Carola Dunn (20 page)

* * * *

 The New Year passed, and Twelfth Night. Damian’s back improved, and with it his temper. He began to think he might now meet Miss Duckworth without scowling at her, but somehow he never seemed to encounter her.

 However, he was still uncomfortable with the notion of asking her to be governess to his niece and nephew. Instead, he wrote to his lawyer in London, asking him to look about for candidates for the position. He would have been satisfied to trust the man’s judgment. Since his mother was not, he requested that, after a preliminary interview to weed out the obviously unsuitable, applicants should be sent at his expense to Wych Court.

 The day after he dispatched the letter, the winter’s first snow fell. When it stopped in mid afternoon, a blanket three or four inches thick had transformed the gardens and park into a white wonderland.

 Bundled in cloaks and coats and hoods and woolly hats and scarves and mittens, the children still somehow managed to race in circles like March hares, shrieking with glee. Damian watched from a window, tempted to go out and join them for a game of snowballs.

 Next winter, he decided regretfully. Building a snowman would be equally bad for his back, but he could go out and encourage them.

 He went, taking with him an old top-hat and muffler, lumps of coal for eyes and buttons, and a carrot nose. Passing through the stables, he begged of Benson a pipe with a broken stem, and a broom.

 The children were delighted, eager to set to making a ball for the body at once.

 “Start at the top of that slope over there,” Damian suggested. “When it is heavy enough, it will roll down and collect snow by itself.”

 They ran up the hill. Damian followed to direct the operation. Soon he judged the ball big enough to roll and told Tommy to give it a shove. It whizzed down the hill, Lucy and Tom sliding and tumbling after.

 Out of nowhere, Pirate appeared, bounding after the growing snowball and batting at it with paws as white as the snow.

 “He thinks it’s a giant white mouse!” Tommy cried.

 Lucy laughed so hard she fell over and rolled the rest of the way down. She reached the bottom looking like a snowball herself.

 Her brother righted her and brushed her down. The kitten, all in camouflage except for his black eye-patch, pranced over to her, his paws barely dinting the snow. Scooping him up, she deposited him on his favourite perch on her shoulder where he clung, looking pleased with himself.

 “Do you think it is a good idea to bring Pirate out in the snow?” Damian queried.

 “He’s got a fur coat on,” Lucy pointed out. “At first he didn’t much like walking in it, but now he thinks it’s great fun.”

 “The stable cats live outside, Uncle Damian,” Tommy reminded him.

 Pirate hung onto Lucy’s shoulder as the construction of the snowman proceeded. Moving cautiously, Damian helped lift the head and balance it upon the rounded body. The children dressed up the sturdy figure with the bits and pieces he had brought. Damian leaned the broom against it and they all stood back to admire it.

 “He hasn’t got a mouth,” said Lucy, dissatisfied.

 “I cannot recall what your papa and I used to use to make a mouth.”

 “You could use a curved twig,” Tommy proposed. “He needs arms, too. Sticks would do for those.”

 “You had best go and find some,” Damian said, beginning to feel chilled and rather tired.

 “But we’re not allowed in the woods alone,” Tommy said virtuously.

 “You may go this once. Stay at the edge, where you can see the house.”

 “We will, promise! Come along, Lucy.”

 They dashed off, still full of energy. Damian made his way back to the house.

 In the library, Perkins—bless him!—had flip waiting for him, keeping hot over a spirit lamp. The sweet, spiced mixture of small beer and brandy quickly warmed him through.

 Setting the half-emptied tankard on the desk, he sat down to work on his accounts. It was the one part of running his estate which he thoroughly disliked. Quickly bored, after a quarter of an hour he went to the window to see whether Tommy and Lucy had yet returned from the woods with arms and a mouth for the snowman.

 Their creation still stood armless. No sign of the children. Damian frowned, wondering what sort of mischief they could have got up to in the woods.

 He ought not to have let them go alone, when their Grandmama or their Nurse had forbidden it. They were such engaging youngsters, he had forgotten the lack of discipline which was bound to land them in a scrape, sooner or later.

 Were they in trouble now? Should he go out into the chilly twilight to look for them?

 Dusk was settling in even earlier than usual today. The thin grey overcast which had masked the sky since it stopped snowing had been replaced by heavy, ugly, yellowish clouds, threatening more snow. Assuredly the children must come in.

 It would be unfair to send a servant out in the cold when it was his own fault Tom and Lucy were missing, Damian decided. With a sigh, he went to don boots, hat, and topcoat again.

 He was scarcely a hundred yards from the house when he saw Lucy running towards him, not at her usual happy scamper but stumbling tiredly through the snow. As she came closer, he saw tears streaking her face.

 “Uncle Damian, come quick! Oh, please come!”

 “What is it?” he asked sharply. “Is Thomas hurt?”

 “Tommy? No.” She took his hand and tugged him onward. “It’s Pirate. He jumped down from my shoulder and went off into the woods and he won’t come when we call and we can’t see him anywhere.”

 Damian suppressed a groan. Finding a needle in a haystack was easy compared to a white kitten in a snowy wood. At least a needle could not run away.

Chapter 9

 Damian looked down at Lucinda. Her face was pale and weary, and she was sniffling and shivering.

 “You go back to the house, Lucy,” he said. “Tommy and I will find Pirate.”

 “But—”

 “Do not argue. Go.”

 For a moment he watched her trudge sadly towards the house. She could only be a liability in what was already an impossible task. He turned and headed for the woods.

 The trees were mostly oak and hornbeam, the latter regularly pollarded. Snow clung to every leafless limb and twig, and mounded the undergrowth, turning to featureless drifts the thickets of bracken, hazel and blackberry left as shelter for pheasants.

 Perfect hiding-places for a white kitten, Damian recognized with a groan.

 “Thomas!” he called.

 The little boy appeared from behind a large oak. “I can still see the chimneys,” he said defensively.

 “Good. Have you caught a glimpse of Pirate since your sister left you?”

 “No. I can’t see how we’ll ever find him, Uncle Damian. He’s white.”

 “Believe me, I know it.”

 “But I’ve got to go on looking. Lucy is in a dreadful pucker. Didn’t she come back with you?”

 “I sent her into the house, and you had best go too. It is no use catching a chill.”

 “I’m not cold,” Tommy said bravely, obviously suppressing a shiver. “Pirate’s so little, though. He’ll freeze to death. I can’t just leave him without trying.”

 Damian decided another few minutes would not hurt the boy, as long as he kept moving. If they had not found the kitten by then, there was no point going on. Even the snow’s reflective whiteness could not hold back the dark much longer.

 A few flakes drifted down.

 “We will just have to hope he sees or hears us and comes,” Damian said unhopefully. “Here, take my hand, Tommy, and call him as we go. Pirate!”

 “Kitty, kitty!”

 “Here, puss.”

 “Come on, Pirate,” Tommy cried despairingly.

 They tramped straight ahead through the trees, one direction being as good as another. As the light faded, snow started to fall in earnest. Damian glanced at the child’s wan face, scarcely visible in the gloom.

 “We will have to give up for now,” he said gently. “In the morning—”

 “Look!”

 Following Thomas’s pointing finger, Damian saw a yellow dog galloping across their path, with something dangling from its mouth.

 Something white and limp.

 “It’s got Pirate!”

 Tommy set off after the dog at a run. He tripped over an invisible obstacle and measured his length in the snow, but in any case the dog was out of sight by now. Damian helped the boy up. He was crying.

 “That dog killed Pirate!”

 “I fear so,” Damian said gravely, brushing him down and turning him homeward with a comforting arm about his thin shoulders.

 How the devil was he going to break the news to poor little Lucy?

 He could not expect Thomas to do it. His mother might be the best person, but she would doubtless be almost as distressed as the child. Though her health had greatly improved since his homecoming, she was still a frail old lady. It was too much to ask of her.

 Nurse? No, Nurse was undoubtedly an excellent person when it came to wiping away tears over scrapes and bruises, broken toys and the minor disappointments of childhood. The horrible death of a pet was altogether different. Nurse was altogether too bluff and hearty.

 Lucy needed a mother.

 Damian shied away from the inevitable conclusion. He refused to wed a chit half his age, and available older women had serious drawbacks. To marry solely for the sake of the children was a sure recipe for disaster.

 “Uncle Damian, what are we going to tell Lucy? If we say Pirate’s dead, she’ll cry and cry and have nightmares, like she did after Mama and Papa got killed. Specially if we say a dog caught him.”

 Blenching, Damian said grimly, “I shall think of something, never fear.”

 They found Lucinda explaining to her grandmother about building the snowman, and the need to search for sticks, and how Pirate had run off into the woods. The little girl turned eagerly to her brother and uncle as they entered. Her face fell when she saw no kitten in their arms.

 “You didn’t find him?”

 “I am sorry, Lucy,” said Damian. “A white kitten is invisible in the snow.”

 “But he’ll die of cold if he’s out all night!”

 “There are plenty of hollow trees where he could shelter overnight.”

 “And bushes covered with snow,” Tommy said ingeniously, “where a little animal ‘d be warm as toast just like the esquimeaux’ igloos in my book.”

 “And rabbit holes,” Mrs Perrincourt backed them up. “Pirate is having a great adventure.”

 Lucy was slightly soothed, until a new difficulty sprang to mind. “But s’posing he comes home in the night and no one lets him in? He’ll freeze sitting on the doorstep.”

 “One of the servants shall check outside every door regularly all through the night,” her grandmother promised.

 “I shall go out and search again as soon as it gets light tomorrow,” Damian proposed, feeling guilty for misleading the child.

 Later that evening, he told his mother what had really happened.

 “A dog came out of nowhere with the kitten in its mouth,” he said. “I did not honestly expect to find the creature, but nor did I expect so unpleasant an ending.”

 “Horrid!” Mrs Perrincourt shuddered. “You were quite right not to shock Lucy with such a tale.”

 “I dare say, in the morning, she will accept that her pet is enjoying a life of freedom and mouse-catching so much he does not choose to come home.”

 His mother shook her head. “She would be grieved to think Pirate has deserted her. Best to tell her he is dead, but not how. And bring home another kitten for her, if you can find one.”

 “There are none in the stables at present, but undoubtedly someone in the village or on the farms will have a litter. I shall see what I can do.”

* * * *

 No more than another inch or two of snow fell during the night. Early next morning, when Damian rode down the avenue, the earth’s white coverlet sparkled dazzlingly in the rays of the rising sun, and crunched like starched linen beneath his horse’s hooves.

 With luck the beautiful day would put Lucy in a cheerful frame of mind. Damian was not at all sure telling her Pirate was dead was a good idea, nor that another kitten would compensate for her loss. Nonetheless, he had decided to follow his mother’s advice, for want of a better notion.

 What on earth would his army companions think if they knew his errand? he wondered ruefully. Lieutenant Colonel Perrincourt riding out at daybreak in search of a kitten to comfort a little girl!

 The second cottage he came to on the way to the village was Miss Duckworth’s. Glancing over the hedge, he saw her standing on the doorstep.

 He tipped his hat.

 “A glorious day!” she called, smiling.

 Her head was bare, her pinned-up braids glossy in the slanting sunbeams. The nip of the frosty air had brought a becoming colour to her cheeks. She must have just stepped out to admire the scene, for she wore neither pelisse nor gloves. Her blue gown, in spite of its demure neckline and long sleeves, displayed her maturely elegant figure to advantage.

 Damian was seized by a burning desire to make up for his previous gruffness, to mend relations between them. Miss Duckworth, now moving down the path towards him—she had on boots, he was glad to note—seemed quite prepared to let bygones be bygones. He could do no less.

 He wanted to present himself in a favourable light. An ex-governess would approve of his efforts on Lucy’s behalf, he thought, and perhaps she knew of a litter of kittens in the village. He might even ask her advice as to whether he was doing the right thing for the child.

 He drew rein.

 Around the corner of the cottage pranced a yellow dog. Damian instantly recognized the colour, the size and shape, the long, blunt muzzle, floppy ears, and feathered tail.

 “Your misbegotten hound killed my niece’s kitten!” he burst out furiously.

 Miss Duckworth gave him an icy look and turned back towards the cottage.

 “Come, Lyuba!” she said. The dog followed her.

 Damian was not going to let her get away with ignoring his complaint. He swung down from the saddle, scarcely conscious of wrenching his back in his haste. Flinging his mount’s reins over the gate post, he stormed after her up the snowy path.