A Falling Star, page 25
part #3 of Wintercombe Series
‘I shouldn’t wager any money on it, Aunt,’ said Alex, and grinned wickedly, apparently quite unaffected by her stern tone. ‘You saw for yourself how early he goes to bed. And I do not intend taking him with me to visit Bristol Nan’s, or any of my other haunts in Bath. Rest assured, Lukas will see nothing that he hasn’t already seen in his mother’s house.’
Unwarily, Louise met Phoebe’s eyes and almost disgraced herself again. Silence, unaware, pushed her chair back with some force, and stood up. ‘I think it is time I retired,’ she said, the anger still plain in her voice. ‘And doubtless Louise and Phoebe will accompany me. Goodnight, nephew — goodnight, Charles.’
Left alone, the two men stared at each other down the long crowded length of the table. Alex poured himself more brandy, and pushed the bottle a little way towards his cousin. ‘D’you want some? You look in some need of it.’
‘I thank you for your concern, but no,’ said Charles between his teeth. His hands longed to smash the leering mockery from Alex’s face, with a force that threatened to run beyond his usual control. It was distinctly alarming, and he must at all costs keep his dignity, however much his cousin tried to taunt him.
‘Good,’ Alex said. ‘All the more for me.’ He stared menacingly over the rim of his glass. ‘Why the long face, dear Cousin? You’ve learned the truth about Lukas, and it’s surely good news for you — you’re still my heir, and I’m still wifeless, and your virginal sister will no longer wish to throw herself at my head. Although perhaps I’ll change my mind about her — she really is a very pretty little thing, despite being so waterlogged. I wonder whether that plump body will seem so tempting when I’ve taken her clothes off?’
‘If you lay another finger on her,’ said Charles, exploding to his feet, ‘I’ll kill you, I swear it!’ He wanted to mention Louise, but quailed at the thought of admitting what he had seen in the stable. Instead, ignoring the amused, goading face of his cousin, he blundered to the door, and slammed it forcefully shut behind him.
With no one to watch him, Alex sat still for a moment, smiling reflectively, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. Then he drew the brandy bottle towards him, and set about finishing it.
10
‘Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail’
The following day dawned, as predicted, fine and sunny, in marked contrast to most of the inhabitants of Wintercombe. Lukas, however, with the promise of a ride and a pony before him, was in high spirits, and could hardly sit still even while eating his breakfast: a meal from which his father was, as usual, absent.
Louise, who had also risen early, had her own strategy to put into operation. She finished her bread and cold bacon, and smiled at the little boy. ‘Are you looking forward to choosing your pony, Lukas?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alex’s son, with a huge and uncharacteristic grin that was very like his father’s. ‘Very, very much. I wish I could ride on Pagan, though.’
‘Pagan is busy with his mares, and besides, your father wants to take the bay stallion,’ Louise told him. ‘And you can’t ride on him, it would be dangerous. He’s young, and hasn’t learned good manners yet, apparently.’ She paused, and then added, as if the thought had just occurred to her, ‘Why don’t I come with you, and then you can ride on my horse, Saffron? She’s a lovely little yellow mare, very sweet and gentle and comfortable, but she can run like the wind when I ask her to. Would you like that?’
‘Oh, yes, please!’ Lukas said, his eyes round. ‘That would be lovely, Cousin Louise — thank you very much.’
‘And perhaps you can ride your own pony home,’ suggested Phoebe, who was the only other person at present in the dining parlour. She smiled fondly at her nephew. ‘Let’s hope the farmer at Combe Hay has a suitable one for you. If Louise goes back to Taunton soon, she will only have a little time to teach you.’
‘But Papa can when you are gone, Cousin.’
‘Your father has a great deal to do — he might be too busy,’ Phoebe said gently. ‘Still, if you are as quick to learn to ride as you are with your letters, you’ll be a proper little centaur in no time.’
‘A centaur? Please, Aunt, what is a centaur?’
‘A mythical creature — one that doesn’t really exist, save in stories,’ Phoebe told him. ‘It has the body of a horse, but a man’s, or a woman’s, head. So if you say that someone rides like a centaur, it means that they ride very well.’
‘I would like to,’ said Lukas. ‘Do you think I will, Cousin Louise?’
‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s good to start young, on a pony that’s kind and safe, and we’ll find you one of those to ride if we have to scour three counties for it.’ She pushed her plate away, and got to her feet. ‘If I’m to come with you, I shall need to change into my riding habit. I’ll meet you in the stable yard — don’t go without me!’
It took only a few minutes to pull off her gown, with Christian’s bemused assistance, and to change her long, stiff stays for the looser and more comfortable pair which she wore for riding. The French habit, consisting of a ruffled linen shirt and neckcloth like a man’s, the long dove-grey coat and waistcoat, also of masculine style, and the extravagantly cut skirts, was soon slipped over the top, and the maid pinned the little hat at a rakish angle over the abundant, freshly curled hair.
With a grin of satisfaction at her reflection in the mirror which Christian held, Louise made an exuberant pirouette, whistling a French tune, and ran downstairs to join Alex and Lukas.
It was obvious that her cousin had not yet appeared, for Lukas, looking rather forlorn, was sitting on the mounting-block in an otherwise empty stable yard. As she entered from the door in the long wing of the house that formed the eastern side of the stable quadrangle, he looked up hopefully, and then jumped down and came to meet her. She had already noticed that, compared with her half-brothers, Lukas was a very quiet and reserved child, almost unnaturally polite, even when allowing his enthusiasm to get the better of him. Philippe and Honoré would have run across the cobbles, shouting in joyful welcome. Lukas walked carefully, and saluted her with a bow that was almost comical in its correctness. ‘Hullo, Cousin Louise.’
She inclined her head in graceful acknowledgement. ‘Hullo, Lukas. Have you seen Pardice? The head groom?’
‘He has gone to saddle Papa’s horse, I think. Ah, here he is.’
Dan Pardice emerged from the stables leading the bay stallion. The big red horse was restive and fretting, prancing stiff-legged and tugging at the rein. Lukas stared at the animal, which from his diminutive height must have seemed gigantic. ‘I’m glad I’m going to ride with you, Cousin.’
‘You’ll certainly be safer,’ said Louise. She was studying the bay, who in the warm clear light of a June morning seemed even more handsome than he had appeared in the stables, and twice as large and fiery. He was no Pagan, though, and despite his good looks, she mistrusted his eyes. This horse would make a good stud, if he passed on his handsome lines to his progeny, but his temperament was distinctly suspect.
Pardice tied the horse securely to one of the rings set in the wall of the barn, and came over to her, noting the significance of her riding clothes. ‘Do ee wish I to saddle the yellow mare for ee, Mistress Louise?’
‘If you would, Pardice, thank you — and can you put a pillion pad on her for Master Lukas?’
‘Very good, Mistress,’ said the groom, and disappeared into the stables once more. The girl and the child waited in companionable silence, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze, until Lukas, gazing in awed fascination at the big bay, said, ‘Must you go back home so soon, Cousin Louise? Before you’ve had time to teach me to ride?’
Before we’ve had time to become friends, she thought, feeling regretful herself. ‘If it were up to me,’ she said, ‘I’d stay for much longer. But I came here to keep my grandmother company, and it wouldn’t be fair to let her go all the way back to Taunton on her own, would it?’
Slowly, reluctantly, Lukas shook his head. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘But I shall come back later in the summer, perhaps, and see you all again, and stay for longer then. And, I promise you, I’ll teach you to ride, and to do all the tricks my brother Philippe has learned.’
‘Your brother? Have you got sisters as well? Are they in Taunton too?’
Louise explained, clearly and simply, that her mother and stepfather and her five half-brothers and half-sisters lived in France. Lukas, it was plain, was enchanted by the thought of so large a family, and demanded details. She told him about Julienne, who was fourteen and as wild a hoyden as Louise herself had been at that age, and Felice, four years younger and at present, to her mother’s alarm, desperate to become a nun. Then the boys, Philippe and Honoré, imps of mischief both, and Madeleine who had been only a tiny baby when Louise left for England. Lukas listened, wide-eyed, to her stories of Philippe, who could already stand on his pony’s back while it walked around the field.
‘Could you teach me to do that?’ the boy asked wistfully. ‘Is it very difficult?’
‘By the time you’re seven, the same age as Philippe, you should be able to do that — but I warn you, it’s very easy to fall off,’ Louise told him. ‘Ah, here comes Pardice — and there’s my little Saffron. Isn’t she lovely?’
Lukas admired her sincerely, from a safe distance. Louise led him up to the yellow mare, and let him stroke the soft, sensitive nose. ‘She isn’t very little,’ he said doubtfully.
‘Nor could she be, and still carry my weight,’ Louise pointed out. ‘But your pony will be much smaller, don’t worry.’ She turned to Pardice, who was holding Saffron’s reins. ‘Have you seen Sir Alexander this morning?’
‘No, Mistress Louise. He gived me the order to saddle the bay last night, and for Henry to go with him and take the little lad, but I haven’t seed him since then.’
It was a lovely morning, and she knew the way to Combe Hay, and Henry Renolds, now leading his own undistinguished mount from the stable door, would go with them. Alex could catch them up, if he was coming, and she hoped very much that he would. Not only did she wish for his company, and the sensations of power and desire and danger it brought, but he had promised Lukas, and already the child’s rather wan face was showing the beginnings of disappointment and an awareness of betrayal. She wondered where Alex was, and decided that he must be in bed still, sleeping off the previous night’s probable indulgence.
‘No matter,’ she said to the groom. ‘We’ll go now, rather than keep all three horses waiting — not to mention Master Lukas.’ She grinned at the boy, and was rewarded by a rather hesitant smile. ‘Tell Sir Alexander that we’ve taken the Wellow Lane, and we won’t be hurrying — he can easily catch us up. Come on, Lukas — if you take Saffron’s reins for me, can you lead her over to the mounting-block?’
Flushed with responsibility, the boy held the thick leather straps and gently pulled. Saffron, who had a mouth as silken as her buttery hide, followed him willingly, with Louise alongside, unobtrusively ready to intervene if necessary. She showed him how to stand at the horse’s head, making sure that she was still, and then mounted with her usual graceful ease.
‘But how do I get on?’ Lukas asked, rather anxiously. Pardice, smiling, took his place, and the child, following Louise’s instructions, climbed the mounting-block, stood hesitantly on top, and then, awkwardly but full of determination, climbed on to the pillion pad. She made sure that he was comfortable and holding on tightly round her waist, and then grasped the reins. ‘Are you ready, Lukas? Here we go.’
And slowly, steadily, the mare Saffron walked out of the stable yard, with Henry Renolds, grinning, following sedately behind on his nag.
On a day like today, bright and breezy, she would usually have cantered the mare along the lane, enjoying her speed and the feeling of freedom and release which it gave her. But with Lukas, brave but nervous, clinging tightly to her, she could not, yet, progress beyond a walk. He said nothing as they descended the hill on which Wintercombe stood, and Louise suspected that all his concentration was devoted to staying on the mare’s back. But once they were dawdling along the narrow, winding lane, the steep slopes and sheepwalks on their right, and the water meadows, the brooks and the humps of Hassage Hill and Baggridge on their left, his grip relaxed, and she could sense that he was beginning to enjoy himself. Behind, Henry, who appreciated such expeditions, was whistling some bawdy ballad with great cheerfulness but a marked lack of tune. Suddenly light-hearted, Louise said to Lukas, ‘Do you like singing?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the boy, after a startled pause. ‘I don’t think I know how.’
‘Oh, Lukas, you must — everyone sings, even if the sound isn’t always very pretty. Shall I teach you a French song that my brothers like?’
‘Yes, please, Cousin Louise. But I don’t know any French.’
‘You don’t have to. Just listen to me, and I’ll hum the tune first, and then I’ll sing the words, over and over again, and you join in when you feel ready. Henry? I’m going to teach Master Lukas a French song, and you can learn it too, if you like.’
Henry was a good-natured boy, and took the hint. Into an air suddenly devoid of all music save birdsong, she hummed a jaunty tune several times, and then began to sing, in a voice that was rather throaty, but essentially accurate.
‘Alouette, gentil alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai!’
On the third repetition, she heard Lukas’s small, piping voice joining in behind her. Twice more, and he had words and tune perfectly, which was more than could be said for Henry Renolds.
‘That was excellent,’ Louise said, pausing for breath. ‘Shall we go on to the next bit? It’s a little more complicated — do you think you’re ready?’
‘I think so,’ Lukas said. ‘But, Cousin Louise, what does it mean? What’s an al-oo-etter?’
‘An alouette is a lark, and the words say, “Lark, pretty lark, lark, I will pluck you.” ‘
There was a pause, and then Lukas said, in tones of pity, ‘Oh, poor lark.’
‘It’s all right, it’s only a song, and a very silly one, too. If you don’t want to sing it any more, you needn’t. Would you like to trot instead? We can go very gently to start with.’
‘Yes, please,’ he said from behind her.
‘Good. But hang on to me tightly, and tell me to stop if you want to. Are you ready?’
They had reached a comparatively straight stretch of road, where the left-hand hills, now wooded, were coming closer to the lane. Louise, sure that Lukas was firmly attached to her, clicked her tongue softly and urged the mare on with a tap of her heel. Saffron needed no second bidding. She broke at once into a brisk, steady, surprisingly comfortable trot, and the boy’s hands tightened convulsively again. ‘Are you all right?’ she called, glancing swiftly behind, and heard him say, in between jolts, ‘Yes — thank you — Cousin —’
It happened so suddenly that they were both completely unprepared. One moment the mare was striding out, ears pricked, her dark mane bouncing on her yellow neck, eager and willing. In the next she shied abruptly to her right in one single violent movement. Louise, caught utterly unawares, lost her balance and the reins, clawed frantically and vainly for a handful of mane, and fell sideways, taking Lukas with her.
She hit the hard earth of the lane with a crash that knocked all the wind and half the senses from her. From a long way off, she heard Henry’s voice shouting in alarm, and, rather nearer, someone gasping and crowing. For an instant, bewildered, she thought it was Lukas, until she realised that the sound coincided with her own desperate attempts to draw breath.
‘Cousin! Cousin Louise, oh, Cousin Louise, are you all right?’
That was unmistakably Lukas. She seemed to be lying on her back. Muzzily, she peered up and saw his small, worried face veering in and out of focus just above her. She felt sick, and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing. It hurt, but she persisted, dragging huge painful gasps of air into her lungs.
‘Mistress Louise!’ That was Henry, just as anxious as the child. ‘Be ee hurt? Oh, Mistress Louise, do ee say summat, please!’
‘Saffron?’ she managed.
‘She be fine, Mistress, and a-grazing just over there. Summat frit her, Mistress, but I don’t know what it were. Can ee sit upright, Mistress? I’ll help ee.’
She had thought she was only winded until she attempted to move her left arm. Then a vast shrieking agony speared through her shoulder, and she fell back, gasping with pain. ‘No,’ she managed to say, somehow. ‘Something’s wrong — my shoulder — think it’s broken.’
‘Oh, Mistress!’ Henry cried. She opened her eyes and saw his round Somerset face looming above her, grey with horror. ‘Oh, Mistress Louise, whatever shall we do?’
At least her breathing was easier, and the pain in her shoulder had died abruptly to a sharp, nagging ache. She said, as clearly as she could, ‘Help me to sit up — carefully, Henry, please — take my right shoulder, that’s it.’
It was not broken, she realised as soon as she tried, with great care, to move her left arm again. The fall had put it out of joint: even concealed by the layers of clothing, she could see how awkwardly it hung, and the slightest movement was agony. She tried to lean her uninjured shoulder against Henry’s chest as he knelt beside her, but he was not expecting it, and moved away. Only the quick use of her right arm, supporting her weight, stopped her from falling back. She swore savagely and fluently in the idiomatic French she had learned in her stepfather’s stables, and said afterwards, ‘Henry — for Christ’s sake take my weight — there — that’s it!’
He looked very embarrassed, kneeling in the road with his mistress sprawled lopsidedly against him, as if they enjoyed a much closer relationship. Louise, finding the relief from pain overwhelming, ignored his flushed, anxious face, and glanced round for Lukas.
He stood just beside her, with grass stains all down his blue coat and breeches, and his hair matted with bits of leaf and twig, evidently very frightened indeed. She gave him a reassuring smile, and said, ‘It’s all right, I don’t think it’s broken after all. But my arm has been wrenched out of joint and it’s rather painful, and someone will have to put it back. Is there a bonesetter in the village, Henry?’
