected this: secure in the fact that she alone could control and care for the child, she had thought her future at Goldhayes assured. Very likely, Dominic had led her to believe that such a mother as I would not want any close contact with the infant she had deserted virtually at birth, and that Peg could continue to dominate Kit utterly. They had reckoned without the long-suppressed maternal love and guilt that now surged within me. I had possession of Kit’s body now, and I had vowed not to rest till I had his heart also.
‘You can’t,’ said Peg, her voice cracking with anger. ‘You can’t — not after four years — not like that — you won’t turn me out!’
‘I am sorry, Peg, but I’m not going to allow you to complete the process of turning my own son against me. I’ll recommend you to a friend of Mistress Trevelyan’s in London who’s looking for a nurse, so you will not be cast on the streets. The London carrier leaves Bury tomorrow, you can go with him. I will write a letter of introduction for you.’
Peg’s face was a white set mask of insolent hatred. ‘Why, Lady Drakelon? Why?’
‘Because I want my son.’
‘And that’s where you are wrong, madam. If you get rid of me I’ll see your precious Kit never obeys you, never speaks to you, never loves you — ever!’
‘I think you’ve said enough,’ I told her, keeping hard rein on my temper. If she had said one word that revealed any love or affection for the boy, I might have had second thoughts: but his only importance to her was as a passport to the security of a good position. ‘I repeat — you will go tomorrow. You need have no fears about your future, for I will say nothing in any letter to your detriment. Of course, if you choose to jeopardize your future with Mistress Butler by speaking to her as you have just done to me, that is your own affair. I will do nothing to hinder you, it is up to you from now on. I will expect you to be ready to leave at first light tomorrow morning. You may go.’
Peg gave me one last stare that, if it had been a basilisk’s, would have petrified me where I stood. ‘You’ll rue it,’ she whispered, so low and vicious I hardly heard the words. ‘I’ll see you rue it.’ And she flung herself out of the chamber, the door slamming behind her. I had defeated her, for the moment: but she still had power over Kit.
*
As I dressed the next morning in the trembling candlelight well before dawn, I heard, sudden and unmistakable, the screams of a child in the grip of hysteria. At the same instant, Lucy sat up in bed with her hair tangled over her face and gasped, ‘What in God’s name is that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, fumbling frantically at the fastenings of my skirts, ‘but I can hazard a guess. Dear Peg must be saying farewell to Kit.’
Confirmation came as I finished speaking: feet galloped along the floorboards to our door and someone hammered on it urgently. ‘Mistress Thomazine!’ Rose’s voice cried, almost unintelligible in her haste. ‘Do you come quick, Peg’s … she’s … har be saying all koinds of terrible things to Master Kit, like you’ve driven she away and all manner of what …’
I jerked open the door, still half-dressed, and with Rose at my heels ran the short distance to the children’s room. As I burst in, the screams grew louder. In one furious glance I took in the scene, Hugh in his nightshirt standing by his cradle, hands over his ears and his face screwed up in pain, Peg with her meagre baggage, two travelling bags and a wooden iron-bound box, at her side, and Kit, his face scarlet with grief and fury, clinging to her skirts as if she were saving him from drowning. As I approached them, he ducked his face away from me, still bawling, and clutched Peg the tighter. On the nurse’s round, curiously childish face, there was a look of triumphant, vindictive spite. ‘I am ready to leave, Lady Drakelon.’
It was all I could do not to wrench my son’s hands from her skirts and slap her face. I laced my fingers together and said furiously, ‘What have you been telling him? Why is he making that noise?’
‘I have done naught but say farewell to him, Lady Drakelon.’
‘And thass a lie!’ cried Rose, forgetting decorum in her agitation. ‘Ooh, you botty grumshus owd bitch, thass a wicked lie and you know it! You was telling him not to do nawthen his mother said and you’d be back for him!’
‘That’s enough, Rose,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘You’d better look to Hugh, he’s all but deafened. Peg. Give me the child and go, before I do something we will both regret.’
By now Lucy, Meraud and Mary, all in their night-rails, were clustered sleepily astonished at the door. Peg’s contemptuous glance swept them all and came back to me. ‘I fear I cannot release him, my lady. He does not wish me to go.’
‘And no wonder of that, he probably reckon you’re Owd Scratch himself,’ said Rose to me. I knelt by the still screaming child and tried to prise his fingers from Peg’s dress, feeling overwhelmingly angry and unhappy, and more than a little foolish. Rose and Lucy came to help me. At the touch of our hands the child went into a fit of hysterical fury so strong it seemed almost like a convulsion, kicking, twisting, biting, clutching. At last, at no mean cost to ourselves in scratches and bruises, we disentangled him from the folds of black satin and half-carried, half-dragged him away. ‘Go,’ I said to Peg through clenched teeth, and my order was echoed, with quiet authority, from Richard Trevelyan, standing in the doorway with his wife. ‘Go now.’
Peg picked up her bags. ‘I cannot manage the box on my own,’ she said coolly, and with one last glance at her charge for four years, turned and walked out. With a despairing wail of, ‘Peg! Peg! Come back!’ Kit tore free of our grasp and hurled himself across the chamber to the door. Mary caught hold of him, more I suspect by accident than intention, and he gave a great gasp and became rigid, his face turning purple as he held his breath, his eyes rolling up and his fingers clutching convulsively. ‘Dear God, he’s having a fit!’ Meraud cried, but Rose knew better: she slapped his face once, hard, and with a sharp inrush of breath he began again to cry. No simulated tears these, they streamed down his blotched scarlet face, swollen and uncomely in grief. Over and over again, in between sobs and hiccups, he gasped his nurse’s name.
Close to weeping myself, I tried to take him in my arms, but he struck out with clenched fists and screamed his rejection. Nor did Rose or Lucy fare better. Somehow, we got him over to the little truckle bed where he had spent the night, virtually pushed him on to it and held him down. It took four of us to do it: under our firm hands, the threshing limbs grew quieter, and the frantic sobs at last died down into a forlorn, bereft, exhausted weeping which would not stop.
‘He’ll make himself ill,’ said Lucy, staring down at the tiny, frail, trembling body, which yet contained such a strong and passionate will. ‘Can’t we do something? Shall I go and ask Grainne what to do?’
