The Favoured Child

6

‘So what is he like?’ asked Mama with polite interest. Stride was setting the decanter of port before Uncle John, but Mama and I were lingering with the informality of a happy family, with ratafia to drink and comfits to eat. ‘Your new manager,’ she said, ‘what is he like? Is he going to be of any use to you?’

Uncle John was at the head of the table and he poured himself a glass of the tawny-coloured port. ‘I do indeed think so,’ he said. ‘In a London hotel room he was impressive, but in the Acre street he was magnificent! I think you will like him, Celia. He’s very much his own man. I would trust him entirely with money and with responsibility.’

Mama smiled. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘for I am counting on having all three of you at home a good deal. If we have a proper manager on the land, then you, John, can concentrate on getting well and I can take Julia to Bath with a clear conscience.’

‘He was rude to me,’ Richard said abruptly. His head was turned away from his papa towards the foot of the table, to my mama, who always attended to his needs. ‘He knocked me with a sack of meal off the cart and into the road before all Acre.’

Mama gasped and looked to John.

‘Forget it,’ John advised briefly. He raised his glass and looked at Richard over the rim. Richard turned at once to my mama again. ‘In front of all of Acre,’ he said.

My mama opened her mouth to say something, but she hesitated.

John leaned forward. ‘Forget it,’ he said, his voice stronger. ‘You and Mr Megson had some difference. No one in Acre even noticed. I have been down there and I asked specifically if there was any trouble. No one even saw.’

I had to dip my head down to look at my hands clasped on my lap at that. No one ever saw anything in Acre which looked like trouble.

‘Ralph Megson is a man of the world and his judgement is good,’ Uncle John said gently. ‘He will not refer to whatever took place. I advise you to forget it, Richard. You will need to be on good terms with him.’

Richard shot a swift burning look at his father, then he turned his shoulder towards him and addressed my mama. ‘I don’t like him,’ he said. ‘He insulted me and he should not work here if he cannot be civil.’

Mama looked at Richard and her face was infinitely tender. ‘I know you are thinking of us,’ she said gently. Then her gaze slid away from his young cross face to Uncle John, calm at the head of the table. ‘Richard has had responsibilities beyond his years,’ she said, speaking to him directly. ‘He is only thinking of what would be the best for us.’

John nodded. ‘It is a good sign that Richard is so responsible,’ he said kindly, ‘but I shall be the judge of this.’

Mama nodded and smiled at Richard. He gave her one long level look, and I knew that he felt betrayed. Mama, who had relied so much on him, now had the man she loved at her side, and she would prefer his advice. She sipped at her glass. ‘Does he know enough about farming?’ she asked. ‘What is his background?’

‘He was a tenant farmer in Kent and was bought out by an improving landlord at a considerable loss to himself,’ Uncle John said. He answered her as if the matter of Richard’s opinion was of small moment. ‘Losing his land like that would have made a lesser man bitter. It made him think about the rights of the landlord, and the rights of the tenants and workers. He’s a radical, of course, but I don’t mind that at all! I’m glad to have a manager who thinks of the good of the people, rather than simply the profits of the estate. And I don’t think a grasping man would last long in Acre anyway!’

‘No,’ Mama said. ‘As long as they will do as they’re bid…

Uncle John smiled down the table at me. ‘They were falling over themselves to please him when we left,’ he said. ‘If he remains that popular I should think they’ll plough up their kitchen gardens for Lacey wheat at his request. He seemed an absolute hero, didn’t he, Julia?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, and I said no more.

‘Odd I never heard of him,’ Mama said. ‘He must have left Acre many years ago, for I never met him. I wonder how he can be so popular since he left when he was just a lad.’

I shifted uneasily in my chair and Richard came out of his brown study and shot a swift hard look at me. The very question I had feared had been raised on this first afternoon of Mr Megson’s return home. I had his life in my hands. All I had to do was to repeat what he had told me and he would be taken to Chichester and hanged. It would hardly matter that the fire had taken place fourteen years ago. Ralph Megson was a fire-raiser roaming free on Wideacre, and only I knew it. It should be me who gave the warning.

He had told me a secret which would hang him, and many of the villagers as well. And he had told it me in utter freedom and in jest and daring, and he had known, he must have known, that it would place me in the position I was in now: I had to choose between the claims of my family, my Quality family, and the preferences of Acre.

Before the whole village he had told me that he was an arsonist and a murderer, and I had not cried out against him then. I had not rushed to Uncle John and told him. I had not taken Uncle John to one side before we reached home and told him the appalling news. Mr Megson’s warm smile, his dazzling defiance of the law and the outside world and his matchless confidence had won me into complete complicity. Now I had to decide whether to lie outright to my mama or to betray Mr Megson, a stranger and a murderer.

I never lied to my mama.

I had hoped I never would lie to my mama.

I had hoped there would never be a single thing I could not tell her.

‘I’ve heard he left when he was quite young,’ I said. ‘The reason that he is so popular is that he used to send money back to people in the village during the bad years. Prize money,’ I said, improvising wildly. ‘From when he was at sea.’

Richard looked at me, his face impassive. He knew from my paleness, and from the way the tablecloth twitched before me as I pleated and twisted it under the cover of the table, that I was lying. And lying not at all well. And he knew I was lying to protect Mr Megson. Mr Megson – whom Richard had named as his enemy.

‘How very creditable,’ said Mama lightly. She took her shawl from the back of her chair and draped it around her shoulders.

‘Yes, and most unlikely,’ Uncle John said.

I had risen, and I whirled around to face him, my face suddenly white. ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded, and I knew my eyes were blazing.

‘My dear Julia,’ Uncle John said in faint surprise, ‘I mean only that I suspect that it is a respectable version of the man’s life history. I should imagine that an early apprenticeship with smugglers would be more like it. And the favours he could do Acre as a local smugglers would certainly be worth remembering.’ He smiled at my scared face. ‘No need to look so shocked,’ he said gently. ‘It makes little odds. Smuggling will always take place while we have absurd excise laws, and if he can command a gang of smugglers, he can certainly organize a ploughing team, I should think!’

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘I was only repeating what I heard in the village. But if he was a smuggler and now he has stopped smuggling, there could be nothing against him, could there?’

Uncle John held the door open for Mama and me. ‘I don’t think the law gives much credit to people who retire from a life of crime to a life of comfort,’ he said with a smile. ‘But there is obviously no one who would betray him in Acre. And I do not hold it against him. What I will do is have a quiet word with Lord Havering and one or two other Justices of the Peace locally, and see if there is anyone of Mr Megson’s description wanted. I don’t mind having a retired smuggler on my land, but I would object to an ex-privateer or a retired highwayman.’

‘Good gracious, yes!’ said Mama, settling herself in her chair in the parlour. ‘Why can Acre never be normal! Surely John, you could have found a manager who was not a criminal? Even if he is a retired one?’

‘A poacher turned gamekeeper is the best man to guard the game,’ Uncle John quoted with a smile. ‘Acre has always been an eccentric sort of village, my dear. I fear it will continue that way. And when it is set to rights, it may be that some of its finer sons come home again. There was an exile back today, wasn’t there, Julia? The man who had come all the way from Petersfield for the dinner.’

The guilty look on my face was as clear as a bell to Richard. I knew it as soon as our eyes met. But I was sitting at Mama’s feet at the fireside and I could not hide my face.

‘Who from Petersfield?’ he asked, seeming to care very little.

‘I don’t recall the name,’ Uncle John said. But then he remembered. ‘Tayler, Dan Tayler, was it not, Julia?’

‘Yes,’ I said, monosyllabic, my eyes on the fire.

‘Who is he?’ Richard asked blankly.

‘Don’t you know?’ Uncle John asked. ‘I should have thought you two knew Acre inside out. Julia seems quite expert. Who is he, Julia?’

‘He is…he is…’ I could improvise nothing with Uncle John’s guileless pale eyes on me and Richard’s gaze darkening with suspicion.

‘There is no Tayler family in the village,’ Richard said.

‘There is!’ I said quickly. ‘In the shanties, the cottagers.’ I knew Richard knew nothing of the families who lived on the outer limits of Acre, scraping a living off the common land. No one could ever say with certainty who was there. Only the gypsies who lived further out on the common were more wild.

‘Never heard of them,’ Richard said stubbornly. ‘Who is this man, anyway?’

Mama’s eyes were on me, and Uncle John’s. Richard was sharp and alert. I had told one lie and then another, and now I was being forced into a whole string of untruths. If they discovered the identity of the man who had nearly bumped into us with his saucepan, Richard would never forgive me for a lie and that would be bad enough; but Dench would be taken.

I might brave Richard’s anger, or even Mama’s mystified disapproval. But if I let slip Dench’s name, Uncle John would order his coachman (a London man with no local loyalties) down to Acre to arrest Dench. And at the next quarter sessions he would be tried and hanged. I could not let that happen.

The lie I had already told that day to protect Mr Megson had been weak enough. I leaned my head back against my mama’s knees to draw some strength from the feel of her satin gown on the back of my bare neck. Richard saw my fatigue and pressed me for answers.

‘Where did you meet a cottager, Julia?’ he asked. His tone was concerned and his eyes went to Mama, as if to remind her that I should not be let free to wander in the most notorious village in Sussex. ‘Did he approach you when you were walking after having left me at the vicarage? Is he a friend of that common little village girl you keep going to see? Why did you never tell us?’

‘I met him when I was walking with Clary, and Matthew Merry and some of the other Acre young people,’ I said. Uncle John held his hands to the fire and nodded, but Richard could smell a lie like a hound smells blood from a fresh wound and was hot on my trail.

‘When was this?’ he demanded. ‘You never told me. And why were the Acre children talking to one of the cottagers?’

‘Oh, I don’t know! I don’t remember!’ I said in sudden impatience and in real fear that they would get the truth out of me. I had to get myself out of the room. I jumped up from my seat at Mama’s feet and took a hasty few steps towards the door.

‘What is he doing now, this mysterious cottager?’ Richard harried me. ‘And how did he get to Acre so quickly?’

‘Can’t we just forget all about him!’ I exclaimed with as near a tone of petulance as I could manage when my heart was in my mouth to hide Dench’s identity from Mama and Uncle John. My courage nearly failed me when I saw Mama’s astonished face and then caught her look at John, as if she were ashamed that I should be so rude in front of him. But I was trapped and I could see no way to go but forward.

‘Honestly, Richard! You and Mama treat me as if I were a child! I won’t be cross-questioned! I met the man in Acre, where I know many people. Mama! Please excuse me!’ I said and I whirled towards the door.

Stride was coming in with the tea-tray in his hand and he stood on the threshold and gaped to see me striding from the room in temper. He hesitated, not knowing whether to put down his burden to hold the door for me or to let me push past him in defiance of good manners.

‘Miss Julia!’ he said in a reproachful undertone. I flashed an angry glance at him and saw his friendly face full of concern.

I grabbed for the door-knob and swirled out of the room and shut the door behind me.

Then I stood still as still and leaned my head back against the closed parlour door, and stared blankly at nothing. I had never in all my life spoken thus to my mama and I felt I had hurt myself in complaining of her to her very face. And the angry tone which had come to my lips was one she had never heard before from me! And the claim that she gave me no freedom which was nonsense! And the rudeness before Uncle John! I sighed.

I did not stand there on purpose to eavesdrop, but I heard the silence in the room. And then I heard Richard say so kindly, so gently, ‘Please don’t be upset, Mama-Aunt, please don’t be offended, sir. Julia is never like this usually. Mama-Aunt will tell you that, and indeed it is true. There never was a sweeter-tempered girl than my cousin. I have never seen her like this before.’

I let out a silent sigh at Richard’s loyalty. He was defending me in the next breath after I had raged at him. Then I remembered that I should not be standing there, within earshot, and I moved away from the door.

I could have gone to my room, or gone to sit in the empty dining-room, but I needed to see the sky over Wideacre and needed the wind from the woods to blow away my temper and my confusion. I opened the front door and slipped out into the late afternoon.

Careless of my gown, I sat on the stone steps and welcomed the chill of the damp air. Evenings had been pearl-light this spring, but today had been as dark as winter all day and the afternoon was grey and shady from the fog of the morning and the lowering clouds. I gulped in the damp air and felt it wet as mist against my cheek. Across the drive the woods of Wideacre were hazy with green growth, and invisible birds in the wet paleness were singing and singing with boundless energy, not to be distracted by the cold or the darkness, knowing in their little leaping hearts that it was spring and time for loving and courting and mating.

I sighed. I felt the anger and the confusion drift away from me like blossoms tossed on the floodtide Fenny. It was all right. I had told a lie, a set of lies. But I had done it to protect an Acre man who looked to the Laceys for help. There had been enough arrests and threats in Acre in the past. Neither Richard nor I would add to it. Ralph Megson had returned with the promise of new hope for Acre, and if a little lie, or even a set of little lies, could keep that prospect safe, then I would tell those lies.

I could forgive myself for the lie about Dench, and the secret told to me by Mr Megson I would not consider at all. Like the young girl they expected me to be, I would trust Uncle John’s judgement and make no judgement of my own. He thought Mr Megson a fit manager for the estate, and he knew something of his past. He had praised Mr Megson’s character and he was prepared to ignore the turbulence in the man’s youth. I could not betray Mr Megson, and I would not judge him. I let that lie go too – I let it melt from my mind like frost in the mornings. I took a deep breath of Wideacre air and let it out in a sigh.

I must have appeared a rude ill-bred spoiled little miss; and that before the man my mama most loved and respected in the world. But it was a small enough thing for a Lacey to do for Acre. I would apologize to my mama, I would apologize to Uncle John and I might be able to tell the truth to Richard. I thought Richard might understand. And if he was not angry with me, then I could face anything.

And thus I sat, while the rooks cawed hoarsely and tumbled home to their straggly nests, swaying at the very tops of the trees. Thus I sat and let the peace of Wideacre wash over me, until I was a Lacey on Wideacre again, knowing my home.

The door behind me opened with a click and Richard came out. He nearly stumbled over me, not seeing me in the gloom.

Oh, there you are,’ he said abruptly. ‘You’ll have to face them and apologize sooner or later, you know.’

‘I know,’ I said comfortably. I smiled up at him. ‘Wasn’t I a shrew?’ I said ruefully. ‘But I didn’t know what to do.’

‘I knew you were trying to tell some plumper, but I couldn’t think what you were saying,’ Richard said. He dropped down to sit on the step beside me and his shoulder brushed mine. I leaned slightly towards it and felt warmed with the comfort of his presence.

‘Who on earth is the mysterious Dan Tayler?’ he said. ‘You were trying to lead Mama all around the house on that taradiddle, Julia. But anyone who knows you could have seen you were fibbing. What were you trying to hide?’

‘Oh Richard,’ I said. ‘I know, it’s no good trying to lie to you. And I wouldn’t want to lie to Mama either, or Uncle John. But I was afraid to tell them!’

Richard took my hand in his warm clasp. ‘Afraid to tell them what?’ he asked mystified. ‘What great secret have you, little Julia?’

‘It was Dench!’ I said in a rush. ‘John Dench, the Havering groom. He had obviously been hiding in Acre or near by all this time, perhaps Midhurst. And when they had the party, of course he came to it. We nearly bumped into him in the village street! It was quite awful. I didn’t know what Uncle John would do, but I could not have borne it if he had ordered Dench’s arrest.’

Richard put his arm around my shoulder and I laid my head into the warm crook of his neck and sniffed at his warmth like a little sensual animal.

‘But Grandpapa Havering put out a reward for Dench’s arrest,’ Richard said softly. ‘You are a little criminal yourself, Julia, to help hide him.’

I nodded. Richard’s gentle hand came up from my shoulder and caressed my cheek. I nearly purred like a stroked kitten.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘I cannot explain it, Richard. I just thought how kind he had been to you when he was teaching you to ride, and how anxious he was for you on that awful day when you had your accident. And I know Clary Dench now, and he is her uncle and she loves him so much, you know, Richard. I just couldn’t have named him to Uncle John and watched them take him away.’

‘So you lied,’ Richard said. His voice was still gentle.

‘Yes,’ I said, and I was no longer melting with his touch. I could hear an edge of anxiety in my voice. ‘It was all such a long time ago,’ I said, but I was less confident. ‘It was years ago. I could not have borne for the new start for Acre and Mr Megson’s first day here to be spoiled by an old, old score.’

‘You deliberately told my papa a false name. And then you lied to Mama-Aunt and to me?’ Richard’s voice was as smooth as silk.

‘Yes,’ I said again. ‘But I knew you would understand, Richard. I was sure you would understand. I was not lying to you, for see, I have told you as soon as I could. This is the first moment we have been together and I have told you at once. I was not lying to you, Richard.’

‘No,’ he said judicially. ‘You have told me the truth as soon as you could. But you have not told me something that I find very strange.’

‘What is that Richard?’ I asked. My voice was as thin as a child’s. ‘I will tell you anything, Richard. You know I never keep secrets from you.’

Richard’s hand on my shoulder was no longer a caress. He was holding me to his side so there was no chance that I could get away. His voice was as soft and as gentle as ever. But I felt like a foolish rabbit hopping towards a snare.

‘Had you forgotten, Julia, why Grandpapa Havering wanted Dench arrested? Had you forgotten what he had done to my horse?’

Oh, no, Richard!’ I cried. ‘How could I forget? I cried every night for a week for poor Scheherazade, and for you and your disappointment. You know how upset I was. Of course I had not forgotten!’ I broke off and paused, for it was the wrong answer and I knew it as soon as it had left my lips. ‘At least,’ I said, correcting myself, ‘I have not forgotten; but I did not remember it quite at the time. All I could really think of was poor Clary who loves her uncle so, and poor Dench who must have been living so poorly and so badly in hiding somewhere. And the village was so happy and alive that I could not bear to be the one who spoiled all that. And everyone was listening, Richard, and looking. You know how they do in Acre. I could not bear to be a Lacey breaking hearts in Acre again, Richard! I really could not have named him to Uncle John!’

Richard’s grip on my shoulder was so hard that it hurt. His fingers were digging into the soft flesh of my upper arm like four blunt knives. But he said nothing.

‘Richard,’ I said. ‘You are hurting me, you are holding me too tight.’

‘Yes,’ he said, and there was a smile in his voice, but it was not a nice smile. It was too dark for me to see his eyes, but I knew they were black with rage. I had been wrong to lie and then I had been wrong to try to explain, the lie to Richard. I had the old familiar sensation of the ground slipping away from under my feet, and I knew that there was no way of saving myself from Richard’s torrent of anger.

‘You deserve that I should hurt you,’ he said. ‘You have hidden the man who injured my horse, injured my horse so badly that she had to be killed. You saw him in Acre, and you lied to my papa so that he should be safe. I know why you did that, Miss Lacey of Wideacre. You did it so that you could queen it around Acre as the favourite of the village. You said yourself that everyone was looking at you and listening. You wanted them to think you were so nice, so sweet, such a little princess that you thought nothing of me and of the fact that John Dench killed my horse out of spite and hatred towards me!’

‘No, Richard!’ I said aghast. ‘No! That is not right! That is not how it was!’

‘You want to be the favourite in Acre,’ he said. His grip on my shoulder was like iron. ‘You think that if you can be little precious Miss Lacey of Wideacre, then the village will see you as the squire and they will all forget about me, me and my rights. That is what you are thinking of. I know it!’

‘No, Richard! No!’ I said.

‘You are trying to steal Wideacre from me!’ he accused.

‘No! Never! Never, Richard! I never could or would. When anyone asks me, I tell them that you are to be squire. That you are the favoured child!’

‘The what?’ he asked momentarily diverted.

‘It’s nothing, nothing,’ I said hastily. ‘Just a legend, a silly legend from the village.’ He stared at me and waited. I had to go on. ‘It is a legend they have,’ I said. ‘They believe that one of us is Beatrice’s true heir, with her gift of the sight, and the gift to make the land grow. They are wondering which of us it is. I always say it is you.’

Richard suddenly released me with such a violent shove that I fell backwards on the stone step. My head hit the door with a thud and for a moment I could see nothing and hear nothing but the ringing in my ears from the blow.

‘Richard!’ I said shocked.

‘It is me!’ he hissed in absolute passion. ‘It is me! And yet I have been stuck in Dr Pearce’s study while you have been free to roam all around and make friends with people and make them think you are the natural heir. You would never even have told me if it had not slipped out like this! You are a cheat, Julia. You are an encroacher! This is my land, and I am Beatrice’s son. I shall be the heir.’

I could say nothing. I was shattered that he should treat me so, dizzy from the blow. My fingers stroking through my tumbled hair found a swelling lump. My eyes were blurred with tears at the hurt, and the tears were spilling down my cheeks, but my voice was choked and I could say nothing in my defence. Richard was wrong, quite wrong. But he had the advantage of rage and the high ground of an accusation. And I looked very bad. Shielding Dench was exactly the sort of thing which would make me beloved in Acre, and I had kept the legend of the favoured child to myself.

‘I am sorry, Richard…’ I started.

But it was no good. He spun on his heel and left me sitting like a peasant woman weeping on the doorstep. He opened the front door and went inside without another word to me. My hand was flat on the doorstep and as he shut the door it crushed the first joint of my middle finger with a sudden sharp agony which made me cry out in pain. I caught the finger in my other hand and squeezed it as tight as I could in an effort to stop the pain, and wept like a hurt child. He had not meant to do it, I knew he had not meant to do it; he had simply shut the door quickly. But the pain of the bruised flesh and the nail – which already wore a white half-moon of a scar across it – made me weep with self-pity.

I did not sit there, sobbing on the doorstep, for very long. It seemed like a long time indeed, but I knew it was not. I wobbled my finger-nail cautiously, but it did not come away as I had feared it might.

My tears stopped, and the thudding of my heart from fright gradually stilled, and the pain in my head from the blow and the tremble all over at Richard’s rage faded little by little as I sat on the stone steps in the darkening garden. The stone was cold – I could feel it through my silk gown – but still I sat on, waiting until the tears had dried on my cheeks and until my hands were steady, and trying to find, from deep inside myself, some source of peace and calm again. Richard was my betrothed, and my own grandmama had warned me that he would not always be a loving boy. I had promised myself to him and he had a right – he even had a legal right – to use me as he would. A bump on the head and an accidental injury to my hand was not unreasonable. So I sat still and quiet and worked to persuade myself that I was not insulted, that I was not injured, that I was not abused. And if I wanted to marry Richard – and I did want to marry Richard-then I would have to learn to take the rough parts of his temper with the smooth. It was his right.

I sat there, getting colder and calmer as the little pale sickle moon came up behind a bank of clouds and shone on me with a veiled light. I heard a clatter of horse’s hooves and then the garden gate opened and Mr Megson came up the path with his rolling stride, balancing without crutches on the flagged path. He stopped short at seeing me, hair tumbling down, red-eyed and wet-cheeked, sitting on the doorstep of my own home like a beggar-girl.

‘What’s this?’ he said softly. He glanced up at the parlour window where the candlelight spilled out. ‘Locked out? Or sulking? Miss Julia?’

I was silent for a minute and then I gave a watery chuckle that was almost a sob. ‘Sulking, I suppose,’ I said. ‘For I’m not locked out.’

Mr Megson nodded, and put out one hand to steady himself on the doorknob and the other to pull me to my feet. I gave him the hurt hand and pulled back with a little cry of pain at his touch on my finger.

‘I shut my hand in the door,’ I explained. I gave him my other hand and he helped me to my feet and put a hand under my elbow when I staggered.

‘Dizzy?’ he asked.

‘I bumped my head on the step,’ I told him, and put my hand to the back of my head to feel the swelling. It was a little bigger and very tender to the touch.

‘When you sulk, you do it properly!’ Mr Megson said, a ripple of amusement in his voice. ‘Were you banging your head in a rage?’

Of course not!’ I said stung. ‘It was an accident.’ ‘And your finger?’ he asked.

‘That was an accident,’ I said, unconsciously betraying myself.

‘How did you bang your head?’ he asked.

I flushed to the roots of my hair. ‘It was an accident, as I’ve said.’ Richard was my husband-to-be. It was my duty to protect his reputation and my pride. If he had beaten me, I should never have told anyone.

‘Is Richard at home?’ Ralph asked.

‘No,’ I said at once. ‘It was an accident.’ And then I put out my hand to the cold stone of the doorpost to steady myself. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, clinging to my manners, though the dusky woods were wavering before my eyes and I was afraid of what Mr Megson might be thinking of me, might be thinking of Richard. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said again. ‘I misunderstood you. Yes, Richard is home, and Mama and Uncle John. May I take you in?’

Mr Megson nodded. He did not bow like a gentleman, but he offered me his arm with a grace which a gentleman might envy. I took it with a little smile and we went into the house.

Stride was in the hall. ‘Miss Julia!’ he said reprovingly. ‘Miss Julia, I don’t know what possessed you. And what have you done to yourself now?’

I smiled wanly at his anxious face. ‘I don’t feel very well, Stride,’ I said. ‘I shall go to bed. Please apologize for me to Mama and Uncle John, for I shan’t come down again this evening. And please tell Uncle John that Mr Megson is here to see him.’

Stride nodded and took Mr Megson towards the library. I went wearily up the stairs to my room.

I slid my clothes off and left them in a heap on the foot of the bed. The thin linen pillow was cool under my cheek, and when I swept my hair off my neck the bruise was eased by the touch of the chill cloth. I lay on my back, nursing my hurt finger, waiting for the throbbing in my head to cease, and waiting for the pain in my heart to ease. I felt very alone, and very sad. And then I slept.

The dream started at once, I think.

I knew, I knew it was the dream. But some real days have seemed less real than that dream.

I was gazing blank-eyed into a fire burning in a hearth I had never seen in waking life, in a room I had never visited. It was evening, late, late evening, and the sky was dark with a storm. There was thunder, and the sharp crack of lightning, but I had no fear, no fear at all. It was as though I had died and was a ghost and had nothing to fear any more.

As I gazed at the flames of the fire, I heard a noise above the sound of the storm. I heard a window creak. The light from the stormy cloud-chased sky was blocked and the room went utterly black, for someone was climbing through the window into my room. I turned my head languidly, but I did not call for help. I opened my mouth, but did not scream. I froze, waiting, sprawled before the fire for what was coming to me.

He came silently to me and he pushed the chair from behind my shoulders so that I lay flat on the floor. I trembled as if his very touch were an icy wind, but I did not move. Only my eyes blinked and gazed in a gleam of moonlight.

He kissed my collar-bone, this dark familiar stranger in the dream. He opened my gown and kissed one breast, the nipple as hard as a blackberry, and then he kissed the other. In the dream I made a moan of soft longing, and in waking life the girl in the bed, a virgin, stirred and cried and struggled against a knowledge she did not yet want.

In the dream the woman’s skilful hands went flat against his chest and smoothed down his belly till she felt his hardness; but he brushed her hand away and opened the front of her gown and slid his face, the stubble scratching her soft skin, down over her warm belly to take her in his mouth.

The woman in the dream arched her back and gasped, the girl in the waking life tossed her head on the pillows and called out-she was calling for her mama, she was calling for her cousin. She was entranced by the dream and yet full of fear. She struggled with her sleep and the blankets slid askew to the floor. The thud as they fell from the bed detached her from her sleep and she sat upright in bed, the dream fading from her mind. She said one word into the darkened silent room.

‘Ralph!’ she said.

It was Beatrice’s voice.

I turned over and went to sleep at once, and I dreamed no more. But in the morning I stared at the ceiling and walls of my room as if it were a strange place for me to wake. I had thought, I don’t know why, that I should have opened my eyes and seen a great carved wooden canopy above me. I could scarcely recognize my bedroom, though I had seen that ceiling every morning of my girlhood. I hardly knew my room, I hardly knew myself.

I thought I had been dreaming in the night; but I could not remember what I had dreamed, except that I had not been afraid. For some reason the dream, the familiar terror-filled dream, had altered, and there was some delight in it. But I could not remember what it was. I saw my pillow on the floor and the disorder of my bed, and knew I must have been tossing and turning in the grip of the dream, but I could remember no fear. And I thought, but I could not understand it, that there had been no fear because I had met the man they called the Culler; I had looked in his face, and I knew him to be a man with the kindest of eyes and the warmest of smiles.

I knew that whatever he had done, he had done it with love.

I leaned out of the bed and picked up my pillow and tucked it behind me. There was a tap on my door and the kitchenmaid came in with my morning cup of chocolate. I drank it, looking at the sky out of my window.

The mist had blown away in ribbons of cloud like streamers across the blue sky and the sun was ripping through them with a warm yellow light. At last Uncle John might have a taste of his beloved English summer, I thought with satisfaction, and then I gave a little grimace of dismay, because I had forgotten.

I was in disgrace with him for my rudeness. I had been rude to Mama, and Richard was angry with me. All my pleasure – in the tops of the trees tossing, and the cloud-riven sky and the wind blowing – disappeared as fast as the morning mist. I got out of bed and cautiously felt my head for the bruise. It was about the size of a wood-pigeon’s egg; it felt perfectly round, and the touch of my fingers on it made me wince. I had to steel myself to brush my hair and pile the mass of pale-brown ringlets up on my head. Then I threw on a wrapper and went to my bedroom door and listened.

It was early. They were working in the kitchen, but Mama’s morning chocolate had not yet been brought to her room. I slipped softly down the stairs and through the green baize door to the kitchen. I could hear Mrs Gough’s voice as she thumped dough for the breakfast rolls on the floured table.

‘I always said she was wilful,’ she said, her voice raised so that Stride, polishing cutlery and setting the trays, could hear her. ‘She was so close to her mama, I think she’s jealous now the master’s come home.’

I realized with a sudden start that they were talking about me.

‘But the lad is the bonniest one,’ she said, her voice warm. ‘It will be a fine thing when he is squire and the hall rebuilt and the good days come again.’

‘He’s no Lacey,’ Stride said briefly. ‘The hall is Miss Julia’s home.’

I reached a hand behind me and banged the door so they could hear it in the kitchen. I had not meant to listen and I did not want to hear more. I clattered down the passage and Mrs Gough gave me a brief ‘Good morning’ with no suspicion that I had heard.

‘I’d like to take Mama’s tray to her room,’ I said. Stride gave me a quick smile. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘She won’t be angry. She was not angry last night.’

Mrs Gough tutted under her breath and turned to the stove where the milk was warming. She dipped a finger into the pan and then poured it into the chocolate jug. Stride ran a quick glance over the tray and then nodded to me to take it. He came and held the door for me and watched my slow progress up the stairs, and my careful balancing of the tray in one hand as I knocked on Mama’s door.

She was awake sitting up in bed with her wrapper around her shoulders, looking out of the window at the fresh leaves on the trees which pressed so close and at the blue sky above them.

‘Julia!’ she said with pleasure. Then her face grew more reserved as she remembered that I was still in disgrace.

‘Good morning, Mama,’ I said, putting the tray by her bedside and bending over to kiss her. ‘I have come to say I am sorry.’

At once her arms were around me in a hug. ‘Oh, my darling!’ she said. ‘You know that it is all right.’

And that was all the apology she needed; that was all I had to say.

I sat at the bottom of her bed as she sipped her chocolate.

‘Is there anything troubling you?’ she asked. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’

The impulse to tell the truth was too strong for me, and the whole story of my seeing Dench, of my instinctive lie and of Richard’s anger – poured out. I knew Dench would be safely in hiding again, and I needed to explain myself to my mama.

Three things I did not tell her. Not a word about Mr Megson passed my lips. I let his laughing confession drop from my mind as if it had never been said. I was never going to think of it again if I could keep myself from thinking.

I did not tell her that Richard had accused me of trying to make myself beloved in Acre. That accusation seemed so dreadful that I could not bear to tell anyone. I did not want to remember it myself.

And I did not tell her that Richard had hurt me. She would never know of that from me.

But I was right to tell her about Dench. She nodded her understanding and spoke only of the aspect which she knew would distress me most. ‘Is Richard very angry with you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. I said nothing more.

Mama sighed. ‘I know that will make you very sad, Julia,’ she said consolingly. ‘But I do think that your ups and downs with Richard are a result of living so very close together.’

I nodded. But I had nothing to say.

‘That will get better,’ she said certainly. ‘Now we have to set the land to rights, Richard will have an occupation, he will be more out on the land. There will be a very great deal for you and me to do as well. Then you will have your first season at Bath. We’ll go there in the autumn and be back home in time for Christmas!’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Don’t look so woebegone, little duckling! Richard’s crossness will blow over, he is never angry for long. And you must learn to mind less when he is in a temper with you.’

I smiled and did not disagree, for I had heard Richard’s footsteps on the stairs and I felt my heart lift at the thought that I could go to him and deal with him directly and fairly. And we should be friends again. I left Mama to dress and went confidently downstairs to find him.

He had his books out before him at the parlour table, and he glanced up without a smile as I slid in the door; he did not seem pleased at being interrupted. When I saw his frown, I knew I was not forgiven yet.

I went quietly to the table to stand by his elbow. But I said nothing. I waited for him to speak. I was hoping, against all probability, that he would give me one of his sweet rueful smiles, or even speak civilly to me so that I would know that even if I was not forgiven, the heat of his anger had cooled.

‘You can stand there all day, Julia,’ he said softly. ‘And you will not get a word from me.’

His tone was like a slap in my face.

‘You are wrong when you think I want Wideacre all to myself,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘I don’t mind which one of us has it. And I have always hoped that we would share it, because we would be married and live here together.’

Despite myself, at the mention of our marriage plans, my voice quavered, and I could feel the tears starting to come to my eyes. ‘Whether you want to marry me or not, I know that you would be squire,’ I said.

He looked at me sternly.

‘I know you are Beatrice’s son,’ I said, my voice low. ‘I know you have her gifts. I know you are the favoured child.’

‘I do have,’ he said swiftly. ‘I do have her gifts. I am the true heir and all Acre can see it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I waited, but he said nothing more.’I’m sorry about Dench,’ I offered. ‘I know I did wrong not to tell your papa who it was. But I did not do it to try to be first in Acre, you know, Richard.’

‘Very well,’ he said magisterially. ‘I believe you, Julia.’ He managed to make it sound by the tone of his voice that I was not believable, and that he did not believe me. But he was generously overlooking a fault. I bowed my head. ‘I am working,’ he said. ‘My papa and I are agreed that I should use the time before breakfast for quiet study.’

I nodded, looking at his books. He was parsing a passage from Dr Johnson. I could tell, reading Richard’s large script at an angle, that he had made a mistake. But I did not think he would welcome my help. ‘I will go out for a walk,’ I said.

He made no reply, so I went in silence from the room up to my bedroom and dressed in a plain gown and threw a shawl over my head and around my shoulders as a concession to the cool morning and to convention. Then I went out of the front door and stood on the doorstep in a daze.

I did not know where to go. I did not know what I wanted. The brief exchange with Richard had left me feeling that the struggle to be a proper wife, to be a properly behaved lady, might cost me more than I was able to pay. I seemed to have to bite my tongue against angry words over and over again. For the first time in my life I thought of my mama’s solitude with no pity. However much she mourned my papa, she could sit in peace with her feet up on her own fender in the evening. She could order the meals she preferred, she could suit herself in her plans for her life. She did not have to watch her words, and apologize for her mistakes, and guard her thoughts, and consider every word and every action in the light of a man’s prejudices. I shook my head. I supposed I was being very foolish. I supposed this was the wildness in me which Mama had tried to train away. Now I was paying the price for not being an indoors girl. Now I had to learn from Richard what was expected of a young lady, of a young bride. And Richard was an impatient master.

But then I took in a great gulp of the morning air and felt my spirits, as mercurial as a morning lark, lift at the very sight of the head of the downs, and the streaky sky above them. The smell of the morning air, warm with the promise of summer, and the sight of the leaves, so fresh and green and washed after the rain, set my heart singing and my pulse beating. I could almost hear Wideacre growing around me – a sweet humming noise – as gentle as a standing harp vibrating with a draught of air on the strings.

I did not know where to go for my walk. I wanted to be prompt for breakfast to earn a smile from Mama, and to seek my return to Uncle John’s favour. So I wanted a walk which would give me time to rid my feet of the fidgets, and to give me some time on the heart of the land to feel the wind blowing my resentment away and to hear the water running.

In my head was the low sweet humming which told me that Wideacre magic was all around me, and the dream of Beatrice was very close. I drifted down the garden path to the drive, drifted as if there were some magic thread pulling me in the direction I should walk. The garden gate did not squeak when I opened it as it usually did; a bramble caught at my dress but it did not tear. I walked like a ghost and the air did not stir at my passing.

I could hear the clear humming in my head that I heard when the dream was there, and I knew my eyes were hazy and fey. There was a ghost walking on Wideacre, and she and I were one this wind-blown morning. She and I were walking on the sweet land with the cool wind blowing. And my footsteps were as light as a goddess’s.

I turned right up the drive and walked up towards the ruin of the hall. The sunlight was dappled on my face from the overhanging trees of the drive, and the hawthorn hedge on my right was coming into flower and smelling sweet. A few bees bumbled among the flowers, and their noise and the noise in my head were as loud as a hundred voices singing low. In my mind there was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing but this gentle whisper of sound which seemed to be drawing me onwards. It was the only clear sweet thing on a day when there were too many people and too many things I had to do. There was only one clear voice in the babble of the world and that was the voice of Wideacre which had called me from the house and was calling me to the hall.

There was a great chestnut tree at the bend of the drive, and a squirrel had nipped a spray of the fresh finger-shaped leaves and dropped it down. I bent and picked it up and waved it before my face like a fan. The air it wafted to my face smelled sweet with flowers blooming, and a hint of rain at the back of the wind warned me that the storm of the night had not gone but simply turned around, and we would have more rain before the end of the morning.

The stones of the Wideacre drive crunched beneath my boots and I remembered how in the dream there was the sound of the hundreds of feet on the drive when they walked barefoot up to the hall, lit by torches, lit by lightning, with Ralph Megson riding high at their head.

I was half in the dream, half out of it. The air was so sweet it was like the cool rooms in the dream when the woman prowls around the empty hall. I glanced up at the clearing sky, half expecting to feel raindrops on my upturned face as Beatrice had done when she went out into the storm to meet him.

It was not raining yet. Today was a different day. It was not the dream. It was just me, walking aimlessly up to the hall before I settled down to a morning’s work for my mama, or looked at the plans of the hall with Uncle John. Why I should be walking up here risking a wetting I did not really know. Why I should feel I was being pulled, I did not know. Why I should have this singing humming noise in my head and this ache which felt almost like heartache under my ribs, I did not know.

So, knowing nothing, I walked on. I walked like a sleep-walker, tranced and unknowing, walked up the drive and turned to my left into the rose garden where the weeds grew as high as the rose trees and all you could see of the roses was the fresh crimson-leaved growth and the first tiny buds with little splits of colour: scarlet, and white and cream and pink, half hidden among the green of self-seeded ash trees and elder bushes and tall pink campion. I paused and broke off one of the wands of campion and looked at the flowers, as sweetly shaped as shells, each one a perfect structure. Then I raised my eyes from the bloom and walked up the steps to the broken-down white wooden summer-house.

He was there.

At my step on the path he came to the doorway and stood there waiting for me. I raised my eyes to his dark face and smiled in such welcome and such joy to see him. The ache beneath my ribs eased at once at the sight of him. The singing in my head was cut off in silence as if someone had laid a gentle hand on the strings of the lonely harp. The sun came out, suddenly strong, and smiled in my eyes with rays of gold which made the garden suddenly too bright and hazy. I went lightly up the treacherous steps, as lightly as a ghost, a dancing ghost. He opened his arms to me and held me close to him and I lifted my face for his kiss.

His mouth was very hard on mine and I leaned back, away from the weight of him, but my hands came up behind his head and held him to me. The plume of campion fell from my fingers, to the floor, unnoticed, and I leaned back until I was against the door-frame and Ralph was pressed against me and I could feel the length of his warm body, as sweet and as firm as a young lad’s. He scooped me up into his arms, lifted me as if we were familiar lovers and then he laid me down gently on the floor of the summer-house as if it were a bed for a princess. He lay beside me and I pulled his face down to me so I could kiss his mouth, and his closed smooth eyelids, and his warm smooth forehead, and the little crest of dark hair at the hairline. I rubbed his cropped head with my palms in wordless ecstasy of pleasure at the strangeness of him, and at my love for him, and at the madness of this day.

Then I felt him unbuttoning my gown at the back with clumsy hurrying fingers, and I raised my shoulders off the dirty floor to make the task easier for him and watched his face grow grave with concentration as he meticulously undid each tiny button, and then took two great handfuls of material at the hem and stripped it off me, pulled it over my head. I raised my hips to free it from under me, and then lifted my arms so that it would slide over my head, and lay, naked except for my linen shift, on the floor of the summer-house beside him.

He rolled upon me like a wave breaking and kissed my throat, one hand cupping my breast, and then lowered his head to kiss my breast. He pushed up my shift to kiss my warm belly and then kissed between my legs so that I was sprawled, paralysed and astounded with pleasure. I cried out at that; I said, ‘Ralph!’ and he looked up at me, his dark eyes darker than ever with his desire.

‘My love,’ he said softly, as though I had no other name. And then he dipped his head and licked me with his hard pointy tongue until I clenched his cropped hair in my hands and breathed out little soft cries of pleasure.

He reared up from me with a smile, a mocking rueful smile which suggested we were both fools to be thus infatuated. And he pulled his shirt over his head, and pulled his boots off and pulled his breeches down. He was naked underneath, and I drew breath in simple, shameless lust. Then he fell upon me as if he could stand delay no longer, and I felt his warm naked body and the soft hairs of his chest and his broad throat against my forehead as he lay on me and I tucked my face into his shoulder and breathed out my desire against his sweet-smelling skin.

‘Ralph,’ I said again, and the world, the world of Wideacre, seemed to echo to his name. The summer-house was full of him, so was the garden with the weeds growing, the house which had been burned to the ground by him and the village which worshipped him.

‘Ralph,’ I said again, and then he entered me and it was like the stab of the knife in the dream and when I looked up, I could see him smiling as he smiled in the dream. And when he looked down with eyes so dark and so loving, he could see that I was smiling too.

‘Miss Lacey,’ he said gently, and he kissed my eyelids and the hollows of my temples and the delicate skin beneath my eyes, and he licked one tear from the corner of my eye, and then he moved in me.

He was gentle, as if he were afraid of hurting me. And indeed there were little times when he did hurt me. But each sharp pain was such pleasure, and each dizzying moment was such delight that I clung to him and arched my back to greet his body with mine, like a chevalier’s lady welcoming her lost lord home. Then the pleasure grew more intense and his movements were faster and faster until there was just a blur of pleasure in my mind and I had no knowledge of where I was or who I was or what I was doing. There was just Ralph.

We lay in silence.

After a few moments he sat up and reached for his jacket and my shawl and pulled them over us like a blanket, for the breeze which had blown me up the steps and into his arms was getting stronger.

Ralph leaned on one arm and held me as if I were some precious rare object which had been entrusted to his care. My head leaned against his shoulder, my face to his neck, and I could smell with every indrawn breath the clean animal smell of his skin and a deeper sweeter smell like musk.

I existed nowhere but here. There was no time but this second. There was no sensation but that of the warm well-touched delighted body. All I could see was his profile as he looked away from me out of the open door. All I could feel was his warmth where he had lain on me, and the soreness where he had been, and the strange peace which seemed to go from the centre of my body up to my head and behind my eyes so all I wanted to do was go to sleep in his arms and wake when he wakened me. I closed my eyes and half dozed, his arm around my bare shoulders, his coat covering me, rough and smelling of heather and wood-smoke.

‘Here’s the rain,’ Ralph said softly. ‘I thought those clouds were building up.’

I opened my eyes. Through the ruined walls of the house we could see the rain coming like a great wall of water across the common. The wind preceded the rain, beating the light birches down, and their leaves turned over like my hand smoothing the top of Ralph’s cropped head. We felt the coldness of it when it reached the summer-house, and the roof creaked as the draught got in underneath it. Then the rain followed in shafts of silver with drops as long as stair-rods lancing down at the ground.

The storm hammered on the roof like hands on a drum and the summer-house creaked like a barge at sea. We were swept in a curtain of water, at once utterly shielded, utterly private.

‘Come on,’ said Ralph. ‘You’ll take cold.’

He tossed my dress to me and pulled on his own shirt. I dressed myself by guess and then I turned back to him. He was sitting with his back to the wall of the summer-house and his legs spread wide.

‘Would you like to sit with me for a while?’ he invited gently.

I went to him in a little rush and sat beside him, leaning back against him, his arm carelessly holding me. We watched the rain in silence.

We sat for long minutes. The clouds over the common were massed very thick and very dark now, almost violet. But as we watched, the wind which had blown the storm towards us blew it onwards over the hall, over the summer-house, towards Acre and onwards to the sea where the rain could fall on the churning waves, sweet water on salt. The wind tore little gaps in the cloud-cover and then there were patches of blue sky. The hammering on the roof eased and grew softer, and the rain no longer blurred our view, so we could see the dripping garden. The leaves were shiny, brilliant with wetness, and when the sun came out the raindrops on every leaf sparkled like precious stones. There was a wonderful smell on the air of Wideacre: new-washed soaking wetness, drying and growing. In the distance I could hear the Fenny bubbling a little louder, as all the drainage ditches and little streams poured into it, adding to the flow.

My hair had tumbled down and I took one thick ringlet and absently curled it around my finger. Then I paused. The humming in my head was very loud. The lock of hair around my index finger was as red as a fox. As red as a vixen. It was Beatrice’s red hair.

And the hall was not ruined, there was no smell of old smoke. The rose garden was perfect, blushing with new roses. The stones of the terrace were smooth and even. The hall was a yellow pearl, with dark curtains at the windows, a great wooden door hospitably open, the wind blowing a plume of smoke away from the chimneys.

I stared, and I blinked. I put my hands to the floor in bewilderment and terror. I had a feeling like falling, as if the very ground beneath my feet had opened up and I was tumbling downwards into a madness where I could dream the dream in real life, where Beatrice could enter my head at any moment, where I could no longer tell the difference between the dream and reality.

The floor was solid, of well-laid new pale planks. The windows were whole, of sparkling clean glass, the white trellis work freshly painted.

Staring disbelievingly out of the door, I turned back to say, ‘Ralph! Help me! Whether I am Beatrice or Julia, I know you would not hurt me. Help me! For I am lost and I don’t know who I am!’

There was no one there.

There was a pile of dust and leaves in the corner and they stirred as the wind blew through the broken panes. I was fully dressed, leaning against the ramshackle door-frame. I put my hand to my head and pulled at one of my ringlets. It was fair.

I gave a great shuddering sigh and looked out at the wet garden. It was the familiar wilderness of my childhood, the overgrown sprawling rose garden, with the suckers thrusting up, and smoke-stained walls, and the tumbling masonry. I was Julia.

My knees buckled beneath me and I put my face into my hands.

I felt I had to think. I had to understand what was happening to me. I thought of the blow to my head on the stone doorstep, which seemed to have happened years ago – but it was just last night. Perhaps that had injured my mind? But then I thought of the dream, and of the humming noise when I first saw Ralph in the village street. And my body – more certain and more confident than my puzzled worried head – felt as sleek and as comfortable as a well-stroked cat’s. I knew I should have been afraid or worried. But I could not feel that there was anything very badly wrong.

And I could not help but feel glad.

I had seen the hall in its prime. I had seen the beauty of the garden and the warmth of the walls. I had seen the terrace whole, I had seen the chimneys smoking as fires were lit in morning-rooms and the kitchen fire was lit ready for cooking.

And I had lain with Ralph as I knew Beatrice had done. And I had been beloved. And he had called me – in a little loving parody of respect – Miss Lacey. That was her name.

And it was also mine.

That was her lover, and her land and her home. And also mine.

I glanced up at the sun; it was time I went home for breakfast. I got to my feet and went lightly, easily down the steps to the rose garden. The buds themselves were starting to smell sweet in the wetness, and the weeds glowed green. I felt as if nothing could touch me. Nothing could threaten me. I was Beatrice’s heir, and there were times when I was Beatrice herself. I might be going home to try to lead the life of a good girl – of Mama’s indoor girl – but I had a secret strength inside me which came from Beatrice, my aunt, my other self. I knew I was on my way to loving the land, to understanding the land, as Beatrice had done. And I should work on it with her lover, whom I knew and loved as she had once done, long ago.

I walked home in a daze and I did not think. The breeze which had blown me up the drive to the hall had died down and caressed my face with a damp sweet breath. I smelled the wet earth and the good things growing, and my warm young body floated up the drive as if I were still dreaming. I had no thoughts. There could be no thoughts. It was easy. There were no thoughts which could encompass what had happened. I felt I just had to flow with this madness, with this joy, like a trout on the floodtide of the Fenny. And hope that what I felt was right. And the best thing was not to think at all.