Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (33 page)

At mealtimes we dined quite alone. Not even Perry ate with us; the servants laid the table and were then dismissed. Then patiently, like a warder with an idiot, she taught me how to hold my knife and, at the same time, to hold my fork, how to put them down on the plate between mouthfuls, how to drink from my glass only when my mouth was empty so there was no greasy stain left on the rim. How to talk while I ate, and how to cope with chicken wings and chop bones without seizing them up and gnawing and sucking at them. She taught me to wipe the tips of my fingers on my napkin, she taught me to balance it on my knees so that it did not slide to the floor. How much wine to drink, and when it was polite to refuse or polite to accept.

All the time, every minute of the day, she corrected my speech. By just raising one of her arched eyebrows she warned me that I was talking Rom, talking rough, or talking bawdy. Over and over again I would try to tell her something and she would make me try the phrase, like a horse at a difficult jump, until I could get it out with the right words and the right inflexion.

‘Fortunately, some of the best ladies in society talk like farm-hands,’ she said acidly. ‘And a good few can read and write no more than you. But still you will learn, Sarah. You are coming along fast.’

I could not help but respect her. She never so much as flickered one of her long-lashed eyes, whatever I did. Whatever the mistakes I made – and I was too ignorant even to know how much she must be offended – she never even looked surprised. One evening, after an especially hard day when she had been trying to teach me to pick flowers in the garden and arrange them in a glass, I had burst out:

‘Lady Clara, this is hopeless. It is driving me half mad, and you must be fashed to death of me. I’ll never learn it. I’ve started too late. You are trying to school me in tricks I should’ve learned when I was learning to walk. I am too old for them now.
I’ll go back to my own place and I’ll get Mr Fortescue’s old lady to live with me. I’ll never learn all I ought, and you must have had a bellyful of teaching me.’

‘Don’t say bellyful,’ she said instantly. ‘Or fashed.’ Then she paused. ‘No, my dear,’ she said. ‘I am not weary of it, and I think you are learning well. I am not disposed to give it all up. I think you will be a credit to me, to all of us. I want us to go on. I am pleased with your progress.’

‘But Lady Clara,’ I said. ‘The Season starts in autumn. I shall never be ready in time.’

She leaned back her head on the parlour chair. We were in the Blue Parlour and the colour of the upholstery matched her eyes as if it had been chosen with her colouring in mind. It probably had.

‘You must leave that decision to me,’ she said. ‘I am your sponsor into this new world, you have to trust my judgement. I shall tell you what is best for you, and I shall tell you when you are ready.’

‘And then what?’ I asked baldly. ‘When I am ready, when I am introduced into your society? What happens then? What do you think happens then?’

She raised her eyebrows, her blue eyes were very distant, very cold. ‘Why, you amuse yourself,’ she said. ‘You are the heiress to a considerable estate. You are sponsored by a woman of immaculate credentials (that’s me) and you will be squired by the best-looking young man in London, a peer of the realm himself (that, God help us, is Perry). If you want to be in Society, you will have reached the pinnacle of your ambitions.’

‘And then what?’ I pressed her.

She gave me a weary cold smile. ‘Then you decide, my dear,’ she said. ‘Most young women marry the best offer, the highest bidder. Their parents judge for them, their elders advise. But you have no parents to judge for you, and the circles where I will take you would never receive Mr Fortescue. You are your own mistress. If you fall head over heels in love I suppose you could marry your choice, whether he is footman or groom. No one would stop you.’

I looked back at her, and my green eyes were as hard as her blue ones. ‘You know as well as I do, that will not happen,’ I said blankly. ‘I am not the sort for that kind of love affair. I don’t like it.’

‘Then I suggest a marriage of convenience,’ she said. ‘Once you are married you can take control of your own estates and you need no longer apply to Mr Fortescue for your allowance. You can run your land as you wish and send these land-sharers and profit-stealers packing. You can make Wideacre a highly profitable place again and live as you please. If you choose a husband who will not trouble you, you can pay him an income to stay away from you and you can live the life you wish.’

I looked at her, and suddenly I understood. ‘Peregrine,’ I said flatly.

She did not even flinch. ‘Peregrine if you wish,’ she conceded. ‘Or any other. The choice is yours, my dear. I should never coerce you.’

I nodded. I had been waiting a long time to discover what Lady Clara was after. I knew a pitch for a gull when I saw one, she had been patient with me, she had played me on a long line. But I understood now what she was after. And I admired her for not denying it.

‘I am sorry,’ I said flatly. ‘I should never want to marry. Not Peregrine, not anyone. I am ready to go home at once. Mr Fortescue will arrange a companion for me. I am grateful to you for your kindness. But you need teach me no more.’

The languid movement of her fan waved me back into my chair.

‘I said it should be as you wish,’ she said gently. ‘If you do not wish to marry Perry then you need not. I would have thought you would have liked to get your hands on your own land and on your own wealth; and if you do not marry Perry it will be a long and wearisome wait for you – five long years, Sarah! – but the choice is yours. Wideacre is yours, whatever happens. And I am happy to teach you and present you at Court – whatever happens.’

I dipped my head. Once again, as happened nearly every day, she had shown me the elegance and generosity which came so easy to those that had never been hungry, who had never been short of space, who were never pressed for time. She had the generosity of a woman who had never known hunger. It came easily to her. I longed to learn that same casual, easy nonchalance.

‘Thank you,’ I said gruffly.

‘Voice,’ she said, without a change in her tone.

I lifted my head and spoke more clearly. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

She smiled at me, her eyes an impenetrable blue. ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said charmingly.

I did not like Mr Fortescue being gone. I did not like it that Wideacre Hall was lived in only by Becky and Sam. I did not like it that there was no smoke coming out of the front chimneys when I rode along the Common behind the house and looked down on it. I did not like it that the front door was always shut.

It had been comforting, in some way, to know that though I had defied him and left him for the Haverings, James Fortescue was still there if I had wanted to go back. But now the furniture in the parlour and the dining rooms, and all the front part of the house was under dust sheets and James was gone.

It made me glad to see Will. Only he knew about Wideacre, only he loved the place as my mother had done. And he came to ride with me every day – as James had asked him to do – and he took me over every field, explaining what was being ploughed and planted and what was being left fallow.

Lady Clara raised no objection at all. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You have to know every inch of it if you are ever to argue against your trustee and his manager. You will have some difficult battles ahead of you over the next five years. Your only chance of winning some of them is if you know the land as well as Will Tyacke.’

So, included in my schooling as a conventional young lady was an afternoon ride every day with Will. I never wore my breeches now. Instead I had a choice of two new riding habits – a pale green one to show off the colour of my eyes, and a slate-coloured grey one. I always waited to be called, as a young lady should, in the parlour. So it was he who waited in the stable yard while I pinned on my hat and took up my gloves and whip.

‘No need to rush, Sarah,’ Lady Clara said looking at me over
the top of a journal she was reading. ‘Move more slowly and you will move more smoothly.’

I nodded and went as smoothly as I could over to the mirror and adjusted my hat a careful half-inch.

‘Better,’ she said approvingly.

I looked at myself. I could not see a fraction of difference. But it was not my trade. She no doubt thought she saw an improvement.

‘It’s a hot day,’ she said languidly. ‘Do try and keep your face shaded, Sarah, you are already far too brown.’

‘Yes, Lady Clara,’ I said.

‘When you come back from your ride you can offer Will Tyacke a glass of small beer in the kitchen,’ she said.

I hesitated. ‘I don’t think he’d like that,’ I said.

She raised her arched eyebrows. ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me he’s a water drinker as well! That would be too too ridiculous!’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen him drink beer and wine. But he’s a proud man. I don’t think he’d like being offered beer in the kitchen when I go into the parlour.’

Lady Clara put the journal face down on the little table beside her and took up her fan. I knew her well enough now to note the little signs which showed that she was thinking carefully about what I was saying. I was on my guard at once.

‘Would you regard him as someone suitable for my parlour?’ she asked carefully.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He does not even like the parlour at Wideacre. We always talked in the dining room.’

She nodded. ‘Are you suitable for my parlour?’ she asked.

I hesitated.

‘Are you?’ she asked me again.

‘No,’ I said blankly. ‘I know you have taught me how to walk across the floor and how to sit on a chair without flinging myself into it. But in my heart I am still not Sarah Lacey a young lady. Inside me I am still…’ I broke off. I had been about to say ‘Meridon the bareback rider’ but I never wanted that name spoken in this house. I never wanted Lady Clara to know how low my life had been before I found my way here.

She gave me a cool little smile. ‘Sometimes in my heart I am a naughty little girl who would not wash her face until her father beat her, who liked to play with the peasant children outside the castle in Ireland,’ she said. ‘We are all other people in secret, Sarah. There is nothing unusual in that. But I learned to be a lady of the first Quality in London. You will learn that too. It is what you want, is it not?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It was. I wanted to leave the old life, and the old loves, far behind me. It was too great a pain in my heart even to think of them. I had to be far far away from them, and never go back again.

‘Then you come into my parlour and Will does not,’ she said. ‘I instruct you to offer him a small beer in the kitchen at the end of your ride. It is correct to be thoughtful towards one’s servants, Sarah. You should offer him a cool drink after he has escorted you in this heat.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, Lady Clara,’ I said, and then I left the room opening the door with my right hand and closing it carefully behind my back with my left.

Will was sitting, patient as a tree stump, in the afternoon sunlight in the stable yard. He was holding Sea’s reins. Sea turned his head and whickered when he saw me, Will smiled too.

‘Quite sure you’re ready now?’ he asked with his warm easy smile.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I was delayed on my way out. I’m sorry I kept you.’

‘I’m in no hurry,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Shall I get you up?’

There was no need. I could have vaulted up as easily as ever but there were two grooms and a stable lad who all appeared out of the shade to lift me up.

‘He’s fresh,’ one of the older grooms warned me, pulling his forelock. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Lacey.’

‘She’ll handle him,’ Will said with quiet confidence, and we turned away down the woodland track which led out to Wideacre land.

‘Where today, Sarah? Up to the Downs to gallop the fidgets
out first? You’ve not seen the sheep for a few days, we’re about ready to start shearing.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘And I’d like to come out when shearing starts. Is it a lot of extra work?’

‘We use travelling shearers, or extra men from Midhurst,’ Will said, his long-legged cob falling into stride beside Sea’s dancing steps. ‘We usually get it over and done within a week. We set up shearing pens beside the barns on the Downs, and send the fleeces to London to be sold. This year we have a contract with some woollen mills in Hampshire so we’re selling direct at an agreed price. Once the shearing is over there’s a bit of a party for the shepherds and their families and the shearers in the barns.’

I nodded. We were trotting down the woodland track, the way I had come the first time I had brought Perry to Havering Hall. The sunlight was dappled on the track, the sound of the River Fenny low and musical. The birds were singing in the upper branches of the trees and the air smelled sweet and warm and summery.

‘Oh,’ I said in longing. ‘I’d love to sleep outdoors again.’

‘Tired of Quality living already?’ Will said with a wry little smile. ‘There’s always a bed for you in Acre.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t go backwards. But this summer is so fine, and I seem to spend all my days indoors.’

‘Aye,’ he said gently. ‘You don’t get out and about much, do you? It’d irk me badly. We’ve not been bred to the indoors life, you and me. I’d go half mad cooped up all day in a parlour like that.’

‘I am learning things,’ I said defensively. ‘Things I need to know.’

Will nodded, tolerant. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘If you are sure you need them.’

‘I do,’ I said firmly, and he nodded and said no more.

We rode together as old friends, talking when we wanted, silent most of the time. He rode well. His horse Beau could never match the speed and stamina of Sea who was a full-bred hunter. But he could give us a good race and if we gave them a
ten- or twenty-yard start we were sometimes hard-pressed to catch them before the winning post.

Will said little, but we never passed working people or a newly planted field without him ensuring that I knew exactly what they were doing. Whenever we passed anyone in the lane, or working on a hedgerow or digging a ditch, we would pull up and Will would introduce them by name, or remind me when I had met them before. Watching him with these people I could tell he was well liked and, despite his youth, respected. The older men deferred to his judgement and reported to him, the younger men were pleasant and easy with him. I guessed that they teased him about his rides with me; but when I was there they were respectful and easy. The young women stared at me, taking in every detail of my clothes and boots and gloves. I did not mind. I had stood in the centre of a show ring when coins and flowers were thrown in at my feet. I was hardly likely to blush because half a dozen girls could not take their eyes from the golden fringe on my jacket. I saw more than one of them glance at Will with an intimate special smile and I guessed he was popular with the young women too.

We passed two girls on the lane who called, ‘Good day,’ to me and flicked smiling eyes at Will.

‘You’re a favourite,’ I said dryly.

‘You know those two, remember?’ he asked. ‘They’re the Smith girls. They live in the cottage opposite the forge. The Smith’s daughters, they call him Littl’un.’

‘Yes,’ I said diverted. ‘Why does everyone call him that? He’s hardly little!’

Will smiled. ‘His real name’s Henry,’ he said. ‘His ma died while she was giving birth to him and he was real small and puny when he was a child, always ailing. No one thought he’d live, so no one took the trouble to give him a name of his own. They called him for his brother. Then, when Julia Lacey started setting the village to rights again, her Uncle John the doctor took special care of him and he grew strong. He survived but the nickname stuck.’

I nodded. Even in the names of people you could trace the
power that the owners of the land had over the people who worked it. There was the compliment that women of twenty and older were named Julia, after my mother, and there were several Richards in the village and a little crop of Johns. But the blacker side was the children who had not been named at all during the hungry years when my family had ruined the village with their greed. During those years children were given nicknames or the same names as their brothers and sisters. It was so unlikely that they would all survive. And the graveyard had many little mounds with blank headboards of wood, where there had been no money to have stone carved or, in the despair of hunger, nothing anyone wanted to say.

‘Very few children die in Acre now,’ Will said, accurately reading my thoughts. ‘Very few. Of course they get ill, and of course there are accidents. But no one dies of hunger on your land, Sarah. The way we run the estate means that everyone has a share of the wealth, and that is enough to feed everyone.’

We turned the horses up the little lane which leads up to the top of the Downs. I could ride it now with confident familiarity.

‘It will have to change,’ I said evenly. ‘When I am of age, I will change it.’

Will smiled at me, and reined back so that I could go ahead of him up the narrow track. ‘Maybe you’ll change first,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ll come to see that to live on a land where people are well fed and where they have responsibility for their own work is a greater pleasure than a little extra money. The land is farmed well, Sarah, don’t forget that. But it is not farmed at the expense of the people who work it.’

‘I’ve no time for passengers,’ I said. I was glad Lady Clara could not hear my voice which was harsh and flat. ‘In this new century it is a different world. There are great markets overseas, there are huge fortunes to be won or lost. Every farm in the country has to compete with every other one. If you give in to your workforce you are fighting with one hand tied behind your back.’

I drew up to let him come alongside and I saw the sudden heat of anger go across his face.

‘I know you have been taught to speak how the landlords speak,’ he said and his voice was very controlled. ‘But all of you will have to learn that the wealth of a country is its people. You won’t be able to produce much wealth with a half-starved workforce. You won’t be able to make machines and tools with a workforce which cannot read or write. You will make a little profit for a short time by working everyone as hard as you can and paying them a little. But who will buy the goods if the working people have no money?’

‘We’ll sell abroad,’ I said. We had reached the top of the Downs and I pointed to where the sea was a slab of clear blue, shading to violet at the horizon. ‘We’ll sell to native countries, all around the world.’

Will shook his head. ‘You’ll do the same things there as you do here,’ he said. ‘You and your new-found friends. You’ll buy cheap and you’ll sell dear. You’ll overwork them and you’ll underpay them. When they revolt you’ll bring in the army and tell them it’s for their own good. You’ll refuse to educate them and then you’ll say they can’t be trusted because they’re so ignorant. You’ll keep them underfed and ignorant and dirty and then complain that they smell different or that they cannot talk properly. You’ll do to them what you’ve done to working people in this country!’

He paused. I said nothing.

‘It won’t work,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll never be able to keep it up. The native countries will throw you out – oh yes, and your cheap whisky and bad cottons with you. The working people of this country will insist on their rights – a vote, a right to decide who governs them. Then it will be estates like Wideacre which will show people the way ahead. Places like this which have tried sharing the wealth.’

‘It’s my wealth,’ I said stubbornly. ‘It’s not
the
wealth.’

‘Your land?’ he asked. I nodded.

‘Your people?’ he asked.

I hesitated, uncertain.

‘Your skies? Your rain? Your birds? Your winds? Your sunshine?’

I turned my head away from him in sudden irritation.

‘It doesn’t work,’ he said. ‘Your idea of ownership makes no sense, Sarah. And you should know that. You have lived on the very edge of the society right on the borderlines of ownership. You know that out there the world is full of things which nobody owns.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s because I was out there that I’ll call it my land,’ I said sourly. ‘You don’t know because you’ve never been that poor. You’ve slept soft and ate well all your life, Will Tyacke. Don’t tell me about hardship.’

He nodded at that. ‘I forgot,’ he said spitefully. ‘We are all to be punished for your misfortune.’