The Favoured Child (17 page)

Uncle John exchanged a long look with my mama. ‘Then we are all content,’ he said. ‘And
now
I shall unpack my bags and see if I have remembered to bring you all anything from my travels!’

Uncle John set himself out to please us at supper. We were all still strange with him. Mama was anxious and loving, and I was shy, showing my country-bred awkwardness; but Richard was as relaxed and as charming as only he knew how to be. Uncle John sat at the head of the table in Richard’s seat and smiled on us like the father of a fine family. He had unpacked his presents and had some wonderful yards of silk and muslin for Mama and me, as well as a slim velveteen box for Mama.

He pushed it towards her when Stride had cleared the plates, and he smiled mysteriously when she asked, ‘What is it, John?’

She opened the catch and drew out a necklace. It was exquisite. They were matched pearls, hatched from oysters in the warm waters of oceans thousands of miles from Wideacre, each one a perfect, smooth sphere.

‘But they’re pink!’ exclaimed Mama as she held them up to the candlelight.

‘Pink pearls,’ Uncle John said with satisfaction. ‘I know pearls are your favourites, Celia, and I could not resist them. There are matching ear-rings too.’

‘Wherever did you find them?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh! India, I suppose.’

‘And the devil’s own job I had getting them!’ John said, his face quite serious. ‘Pearl-diving every Sunday after church in a shark-infested sea is no joke, Celia, I can tell you.’

Mama gave a gurgle of laughter, sounding as delighted as a courted girl at his nonsense, and put the necklace around her neck. I waited as she fumbled with the catch in case Uncle John would put them on her. But he was deliberately holding back from playing the part of her lover before our bright curious gazes.

‘They’re wonderful,’ she said with pleasure. ‘Must I save them for best?’

‘No!’ John said. ‘You shall have finer things for “best,” Celia, I promise you. This is just a home-coming present, for everyday wear.’

She smiled down the table at him, her eyes very warm. ‘I shall wear them every day then,’ she said. ‘And when they do not match my gown, I shall still keep them on. And nothing you buy me in future could be finer for me than the present you brought home when you were safe home at last.’

John was silent as their eyes met and held.

‘I believe that pearl-fishing is very cruel to the natives,’ Richard observed.

Uncle John glanced at him. ‘In general it is,’ he said. ‘It happens that these pearls grow in relatively shallow waters and the divers work for a man who trains them well and cares for their health. I would not have bought them otherwise.’

There was a little silence. Richard, ousted from his old place at the head of the table, looked at the tablecloth as if the pattern were new to him.

‘Uncle John,’ I said tentatively, ‘what is that package?’

‘What is that package indeed!’ Uncle John said, recalled to business with a start. ‘As if you did not know, little Miss Lacey, that it has your name on the front!’ He pushed it across to me and I unwrapped it. It was a fine box of watercolours, and Uncle John smiled at my thanks and then gave a rueful chuckle when Mama said he might have saved his money, for all I could ever be prevailed upon to draw was field plans and landscapes.

‘Richard is the artist of the household,’ Mama said gently. ‘He has a great interest in fine buildings and classic sculpture.’

‘Is he?’ John said, smiling approvingly at his son.

‘But perhaps such a lovely box of colours and a palette will encourage you, Julia,’ Mama said, prompting me.

‘It shall,’ I promised. ‘And you are a very dear uncle to bring me such a lovely gift.’ I rose from my chair and went to him and gave him a kiss on his tired, lined forehead, which was both a kiss of thanks and a half-apology for not being the indoors pretty-miss niece he had imagined.

‘What has Uncle John given you, Richard?’ I asked, for Richard’s parcel stood in the corner of the room, a pole as high as his chest with a fascinating knobby bit at the foot. Richard tore at the wrapping and out came some sort of mallets – a pair of them – and half a dozen hard heavy balls. He glanced at his father in bewilderment and hefted the mallet in his hands.

‘Polo sticks and balls,’ said Uncle John. ‘Ever seen it played, Richard?’

Richard shook his head.

‘It’s a wonderful game for a good horseman, and an exciting game for a poor one! We can hire a couple of horses until we find a decent hunter for you, and I will have a knock with you.’

I think no one but I would have noticed Richard’s sudden pallor. John’s eyes were bright as he explained to Richard how the game was played, and the speed and the danger, while Stride brought in the fruit and sweetmeats and port. Uncle John and Richard passed the decanter civilly, one to another, and Mama smiled to see the two of them learning to be friends.

We left them still talking horses and withdrew to the parlour. Mama went straight to the mirror over the fireplace and smoothed her hair with a little smile at her own reflection. I watched her in silence. It was the first trace of vanity I had ever seen in her, and I smiled. In the reflected image, lit by the best beeswax candles sent from the Havering store, the picture was a kind one. Her delight in Uncle John’s return had smoothed the lines off her forehead and around her eyes like a warm iron on cream silk. Her brown eyes were velvety with happiness, the grey in her fair hair was all that betrayed her age. And her
widow’s cap was pinned so far back on her head that it was just a scrap of lace on her chignon. She saw my eyes on her and coloured up, and turned from the mirror with a smile.

‘I am so glad they can at least talk horses,’ she said. ‘I was afraid that they would have nothing in common. It matters so much that they should be friends.’

I nodded and tucked myself up on the window-seat, drawing the curtains to one side so I could see the drive, eerie in the silver light of the moon, bordered by the shadowy woods. A wind was moving in the upper branches like a sigh for a life which had all gone wrong.

Inside the house the candlelight was warm, yellow. Mama moved a candelabra closer to light her sewing. But outside in the darkness and the moonlight, the land remembered. And it called to me.

I fell into a dreamy reverie, sitting there, my face to the cool glass and my eyes staring out into the shadows. I knew that Uncle John had told us only half of the story. I felt certain that the woman in the dream was Beatrice at the hall. And she had
known
– I had dreamed her certainty – that the mob was led by a man she knew. They were coming from Acre, and she had earned their anger.

I knew also that they hated her in Acre no more. They had forgotten the frozen seasons when her shadow had meant death and the young men had feared her. They remembered now the smiling girl who had brought them hayfields and wheatfields thicker and taller than had ever grown before. And staring out into the cold moonlit garden I longed to be a girl like that. With my back to the little parlour and Mama bending over her stitchery, I longed with all my heart to be someone who could make the land grow and could bring Acre back to life. I suppose for the first time that evening I faced the fact that I wanted to be the favoured child.

I sat so still, and in such a dream, that I jumped when the parlour door opened and the two of them came in. Richard saw the night and the moonlight in my face and he raised an eyebrow
at me as if he were listening for the wind. But he could hear nothing. It was a night for talking about horses and for travellers’ tales from Uncle John, and for reminiscences of the time when the land was easy and good. It was very late before we went to bed. But when I was in bed, I did not dream of the hall and the rioters coming through the darkness. I dreamed of new gowns and ballrooms, like any young girl who has just become a young lady.

L
iving with Uncle John was not all delight, as Richard and I discovered over the next few days. He ordered us each into the parlour and took us through a galloping examination to test our abilities and our learning to date. I was foolish enough to boast that I had learned Latin and Greek over Richard’s shoulder, and had two pages to translate for my pains. I had been confident about my French accent, but John rattled away at me and I could catch only one word in twenty and only managed to stammer a reply. Poor Richard fared even worse and came out of the parlour red-faced and seething. He muttered something about people coming back from India and throwing their weight around like nabobs-and flung himself out. I took myself into the dining-room with Richard’s school-books and my pride much humbled.

That evening Uncle John announced that he had to go to London to see his papa, the senior director of the MacAndrew Shipping Company. ‘I am to serve as the company consultant on our Indian affairs,’ he explained. ‘But while I am there – consulting away – I shall make a final choice of the best man to be our manager here on Wideacre.’ He nodded to my mama. ‘Can I bring you anything back from London, Celia? Some patterns for gowns perhaps?’

Mama glanced down at her well-worn dark dress. ‘I badly need some new gowns,’ she admitted. ‘And Julia has never had a new dress in her life, poor child! But I do not trust you to choose our fashions, John!’

‘I should bring you back scarlet saris,’ John said at once. ‘They’re what the Indian ladies wear. Quite ravishing the two of you would look, I assure you.’

‘Possibly,’ Mama said, laughing, ‘but I would rather Julia made her Bath debut in something a little more conventional. I have written to my old sempstress at Chichester to run us both up a couple of gowns to keep us going until I can consult her properly. Bring nothing back but your dear self. And don’t work too hard.’

Uncle John was ready to leave as we rose from the breakfast table the next morning. ‘I cannot say how long I will be,’ he said, shrugging himself into his greatcoat. ‘But while I am away, you will all be busy enough. Richard – I want you to work harder at your studies. You will have no chance at Oxford unless you can show them a higher standard than I have seen thus far.

‘I do not blame Dr Pearce; there is no one to blame but you, Richard,’ Uncle John said, opening the door and taking Richard’s arm as he walked down the garden path in the pale spring sunshine. ‘You have not sufficiently applied yourself. If you hope to make your own way in the world, landed squire or no, you must learn to concentrate. I cannot say I am pleased with your progress. Why, Julia’s Latin is as good as your own, and she is only learning by proxy!’

Richard, sunny-tempered Richard, smiled his angelic smile at his papa and said, ‘I am sorry, sir. I dare say I should have worked harder. My cousin puts me to shame, I know. She has always been quick-witted.’

His words were a reprieve for me, for I had feared he would be offended by the comparison. Uncle John smiled at Richard’s generosity as he got in the coach and waved goodbye to us all and left for London.

But Richard’s sunny humour lasted only until the coach was out of sight. As soon as it had gone, he announced he was going to do some studying in the parlour. At once I turned back to go into the house with him.

‘Not with you,’ he said roughly. ‘You will chatter and distract me. Go and sit with your mama. You heard what Papa said, he wants me to work harder. I will never get on if you are always wanting to talk to me or for me to come out for a walk with you.’

‘Richard!’ I said amazed. ‘I was only coming to help you with your work.’

‘I don’t need your help,’ he said untruthfully. ? fine pickle I should be in if I depended on your understanding. Go and sit in the parlour with your mama, Julia. I am working hard to please my papa.’

I went without another word, but I thought him unjust. And I knew that it would take him twice as long without me to look up the words for him. I said nothing to Mama about that low-voiced exchange, but after I had finished some darning for her, I asked if I might go to the kitchen and make some of Richard’s favourite bon-bons as a reward for him for his sudden application to his studies. At dinner I had a little dish of creams for him, and then I had his thanks in one of his sunny smiles and a careless hug outside the door of my room at bedtime. I went to bed warmed by that smile and happy to be restored to his good graces. And I felt I had learned once again that a lady’s way is to return hard words with a smile, until everything is at peace again. It always works. Provided you can smile for long enough.

We heard nothing from John for three long days, but on Friday morning, looming out of a miserable unseasonal mist, his carriage came quietly up the drive. Mama and I dropped our sewing to the floor in the parlour and tumbled out down the garden path to greet him. Uncle John swung down from the carriage and caught my mama up to him for a great hug and a smacking kiss which could have been heard on the coast.

‘Celia!’ he said, and they beamed at each other as if nothing more needed saying.

Uncle John gave me a smile and a quick wink over my mama’s head. ‘And Miss Julia too!’ he said with pleasure. ‘But let’s get in! You two will freeze out here in this beastly weather. It has been foggy all morning. I stopped at Petersfield last night-simply could not see my way further forward! Otherwise I should have been with you yesterday!’

Mama ushered him into the parlour and rang the bell for more logs for the fire and hot coffee. Uncle John held his thin hands to the blaze and shivered a little.

‘I thought I was home for summer!’ he complained. ‘This is as damp as an Indian monsoon.’

‘Julia, go and fetch your uncle’s quilted jacket,’ Mama asked me. ‘And perhaps a glass of brandy, John?’

I ran to his bedroom at the top of the house for his jacket, then to the kitchen to tell Stride about the brandy and when I came back, Mama had him settled in a chair drawn up to the blaze and the colour was back in his cheeks.

‘Where’s Richard?’ he asked as Mama poured coffee and Stride heaped more logs on the fire.

‘At his lessons,’ Mama said. ‘He has been studying like a scholarship boy ever since you left! Do remember to praise him, John. He took your reproof to heart.’