Angel's Touch (14 page)

Verity bought them both toffee apples from a passing vendor,
and was just congratulating herself on the success of her tactics
when a remark of Jed’s caught her attention.

‘
Ain’t that your sister Peggy, Wys?’

‘
Where?’ demanded Wystan, fright taking hold of him. In spite
of Verity’s wisdom, he still had doubts of his various mentors’
possible reactions to this unsuitable friendship.

Jed
pointed. ‘There. With that there Kittle. Don’t go up in the air,’
he advised sapiently. ‘Them nobs o’yourn ain’t with
her.’

‘
Is
that the same nurse?’ Verity asked in disapproval as she saw that
the infant was drooping in the woman’s arms. ‘I cannot think she is
very good at her job.’

Jed
let out a crack of rude laughter. ‘That she ain’t. More like a
kennel-keeper.’

Seeing Miss Lambourn’s frown, Braxted explained about Kittle
tying the little girl up. ‘There was talk of turning her off,’ he
added, ‘but Peggy screamed the place down when she wasn’t there and
they had to let her back.’

‘
Oh,
dear.’ Verity watched the child, dark thoughts again occupying her
mind against the marquis. The poor infant was exhausted. She was
toying with the notion of going over and inviting the nurse to
bring the little girl to rest at her lodgings, when Jed again drew
her attention.

‘
Beats me why Kittle should be jawing with that there Sam
Shottle.’

‘
Who
is Sam Shottle?’ demanded Braxted, noting for the first time the
thickset man in rough country clothes, who appeared to be arguing
with the nurse.

‘
He’s a bad ’un, is Sam Shottle,’ Jed told them, his tone
disparaging.

‘
A
bad ’un?’ echoed Wystan, round-eyed. ‘Why, what has he
done?’

‘
Ah.
What ain’t he done, more like. Why, he beginned by thievin’ and
poachin’ when he was no more’n a lad like me. Now he says as how he
got grander plans nor that. Reckons to make his fortune, he says.
Huh! Me, I reckons he’ll end in Botany Bay, if he ain’t put to bed
with a shovel.’

‘
Do
you mean he could die?’

‘
By
the rope, the road he’s goin’,’ confirmed Jed.

‘
How
in the world does Kittle come to be acquainted with such a man?’
Verity asked, quite appalled.

‘
Ah,’ nodded Jed. ‘That’s what I’m arsting meself.’ He grinned
suddenly. ‘And I reckons as how they be sweethearts,
Wys.’

‘
Surely not,’ Verity protested, shocked.

‘
How
come he goes for to fondle her rump, then?’ demanded Jed with a
complete lack of self-consciousness.

Verity was obliged to
control a reprehensible desire to giggle, and, as she saw that
Braxted was interestedly studying the nurse and her companion, she
devoutly hoped that he did not understand the significance that was
clear to his more worldly-wise friend.

‘
Wystan, I think you should call to Kittle, and then we must
go and find the meeting place. I am sure we are late.’

At
this, Jed circumspectly withdrew, having even less dependence on
the magnanimity of the ‘nobs’ surrounding his friend than Wystan
himself.

‘
Kittle! Kittle, I say!’ called out Braxted.

The nurse turned her
head and Verity was hardly surprised to see the look of
consternation that spread across it. No doubt she had thought
herself unobserved. What did surprise her was that the man Shottle,
instead of effacing himself, seemed rather to relish this sight of
the boy.

He had an
unprepossessing face, with heavy jowls and a nose that looked to
have once suffered a breakage. A pair of keen eyes passed over
Braxted, dwelling on his face until his companion said something to
him in a low tone. He nodded and, as it seemed to Verity,
reluctantly removed his gaze from the boy. A word to the nurse, and
he had turned and made off through the crowd.

Kittle came towards
them, an anxious look on her face. Whatever she had been about to
say was forestalled by Braxted, however.

‘
Miss Lambourn thinks you should come with us now.’ Then he
turned to Dogget, who had been behind them the whole time. ‘Do you
know where the coach office is? We are to meet there.’

The
groom nodded, and his relief was visible, at least to Verity. ‘This
way, sir.’

As
they wended a path through the crowd, which was beginning to thin
as a number of people made for the alehouses, Verity found her mind
dwelling on all the things she wished to say to Mr Haverigg about
his precious marquis, and she had only half an ear to spare for
Wystan’s chatter. But, when the boy stopped in his tracks and
urgently grasped her arm, she jerked into full
awareness.

‘
What is it?’

‘
That man!’ whispered the boy urgently, and there was fear in
his voice. ‘It’s that gypsy!’

Chapter
Six

‘
What? Where?’

But
even as she asked, Verity’s darting eyes found the figure of the
man whose appearance had precipitated her into her adventure and
acquaintance with the inhabitants of Braxted Park.

‘
Gracious heaven, I believe you are right,’ she uttered, her
voice pitched low.

The
handsome gypsy was standing by a stall, idly glancing at the wares
set out there: a collection of scarves, together with cheap rings,
fans and necklaces. At once Verity thought of the gypsy dancing
girl she had visualised, and saw in her mind’s eye this man
fastening a gold chain about her bare neck and placing his lips to
the back of it. Involuntarily she shivered, as if she were the
recipient of that intimate caress, and, as in her imagination the
lady turned to look at her lover, she knew that his face was not
that of the gypsy.

‘
They are camped on our land, you know,’ Braxted told her as
they moved on.

‘
Indeed?’ she said absently, still shaken by the strange
vision that had entered her mind. Whose face was it? Her eyes were
still on the gypsy and, as if he felt her gaze, he suddenly turned,
looking straight at the boy. She felt Braxted close into her, and
groped for his hand.

‘
Don’t be afraid,’ she whispered.

‘
I’m
not,’ he whispered back, but his hand clung tightly to hers. When
they were safely past, he added, ‘I wonder if I should ask my
father to turn them off.’

‘
Turn them off? No, no, Wystan. That would be shockingly
cruel. Why, they have done nothing.’

‘
Gypsies are dangerous,’ Wystan said obstinately.

‘
Stuff. I am sure they would not think of harming
you.’

‘
Why
did you stop that day, then? For you thinked he meant us harm. You
know you did.’

‘
Yes, that is true. But it was because, like you, I reacted to
an unnatural prejudice,’ Verity explained. ‘It was wrong of me.
Very wrong. But that is just the difficulty, you see. Gypsies have
such a shocking reputation that we are all stupidly afraid of them,
when I dare say all they wish is to be left in peace to enjoy their
lives just as you or I.’

Wystan digested this in silence for a moment or two. ‘Very
well, then, I shall say nothing—yet. But I ’spect they’re poaching
our woods. Jed says there are any number of them here at the fair,
picking pockets, I’d wager.’

Verity was about to deny this assertion with some heat when
they were interrupted by Salmesbury’s voice.

‘
There you are at last. I had begun to imagine you had all
been spirited away by the gypsies.’

This was so apposite
that both Miss Lambourn and Braxted burst into laughter.

‘
I
am glad you are so merry,’ said the marquis, smiling, ‘but I must
ask you, Wystan, to go with Eastleigh. You, too, Kittle. Inskip has
procured a luncheon and it is awaiting you.’

‘
What about you?’ asked the boy, poised to run to where he
perceived his tutor waiting a few yards off.

‘
I
have eaten. Go on. I want to talk to Miss Lambourn.’ He saw a
suspicious frown come into his son’s eyes and added gently, ‘To
thank her, you know.’

Braxted flushed. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, Miss—I mean,
Verity. It was capital. Will I see you again?’

‘
I
hope you may—’ Verity began, but was cut off.

‘
Certainly you will see Miss Lambourn again. Now be off with
you.’

‘
Well, really, Mr Haverigg,’ protested Verity as the boy
scampered off.

But
‘Mr Haverigg’ was not attending. He was addressing her groom. ‘You
need not fear to leave Miss Lambourn to my escort. I promise I
shall return here with her within the hour.’

Dogget, looking
extremely worried, turned to Verity for guidance. As she had a
strong wish to talk to Mr Haverigg privately, she endorsed this
view.

‘
Oh,
yes, Dogget. I am sure you need refreshment. Pray go and find some
and meet me here in a little while.’

Thus
adjured, there was nothing for the groom to do but take himself
off. The marquis turned to Verity.

‘
Let
us remove from here, Miss Lambourn. There is something I
particularly wish to say to you.’

‘
Oh,
yes, and I wish particularly to talk to you, Mr Haverigg,’ Verity
said eagerly, turning to stroll beside him.

He
had met them across the road from the coach office and now began to
lead her away from the centre of things to the outer areas where
the Common stretched away, and where those pleasure-seekers who did
not come for the alehouses were sparsely dotted about, seated on
the grass, enjoying their own impromptu picnics. So anxious was
Verity to talk to him that she did not see Sir John Frinton wave to
her, and so did not notice the old man’s eyes following them as
they walked away together.

‘
Miss Lambourn,’ began the marquis, about to tell her that he
was not in fact Mr Haverigg, ‘I hardly know how to say this,
but—’

‘
Oh,
Mr Haverigg, I beg you will not trouble yourself,’ chimed in Verity
at once. ‘You are going to disclose to me the shocking tidings
about the marquis, are you not? But there is no need. I have heard
the terrible story of the accident that killed his wife and I am
heartily sorry for it. Indeed, that is why I wanted to talk to you,
for I am sure you, in your situation, must have some
influence.’

‘
Miss Lambourn, you mistake my situation,’ he said
desperately. ‘I am not—’

‘
No,
no, do not say it,’ she interrupted. ‘If you are not a relative of
some sort, you must be in his employ. But I am not blind, sir. You
are treated with a deference accorded to no servant and even Wystan
answers to you. You cannot tell me you have no power to change
things.’

‘
I
have indeed,’ agreed poor Salmesbury, trying to stem the flow, ‘but
the fact is I—’

‘
Then, Mr Haverigg, you
must
do something to persuade that
dreadful man that his attitude is grossly
mistaken.’

Utterly confounded, Salmesbury could say nothing for a
moment. Good God, he must speak now! Tell her that he was ‘that
dreadful man’. But his tongue refused to obey his command, and
after the briefest of pauses Miss Lambourn had resumed
speaking.

‘
You see, Mr Haverigg,’ she was saying in a
tone both persuasive and passionate, ‘I
know
how it must have been for him,
indeed I do. I, too, have suffered such a loss. More than one. And
I do understand. But to become a hermit, to forswear the world, and
leave those poor little children to the indifferent care of
servants
—oh, it is too
bad of him!’

It
was too much. Salmesbury stopped walking and turned to her, his
face pale and set. ‘Forgive me, Miss Lambourn, but you do
not
understand. Oh, yes,
it is just as you say. Shockingly self-indulgent. And believe me
I—that is, the—the marquis—is only too well aware of it. But what
you do not know—how should you, indeed?—is that the accident was
caused by the marquis himself.
It
was
his fault
.’

He stopped and the
distress in his black eyes pierced Verity to the heart. Her own
eyes filled.

‘
Oh,
poor man,’ she uttered brokenly. ‘Poor, tormented man!’

They
gazed into each other’s eyes for a long moment, in an empathy too
deep for words. Until a raucous voice shattered the
intimacy.

‘
Cross the gypsy’s palm wi’ silver?’

Verity blinked,
stepped back hurriedly and turned to see an old crone, swathed in
shawls of bright patterns with large hoops in her ears, standing
close beside her and grinning toothlessly up at her out of a
wizened face.

‘
Cross the gypsy’s palm wi’ silver?’ she offered again in a
cracked voice thick with a west-country accent. She reached up to
take Verity’s mittened hand. ‘Tell yer fortune, dearie?’

‘
Oh,
no,’ Verity said, trying to retrieve her hand. ‘No, thank
you.’

The
gypsy kept hold of her hand and looked closer into her face. Her
own features lost their smile. ‘Tears, dearie? Let old Mairenni
seek out reason in yer hand.’