The Favoured Child (26 page)

I waved and Richard obligingly brought the gig to a halt. Clary came down the garden path with her long stride.

‘Good day,’ she said to the two of us. And with a smile to me she said, ‘Carriage folk at last, Julia?’

‘I’m so grand I can hardly trouble myself to speak to you,’ I said, grinning at her.

She laughed. ‘It’s a fine gig, Master Richard,’ she said with a smile to him.

Richard nodded but made no reply. He looked at her under lowered brows, his eyes a bright blue. ‘Maybe I’ll give you a ride
in it one day,’ he said, making an effort. He was looking at her, but he lacked his easy smile. He looked at her as if she were something he might decide to buy in a market.

‘Thank you,’ Clary said easily, and stepped back from the side of the gig. ‘Are you going to see Ralph Megson?’ she asked me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Is he settled in the Tyackes’ cottage?’

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘And Becky Miles is keeping house and cleaning for him. He’s expecting you.’

I nodded, and Richard clicked to the horse and we drove on down the lane to the cottage which was set back from the street down a little track on the left-hand side.

Richard looped the reins over the garden gate and the horse dipped its head. There was no hedge to crop. All the leaves had been taken for animal feed years ago, and then the bare sticks themselves used for firewood. Like every other garden in Acre, the earth was bare. First all the vegetables had been lifted and eaten, and then the surviving scrawny hens had picked the garden clean. Now there was nothing but grey dust and, when it rained, a mire of mud.

We walked up the flagstone path and I shivered at the thought of seeing Ralph, a tension so strong it was almost dread. When I raised my hand to knock, I saw it was trembling. I could hear the kettle singing on the stove, and its note was not higher or sweeter than the noise in my head now I was so close to Ralph. The door was opened to us not by Ralph Megson, but by Becky Miles, who seemed to have installed herself as cook, parlourmaid and kitchenmaid.

I looked at her sharply. She was a big lumpy downland girl with masses of fair hair and big dim blue eyes. The poverty of her family was held to be sufficient excuse for the fact that she wore dresses with bodices cut so low that you could see the top of her plump breasts and hems so high that you could see her ankles. I had always quite liked her. She had been one of the children who trailed around after Clary. I liked her cheery nature and the way she threw back her head to laugh. And I liked her sweet voice, which would rise in a clear soprano in carols at
Christmastide. But today, for some reason, she seemed to me too large, too bright, too overpowering in the little room, and I wondered that Ralph Megson did not feel crowded by her and send her away.

He did not look crowded. He looked very much at home. The Tyackes’ cottage was the best in Acre, but it had only two rooms downstairs and three poky little bedrooms upstairs. The main downstairs room was the brick-floored one which served as kitchen and dining-and living-room. The front door opened directly into it, and winter and summer it was hot and stifling with the fire in the grate for the cooking.

Ralph owned a great round table, which was in the middle of the room, rocky on the uneven floor, and a high-backed settle, which had its back to the door. The master chair – a wheel-backed carver – was at the head of the table with its back to the fire, and beneath the table were three stools for guests. Through a doorway to the left was the parlour, used for the most solemn occasions. Only if there were a funeral or a wedding in the house would the neighbours get over the threshold into that room. And then in Acre – where poverty was a way of life and people had forgotten the time when they had furniture – they would find the room swept clean and as empty as a Wideacre wheat barn. The parlour table and chairs had been sold for pennies when the family was hungry, and they had never risen from the grip of poverty and been able to buy more.

Seeing Ralph Megson here reminded me that he was not Quality. He was one of the tenants. He lived in a cottage which was no more than five rooms. But I realized that he was wealthy in Acre terms. He had a proper chair, a proper table. He had china to eat from, not wooden plates and bowls. He had linen – there was a good plain tablecloth laid ready – he had a servant, if one could honour sluttish Becky Miles with that title.

He was not gentry, living here and served thus, but I had been quick to note that Uncle John always referred to him as Mr Megson. Although he could never be Quality, he had a certain air which made you question the whole idea of ‘sorts’ of people.

He rose to his feet when we came in and greeted us confidently as equals. He waved us towards the stools on either side of the table and took the chair again without a thought that perhaps it should have been offered to me. And he nodded to Becky to serve the tea as if she (who had never seen a tablecloth in her life, at my guess) might know what she was doing.

She did tolerably well. I tried not to watch her, but when she opened little cupboards or pulled out a drawer of cutlery, I could not help my eyes sliding towards her, partly to see what she was doing and partly to see what things he had. Pure curiosity, and I hoped he would not see it; but Becky made a clatter behind me and I glanced over my shoulder and he saw me look. He gave me a little smile – he knew very well that I was inspecting his goods, and his eyes were tolerant.

I settled on my stool then with a little silent sigh. He might be on company behaviour, and so was I, but there was an understanding between us which was a current flowing under the stream of talk. I had some silly, superstitious fear that he might know that I dreamed of him – that I dreamed of desiring him, and loving him, and holding him. The mere thought of him knowing that dream made me colour so red that the blush hurt my cheeks and made my eyes water. I kept my head facing down and felt myself burn with embarrassment.

I felt his eyes upon me and I flashed a quick look at him.

He knew something. He sensed something, like a keen bright-eyed animal. But the smile he gave me was easy. I did not think he guessed my thoughts. But I remembered that he had been very much in love with Beatrice, and I felt, with his eyes upon me, that he was tender to me. So I straightened my back, waited for my blush to die down and found the courage to smile and meet his eyes.

There are some things which need no words, and Ralph knew that better than I. So I sipped my tea and did not flinch when Becky clattered the kettle close to me behind my back, and I passed Richard some lardy cake as though I had not a care in the world.

We talked firstly about the plans Uncle John had for the land, and Ralph made us describe them in detail.

‘The idea is that everyone in the village should share in the profits of the land, not draw a wage as such,’ Richard explained, his tone neutral. ‘The profits are paid into a common fund which buys new seeds and equipment. We landlords draw a wage which represents interest on the money invested in the land. And the remainder of the fund is divided according to the amount of work each individual has done.’

‘The idea is to establish some sort of communality?’ asked Ralph. I knew he knew the answer, and I stayed silent, watching his face, watching him test Richard, judge him. Richard’s eyes were as limpid as a pool. You would have thought him a most ardent land reformer.

Richard nodded. ‘So that the difference between masters and men is erased,’ he said. ‘We are all working together. Success or failure, we all share in the profits.’

Ralph nodded. ‘It’s a good plan,’ he said. He looked at Richard carefully. ‘A generous one,’ he said. ‘What do the landowners gain from it, d’you think, Master Richard?’

‘Very little,’ Richard said frankly. ‘It’s my papa’s idea, to set Acre to rights. To repay for the bad things which happened in the past. It benefits the village. It helps the poor.’ He paused, glanced at Ralph’s dark face, tested the air: ‘Perhaps the best way is the old way, with the Laceys as squires owning the land, paying fair wages and supplying suitable charity in cases of especial need.’

Ralph nodded. ‘Is that the way you’d prefer?’ he asked.

Richard glanced at him, his eyes bright with calculation. ‘I want to make sure Acre is a good place for everyone,’ he said. ‘Whatever way we decide to do it, I want to ensure that the village is set to rights. At least in the old way, everyone knew where they were.’

Ralph nodded as if he had learned something. ‘And you, Miss Julia?’ he asked.

‘I agree with Richard,’ I said steadily, holding to my promise.

Ralph smiled at me, a little intimate smile which suggested he
knew I was lying and that in my heart I wanted the village to own its land outright. One of the logs shifted in the hearth and a little plume of ash and smoke went up. There was a moment of utter peace, his eyes upon me and me smiling at him.

Richard moved irritably, and the spell was broken. ‘What shall I tell my papa?’ he said. ‘He asked us to discuss the scheme with you. May I tell him you prefer the old ways?’

Ralph pushed back his chair from the table and stamped on his wooden legs to the door to throw it open and look out, up the little back track to Acre. ‘Look, you,’ he said, leaning on the doorpost and looking out. ‘This is a fine scheme, and a generous one from any landowner, even a bankrupt one. I respect that. But you are asking for someone to give up the way he has lived for the past fourteen years, wild, and without a master. Starving in winter maybe, but eating game and fish and fowl all summer. And free to work as he pleases, or poach as he pleases, or fish as he pleases every day of the year. You are asking a man like that to settle down into a routine of working.

‘And for what? You are not even offering a decent wage. You are offering the promise of a share in the profits on crops which are not yet in the ground. If the profits are small, you yourselves tell me that first out of the fund is the needs of the land, second is your share, and last are the workers. If there are no profits at all – well, you have the option to sell the land. And sell it now as a going concern with a village eager for work. But if there are no profits, then the people of Acre starve for another winter.

‘You landlords risk nothing – you have a derelict estate you cannot work or sell. If the village was to go for this scheme, you would have them back at work at no cost to you, and if they fail to work hard enough to make the profits your scheme needs, they are the ones who suffer. Landlords never suffer. They write the laws, they invent the rules. They make the world, and then they expect people to be grateful for small mercies!’

Ralph leaned back against the doorpost and smiled at us both as though we were rather charming brigands. ‘You offer no guarantees,’ he said. ‘Acre is guaranteed to you. Everyone here is so
poor that there is nowhere they can go, and no freedom they can take. But you can suit yourselves. You can play at being radical for a few years, or you can sell the estate tomorrow at a profit, to the first buyer who comes your way, rack-renter, corn-forestaller, whatever. There are no controls over the gentry,’ he said and paused. ‘There never are,’ he added.

Richard and I sat in stunned silence. In everything Uncle John had said since his return from India, we had never seen the scheme like this. Ralph Megson, who was not of the Quality, saw the objections in a flash. And he had seen it as another ruse by the masters against the men, concealed, this time, in some persuasive egalitarian fair-share scheme, profiteering wrapped up prettily. I dropped my eyes to the tablecloth and coloured up to my ears with shame at my foolishness in not spotting such an obvious argument against the idea, and in my shame at being seen by Ralph Megson as one of the gentry who take what they have not earned and use what they have not made.

He left the door open and the evening sunlight streamed on to the brick floor and turned the dust into little stars floating in infinity. He trod heavily back to the table and the stars swirled at his passing. As he went behind me, the back of his hand just brushed the nape of my neck, and I knew it was a touch which meant forgiveness.

‘Tell Dr MacAndrew I’ll think on it,’ Ralph said, surprisingly. ‘It’s a bold scheme and if there were such a thing as a landlord one could trust, it would be a good one. It needs some guarantees from the two of you, or you will never persuade Acre to do it; and you’d not have my support. But if the two of you are committed to the idea, it might work.’

‘If you advise that the land is best worked in the old ways, with the squire owning everything and good wages paid, I think my papa would take your advice,’ Richard said quickly.

Ralph looked hard at him. ‘Do you now?’ he asked. And he said no more.

‘We must go,’ I said after a little pause. ‘Thank you for our tea, Mr Megson.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Both of you must come and see me again.’ He nodded at Richard. ‘If you’re interested in hawking, my goshawk will be sent down from London in the next few days. I’d be happy to take you out with me.’

‘Thank you, I will!’ Richard said, and for the first time that afternoon his smile to Ralph was genuine – not the calculating charm he had donned since Mama and Uncle John had joined in backing Mr Megson against his accusation.

Ralph walked with us to the gate and helped me up the step into the gig while Richard loosed the horse. I put out my hand to him.

‘Good day, Miss Julia,’ he said with the mocking courtesy I had dreamed of this morning. Then he bent his proud greying head and kissed my hand. At the touch of his lips on my fingers I shivered like a birch tree in a breeze. He stepped back into his patch of garden and waved farewell to us.

T
he news we brought of Ralph Megson’s reaction made Uncle John look anxious at supper and sent him into the library to look at the provisional leases he had drawn up. The next day he ordered the carriage for Chichester to see the Wideacre lawyers to ask them what they thought about a contract which would bind both the workers and the squires.

He paused as he came down the steps. I was in the front garden, the very picture of a demure young lady in a high-waisted white gown and a sun-bonnet to shield my face. But my fingers were suspiciously muddy, and when Uncle John came down the path, I was not quick enough to tuck the little spade out of sight.