Meridon

31

It was not the last. He was late home that night, even later than us, and we were in yawning after a dull ball and supper party at half-past one. So I did not see him that night. But at noon the next day he tapped on the door of my room and came in while I was sitting before my mirror to set my bonnet straight.

He nodded casually to the maid and she swept him a curtsey and went from the room without another word. I watched him in the glass. I did not think I would ever learn that knack, that Quality knack, of getting what you wanted without even having to ask for it.

‘Sarah, d’you have much money by you?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I’m short, and I lost again last night.’

I reached for my gloves and smoothed them out.

‘I have most of my quarter’s allowance left,’ I said. ‘But I will need that for my bills. Your mama and I have been buying dresses ever since we arrived in London.’

Perry nodded. His eyes were red-rimmed again, his hands were shaking slightly.

‘Be a darling and lend it to me,’ he said. ‘I need it this morning, I’ll pay you back tomorrow.’

I hesitated. ‘I don’t think I should, Perry,’ I said. ‘If you have overspent your allowance on gambling, I suppose you should settle your debts before you have more.’

He chuckled at once, and his grin was rueful. ‘Dammit Sarah, don’t talk like Mama!’ he begged. ‘I’ve never pretended for a moment that I could stay inside my allowance. Just because you’re a little goody with your money, doesn’t mean I can save mine.’

I laughed outright. ‘I’m not a goody,’ I said. ‘I just don’t think I’ll ever see it again once it gets inside your pocket.’

Perry smiled. ‘So what?’ he said carelessly. ‘When we are married we’ll have all the money we need, I’ll repay you then.’

I turned to face him and laid my gloves aside. ‘Easy talking,’ I said shrewdly. ‘If you’re a gamester you’ll get through your fortune and mine. There’s never enough money for a gambler.’

He was instantly penitent. ‘I know,’ he said gravely. ‘Don’t preach, Sarah. It’s the life we lead in London. I gamble and I drink. I owe so much money I can’t even add up how much it is. One of my friends has sold my vowels to a money-changer and so he is charging me interest on my debts. I’m in a mess, Sarah. I wish we were well out of it.’

‘D’you like gambling?’ I asked. I had seen enough men half-ruined when all they had to bet were pennies, it made me sick with nerves when I was in the great houses of London and saw people staking hundreds of pounds.

‘No,’ he said frankly. ‘I like winning well enough, but I hate losing. And I hate losing when it goes badly. Trust me this once, Sarah and I’ll clear as many of my debts as I can, and I won’t gamble any more.’

‘It’s exciting though, isn’t it?’ I asked him. I was wondering if Will was right, and Perry had gaming in his blood.

‘Not when I lose,’ he said ruefully. ‘I only really do it to pass the time, and everyone gambles, you know that, Sarah!’

I nodded. It was true. People bet on the turn of a card, on the fall of a die. I had been in a group which had a thousand pounds on the table as to whether Lady Fanshawe would wear her awful green dress in public again. My belief was that Perry played because it was part of his London life. He was not a gambler at heart. And I could take him away from London, I could take him away from gambling and drink.

Besides; I had promised I would not leave him. He had asked me to stay with him for ever. We were betrothed. I did not want to sour it by haggling over a handful of guineas.

I opened the right-hand drawer in my dressing-table. ‘Here,’ I said.

I had my quarter’s allowance of gold coins in a purse, locked in the little jewel-box. It opened with a key. The purse clinked, it was heavy with the coins. There were fifty gold sovereigns in it; Mr Fortescue had been generous in his estimates of my needs.

‘You can have forty,’ I said. ‘I must pay the dressmakers something on account or they will be charging me for loans too.’

Perry caught at my hand and went to kiss it before he took the purse. I pulled my hand away and he did not try to hold me.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That will clear the worst of it, and I’ve another quarter’s allowance due next month and I know my luck will change soon. I can feel it. Anyway, soon we will be married and I shall be able to get at my money without waiting for an allowance.’

‘Why don’t you ask your mama to give you more?’ I suggested.

Perry was heading for the door but he turned back towards me with a little half-smile. ‘She likes me in debt,’ he said as if it were obvious. ‘She can make me do whatever she likes when I am in debt to her.’

I nodded. It was all of a piece.

‘Well, keep it safe then,’ I said. ‘Or I shall make you do what I like when you are in debt to me.’

He hesitated, with the door half open. ‘But all you want me to do is to go home with you, and away from London, isn’t it?’ he said. He gave me one of his endearing half-smiles. ‘You can order me, Sarah,’ he said.

I was going to reply but there was a clatter at the front door.

‘There’s the carriage!’ I said, grabbing at my gloves. ‘I must go, Perry, I am driving in the park with Lady Jane Whitley.’

Perry swept an ironic bow in a jest at my enviable company, and I pulled on my gloves and ran down the stairs past him and out to the wintry sunshine.

Lady Jane and I had the nearest thing to a friendship which I had found in London, and it was not very like a friendship at all. She had pale brown hair and light hazel eyes and she believed that beside my unruly ripple of red curls she looked pale and beguiling.

She was given over to invalidism and she had fainting fits and vapours and she had to keep out of draughts and not dance after midnight and not touch food and drink which was either too hot or too cold. I think her mama thought that suitors who found me too boisterous for their taste might turn to her with relief. Lady Jane herself was frank to me about her absolute urgency to find a man and marry before her bedridden and mean papa worked out how much her Season was costing him and ordered her home.

She was an only child so she had no sister to go about with, and I was convenient as a companion. I liked her as well as any other young lady because she had no curiosity about me and did not trouble me with questions about my family and childhood. The only thing about her I could not stomach was the way she leaned on me as we walked, or took my hand when we rode in the carriage together. I had schooled myself not to shake her off but when I stepped into her carriage and sat beside her I had to grit my teeth not to pull away as she slid her hand under my elbow. I could even feel the back of her hand against my body. The intimacy of that touch set my teeth on edge.

We were riding in her papa’s landau and we both unfurled our parasols to protect our complexions. Lady Jane was as pale as a skinned mushroom, beside her I knew I looked wind-burnt, sunburnt. It could not be helped. Lady Clara had loaded me with one cream and lotion after another, but nothing could bleach the warm colours of my skin. I had slept in the open air with my face up to a midday sky too often. However, I kept my parasol over my bonnet as I had been taught and I listened to Lady Jane’s prattle in my right ear as we set off down the road towards the park.

She was telling me about some gloves she had bought, and I could hear my voice saying ‘No!’ and ‘Fancy!’ when she paused for breath. I was watching the coachman guide the horses through the traffic and watching the streets slide past us. It seemed a long time since I had driven a wagon myself. These long weary weeks in London had come to seem like a lifetime. I felt I knew this way to the park and back as if I had ridden or walked it every single day of my life. I knew it better than I had known any other street, any other landscape. I thought with sudden regret that if I had stayed anywhere, and learned anywhere so very very well, it would have been better for me if that place had been Wideacre.

My throat was suddenly tight thinking of my home. Winter was making London cold and damp, the street vendors had set up braziers at street corners to sell baked potatoes, hot gingerbread, and roasted chestnuts. They were the lucky ones with hot wares – the girls carrying pails of milk were pinched and wan with the chill; the flower sellers and the watercress sellers shivered in the damp winds.

I knew it would be cold at Wideacre – I was not one of Jane’s poets sighing for pretty landscapes and forgetting the hard ache of bare feet on frozen earth. But I thought that the trees would grow stark and lovely as they shed their leaves. I thought the woods would smell nutty and strong if I had been there to kick my way through the piles of leaves. I thought the chestnut tree at the curve of the drive would show its shape, as rounded as a humming top now the great fans of yellow leaves were carpeting the drive beneath it. I wanted to be at Wideacre while autumn turned into winter. I felt as if the land needed me there.

‘…and I don’t even like white,’ Jane finished triumphantly.

‘I do,’ I said contributing my two words.

‘It’s all right for you…’ she started again. The coachman turned left when we reached the park and started the slow trot around the perimeter road. We were following Lady Daventry’s coach, I could just see her famous matched bays. Jane continued to talk but she was keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who might see us and wave. Every time the bright colours of a guardsman’s uniform came into sight she lost the thread of her thought until she had taken a good look at him and made sure she could not stop the carriage to beckon him over.

‘It’s so old-fashioned to be presented in white…’ she said.

It was the presentation at Court which was on her mind. Her mama was making her wear a satin which had been ripped back from her own wedding gown, Jane had told me and sworn me to secrecy. She could not have borne the humiliation if it had been widely known.

‘It must be lovely for you to be rich…’ she said longingly.

All at once she brightened. She had seen a young man, I knew it without turning my head.

‘Coachman, wait!’ she shouted and he obediently pulled up the horses while Jane leaned forward and waved frantically at two distant figures strolling on the grass. It was Sir Robert Handley and Mr Giles Devenish.

‘How d’you do, Sir Robert, Mr Devenish!’ I said as they came closer. Jane nearly fell out of the carriage.

‘Oh, Sir Robert!’ she cried, and laughed at once as if he had said something extraordinarily amusing other than a simple ‘Good day’. He smiled and went around to her side of the carriage. Mr Devenish lounged towards me as if I ought to be grateful for his attention.

‘Shall I see you at Lady Clark’s tonight?’ he asked me.

I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, at any rate, I shall be there. I doubt if you will see me. She told us she had invited two thousand people.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Giles. ‘But then so few of them will come!’

I could not help a malicious chuckle. ‘I’m surprised you have accepted if people are priding themselves on staying away,’ I said.

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Her mama and mine were bosom bows, I shall be there, at my post, from first to last.’

I nodded. ‘We are going there early, and then on to Lady Meeching’s card party,’ I said.

Giles raised his eyebrows. ‘Practically out of town,’ he said.

I let it pass. ‘Then we are going to Lady Maria’s supper party,’ I said.

Giles raised his eyebrows even higher. ‘The fair Maria,’ he said. ‘Your sister-in-law to be. I should have thought that Lady Meeching’s was not far enough. If I was going to marry poor Perry and dine with the fair Maria I should flee to Brighton at the very least.’

I gave him a level glance. ‘Who do you like in London society, Mr Devenish?’

He smiled to conceal his irritation. ‘I’m quite fond of George Wallace,’ he said judiciously. ‘And my papa commands my filial respect. But apart from them…’ he paused. ‘But what about you, Miss Lacey? I take it that I am reproved for failing to love my fellow man. So do tell me, whom have you met in London that you especially like?’ His gaze drifted past me to Jane who was leaning forward, twirling her parasol, laughing with her mouth wide open at one of Sir Robert’s frigid quips. He looked beyond her, across the park, where one fashionable Quality person after another walked, rode or drove in diminishing circles, trying to waste the time until it was afternoon, then wasting some more time until dinner.

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. Suddenly I lost all desire to be a proper young lady. The little Rom chavvy called Meridon spoke through my lips though I was seated in a landau talking to a beau at the pinnacle of fashion. ‘I’ve met no one,’ I said. ‘I don’t reprove you or anyone else. I’ve seen no one to admire and I’ve made no friends. I am lonelier now than when I was a little gypsy chavvy. I’ve slept better on the floor, and ate better off wooden platters. I’ve no time for this life at all, to tell you the truth. And you-’ I paused and looked at him speculatively. ‘I’ve met better-mannered polecats,’ I said.

His eyes went purple with rage, the smile wiped away. ‘You are an original indeed,’ he said. It was the worst thing he could think of saying to a young woman, not yet presented at court. He stepped back from the side of the carriage as if he were pulling the skirts of his coat away from contamination. Sir Robert saw his movement away and was swift to say farewell to Jane and tip his hat to me. Jane tried to detain him, but he was too polite and skilled.

‘How could you let him go!’ she said crossly to me as the carriage moved on again. ‘You must have seen that I was talking to Sir Robert. I am certain he was about to ask me for a dance at Lady Clark’s ball, and now I have no supper partner at all!’

I was suddenly weary of the whole thing. ‘I am sorry,’ I said. My throat was as tight as if I were choking on the London air. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘That poisonous Devenish was being spiteful and I wanted to be rid of him.’

Jane gasped. ‘You never upset him!’ she said, appalled. ‘If you said something he didn’t like it’ll be all over London by tomorrow! Oh, Sarah! How could you!’

I sighed. ‘I didn’t say anything that wasn’t the truth,’ I said miserably. ‘And anyway, I don’t care.’ I hesitated. ‘Jane, would you mind very much dropping me off when we get around to Grosvenor Gate again? I have a sore throat.’

‘Oh no!’ she said. For a moment I thought her anxiety was on my account. ‘Sarah, can’t you stay with me for just one more circuit? We might meet someone, and I really don’t want to go home yet.’

I nodded. Jane wanted to arrange a partner for tonight’s ball and she was not allowed to drive around the park alone. I tightened the collar of my jacket around my throat and sat back in the carriage. The autumn sunshine was warm enough, I had gloves; only months ago I should have thought myself in paradise to have owned such a warm jacket.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But only one circuit, mind.’

She nodded. ‘And if there is anyone you know, then you introduce me,’ she said.

‘All right,’ I said disagreeably, and I settled back in the carriage seat to scan the people walking past to see if there was anyone I knew who would be likely to take Jane in to supper at the ball that night. For if I knew Jane, we would be circling the park until nightfall if she could not find a partner.

I was nearly right. We did three circuits before I saw Captain Sullivan with Captain Riley and introduced them both to Jane. They were both penniless fortune-hunters but they knew how to dance and how to take a girl in and out of a supper room. Jane was flushed with triumph at having her dance card finally filled, and I was aching all over as if I had the ague.

‘Thank you, my dearest dear!’ she said, heartfelt, as she dropped me at the front door. ‘You saved my life! You really did, you know! Which do you think is more attractive, Captain Sullivan or Captain Riley?’

‘Sullivan,’ I said at random, and turned to go up the steps.

Jane was rapt. ‘Shall I wear my yellow or my pink?’ she called to me as the door opened.

‘The yellow,’ I said. ‘See you tonight!’

The Havering butler closed the door as I heard her call, ‘And how should I wear my hair…’

I went wearily to the foot of the stairs, planning to go to my room. But the butler was ahead of me.

‘Mr Fortescue is with Lady Havering and Lady Maria,’ he said. ‘Lady Havering asked for you to be shown to the parlour when you returned from your drive.’

I nodded. I paused only before a mirror on the stairs to take off my bonnet and gloves and as the butler opened the door for me I pushed them into his hands.

‘James!’ I said. He was the first friendly face I had seen in a parlour in all the long stay in London.

He jumped to his feet as I came in the room and beamed at me. I glanced from him to Lady Maria and Lady Havering. I imagined he had been thoroughly uncomfortable with the two of them and I wished I had been home earlier.

‘How good to see you!’ I said, and then I curtseyed to Lady Havering and did an awkward sort of bob at Maria before I sat down. The parlourmaid came in and poured me a dish of tea.

James said how well I looked, and Lady Havering said something about town polish. I saw Maria look very much as if she would have liked to say something cat-witted.

‘And have you made many friends? Is London as fine as you expected?’ James asked, making heavy weather of it all.

‘Yes,’ I said, not very helpfully.

‘Such sweet friends as you have,’ Maria chimed in. ‘You were driving with Lady Jane Whitley, were you not?’

I nodded in silence. James looked glad that Maria had volunteered something.

‘Is she one of your especial friends?’ he asked. ‘I am glad you have found someone you agree with.’

‘Oh she’s quite the toast of the Season!’ Maria enthused, her eyes sharp with malice watching me. ‘She and Miss Lacey together are quite the beauties of the Season this year. Miss Lacey has been claimed by our Peregrine of course, but I’m certain Lady Jane will be snapped up in a moment.’

I thought of Jane and me driving round and round the park trying to find her a partner and I smiled grimly at Maria.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘We cannot all hope to have your good fortune in finding a husband who is so peculiarly appropriate.’

Since Maria’s Basil was fat and fifty-five I thought that would do. Lady Clara thought so too, for she interrupted before Maria could reply.

‘Mr Fortescue has some business to discuss with you, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you would like to talk with him in the dining room?’

James rose to his feet with uncivil haste.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and I led him downstairs to the ornate room with the heavy round table and the high-backed chairs.

He pulled one out and sat down, clasping his hands before him. ‘Are you happy, Sarah?’ he asked. ‘Is it the life you wanted?’

The tightness in my throat had not eased despite coming in from the cold. ‘It’s well enough,’ I said. ‘It’s a style I’d have had to learn.’

He waited for a moment in case I should say something more. ‘I’d not discourage you from anything you set your heart on,’ he said hesitantly. ‘But I’d not be doing my duty by you, nor showing the love I still bear your mother, if I let you go on into this without speaking once more with you.’

I put the back of my hand against my forehead. It was hot though I felt cold inside. ‘Go on then,’ I said unhelpfully.

He pushed back his chair and looked at me as if he did not know how to start. ‘I keep thinking what I should say and then it all comes out wrong!’ he said with sudden irritation. ‘I have been planning and planning how I would speak with you and then you look at me as if it does not matter at all how you live or whether you are happy or sad. I won’t tell you things. I will ask you instead. Sarah…how would you like to live?’

I paused for a moment and thought of her, sprawled under the fine silk of her flyer’s cape, her dark eyelashes sweeping her pink cheeks. I thought of the smell of her – part cheap toilet-water, part sweat. I thought of her smile as she slept and her certainty that the world would keep her well, and how for all the years of our childhood she had poached and thieved and stolen and never been caught. Not once. And how the very same night that I had come to the life which she would have loved was the night she was gone.

‘I want nothing,’ I said. My voice was husky because of my throat.

‘D’you think Lord Peregrine will make you happy?’ James asked.

I shrugged. ‘He will not make me unhappy,’ I said. ‘He has no power for that.’ As I saw James scowl, I added: ‘There are not many women that could say that. It’s not a bad start. He will never make me unhappy. I will have Wideacre and I will put my child in the squire’s chair at Havering and Wideacre. It’s a sensible arrangement. I’m content with it.’

James’ brown eyes stared into mine as if he were looking for some warmth that he could grasp and beg me to care for love and passion like an ordinary girl. I knew my look was as opaque as green glass.

‘You want the marriage put forward,’ he said, and I knew by his voice that he had accepted it.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘We want to be married before Christmas. I want to be home then.’

James raised an eyebrow. ‘Why the sudden hurry?’ he asked. ‘It was to be spring, I thought.’

I nodded. ‘The town life does not suit Perry,’ I said honestly. ‘And I don’t like it. I’m glad to have come, and I have learned a good deal. But I should not care if I was never in London again as long as I live. I hate the streets, and the life is too confining!’ I turned and went over to the window and drew back the heavy drapes and looked out. ‘It’s bad enough sleeping in a house with all the windows shut, without forever looking out on to streets,’ I said.

James nodded. He could not feel as I did, but he was always trying to understand me.

‘I’ll tell my lawyers to go ahead, then,’ he said. ‘If you are sure.’

‘I am sure,’ I said.

He nodded and turned to the door. ‘I will wish you happiness,’ he said. ‘I am not likely to see you until after the wedding.’

I put out my hand and we shook, like old friends. ‘You can wish me a little peace,’ I said. ‘I don’t look for happiness, but I should like to be at a place of my own where I don’t have to watch what I wear and what I say all the time.’

He nodded. ‘Once you are Lady Havering you will be above criticism,’ he said. ‘And I believe that you knew all the essentials of being a good person when you rode up the drive in your cap and dirty jacket.’

I smiled. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I have something for you,’ he said. ‘It is the interest on your share of the profits of Wideacre over the past sixteen years. I have a note of the exact profits each year, and I had it placed out with a bank. They have just declared a dividend and I thought it prudent to take the money in notes in case you had any strong feelings about what you wanted done with it. The capital remains with the bank, but I have the notes of interest for you.’

I nodded. James pulled a bulky package out of his pocket.

‘They do not pay very high rates,’ he said apologetically. ‘But they are a safe bank. I thought it best.’

I nodded and opened the envelope. There were eleven large pieces of parchment inside, they all promised to pay the bearer £3,000 each.

‘I’ve never seen so much money in my life before,’ I said. I was awed into a whisper. ‘I don’t know how you dared carry them on you!’

James smiled. ‘I was travelling with guards,’ he said. ‘I had to bring some gold to London so I took the opportunity to bring it all together. Then I walked around here. Perhaps I had better leave them with you for safe-keeping tonight and collect them tomorrow. I can pay them into your bank account then.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

We went out into the hall together and he shrugged himself into his coat. The butler held the door for him and I watched him down the front-door steps. I went back into the dining room and folded the bills very carefully together, then I took them upstairs to my bedroom and locked them into the right-hand drawer of my dressing-table, where I kept my purse and the jewels Lady Clara had picked out for me, and my piece of string with the gold clasps.