The Favoured Child (83 page)

‘No one,’ I said. ‘I have lost my fear of you because I can see that you are afraid. I can see that you think that Ralph Megson is on his way back home. And you are afraid that he is coming for you.’

I paused. Richard had gone white, and his grip on my hand was suddenly slack. My bones were throbbing with pain, but my heart was pounding in excitement.

‘I think you are right,’ I said, and my spirits leaped to see how his eyes flashed to my face, alert with fright. ‘If Ralph is indeed coming home, then he will be coming to settle his score with you. I know him well,’ I continued sweetly. ‘And I must say that
if I were you and had betrayed him to his death, then I would rather be dead and in the family vault than have Ralph Megson coming after me. For be very sure, Richard, it is the only place you will be safe!’

Richard blenched and dropped his eyes, and I looked at his downcast face for a second before I turned on my heel and went up the stairs to my room. I felt his eyes on my back and I kept my head high as I climbed one weary step after another. Not until I was safe in my room did I lean back against the door and shudder.

I might face Richard down when he was in a twitch of nerves about Ralph, but without the courage given me by one frail old lady I was in a poor state. The baby was heavy in my belly; I was drained by the weight of it and the fatigue of it.

I might talk bravely about ending the line of the squires, but my heart was weak with love for my baby. Knowing its father and our line, I could not help fearing the birth of some dread monstrosity, some freak. Then I thought of the feel of that perfect little hand through my belly wall and I wanted to weep for love of it, a love that I should never be able to show.

The baby had to be sent away and Richard had to be stopped. I had to find some courage from somewhere to face the struggle with Richard, to resist his anger, to resist his corrupt power and somehow to keep free of the sucking madness which Richard had released upon us.

I might talk bravely of dying in childbirth and thus ending the line, but in truth I was very much afraid.

I might talk bravely about fostering the child, or killing it, but my heart was weak for its touch, and I longed to hold its little body.

I might talk bravely about defeating Richard, about hating him, but I had loved him all my life, and I sometimes thought I had imagined the monster which he had become.

I fell into bed like a sickly child and slept while the January sky darkened at my window. I awoke cold, in a darkened room, at neither dawn nor dusk, and I did not know where I was, nor what time it was, and felt afraid.

R
ichard was not at home for dinner that afternoon. Stride said that he had ridden in to Chichester and would not be back until late. I thought I knew where he had gone. He came into the parlour when Stride brought in the tea, and he confirmed my guess. He had ridden to Chichester and been all day at the barracks. He had brought home with him half a dozen soldiers to be quartered at the Bush in the village.

‘I told them that Acre cannot be trusted, and that Ralph may come here and try to start a riot against us,’ Richard said. He waved away a dish of tea and rang the bell for a mug of ale.

He had not eaten since breakfast; his eyes were very bright. Richard, the lovely brave child of my girlhood, was a very frightened man. I watched him over my dish and my heart was torn between triumph and sadness for the boy that had gone.

‘I had a deal of trouble making them take me seriously,’ he said. His face was sulky with worry. ‘If it hadn’t been for the first riot here, I think they would have refused me,’ he said. ‘It’s too bad! I wish Grandpapa Havering was here; they’d have to listen to him.

‘All they would tell me was that they thought it most unlikely that Megson would stay in the country, and that there was good intelligence from London that he and the others had taken ship to the Americas. They simply would not credit the fact that I believe he will come here.’

I nodded and said nothing.

‘The gypsies have arrived,’ Richard said. ‘I told the soldiers to keep close watch on them. It is just the usual families. But you never can tell with those people.’

I nodded again. Richard went to the parlour door and hallooed towards the kitchen for another mug of beer. He was thirsty. I imagined he had been drinking Hollands in Chichester for courage, after his visit to the barracks.

‘Why did you lie to me about your visit to Acre?’ he said suddenly.

I jumped, and spilled a little tea on my dark gown. ‘I didn’t,’ I said, too quickly.

‘You did,’ he said. He was smiling slightly now. It always cheered Richard to catch me out. He came back inside the room and went to his favourite chair. Stride, his face a frozen mask of disapproval, brought in the second mug of ale on a silver tray and placed it by Richard’s elbow. Now his humiliation at the barracks and his fear of Ralph were half forgotten in the pleasure of bullying his servants and his wife. ‘You spoke privately with one of the old women,’ he said. ‘Who?’

I heard the hectoring tone of the bully of my childhood and my old craven spirit quailed. Then I thought of Ralph coming slowly along the secret paths towards Acre, and my baby coming along the secret tunnels to the world.

And I thought also, at last, of myself. My survival in these lonely times depended on my finding some rock in my own life which I could build on. I had lost Clary and my mama. I had lost Ralph. I had lost my land and the power of being the heir to Wideacre. From somewhere in my own heart I
had
to find some base in my own life. If I trembled every time Richard was crossed, he would master me indeed. He would master me for ever.

‘I did speak privately with one of the old women,’ I said steadily. ‘It was nothing which need concern you. It was not business.’

Richard looked at me askance. ‘I hear you mentioned my name,’ he said. ‘I’m told you spoke against me.’ Richard looked shifty. He trusted neither his informant, nor his wife, nor the village which was his own.

I paused with a sudden fear. Surely there could be no friend to
Richard in Acre? No paid informant who had spoken against me? Someone who would inform against Ralph? In all my confidence of Acre’s loyalty I had always been certain that Acre could not be suborned. But someone had listened to me talk to Mrs Merry. And someone had reported that speech to Richard.

George.

Richard’s smart new groom, George.

It could be no other. He was a newcomer from out of the county, hired by Richard for his sly face and his quick ears to replace Jem. He did not know one old woman of Acre from another, so the report he brought to Richard was vague.

I looked at Richard with contempt. And he, in his morass of suspicion, saw only that I was unafraid and thought that George had lied to him, that he could trust no one, not even his paid spy.

‘You listen to servants’ tittle-tattle and you’ll get false reports,’ I said disdainfully. Richard flushed dark red. ‘I spoke to no one,’ I said coldly. ‘But you need not reprimand your spy for getting things wrong. He will not again ride behind me when I drive. Not to Acre, not to a bishop’s tea-party. I won’t have a dirty little spy in my employ. So you can dismiss him, or, if he is on the box, you will be alone in the carriage.’

My head held as high as a princess’s, I swept from the room and did not stop until I reached my bedroom door and shut it tight behind me. It was a gamble. No one knew that better than I.

But if I could face Richard down when he was afraid of the rumour of Ralph’s return, if I could look at him with eyes of burning scorn when he had, indeed, caught me out, then I thought I might have some sort of future on the land.

Acre was smiling again. Acre had once more the impertinent grin of a community which knows itself to be badly mastered and recks little what the masters say. I thought that even I, in the big house, in the bed of the squire of Acre, might learn that courage too.

I undressed, but I kept on Mama’s rose-pearl necklace and her ear-rings. They comforted me a little as I slid between the
cold sheets. Since the baby had grown so large, I had taken to sleeping on my back with my rounded moon-shaped belly pointing at the ceiling. I sprawled out in the bed and sighed as the little kicks and wriggles started, making my own body leap like a net of eels. Sometimes I loathed this child as the misbegotten heir of Wideacre, sometimes I adored it as the fruit of my body, my own child. And sometimes, like now when I was tired, I just sighed like any pregnant woman and wished the hours away and the sleepless night over.

The baby was quieter than usual, and I fell asleep by candlelight, forgetting to blow out the flame. So Richard was in my room, and naked in my bed, before I was awake and before I could stir myself to protest.

He had one hand over my mouth in case I should cry out, and the other, urgently, pulled at my nightgown. I could have bitten his hand, I suppose. The palm was salty against my teeth, and it felt dirty. But I did not think of doing it.

I did not think of doing it.

I was shamed that I did not think.

I thrashed a little, under the sheets, encumbered by the great belly on me and the tucked-in covers. I gave a little smothered moan behind his hard hand, and he saw my eyes widen in distress and darken with horror. But he smiled his blue-eyed devil’s smile, and I knew then that the madness was on Richard and that it might – at last, at last – be the end for me tonight.

It was not lust for him. It was not love or desire, nor any hot half-forgivable sin. It was power and cruelty which were driving Richard onward. He had seen the tilt of my head, he had seen the bright courage in my eyes, and he had waited until I was asleep and unguarded, and then he had come for me. He was in my bed, his hand hard on my face, his other hand pulling up my nightdress and his weight coming down on top of me.

He drew the hem of the gown up to my neck, and I froze as his hand brushed across my throat, across the pearls. I knew he was thinking longingly of throttling me as I lay there, eyes wide with fear, beneath him.

When I saw him smile, I knew I was lost.

I was ready. I had promised Mrs Tyacke, I had promised Mrs Merry with all of Acre listening. I would not give them another squire to rule over them. I would end the line of the Laceys. If Richard killed me tonight, that would be the end of me and of Richard’s heir – and of Richard too, for they would have to take him up for my murder. I gritted my teeth at the discomfort of the weight of him on top of my rounded belly, and at the distasteful hand against my mouth. And I gritted my teeth for courage and said a swift farewell in my mind to the things I had loved-to James, to Wideacre, to Mama. For I was readying myself for death.

He was heavy. He was half on me, half beside me. The weight of the unborn child kept me pinned to the bed. He put his hand back on the great swelling of my belly and stroked down the slope when his devil-begotten child shifted uneasily as if it knew my fear.

Oh, Julia,’ he said longingly, half to himself. ‘I had forgotten this. It is only this that saves your life tonight.’

I tried to keep my face impassive.

‘I meant to strangle you,’ he said dreamily. ‘I am sick of your long face around the house. There are other women I could have here if you were gone. There are other girls I could marry. I wanted you because you had Wideacre, but now it is mine, and I want you no more.’

The candle guttered, throwing menacing shadows on the ceiling above me. But nothing was more menacing than the shadow which was in my bed, which spoke such obscenities in such an intimate whisper.

‘I
did
love you once,’ he said as if he needed to reassure himself. ‘When we were very little children, before we knew who we were, or what we were to inherit. I think I loved you then.’ He broke off. He was talking to himself; it seemed he was in a dream of other times.

‘I loved Mama-Aunt too,’ he said. His voice was suddenly higher in pitch, childlike. I realized with an instinctual shudder
that Richard had gone. He was back in the sunlight of his Wideacre childhood with an aunt who adored him and a cousin who would cross the world for him. The world where he had been the beloved little tyrant.

‘I loved Mama-Aunt so much,’ he said sweetly. A shadow crossed his face. ‘But you were always trying to be first in Acre,’ he said, cross as a petulant child. ‘Always trying to come between me and Mama-Aunt. You
would
push in where you were not wanted, Julia. And though I could forgive you if you were very, very sorry, I could not help but be so angry, so very angry, with the people you tried to take away from me . . . Are you listening to me, Julia?’ Richard said with quick irritation.

I nodded, as obedient as a child in school. His grip had tightened on my mouth again. I feared I was going to retch at the smell of his hand against my teeth and gums, the odour of horse-sweat, cigar smoke, Hollands gin. And beneath it all the heart-wrenching smell of Richard, the cousin I had loved for so many years. So very many years.

‘I killed her,’ he said, speaking, at last, the unspeakable. ‘Your friend Clary. I tried and tried to be friends with her. I even tried pretending I was in love with her. She laughed in my face!’ His voice was shocked. ‘She said you were worth ten of me.’ He paused. ‘I knew I’d pay her out for that.’

I watched him, and said nothing. His blue eyes had become hazy.

‘She saw us,’ he said, ‘when I raped you in the summer-house. I looked up and saw her. I think she was going to nm towards us, to help you. But she saw my face. She ran off as fast as she could towards Acre. I expect she thought to get help. I caught her at the Fenny,’ he said languidly. ‘I put my hand around her throat. She was like you, actually, because she was quite strong too. But do you know, she was so afraid, she hardly fought at all. She just choked and then her tongue and her eyes came out. Rather horrible. She looked so nasty I pushed her in the river and went home. I knew it would be all right for me. Everything always is all right for me.’

He sighed quietly. ‘I killed your mama too,’ he said. A petulant expression crossed his face; I could see the droop of his disappointed mouth in the firelight. ‘She was running off with John. That was so horrible for her to do such a thing. She had joined with John against me. She sent me away as soon as he came home. I had thought she was a beautiful woman, a wonderful woman. A woman like an angel. But she was just a whore like all of them. Like you. As soon as my father came home, she was running after him like a bitch in heat. She forgot all about me. It was his idea to disinherit me, and she was going to do anything he wanted. She was going to overturn our marriage, and I would have been disinherited.’ He paused. His face became calm again, his words measured, judicious. ‘That was a very bad thing to do. You do not understand business, Julia, because you are just a woman, but that was a very meddlesome thing for Mama-Aunt to do.’ He paused again. ‘I am surprised she dreamed of it,’ he said simply, with grave respect. ‘She was, apart from that, such a feminine sort of woman.’