The Favoured Child (10 page)

They put Richard to bed and called the surgeon from Midhurst, who praised Dench’s rough strapping, set the arm and the collar-bone and ordered Richard to stay abed for at least a week.

We had a peaceful few days then, Richard and I. He had a fever at first, and I sat with him and sponged his head with vinegar and water to cool him, and read him stories to divert him. By the fourth day he was well enough to talk and he asked me what had happened. I told him about Mrs Green, about Ned Smith, about Dench’s sudden decision in the sunlit wood to take the carriage horse and leave me to alert the village.

‘How did you get to Acre?’ Richard asked. He was lying back on a bank of white pillows and his face was still pale. His freckles stood out, dark as flecks of chocolate, on his creamy skin, and his gaze was down, his eyes veiled by his long eyelashes.

‘I rode,’ I said, and as I spoke the two words, my heart suddenly thudded in foreboding. I was sitting by the window to catch the wintry morning light, a book open on my knees. As I said the words ‘I rode’, it struck me for the first time that Richard might object to my having ridden – even in that emergency.

I could tell nothing of Richard’s mood from the untroubled curve of his mouth, from the dark lashes on his cheek. ‘Dench told me to take Scheherazade while he searched the wood for you. It seemed the only way to do it, Richard.’

Richard’s gaze stayed on the counterpane. ‘Dench told you to
ride my horse,’ he said softly. ‘But, Julia,’ he said and then paused. ‘You do not know how to ride.’

‘I know!’ I said with a nervous laugh. ‘I know I do not!’ I said again. ‘But Dench threw me up into the saddle, and Scheherazade was so good! It must have been all that schooling you have given her, Richard!’ I shot a look at him, but his face was still impassive. ‘She knew her way home, of course,’ I said. ‘I just sat on her. It was not proper riding, Richard. Not proper riding like you do.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Did you just walk?’

‘Not all the way,’ I said hesitantly.

‘Not all the way,’ he repeated as slowly as if he were writing down my answer in a copy-book. ‘She did not walk all the way. So, Julia, did you trot?’

‘Yes,’ I said quickly. Too quickly. ‘I trotted her a little.’

‘You trotted,’ he repeated again. ‘Your first time on horseback and you trotted? A rising trot, Julia? Or did you just bump about, clinging on and hoping for the best?’

‘I trotted properly!’ I said, stung. ‘And I cantered too!’

Richard’s head snapped up. His eyes were as black as the centre of a thundercloud.

‘You took my horse without my permission and you cantered her?’

‘Richard!’ I said desperately. ‘I had to! I
had
to! Dench told me to! He had to look for you and I had to call out Acre and come home and tell Mama. I could not refuse to go. Dench knew what to do and he ordered me!’

There was an utter silence.

‘Dench, was it?’ Richard asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You should have refused,’ Richard said, a little frown on his face.

‘I didn’t know what to do!’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Richard. Dench seemed to know what had to be done, so I did as he told me.’

‘He never liked me,’ Richard said, gazing at the blank wall at the foot of the bed, seeming to see Dench’s impassive face on the
pale lime-wash. He was seeing again in his mind Dench’s stony face as he watched Richard struggling to learn to ride, and Grandpapa’s impatience. ‘Not from the first riding lesson. Not before. He never liked me. He wanted you to have Scheherazade from the start,’ he said reflectively, reviewing the scene in the stable yard and remembering Dench’s smile as I walked towards the mare. ‘Then he used the excuse of my accident to get you on her.’

I said nothing. I knew it was none of it true. But the threat of Richard’s rage seemed to be passing away from me. I felt icy cold inside, and the thudding in my head, behind my eyes, warned me that I would have a dizzy nauseous headache unless I could get away at once from this stuffy room. I sat in silence on the window-seat, the cold pane of glass chilling my back, fearful to make a move in case Richard’s rage should come back towards me.

‘It’s Dench’s fault,’ he said.

‘Yes. Yes,’ I said, thinking only of my need to get away. Richard said nothing more, and I sat frozen.

He turned and looked at me and I saw with relief that his eyes were a hazy blue, as if he were daydreaming, as if he were happy. He smiled at me, smiled as sweetly as the dearest of friends. ‘Don’t look so terrified, Julia,’ he said as if it were rather funny. ‘I’m not angry with you any more. I thought it was your fault. But I see now that it was Dench’s.’

I smiled back, still wary.

‘You’re sure he ordered you?’ he asked. ‘You’re
sure
it was he who made you ride my horse? You didn’t think you would seize the chance selfishly for yourself?’

‘No! No!’ I said hastily. ‘It was all his idea.’

‘Good,’ Richard said, and smiled his seraphic smile at me. He put his right hand out to me and I reached forward and took it in my icy fingers. Obedient to his tug, I slid forward to kneel at his bedside and he put his hand to my face and stroked my cheek as gentle as a lover. Then he kissed my forehead, just where the headache was starting to thud, and at his touch I could feel my
fear and strain melting away, and the beat of the pulse behind my eyes grow quiet again.

‘That’s better now, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said softly.

‘I hate it when we quarrel,’ he said, his voice low. ‘There is nothing worse in the world for me than when I think you have been selfish and ugly. You must love me like a true lady, Julia. You must be pure and unselfish.’

I blinked back the tears in my eyes. ‘I do try,’ I said humbly. ‘I try all the time, Richard.’

Richard smiled, his eyes warm. ‘I know,’ he said sweetly. ‘That is how it should be.’

Then I laid my head on his pillow and smelled the sweet nutty smell of his warm body and his dark curly hair and felt such a peace between us.

Richard was angry with me no more.

R
ichard’s convalescence from the fever and the mending of his collar-bone and arm progressed without any problems. The surgeon came from Midhurst again to make sure the break was healing and he told Mama he would not need to call again. Richard was irritable during the days when he was cooped up in his tiny low-ceilinged bedroom, but once he could come downstairs for his meals – looking very grand in Grandpapa’s old jacket for a dressing-gown – he became his old sweet-tempered self. I thought that his short temper over Scheherazade had come from the fever and the pain and the very great blow it had been to his pride that I should be seen riding a horse which had just thrown him.

Bearing that in mind, I was discreet in my visits to the stables with crusts of stale bread for Scheherazade. I did not dream of riding her again, and I scowled at Dench when I met him chatting with his nephew Jem in our stable yard and he told me of a ladies’ saddle he had found which was being sold cheap.

‘I am not allowed to ride her,’ I said as I might have said,’Get thee behind me’ to my greatest temptation. ‘She is Richard’s horse, not mine.’

‘He can’t ride her,’ he said frankly. ‘He was always afraid of her, she was always unsettled with him. Tell him that you’ll ride her for him while his arm’s mending. Jem’ll give you a few hints on how to manage her.’ Jem beamed at me and nodded. ‘She needs exercising,’ Dench said. He made it sound as if I would be doing Richard a favour instead of giving myself the greatest joy I could imagine. ‘No horse likes to be neglected. She’ll get bored and fretty locked up in the stable all the time. Tell Master
Richard that she needs to go out. He can watch you ride himself if it makes him feel any better.’

‘I’ll tell Mama she needs exercising,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to ride her.’

‘Pity,’ he said succinctly.

Jem nodded. ‘You should stand up for yourself, Miss Julia,’ he said. ‘You’re the Lacey, after all.’

I said nothing.

‘D’you want to lead her down to the orchard?’ Jem suggested.

‘Oh yes!’ I said. Jem turned to fetch her from the loose box and she came out in a rush. Dench stepped quickly aside and put a hand up for her head collar, but I stayed still. She stopped before me, as though it were me she had been in a hurry to see, and she dropped her lovely huge chestnut head to sniff at the front of my gown. I held her soft nose and laid my cheek along it.

Then I saw a movement at the library window, and I froze. Richard was watching me. As soon as I saw him, I moved, instinctively, away from the horse, ashamed as if he had caught me rifling his possessions or reading his private letters. I lifted my hand in a little wave, but Richard did not respond. He stepped back from the window before Jem and Dench had turned to see who was there.

‘Richard was watching,’ I said feebly. ‘I won’t take her to the orchard, Jem. You do it.’

Jem made a hissing noise through his teeth and clipped a rope on to the head collar. He and Dench exchanged one sour look, but said nothing.

‘I must go,’ I said, and turned away from the horse, the lovely horse, and went back to the parlour.

It was a quiet day, like all the other days, and the only excitement of the afternoon came when Richard and I were playing piquet at the parlour table and I won one hundred and fourteen pounds in buttons. Richard declared himself bankrupt and ruined and tossed down the cards. He glanced across at my mama, sitting at the fireside, and asked her, as if he had just
thought of the question, ‘Mama-Aunt, what is Lord Havering going to do about Dench?’

‘Dench?’ my mama repeated in surprise. ‘What about Dench?’

Richard looked blank. ‘Surely he has been reprimanded,’ he said, bewildered. ‘After taking such dreadful risks with Julia’s safety that day?’

Mama paused. ‘I was very shocked at the time,’ she said. ‘But when he brought you home, I was so relieved to have you safe that I said nothing. It was all such a rush!’

‘I would have expected you to be more concerned about Julia,’ Richard said, still surprised. ‘Didn’t she faint when she got home?’

‘Yes…’ Mama said.

‘If she had fainted on horseback, she could have fallen and broken her neck,’ Richard interrupted. ‘Dench should never have put her on Scheherazade. She could have been badly thrown. Scheherazade had just thrown me, and I had been well taught and riding for months.’

Mama looked appalled. ‘I should have thought…’ she said guiltily. Then she turned to me. ‘But you seemed so confident,’ she said, ‘and you rode her so well! You could obviously control her. I just assumed you had been riding her around the paddock when Richard’s back was turned!’

‘No!’
I said at once. ‘I never did that. I had never ridden her before. Dench told me to get on her, so I did.’

‘It was very wrong to send Julia off on a big dangerous horse for her first ride alone,’ said Richard. ‘Astride too…and through Acre!’

Mama frowned. ‘I have been careless,’ she said. ‘I did not think about it once I had you both safe home, but you are right, Richard. I shall speak to Mama about it.’

She shook her head with worry and bent to snip a thread from her sewing. When she looked up, she smiled at Richard in gratitude. ‘What a good head of the household you are, Richard!’ she said. ‘You are quite right!’.

I smiled too at the praise for Richard, and Richard sat back in
his chair and beamed at us both with confident masculine authority.

We saw Lady Havering the next day when she called on her way to Chichester to see if we needed any purchases. I saw Mama talking long and earnestly at the carriage window and I knew that Lady Havering would strongly disapprove of Dench for being careless with my safety; that she would be appalled to learn that I had been riding astride with my skirts pulled up, and through Acre too! I only hoped Dench had nothing worse to face than one of my grandpapa’s bawled tirades. I knew he would be utterly untroubled by that.

But everything went wrong. Grandpapa was not at home, and in his absence Lady Havering ruled at the hall. She did not go to Chichester after hearing Mama’s complaint; instead she drove straight home to the hall, stiff-backed with ill-founded outrage. She drove straight to the hall and into the stable yard and turned Dench off. She gave him a week’s wages and no reference, and she would not hear one word from him.

He packed his bags and left the room above the stables where he had lived for twenty years. He walked the long way back to Acre village, where his brother and his family lived, dirt poor. Then after dinner – rye bread and gruel – he walked up to the Dower House, where only recently he had driven the Havering carriage with Richard inside, and Mama had cried and blessed him.

Stride was out, so Mrs Gough came to the parlour and told us that Dench was at the back door. Mama looked indecisive.

‘I hope he isn’t drunk and rowdy,’ Richard said apprehensively.

That tilted the balance for Mama, and she went to her writing-box and wrapped a florin in a twist of paper. ‘Tell him that I am sorry he has been turned off, but that I can do nothing about my step-papa’s household,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Give him this from me.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Mrs Gough said truculently. ‘The idea of
dunning you in your own house!’ She stumped from the room, the coin clutched in her hand.

Although the baize door to the kitchen was shut, we could hear her voice raised, berating Dench, and his voice shouting in reply. I looked at Mama. Her face was ashen and I realized she was afraid.

‘It’s nothing, Mama,’ I said gently. ‘Mrs Gough has a sharp tongue, and I dare say Dench is just giving as good as he gets. It’s nothing more than that.’

‘He’s a bitter man,’ Richard contradicted me. ‘I hope this matter ends here. I do not like the thought of him coming to the house, nor hanging around the village making trouble against us. Lord Havering says that Acre is a powder-keg of trouble-makers. Dench is just another one to add to the fuel.’

The kitchen door banged loudly and I saw my mama flinch. But I was thinking of Dench, who had done nothing so very wrong and was now out of a job. He had to walk home again, all the way down the drive and the lane towards Acre, with his head down, watching the toes of his boots which would not last for ever with the walking he would have to do to find work.