Peter Blake was nervous; even though in an act of charity he was bringing home Sir Oliver Pengarron’s son, he wasn’t sure how the other man would react towards him.
‘I’ll take my son now, Blake,’ Oliver said, looking grimly from Luke’s unconscious twisted body to him.
‘It’s his arm,’ Blake said gravely. ‘It’s twisted right back from the shoulder and he has a serious head injury too.’
Oliver thrust out his arms. ‘Give him to me. I’ll take my son home.’
Blake tried not to fumble as he passed Luke over. Oliver held Luke’s twisted arm away from his own body, grimacing at the grotesque position in which it jutted out. A large bloodied gash covered the top half of the dark-featured face that so clearly resembled his own.
Blake looked at the ground and said in his quiet voice, ‘I would be grateful if you would tell my wife and son I’ll meet them by the lodge at the end of the manor’s carriageway.’
Oliver looked at him coldly, but said, ‘I asked your wife to stay and comfort mine. You are welcome in my house this day, Blake. I daresay in the circumstances my wife will offer no objections.’ Then, softening the harsh lines of his face, he added, ‘Thank you for bringing Luke home.’ Oliver kneed Conomor to walk on. Kane fell in beside him, rubbing tears away with a grimy hand. After a moment’s hesitation, a much surprised Peter Blake followed them.
‘Kane.’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘Has your mother’s instruction that you stay within the manor grounds anything to do with Jack being attacked?’
Kane hung his head, doubly ashamed. ‘Yes, Father, he and Mama were attacked by footpads while out riding.’
Another shock hit the pit of Oliver’s stomach. ‘Your mother was attacked too?’
‘Yes, and the baby was coming and Mama had to crawl through the fields of Trecath-en Farm to get help and Clem Trenchard had to deliver her.’
Oliver looked sharply at Kane. His heart felt as though it had received a tremendous blow.
‘Clem Trenchard…?’
After Luke’s injuries were treated, and pray God he would recover, he and Kerensa had a lot of talking to do.
* * *
Luke was laid out on clean sheets on the large oak table in the winter parlour. Dr Crebo set to work aided by the light of scores of candles. From his preliminary examination he was confident Luke’s life was not in danger. He had suffered a mild concussion and although the wound on the head was deep and required several stitches, Dr Crebo announced that most of the scarring would be hidden behind the hairline and that he had been responsible for the recovery of patients with much worse injuries on not such young hard heads. The pronounced bruising on Luke’s face which made the injury look worse than it really was would heal in the course of time but, Dr Crebo said grimly, the condition of the arm and shoulder was much worse.
Kerensa had refused to be forbidden from the room by the doctor and was angered at his presumption that all mothers were needlessly hysterical where sick children were concerned. She stood opposite him holding Luke’s good hand, speaking reassuringly to him when he stirred and moaned as the head wound was stitched. But it required Oliver’s strength to hold him still when Dr Crebo worked on the arm to try and manoeuvre it back into place.
Beatrice was the only other person there. She laid out her ointments, rolled up bandages, fashioned a sling from a piece of torn-off sheet, but kept her distance. She cried and cried, blubbering copious amounts of foul green phlegm down over her chins. It gave Oliver real moments of panic. Before this he had never seen her cry once.
Kerensa wanted to hold on to Beatrice for comfort but stayed close to the table, passing the doctor cloths to wipe off the mounting sweat from his face. She winced as he grunted with the effort of his labour. She was distraught at Luke’s screams of agony and prayed the rum the doctor had forced down his throat would soon work and he’d stay unconscious until his arm was back in place. She felt sick to the stomach.
Oliver’s panic turned to ice-cold terror when Beatrice stopped crying and began to wail loud snatches of prayer. In all his life he had never been so afraid. Or felt so guilty. He would never come to terms with the knowledge that it was his pride and neglect that could mean his son living life as a cripple. The boys would never have disobeyed his orders as they had Kerensa’s. He could hardly bear to look at Kerensa’s face, deathly white, frightened. She had forgiven him for going away and leaving her for so long; could she forgive him for what was happening to Luke? A quick glance and he caught her eye. He saw only love there for him, the need for his strength and comfort. Why did she not hate him for this? At that moment hatred would have been more bearable.
The doctor pulled and heaved on Luke’s arm, and the boy thankfully passed out. The sound of bone jarring on bone was clearly audible. ‘Ah,’ breathed Dr Crebo as if he was confident the arm was about to slide back into place, then he swore as the movement went wide. He sat down to get his breath back. He walked to a window to gulp in much-needed fresh evening air. Then he returned to the table and said, ‘This time I will damn well get it in.’
Five minutes later he was still trying. ‘I hate putting limbs back into sockets but they usually—’
‘For God’s sake, Crebo, let me try!’ Oliver cried in desperation.
The doctor looked crossly at Oliver as he pulled on the arm. It shot back into the shoulder socket with a sickening click. Luke woke and screamed but it was not as loud as Kerensa’s.
Luke groaned and lost consciousness once more. Dr Crebo fell back on a chair and put his face in sweating, trembling hands. Kerensa ran round the table and fell faint into Oliver’s arms. Beatrice approached the table and the motionless boy slowly. She took the hand of his good arm and her old head swung from side to side as she scrutinised him. Then she started to strip away the rest of his clothes and began to wash him down, singing a nursery rhyme as she worked. Kerensa was soon able to help her and moments later Luke was carried upstairs.
Beatrice stood at his bedside murmuring, ‘Poor little mite… poor little mite…’ until Kerensa could stand it no longer and asked her to go and comfort the other children.
Dr Crebo lifted Luke’s eyelids. The boy’s pupils were responsive to light.
‘He will be all right?’ Oliver asked in a shaken voice as the doctor began to pack his things in his bag.
‘Yes, Sir Oliver,’ he said breathlessly, ‘for now. I’ve done the tidying up and his arm is in a sling to keep it absolutely still, but…’
‘But what?’ demanded Oliver, glancing fearfully at Kerensa.
Dr Crebo looked sympathetically at the parents as they stood clutching each other. ‘I’m pessimistic the arm will heal as before. As you saw for yourselves it was a very bad injury, not just a case of an arm out of its socket. All the pulling and prodding I had to do was necessary but it will have aggravated the condition. It is possible that the boy’s arm may prove to be totally useless. But he is alive, be thankful for that.’ It was the worst dislocation he had ever had to treat in his long career. He was shaken and went on sharply, ‘Now if you’ll be good enough to provide me with a glass of brandy.’
‘Yes, of course. Thank you, Dr Crebo. You’ll find all the refreshment you need laid out in the hall. If you’ll excuse us, my wife and I will stay with our son.’
Dr Crebo left Kerensa and Oliver to begin an anguished vigil at Luke’s bedside. He stood at an open window in the corridor for a few moments retying his neckcloth neatly before he hastened downstairs. He was astonished to see the Blake family in the hall, in the process of leaving.
‘This is a surprise indeed, Mr Blake, Mistress Blake,’ he blurted out, his curling eyebrows moving upwards to meet his wig.
‘We stayed a while so Simon Peter could keep Master Kane company and take his mind off the accident,’ Rosina explained. ‘We came across them on the way back from the Wheal Ember mine and my husband brought Master Luke most of the way home.’
‘Did he indeed,’ repl
ied the doctor, helping himself to the food on an assortment of plates laid out in the centre of the hall. ‘Taking your monthly distribution of foodstuffs to the miners’ children, I suppose. How fortunate you chose today to make your journey. I take it you were invited into the house by Sir Oliver himself?’
Peter Blake fidgeted uncomfortably under the doctor’s inquisitiveness. The last time he had entered the manor was when he had tried to force his amorous attentions on Kerensa. She had barely spoken to him today. Either she would never forgive him or she was too worried over the plight of her son to indulge in polite conversation.
‘This has been a day for shocks and surprises,’ Charles Crebo remarked to his plate, as if the Blakes had already left. ‘First, Sir Oliver turns up out of nowhere as unexpectedly as he went off, second I am called upon to treat a most interesting injury, and then Mr Blake’s presence here seems agreeable… Now where is that brandy?’
* * *
At ten o’clock Kerensa left Luke’s bedside for the nursery to feed Kelynen. A few minutes’ later Luke stirred and cried out. Oliver dropped to his knees and stroked the boy’s sweating brow.
‘It’s all right, Luke, it’s Father. I’m come home to take care of all of you and make everything all right again.’
Luke’s eyes flickered and opened slowly, they were dulled with pain and incomprehension. He licked his dry bottom lip and screamed as he tried to move his tender arm and shoulder.
‘Keep still, keep still, Luke!’ Oliver said loudly to break through the boys delirium. ‘You must keep still, try not to move for now.’
Luke opened his mouth and formed a soundless word. It happened again and again until a puff of sound issued from his cracked lips.
‘Fa… ther.’
‘Yes, Luke. I’m staying right here beside you, I promise, and I’ll never go away from you again.’ Feelings of guilt racked Oliver for leaving his child. If he had not gone away, the race for the foal would have been over long ago.
Luke’s eyes grew large and rounded, fear contorted his small swollen face. His head rolled from side to side, his whole body agitated.
‘Go back to sleep, son.’ Oliver was alarmed but kept it under control. ‘Shush now, it’s all right, everything is all right now.’
Luke suddenly pierced Oliver’s eyes with his own. ‘Father… I saw… I saw…’ and he could get no more out.
The same pitiful fear-stricken cries went on throughout the night until, unable to face the terror of his nightmares, Luke slipped into a deep state of unconsciousness.
Kerensa slept for an hour as dawn approached but only from sheer exhaustion. She awoke to find Oliver gazing out of the window. His stance was strained and she was afraid he wanted to go away again.
‘Oliver!’
She rushed to him and swung him round. He wrapped her in his arms, crushing her to his body. He read her thoughts and kissed her so tenderly she was left in no doubt that her fears were groundless.
‘You can trust me, my sweet precious love,’ he said, his voice low and husky. ‘You have so much to forgive me for, but I swear you can trust me, please believe me.’
‘I know, I know,’ she choked into his broad chest. ‘Luke’s accident has unnerved me, that’s all.’
He gently pulled her head back to look up at him. ‘Are you sure of that, Kerensa?’
She nodded, and the hungry demand of his mouth brought an immediate response. With reluctance they pulled apart for they could not stay long from their son’s bedside. They whispered, heads together, as they watched over him.
Oliver said, ‘When I talked to Kane about the accident he said Luke fell from his pony and landed on a slab of granite. As far as Kane knows there is no reason for Luke to be afraid like this. Something must have happened afterwards.’
Kerensa shuddered and tenderly stroked Luke’s hot face.
‘Something frightened the poor little soul,’ Oliver went on. ‘I can’t get those awful words of his out of my mind – I saw… I saw…’ He sighed. ‘I know it will distress Kane, but I’ll have to ask him to show me the scene of the accident and have a good look round out there.’
Daylight flooded into the bedroom on a sudden shaft of the rising sun, illuminating the little boy’s bandages with an eerie glow.
‘Will you be all right with Luke while I’m gone, my love?’ Oliver said, his voice aching. ‘Polly will sit with you. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘I’ll manage,’ Kerensa said, wishing he did not have to go but seeing the sense of it. ‘Poor Kane, I’ll go to him before you leave.’
* * *
Kane hated the thought of going back yet again to that granite boulder stained with his brother’s blood but he was glad to be doing something useful instead of aimlessly waiting about. Oliver kept him chatting, hoping to alleviate his tortured feelings of guilt and put them more appropriately on his own shoulders. He reminded Kane that his single-minded brother, who sought to be disobedient so often, was bound to have had an accident sooner or later.
As he listened, Kane ran a hand through his red hair. He knew he had no Pengarron blood in him but had always felt a true member of the family, knowing how special he was to his adoptive parents. And as the eldest child of the family he believed he should take care of the others and in many ways he had tried to take on the responsibility as head of the house in Oliver’s absence. He felt a dismal sense of failure over Luke’s accident. He looked across at Oliver, feeling better now that his father had discarded his strange peasant costume for his usual clothes.
‘Father, I don’t want the foal, not ever,’ he said vehemently. ‘I don’t expect Luke will either when… when he’s well again.’
‘Don’t worry about that now, son, we’ll decide what to do with the foal at a later date.’
Oliver knew at once which boulder Luke had landed on. The bloodstains spattered on it told the whole story. He looked steadily at the boulder. There was a smaller one at a right angle to it, with thick growths of fern and creeping wild plants around it. Leaning over to look beyond the foliage he saw what had terrified his small son.
Chapter 30
Oliver went into one of the manor’s smaller bedrooms and found Jack sitting miserably in a cushioned chair staring out at the stable yard below. He put up a hand to stop Jack from rising then carried a chair to the window and joined him.
‘I’ve always enjoyed the view from this window, Jack. If you put your head out far enough you can see for miles and you can make out the course of the stream running right through the oak plantation.’
‘Yes, m’lord. I like it here so I can keep an eye on the stables and watch the horses going to ’n’ fro. Can’t tell you how I felt when I saw you galloping out of the yard yesterday on Conomor. Didn’t know the reason then. ’Tis some good to have you back, sir,’ Jack said, swallowing hard.
‘Thank you, Jack. It’s good to be back, and it’s good to see you again.’
‘It was Her Ladyship’s idea for me to sleep in the house and have a room overlooking the stable yard,’ Jack said. He didn’t feel at all comfortable to be convalescing in the big house, and even less so in his master’s presence. He missed his little cottage and its simplicity and spartan furniture. He had spoken of it to Kerensa and hoped she would allow him to return home, but he was still very unsteady on his feet and she just laughed and assured him he was in the plainest room in the house. It didn’t seem at all plain to Jack, with velvet curtains, drapes round the large high bed and a canopy above it, furniture here, there and everywhere, and tassels on everything.
It was one of the pictures he disliked the most, of an old woman dressed in black puritan clothes and tiny round spectacles on the end of a pointed nose. Her dark eyes looked at you no matter where in the room you were, and Jack fancied she was a witch and would put a spell on him. He wanted to hide away from her but she seemed to be everywhere.
‘I’m pleased that you are here while you are recovering, Jack. How are you today?’ Oliver asked.
He sounded as fatherly as Kerensa was motherly, and Jack had a horror that his master would get up and plump up his cushions and rearrange the blanket over his lap.
‘I’m getting better all the time, sir. Never mind about me.’
‘Is there anything I can get for you? Anything you can think of that you would like to while away the time until you are active again?’
‘Not really, but…’ Jack stopped, embarrassed.
‘Yes, what is it?’ Oliver grinned kindly.
‘Well, it’s not so much that I want anything,’ Jack dared, ‘but, if you don’t mind, if it’s all right, could I possibly have that picture of that old woman taken down, she gives me the creeps.’
Jack’s face was as red as beetroot as Oliver got up laughing, lifted the picture off the wall and put it beside the door.
‘I’ll take it with me when I go,’ he said, coming back, ‘and I agree with you wholeheartedly, Jack. I have never liked that picture, she always gave me the feeling that when I turned my back she would come out of the picture and I’d find her standing right behind me. Well, you can rest a little easier now.’
‘Thank you, sir. ’Tis very good of you. I just can’t wait to get back to work. I miss the horses and goodness knows what Michael and Conan are doing with them and what mess they’re making of the stables.’
‘The horses are well, so I’m told. I’m afraid I haven’t had the time to look for myself but Adam Renfree has been supervising them so there is no need for you to worry, and you have trained Michael and Conan to a high standard, don’t forget. The stables are lacking your touch, of course, but you’ll soon put that right.’
Oliver looked uneasy. He leaned forward on his forearms and gazed, without seeing, at Jack’s feet.
Jack curled his toes until they were out of sight. He waited uncomfortably for his master to say something more. He felt he ought to be standing, at a respectful distance, not able to look over the bowed black head.
Pengarron Pride Page 37
