Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (42 page)

‘Oh no!’ she said. For a moment I thought her anxiety was on my account. ‘Sarah, can’t you stay with me for just one more circuit? We might meet someone, and I really don’t want to go home yet.’

I nodded. Jane wanted to arrange a partner for tonight’s ball and she was not allowed to drive around the park alone. I tightened the collar of my jacket around my throat and sat back in the carriage. The autumn sunshine was warm enough, I had gloves; only months ago I should have thought myself in paradise to have owned such a warm jacket.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But only one circuit, mind.’

She nodded. ‘And if there is anyone you know, then you introduce me,’ she said.

‘All right,’ I said disagreeably, and I settled back in the carriage seat to scan the people walking past to see if there was anyone I knew who would be likely to take Jane in to supper at the ball that night. For if I knew Jane, we would be circling the park until nightfall if she could not find a partner.

I was nearly right. We did three circuits before I saw Captain Sullivan with Captain Riley and introduced them both to Jane. They were both penniless fortune-hunters but they knew how to dance and how to take a girl in and out of a supper room. Jane was flushed with triumph at having her dance card finally filled, and I was aching all over as if I had the ague.

‘Thank you, my dearest dear!’ she said, heartfelt, as she dropped me at the front door. ‘You saved my life! You really did, you know! Which do you think is more attractive, Captain Sullivan or Captain Riley?’

‘Sullivan,’ I said at random, and turned to go up the steps.

Jane was rapt. ‘Shall I wear my yellow or my pink?’ she called to me as the door opened.

‘The yellow,’ I said. ‘See you tonight!’

The Havering butler closed the door as I heard her call, ‘And how should I wear my hair…’

I went wearily to the foot of the stairs, planning to go to my room. But the butler was ahead of me.

‘Mr Fortescue is with Lady Havering and Lady Maria,’ he said. ‘Lady Havering asked for you to be shown to the parlour when you returned from your drive.’

I nodded. I paused only before a mirror on the stairs to take off my bonnet and gloves and as the butler opened the door for me I pushed them into his hands.

‘James!’ I said. He was the first friendly face I had seen in a parlour in all the long stay in London.

He jumped to his feet as I came in the room and beamed at me. I glanced from him to Lady Maria and Lady Havering. I imagined he had been thoroughly uncomfortable with the two of them and I wished I had been home earlier.

‘How good to see you!’ I said, and then I curtseyed to Lady Havering and did an awkward sort of bob at Maria before I sat down. The parlourmaid came in and poured me a dish of tea.

James said how well I looked, and Lady Havering said something about town polish. I saw Maria look very much as if she would have liked to say something cat-witted.

‘And have you made many friends? Is London as fine as you expected?’ James asked, making heavy weather of it all.

‘Yes,’ I said, not very helpfully.

‘Such sweet friends as you have,’ Maria chimed in. ‘You were driving with Lady Jane Whitley, were you not?’

I nodded in silence. James looked glad that Maria had volunteered something.

‘Is she one of your especial friends?’ he asked. ‘I am glad you have found someone you agree with.’

‘Oh she’s quite the toast of the Season!’ Maria enthused, her eyes sharp with malice watching me. ‘She and Miss Lacey
together are quite the beauties of the Season this year. Miss Lacey has been claimed by our Peregrine of course, but I’m certain Lady Jane will be snapped up in a moment.’

I thought of Jane and me driving round and round the park trying to find her a partner and I smiled grimly at Maria.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘We cannot all hope to have your good fortune in finding a husband who is so peculiarly appropriate.’

Since Maria’s Basil was fat and fifty-five I thought that would do. Lady Clara thought so too, for she interrupted before Maria could reply.

‘Mr Fortescue has some business to discuss with you, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you would like to talk with him in the dining room?’

James rose to his feet with uncivil haste.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and I led him downstairs to the ornate room with the heavy round table and the high-backed chairs.

He pulled one out and sat down, clasping his hands before him. ‘Are you happy, Sarah?’ he asked. ‘Is it the life you wanted?’

The tightness in my throat had not eased despite coming in from the cold. ‘It’s well enough,’ I said. ‘It’s a style I’d have had to learn.’

He waited for a moment in case I should say something more. ‘I’d not discourage you from anything you set your heart on,’ he said hesitantly. ‘But I’d not be doing my duty by you, nor showing the love I still bear your mother, if I let you go on into this without speaking once more with you.’

I put the back of my hand against my forehead. It was hot though I felt cold inside. ‘Go on then,’ I said unhelpfully.

He pushed back his chair and looked at me as if he did not know how to start. ‘I keep thinking what I should say and then it all comes out wrong!’ he said with sudden irritation. ‘I have been planning and planning how I would speak with you and then you look at me as if it does not matter at all how you live or whether you are happy or sad. I won’t tell you things. I will ask you instead. Sarah…how would you like to live?’

I paused for a moment and thought of her, sprawled under the
fine silk of her flyer’s cape, her dark eyelashes sweeping her pink cheeks. I thought of the smell of her – part cheap toilet-water, part sweat. I thought of her smile as she slept and her certainty that the world would keep her well, and how for all the years of our childhood she had poached and thieved and stolen and never been caught. Not once. And how the very same night that I had come to the life which she would have loved was the night she was gone.

‘I want nothing,’ I said. My voice was husky because of my throat.

‘D’you think Lord Peregrine will make you happy?’ James asked.

I shrugged. ‘He will not make me unhappy,’ I said. ‘He has no power for that.’ As I saw James scowl, I added: ‘There are not many women that could say that. It’s not a bad start. He will never make me unhappy. I will have Wideacre and I will put my child in the squire’s chair at Havering and Wideacre. It’s a sensible arrangement. I’m content with it.’

James’ brown eyes stared into mine as if he were looking for some warmth that he could grasp and beg me to care for love and passion like an ordinary girl. I knew my look was as opaque as green glass.

‘You want the marriage put forward,’ he said, and I knew by his voice that he had accepted it.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘We want to be married before Christmas. I want to be home then.’

James raised an eyebrow. ‘Why the sudden hurry?’ he asked. ‘It was to be spring, I thought.’

I nodded. ‘The town life does not suit Perry,’ I said honestly. ‘And I don’t like it. I’m glad to have come, and I have learned a good deal. But I should not care if I was never in London again as long as I live. I hate the streets, and the life is too confining!’ I turned and went over to the window and drew back the heavy drapes and looked out. ‘It’s bad enough sleeping in a house with all the windows shut, without forever looking out on to streets,’ I said.

James nodded. He could not feel as I did, but he was always trying to understand me.

‘I’ll tell my lawyers to go ahead, then,’ he said. ‘If you are sure.’

‘I am sure,’ I said.

He nodded and turned to the door. ‘I will wish you happiness,’ he said. ‘I am not likely to see you until after the wedding.’

I put out my hand and we shook, like old friends. ‘You can wish me a little peace,’ I said. ‘I don’t look for happiness, but I should like to be at a place of my own where I don’t have to watch what I wear and what I say all the time.’

He nodded. ‘Once you are Lady Havering you will be above criticism,’ he said. ‘And I believe that you knew all the essentials of being a good person when you rode up the drive in your cap and dirty jacket.’

I smiled. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I have something for you,’ he said. ‘It is the interest on your share of the profits of Wideacre over the past sixteen years. I have a note of the exact profits each year, and I had it placed out with a bank. They have just declared a dividend and I thought it prudent to take the money in notes in case you had any strong feelings about what you wanted done with it. The capital remains with the bank, but I have the notes of interest for you.’

I nodded. James pulled a bulky package out of his pocket.

‘They do not pay very high rates,’ he said apologetically. ‘But they are a safe bank. I thought it best.’

I nodded and opened the envelope. There were eleven large pieces of parchment inside, they all promised to pay the bearer £3,000 each.

‘I’ve never seen so much money in my life before,’ I said. I was awed into a whisper. ‘I don’t know how you dared carry them on you!’

James smiled. ‘I was travelling with guards,’ he said. ‘I had to bring some gold to London so I took the opportunity to bring it all together. Then I walked around here. Perhaps I had better leave them with you for safe-keeping tonight and collect them tomorrow. I can pay them into your bank account then.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

We went out into the hall together and he shrugged himself into his coat. The butler held the door for him and I watched him down the front-door steps. I went back into the dining room and folded the bills very carefully together, then I took them upstairs to my bedroom and locked them into the right-hand drawer of my dressing-table, where I kept my purse and the jewels Lady Clara had picked out for me, and my piece of string with the gold clasps.

I cried off from the ball that night, from the visit and from Maria’s supper party. I pleaded sick and offered as evidence my sore throat and my hot forehead. Lady Clara put her cool hand against my head and said that I might be excused tonight but tomorrow I must be well because the Princess Caterina was giving a luncheon party and we had managed to get an invitation. I nodded and I submitted to being dressed in my nightdress and wrapper and confined to the stuffy little bedroom with a bowl of soup and a pastry and some fruit.

I tried to read one of Lady Clara’s novels but I found it heavy going. It was by a man called Fielding and I was angry with him because the chapter headings at the top of the pages did not tell me what was happening in the story. They were no use for me, who only wanted to appear as if I had read the book.

For some reason I thought of the bills from the bank and took the fancy to look at them again. The key to the drawer was in the top drawer, where I always kept it. The drawer unlocked easily and slid open. It moved smoothly as if it were lightly laden.

It was lightly laden. I had given Perry most of my gold in the morning, and the eleven folded bills of £3,000 each were missing.

I said, ‘Oh,’ very softly, and I stood still for a little while, then I pulled up the pretty white and gold chair and sat before the table and looked at the empty drawer.

I thought of the maid – but she had been with the Haverings for years and Lady Clara’s jewels alone were worth far more. I thought of the kitchenmaid who had helped me to get Perry to bed, but she was not allowed upstairs. I thought of the footmen, but they were rarely upstairs and never in my bedroom.

No one entered my bedroom except Lady Clara, my maid, myself and Perry.

I had known it was Perry as soon as I saw the drawer was empty. I had been trying to avoid knowing that it was him.

I sat very still and quiet and thought for a little while.

He was a gambler. I had seen gamblers before. Not like my da who did it for a living, and not like men I had seen who did it for fun. For some men it is a lust worse than drink when it gets them. They cannot leave it alone. They believe themselves lucky and they bet on one game after another. They don’t care what the game is – the bones or the cards, horses, cock-fighting, the dogs, badger-baiting – it is all alike to them. Their faces sweat and get red, their eyes get brighter when they are gaming. They look like men about to have a woman. They look like starving men excited by food. They were a blessing to Da for you can cheat them over and over again when they are mad to win.

I was afraid Perry was one of them.

I was not even angry.

I suppose I knew he could not help himself. I suppose that inside I was still a pauper and the thick wads of paper money never really felt as if they belonged to me. I think also that my heart was not in this marriage, nor in the life I was leading. Rich or poor, wed or single, she was not here. I could not see that it mattered. And I had very low expectations of Perry.

I had known he was a drinker. I had thought he might be a gambler. If I had been asked, I could have predicted that he would steal from me, or from his mama, or from anyone who was close to him and ready to trust him.

But something had to be done about it. I would have to see Perry, I would have to tell Mr Fortescue, I would have to tell Lady Clara.

I sighed. My sore throat was no better and my head was aching from weariness. I walked across the room to my bed and thought I would lie down and rest, wait for Perry to come in and then speak to him.

I must have dozed then, for I next stirred when the clocks struck three, and a little after that I heard a stumble and a bump on the carpeted stairs. I raised my head but I did not move. Then in the firelight I saw the handle of the door turn, very very slowly.

Peregrine staggered into the room.

I lay still and did not say a word. I half closed my eyes and watched him through my eyelashes. He took a half step inside the room and shut the door behind him.

‘Sssshhh,’ he said to himself; and giggled.

I lay in silence, waiting for what would come next. The drunken repentance, the blustering explanation, the tears, the promises to reform.

He stepped quietly over to my dressing-table and there was a sudden scuffle as he collided with the chair.

‘Careful!’ he cautioned himself loudly. ‘Not too much noise now! Don’t want to wake her up! She’s going to have a surprise in the morning!’

I opened my eyes a little wider. I had not expected Perry to be joyful. I had thought he had come back for the last ten guineas, perhaps for my jewels.

In the flickering light from the dying fire I saw him pulling something out of his pocket, pieces of paper, and then I heard the chink of coins.

‘Perry, what on earth are you doing?’ I demanded and sat upright in bed.

He jumped like a deer.

‘Damme, Sarah! Don’t shout at me like that when I’m trying to give you a surprise!’ he said.

‘You’ve already given me one,’ I said tightly. ‘You’ve robbed me, Perry. There’s £33,000 in bills made out to me missing from that drawer, and I know you took them.’

‘These you mean?’ Perry said joyfully. I reached over for my candle and lit it. He was waving a sheaf of papers at me. I squinted against the sudden light. They were the same ones.

‘You brought them back?’ I asked in surprise. ‘You didn’t gamble?’

‘I won!’ Perry declared.

He staggered over to the bed and caught at one of the bedposts. He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and shovelled out papers and coins. ‘I won and won and won!’ he said. He giggled delightedly and spilled coins and notes of hand over my bed.

‘I have an unbeatable system,’ he said. ‘An unbreakable system. I have an unbreatable system an unbeakable system a beakless system, a breathless system!’

‘How much?’ I asked, a gambler’s daughter again.

Perry put my notes to one side and shovelled out the rest of his pockets and we made piles on the counterpane of coins, and notes of hand, and paper money.

Altogether it came to something like £22,000.

‘Perry,’ I said, awed.

He nodded, beaming at me. ‘Unbreatheable!’ he said, with satisfaction.

We were silent for a moment.

‘You shouldn’t have taken my money,’ I said.

He blinked at me. ‘I had to, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I’d have asked you, but you weren’t here. I had to. Mama was talking of wearing her diamonds to present you at Court – I had to have money.’

I frowned. ‘What do your mama’s diamonds have to do with…’ then I broke off. ‘Have you lost them at play?’ I asked.

‘Pawned,’ he said gloomily. ‘I had to get them back, Sarah, or I’d have been really sunk. She keeps me on such a short allowance I can never manage to stay out of debt. And a little while ago I found the key to her strongbox. It was before the Season started and I knew she wouldn’t need them for months. So I prigged them, and pawned them.’

He paused gloomy for a moment, but then his face brightened. ‘And now I’ll be able to get them back!’ he said delightedly.

He glanced at my face. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked.

‘You’re a thief,’ I said. ‘A thief and a drunkard and a gambler.’

Perry looked contrite. ‘I did win, though,’ he offered.

‘I’m no better,’ I said. ‘I was a thief and a card-sharper and a horse-trader. You are what you have to be, Perry. But don’t ever steal from me again.’

His face brightened. ‘I’ll make a promise with you,’ he offered. ‘I will never steal from you again, I will never steal from Mama again, and I will never pawn anything of hers or yours again. It
has been dreadful, Sarah, I thought I’d not be able to get them back and then she would have known!’

I nodded. I could imagine how afraid Perry must have been.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I hold you to your promise. You must never steal from me or your mama again. And I’ll never steal from you or cheat you.’

He put out his long-fingered soft hand and we shook firmly.

‘Done,’ I said. ‘Now get your winnings off my bed, I need to sleep, I have a throat like charcoal.’

Peregrine gathered up his papers and crammed them back into his pockets. My bank bills he counted out carefully on to my dressing-table and he added to them the guineas he had borrowed from me.

Then he came to the bedside again and leaned over me. I could feel his warm brandy-sweet breath on my face as he leaned over.

‘Good-night Sarah,’ he said softly and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Good-night, my best of friends.’

I cat-napped after he left me; once, I turned and was wideawake and found I was chuckling, thinking of Perry coming into my room, his pockets bursting as if he had been sharping cards all night. Then I heard the clock strike seven and I got up, splashed cold water on my face, and slipped into my riding habit.

Only then did I remember that it was Thursday, and Will was coming to ride with me today.

I brushed my hair in a hurry and coiled it up on my head, then I pinned on my hat and went to the door. I ran down the stairs pulling on my gloves and the kitchenmaid met me at the front door, her face all grimy and her hands black with soot from the fires.

‘Beg pardon, m’m,’ she said, dipping a curtsey.

I nodded to her and opened the door myself and slipped out. There was a figure of a man, holding two horses waiting in the street opposite the front door. But it was not Gerry the groom there, waiting for me holding his horse and Sea. It was Will, standing with the reins of his bay horse in one hand, and Sea’s reins in the other.

‘Oh Will!’ I said and I beamed at him.

‘I’m freezing,’ he said crossly. ‘I’ve been waiting here for half an hour, Sarah, and that softy maid of yours wouldn’t find you and tell you I was here.’

I chuckled and ran down the steps and took the reins. ‘You’re a weakling,’ I said. ‘This is just bracing.’

‘Bracing!’ Will said under his breath. He cupped his hands and threw me ungently up into the saddle. Sea sidled and I patted his neck.

‘Yes,’ I said provocatively. ‘If you had lived in a wagon like I did you’d count this good weather. But you’re a soft gorgio you are, Will Tyacke.’

Will scowled and swung into his own saddle and then his brown face crumpled and he laughed aloud. ‘Why are you so damned full of chirp?’ he asked. ‘What have you got to be so glad about?’

‘Precious little,’ I said. The horses fell into step side by side and I turned and smiled at Will. ‘I’ve had some trouble, I waked all night. But it’s come all right now, and I’m glad to be out of that house, and with you. I’m so glad to see you.’

His glance at me was warm. ‘I’d wait all night in a snowstorm to see you and count myself lucky,’ he said. ‘I rode up in darkness last night to make sure I’d be here in time. Sarah, you’re the first thing worth seeing this week.’

I put my hand out to him in a swift instinctive gesture, and he did not kiss it like a lover but took it in a firm gentle clasp, as if we were shaking on a deal. Then his horse shifted and we let go.

‘What’s your trouble?’ he asked.

‘Tell me about Wideacre first,’ I said. ‘And how did your meeting of the corporations go?’

‘All’s well on Wideacre,’ he said. ‘The oats and barley is sown, we’re setting to the hedging and ditching. The root crops are coming up. All’s well. I’m bid send you people’s love and to tell you that we all want you home.’ He straightened a little in the saddle as we came down the road towards the park. ‘They elected me chairman of the National Association of Corporations,’ he said. ‘I was proud. I’m honoured to be asked to serve.’

‘Oh, well done!’ I said. Then I paused. ‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

Will smiled. ‘Oh, little enough,’ he said. ‘We will meet every two months or so for debate and discussion, but we have more than enough trouble with spies and the government to want to do more than that.’

‘Spies?’ I asked blankly.

Will nodded. ‘They think they see traitors and Boney’s agents in every bush,’ he said. ‘It’s the way of this government – aye and others! They can’t bear to think that they might be in the wrong. They can’t bear to think that another Englishman might disagree with them. So they will only believe that if you disagree with them you have to be a paid spy, or a foreigner.’ He paused for a moment. ‘They think they own the world,’ he said simply. ‘The landlords and those in power. They think they own what it is to be an Englishman. If you think differently from them they make you feel like you don’t belong in their country. It’s not their country, but they won’t hear a word of dissent.’

His face was dark. ‘It’s a nuisance,’ he said. ‘I have all my letters opened and read before I ever see them, and it makes them late. Since the last meeting there were two men prowling around Wideacre asking people in the village if I was a rick-burner!’ Will snorted. ‘Damn fools,’ he said.

‘I never knew,’ I said. The enemies of my childhood had been the thief-takers and the gamekeepers. I did not know there were gamekeepers of ideas too.

‘They make little difference,’ Will said. ‘They sit by the door and every single thing you say they scribble down in their little books and then they run off and copy it all out fair for their masters to read. Everyone makes sure they speak civil and say not a word against the government or the king. And I never write if I can send a message.’

‘Oh,’ I said blankly.

‘But it was a good meeting,’ Will said. ‘There were some northern gentlemen there who are planning experimental farms in the north. One of them took me out to dine afterwards. We talked till late into the night. He wants to set up an experimental
farm outside his potteries for the workers. I was telling him about the children’s school on Wideacre, and about how we farm. He’s coming down to see it when he’s next in the south. He seemed a likely man.’

I nodded. I was dimly aware of a world outside my knowledge, outside my understanding, where neither a gypsy brat nor a pretty young lady would be of much account, and for a moment I envied Will his contact with a weightier world.

‘That’s enough of me,’ Will said abruptly. ‘What of you? You look a bit pale, Sarah. And what of this trouble of yours?’