Meridon

23

Peregrine escorted me home riding a showy hunter from his mama’s stables. Mr Fortescue came out on the terrace when he saw us riding up the drive and I saw by his face that he was not pleased to see me with Perry.

He invited him inside and offered him a dish of tea. Perry rolled his eyes at me and graciously accepted. He sat in the parlour with one eye on the clock, delivered his mama’s message – word-perfect – and then left as the clock ticked precisely to the twenty minutes.

Mr Fortescue looked gravely at me.

‘You have attracted the attention of Lady Clara,’ he said. ‘She isn’t the woman I would have chosen to be your adviser.’

I looked back at him, my face as insolent as when I used to face my da.

‘I daresay,’ I said. ‘But then you wanted me locked up here with some country widow for five years.’

James half gasped and shook his head. He strode over to the window and jerked back the curtain to look out. I wondered why he did not yell at me, then I remembered Quality manners. He was waiting until he could speak to me civilly.

I thought him a fool.

‘You are trying to misunderstand me,’ he said in a soft voice when he turned back to the room again. ‘I do not want to lock you up here, I do not want to dictate how you should live. You may have the friends you please. But I would not be doing my duty if I did not tell you that Lady Clara has a reputation in the wider world for being a spendthrift, a gambler and a woman of the world. Her son, Lord Perry, is still at university but even so he has the reputation of gambling and heavy drinking.’

I looked at James and my face was hard. ‘You are saying they are not well-behaved people,’ I said blankly.

James nodded. ‘I am sorry to speak ill of them and I would not gossip. But you do not know the world they move in and I have to tell you they are not suitable company for a young lady.’

I smiled. ‘Then they’ll do well for me,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot I’ve not told you, Mr Fortescue, for I see no need for you to know. But hear now that my father was a drunkard and a gambler, that I made my living by horse-breaking and bad trading and by stacking the card decks for him. I am not the young lady you want me to be, and I’ll never learn to be. I’m too old and too wild and too hard to be made into that mould now. The Haverings will do well enough for me.’

He was about to answer when Becky tapped at the door and asked if I was riding with Will Tyacke, for he was waiting for me in the yard.

I nodded at James and it was me who ended the little scrap this time. I went out into the yard feeling elated with my victory. I had gone some way to even a score that was running between us; between him who was trying to make me the child I should have been if he had found me and brought me here in time – and the real hard-hearted vagrant I was.

Will was in the yard, high on his horse. He smiled to see me.

‘You got Lord Perry home safe then, I see,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ I said. I didn’t choose to tell him any more.

‘He’s a pleasant enough youngster,’ Will said, invitingly.

‘Aye,’ I said. I swung up into the saddle, and bent my head to tighten the girth.

The horses moved off, Will was waiting for me to say more.

‘Bit wild,’ he offered.

‘Aye,’ I said. I had the girth to my liking and I leaned forward and flicked Sea’s mane all over to the right side of his neck.

‘Still, there’s many a young woman who finds him handsome,’ Will said judicially.

‘Aye,’ I assented.

‘Some of the lasses don’t see him drunk, don’t see that he’s a lad who cares for no one but himself,’ Will said pompously.

I nodded.

‘Then they think he’s a fine young gentleman, they’re mad for a smile from him.’

‘Oh aye,’ I said by way of variation.

Will surrendered. ‘Do you like him, Sarah?’ he asked.

I checked Sea and looked straight at him. His face was serious, I knew that this question mattered very much to him. He wanted an honest answer.

‘Nowt to do with you,’ I said blankly and shut my mouth on my silence.

We rode without speaking down the drive to the lane, and then turned left to the village. I was looking around me as we went, at the greening hedge on either side of the lane and the rustle where birds were feeding their young in hidden nests. Will was scowling at the road between his horse’s ears.

‘I thought I’d take you to see the village schoolmaster today,’ he said as we came within sight of the first cottages. ‘He was away the other day when we were riding through. We’re rather proud of our school.’

He led the way down the village street. The cobbler was at his last again in the little window. He waved at me and I waved back. The carter shouted ‘G’day’ from his wagon where he was hammering a loose board. I smiled my bright meaningless show smile and he beamed back at me – glad of false coin.

Will rode past the church and past the track up to the Downs to a long square barn which stood parallel with the lane. From inside I could hear the hum of children chanting a song or a poem or some rhyme.

Will whistled, a long sharp sound and after a few minutes the door at the side opened and a young man came out, blinking in the bright sunlight after the shade of the classroom.

He was dressed very oddly! He was all in green. Baggy green breeches tucked into sound leather boots, and a baggy green jerkin with a wide leather belt. His straight black hair was cropped short and parted in the middle in a way which made his face look broad and strong and ugly but somehow nice at the same time.

‘This is Michael Fry,’ Will said. ‘Michael, this is Sarah Lacey.’

‘Hello, sister,’ the man said. ‘I do not call you by any title because I call no one by any title. I believe that we were all created equal and I show the same respect to you as I do to anyone else. You may call me Michael or you may call me brother.’

Sixteen years on the road had prepared me for all sorts of people. I had met men like Michael before.

‘Hello Michael,’ I said. ‘Are you the teacher here?’

He smiled and his dark face suddenly lightened. ‘I am the teacher of the young citizens,’ he said. ‘And in the evenings I read and talk with their parents. We study together to prepare ourselves for our work here, and our plans to expand this community so that it is an example for the rest of the country and a mission to them!’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Michael came to us three years ago from a community in Wales,’ Will said. There was laughter in the back of his voice, but it was not directed at Michael. ‘He has served the corporation very greatly in his advice to us, and by working with the children.’

Michael smiled at Will. ‘They are the future,’ he said. ‘They must be prepared for it.’

Will nodded. ‘This was set up as a school by your mother’s mother,’ he said. ‘When they started setting the place to rights and handing over to the workers. Before that it was a tithe barn.’ He looked at the height and length of it. ‘It makes you realize how costly are the benefits of a spiritual life,’ he said wryly.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

Michael flashed a smile up at me. ‘This was a barn where they stored the share of the crop they had to give to the church and to the vicar,’ he said. ‘We still have a vicar but he is supported by a small fee from the estate. We do not allow him to take his share of wealth when he has neither ploughed nor sown.’

I nodded. ‘He’ll like that,’ I said.

Michael choked on a little crow of laughter and Will grinned at me.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He does.’

‘Anyway, now it is a school in this end of it, and the other half is lodging for Michael and for the children whose parents are dead or run away. We have three at the moment.’

I nodded. I knew enough about village life to know this was unheard of. Orphans and pauper children should be taken to the local poorhouse where they dragged out a miserable childhood and were sold to employers as soon as possible. Rea and Katie had agreed that the poorhouse was worse than anything. ‘They hit me all the time,’ Rea had once told me, surprised at violence which was not done in anger but as routine. ‘Every morning before breakfast. For being a Rom.’

‘And in the middle section,’ Will went on, ‘is where the old people work who are no longer fit for outside work. They spin together, they mind the babbies when the mothers are away in the fields, they do some carving, they make up herbs. And we pay them a little for their work and sell the goods for the Wideacre corporation.’

An idea struck him. ‘You were brought up gypsy, weren’t you, Sarah? Could you show them how to carve those wooden flowers and dye them the pretty colours? We could sell them at Midhurst fair.’

I chuckled. ‘The only skills I learned were thieving and gambling,’ I said. ‘You don’t want me teaching a load of old women how to sharpen cards.’

Will laughed as well. ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you sharing those skills.’

‘And here,’ Michael said, gesturing to the open doorway, ‘this is my model school. When I came here there was a dame-school, it taught the children to be servants, to be farm-hands. Only a few learned to read, hardly any to write. They taught the girls to be house-servants and the boys to be ploughboys.

‘I changed that!’ he exclaimed. ‘They learn the same lessons with me: boys and girls. I will not have them taught differently. They all know how to steer a plough, they all know how to shoe a horse, they all know how to cook a meal for a family of four. Everyone should know these things and then the stamp of servitude and the idleness of the rich would be at an end!’

‘Oh,’ I said again.

Will was openly smiling at my bemused face.

‘But I also teach them skills which they would learn nowhere else,’ Michael said. ‘Here they learn to read, so that all the knowledge of the world is open to them. They learn to write, so that they can speak with one another even when they are apart. And I teach them the study of geography so they know where they are, and history, so they understand how it is that they are poor but the victors of the struggle are rich. And I teach them French so that they can talk with their brothers and sisters in the glorious republic of France.’

‘Oh,’ I said again. I closed my mouth because my jaw was gaping.

Will laughed aloud. ‘You will frighten Sarah with your Jacobinism,’ he said cheerfully. ‘She will think you want to cut off her head at least.’

Michael looked quickly upwards, and smiled. He had an endearing crooked smile, one of his front teeth was quite gone. I saw now that he was younger than I had thought. And his face was not ugly at all but somehow crumpled. His clothes were not as odd as they had first appeared. I had thought he was in costume, but I now understood that his clothes must mean something. That everything must mean something.

‘I do not want to guillotine my sister,’ he said simply. ‘How could I? She has been a poor girl and lived a simple life as we do. I am glad to welcome you to your home, sister. I hope you will find much worthy labour to undertake here.’

My mouth twisted a little wryly at the thought of my ‘simple life’ which had been all deceit and costume and magic and cheating; and as for worthy labour – I did not think I had done a day of what this man would consider worthy, or even honest, labour since I was born. But I did not want to explain this to him.

‘You cannot be glad I have come home,’ I said baldly.

He smiled at me again, that sweet smile which had so much confidence in it.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There would have been a squire come to this village sooner or later, I am very glad it is you. You have lived among poor good people, you will have seen their sufferings. You will help us here to lead a better life. I do welcome you, sister.’

I stared at him suspiciously. Either he was an utter rogue or else a simpleton. It was not possible that he could be glad I had come home.

He turned to Will. ‘Would you like to come in, brother?’ he asked. ‘The young citizens would like to see their new sister.’

Will glanced at me. ‘No,’ he said, guessing rightly that I did not want to meet the children before I had time to think about their extraordinary teacher in this odd village. ‘Sarah is looking around today. She needs to get her bearings before she meets any more of us. Take them her greetings.’

Michael nodded. ‘Fraternal greetings,’ he said.

Will chuckled. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Take them her fraternal greetings and tell them she will see them later, tomorrow or the next day.’

Michael smiled at us both, and went back towards the school. We waited until we had seen the school door close and heard the rhythm of the rhyme break up into many high voices all asking questions, and then we turned our horses back towards the way we had come and past the church towards the Common.

‘He’s a great find,’ Will said. ‘You may think him odd at first but he has done more to help this village than anyone else. He has had experience of half a dozen corporations and communes and experimental farms and everything else. He was over in France in the early days of the republic. He is a member of every legal society you can think of – and a good deal more which would be called illegal, I imagine. We’re lucky to have him with us. It took a deal of persuading.’

‘You asked him here?’ I asked in surprise. I had thought him an idiot who had come here because he could not find work elsewhere.

‘I nearly had to go on my knees, only that would have been old-fashioned servility,’ Will said. ‘He is a dedicated and brilliant teacher with a commitment to a new world. Even after all the work he has put in here I do not think we can be sure of keeping him for ever. There are other communities who would badly like him, and I think in his heart he would rather be in the Americas than anywhere else. This country offers nothing for a man of his talents, they persecute him when they should see how urgently he is trying to make the lives of working people better.’

‘Is he safe?’ I asked. I had a dim awareness of people in France and a king toppled from his throne and a riot.

Will smiled. ‘He is a man of peace,’ he said. ‘I never met his like. He will not even eat meat because an animal will have met its death for his pleasure. When I think of him, and I think of the vicar!’ He broke off and sighed.

‘Now!’ he said. ‘I’ll guarantee to win a race against that racehorse of yours on this going!’

I looked down at the path under the horses’ hooves. It was deep sand, dusty on top and thick. Very heavy going. A horse would have to have strong legs and sound wind to gallop far and fast on that.

‘A wager?’ I asked.

Will laughed. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I bet you a side-saddle (for I’ve found it already but it’ll have to be repaired for you) against,’ he paused – ‘now, what do I want?’

His eyes twinkled at me. I found I was smiling back.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what you want.’

His eyes were suddenly a little darker. ‘If you were an ordinary girl,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I’d ride a race against you for a kiss. That’s what I want from you!’

There was a silence between us for a moment which was no longer playful, and I was not smiling.

I was about to say: ‘But I am not an ordinary girl…’ when Will interrupted me before I could speak.

‘But since you’re not an ordinary girl,’ he said. ‘I don’t want a kiss from you at all. I’ll ask instead that you let me read you a pamphlet on corporations and corporation farming.’

I choked on a laugh. Will was a rogue and a cheat – I suddenly thought how Dandy would have loved him and the familiar pain thudded into my belly.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked quickly as he saw my face fall. ‘What’s the matter, Sarah? It’s only a jest.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said. I struggled to find my show smile which can go on my face and hide everything, meaning nothing. ‘It’s nothing. A little pain in my belly.’

His face was very gentle. He went to put a hand out to me but then he checked himself as he remembered that I did not like to be touched.

‘Well enough to ride?’ he asked.

‘Oh aye,’ I said, reining Sea in. ‘It’ll pass. And the bet’s on!’

He said, ‘One two three and away!’ and I gave Sea his head.

The race track was a wide white sand firebreak which wound for miles across the Common. I was in the lead as we broke out of the trees but the horses were neck and neck as we forged up towards a steady slope.

Sea was panting, he hated heavy going, but the cob had a steady rolling stride which ate up the ground. As the hill got steeper the cob went ahead by a nose, and then by a little more.

I raised myself up in the saddle and bawled at Sea, over the noise of the creaking leather and the thudding hooves and the flying sand, and he put his head down and went that extra bit faster. I guided him to the side of the path where the greening heather was a better foothold and his strong white legs reached forward, he put his heart into his speed and we forged ahead with a yell of triumph.

‘You win!’ Will shouted as the hill levelled out, and I pulled Sea up. He was panting, his flanks dark with sweat. ‘You win!’ Will said again. ‘And I’ll pay up, though riding on the edge of the firebreak is cheating.’

I beamed at him. ‘I always cheat,’ I said. ‘Especially if the stakes are high.’

Will nodded. ‘I should have known. What’s your game, Sarah? The bones?’

I shook my head. ‘Cards,’ I said.

Will chuckled and we turned the horses for home. ‘Where did you learn?’ he asked, entertained.

The sun was warm on my back and I was happy to be out on the land. A cuckoo was calling loudly and contentedly away over to our right and some early gorse was making the air smell sweet. Will pulled his cob alongside Sea and we went along companionably side by side and I told him about Da and his cheating at wayside inns. I told him how I was taught, when I was just a little child, to go around the back of the card players and to see what cards they had and to signal it to my da. I told him how Da would tell me to fetch a fresh deck of cards from the landlord and how I learned to stack them in the right order to suit Da, whoever had the deal.

‘And did they never spot you?’ Will asked, amazed.

I laughed at him for being a gull. ‘Of course they did, sometimes!’ I said. ‘I was only a little girl, my hands weren’t big enough to hide the stack. Mostly they didn’t. She was there too…’

I broke off. I had been about to say that she was there too and she would sing, or do a little dance with her skirts held out, and that the men who were fools enough to play with Da were also fool enough to take their eyes off him when a woman, even a little girl, was up on a table where they could see up her skirt.

I lost the thread of what I was saying and my face went bitter.

‘I can’t remember what I was saying…’ I said.

‘Never mind,’ Will said. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell me another time.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said. I knew I never would.

Will glanced at the sky. ‘About noon,’ he said. ‘I have to go up to the Downs later to check on the sheep. The lambs are with the ewes – would you like to ride up with me? They’re a pretty sight.’

I was about to say yes, but then I remembered Lady Clara.

‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘Lady Clara is coming to see us this afternoon and I should change into the riding habit.’

Will nodded equably. ‘I’ll take you home then,’ he said turning his horse’s head. ‘Can’t keep the Quality waiting.’

‘I’ll ride alone,’ I said. ‘I know the way.’

Will paused, looked at me. ‘Pain bad?’ he asked, knowing with his quick cleverness that it had not passed as I said it would. He did not know, as I did, that this was a pain that would never pass. It was not a share of bad meat which was tearing my belly, it was the loss of her which hit me afresh, every time I laughed, every time I saw something which would have given her joy.

‘No,’ I said, denying his insight, and denying the comfort he might have given me. ‘I’ve no pain. But I can ride home alone and you can go to your work.’

He nodded and held his horse still as I rode away. I felt his eyes on my back and I straightened in the saddle and even sang a little song which the wind would blow back to him and tell him that I was light-hearted. It was the song Robert used to order when he could get a fiddler to play the ponies in. It was a song from the show. My life was still all show.

I rode home slowly, watching the high green horizon of the Downs and the little shapes of white which were Will’s flock of sheep moving slowly across it. The Downs were like a wall around this little village, they held it like you might cup your hand on something rare and strange like a butterfly or a tiny bright beetle.

I passed some people on the Common, gathering brushwood and furze. They waved as I went past and called: ‘Good day, Sarah!’ and I smiled my empty smile back at them, and called back: ‘Good day,’ and thought that I had come a damned long way still to have no handle to my name.

The path led me down to the back of the house and there was a little drystone wall which Sea popped over, hardly breaking his stride. A track led me to the back of the stables and I put him in his loose-box myself, he still did not like Sam. I was surprised that he let Will touch him.

I was rubbing him down, hissing at him between my teeth, and he was turning his head and nibbling the top of my curls as I worked when I heard the noise of wheels on the gravel of the drive and peeped over the door to see a carriage turning in the gate.

‘Damme, it’s her la’ship,’ I said to Sea. ‘I hoped to be in a dress before she came.’

I came out of the stables and watched the carriage draw up. I noticed the horses first. A pair of matching bays, very fine animals, well fed and with glossy coats. Their harness could have been better cleaned but the brass bits were shiny and bright. I nodded. I thought they had been made ready for a woman who liked the look of things to be right. The straps would wear out quicker for not being properly oiled but maybe she didn’t care for that.

On the box was a driver in a bright ornate uniform, and behind the open carriage, looking like a pair of pouter pigeons, were a couple of footmen in the same livery. The carriage stopped at the terrace steps and they flung themselves off the box, opened the door – showing the linings of the carriage of pale blue silk – let down the steps and put out a respectful hand for Lady Clara.

She took her time. I came out into the yard to watch her. It was as good as a play. First she snapped her blue parasol shut, the footmen waiting like statues all the time. Then she loosened the veil which had gone over her hat to protect her from dust and pushed it back a little, then she stood up in the carriage, gave her skirts a little shake, and put out her hand to the footman who had been standing waiting, as if he could be there all day if she had a mind to it.

At her first gesture towards him he leaped closer to the carriage and took her gloved hand on his arm as if he were honoured at the touch. Lady Clara took two tiny steps down the steps of the carriage and then paused at the foot of the terrace.

Both footmen fell in behind her as she walked, slowly, slowly, like a mountebank preparing some trickery, up to the front door. Then she stood before the door in absolute stillness.

The footmen waited. I waited. Sam, who had come out from the tack room, waited beside me. Then she slightly nodded her head and one of the footmen stepped forward and hammered at the front door as if he were going to beat it down for her ladyship to step over the ruins.

It swung open at once and Mr Fortescue stepped out.

‘Lady Clara!’ he said pleasantly. ‘What a time it took you to manage the steps. Don’t tell me you are troubled with rheumatism? Come in out of the draught, do!’

I gave a muffled shriek and ducked back into the loose-box to yell with laughter against Sea’s side. I thought James was no match for her ladyship, but as an opening attack it couldn’t be faulted.

Sam looked at me dourly over the half-door as I snorted for breath.

‘Quality,’ he said, and spat on the cobbles of the yard.

I made haste then and got indoors and up the back stairs and into the purple riding habit, then I went half-way down the stairs, thinking to join them. The parlour door was shut. I hovered, uneasy, on the stairs and then I heard Lady Clara’s tinkling empty laugh. I did not think I could interrupt them, and I didn’t know if they wished me there. In the end I waited in my room until I should be sent for.

Becky came up after a while and asked would I go down and take a dish of tea with Lady Clara and James.

I glanced at myself in the mirror. I had spent some time tying my hair back. The purple ribbon was twisted and looked like string, but at least my hair was not tumbling around my shoulders. I straightened my back and went down the stairs.

Lady Clara was sitting at her ease in one of the parlour chairs with her tea cup and a little cake on the table beside her. She smiled at me as I came in, the smile of a woman who has everything she wants. I looked across at James. He looked irritable.

‘Ah Sarah!’ she said. ‘Your guardian and I have been discussing your education and prospects. Come and give me a kiss.’

I went carefully over and pressed my warm cheek against her cool powdery one.

She gestured to the chair beside her.

‘Your guardian fears I am about to kidnap you!’ she said smiling. ‘I have assured him we just want your company.’

James nodded. ‘Miss Lacey has a lot to learn on her estate,’ he said. ‘She has been riding with her manager and she needs to learn to read the estate books.’

‘Certainly, certainly!’ Lady Clara said easily. ‘But she also needs dresses, hats, gloves, a hairdresser, a number of teachers, all manner of things so that she can be a Miss Lacey of Wideacre!’

James stirred his tea and made a little clatter with the teaspoon in his cup. Becky passed me a cup and went out, closing the door softly behind her. I wondered if she was listening in the hall. I knew I would have.

‘Wideacre is not an ordinary estate,’ he said gently. ‘And Miss Lacey is not an ordinary young lady. She needs to learn and approve the plans for the land before anything else. There will be plenty of time for fashionable trifles later on.’

Lady Clara raised her arched eyebrows in surprise. ‘Plenty of time?’ she exclaimed. ‘But the child is sixteen! When do you propose she should be presented at Court?’

James blinked. ‘Court?’ he asked, and his surprise was real. ‘What should she want to go to Court for?’

Lady Clara put her cup down and flirted her fan open. ‘For her London season, of course,’ she said reasonably. ‘She must have a London Season, and who is to present her?’

James ran his hand through his hair. ‘I had not thought of a Season,’ he said. ‘It is hardly something which matters. The most important thing is to teach Sarah how to go along in the country, to learn her way around, to understand what is being done here on her land, and to prepare her for when she is twenty-one and comes into her own fortune.’

Lady Clara laughed a delicious tinkling laugh.

‘The most important thing!’ she exclaimed. ‘Mucking about on a little farm!’ She broke off. ‘Oh! forgive me! I did not mean to be rude! But who spends all their life in the country except working people? You would hardly condemn Sarah to being stuck down here with some dreary little companion, I daresay, when she could be living the life of a young lady in London.’

‘It is hardly incarceration!’ James said heatedly. ‘She will come to love living here.’

‘You don’t live here,’ I observed. ‘You live in London!’

Lady Clara flirted her fan to hide her face for a second and behind the shelter of it shot me a wink.

James got to his feet and took a turn about the room. ‘Sarah!’ he appealed to me. ‘Surely you don’t want a life with the Quality in London. It’s not what you were bred to, you cannot wish it?’

I looked at him thoughtfully. He had run my estate to favour the workers and to profit them. He had not claimed my rents as he should have done. He had not sought for me, and he had not found me. By the time I came here she was gone; and all the benefits of the life here could not help her.

‘I want the best,’ I said, and there was no softness in my voice at all. ‘I have not travelled this far and worked this hard to live a life which is second-best. I want the best there is. If that is London then that is what I want.’

There was silence in the pink elegant parlour. James was looking at me as if I had taken some long-beloved dream away from him.

‘I thought that this would be the best for you,’ he said gently. ‘It would have been your mother’s first choice.’

Lady Clara snapped her fan shut with a little click, got to her feet and shook out her skirts.

‘Well then,’ she said. ‘I must go, and we are agreed. Sarah may come and visit me while she continues learning her way around her estate, and I will advise her as to clothes and behaviour and how to go on. When you are ready to go back to London, Mr Fortescue, then Sarah can stay with me until the start of the Season. My lawyers will contact you with details of how her allowance should be paid.’

She moved towards the door but James Fortescue made no move to open it for her.

‘Is this your wish, Sarah?’ he asked me again.

I flared up. ‘For God’s sake!’ I exclaimed. ‘Haven’t I just said so?’

Lady Clara tapped her fan sticks on her hand with a little click and I turned to her. ‘Don’t swear,’ she said. ‘Don’t raise your voice. Don’t answer a question with a question. Now try again.’

I looked at her, my eyes blazing with temper at her, and at James Fortescue and at this whole world of choices and decisions where there was nothing and no one I could trust.

Lady Clara looked back at me, her blue eyes limpid. She reminded me of Robert Gower, and how he trained me to his trade. Then I saw how she had got her way with James without raising her voice. You could use Quality manners as sharp and as hard as a honed knife blade. She raised her eyebrows at me, reminding me she was waiting.

I turned to James and I smiled at him with no warmth in my face. ‘It is my wish to go to London for a Season,’ I said. ‘It is where I belong, I want to be there.’

Lady Clara put her hand out to me and I walked with her to the carriage. ‘Well done,’ she said, when we were out in the hall, ‘You’re a quick learner. I’ll send Perry around with the carriage and he can take you for a drive this evening, then you can ride over to the Hall tomorrow and I will have a dressmaker from Chichester come to fit you. Perry will come and fetch you.’ She paused. ‘I think you and Perry will enjoy each other’s company,’ she said. Then she got into her carriage, spread her blue parasol, and was gone.