The Favoured Child

10

‘Julia! Julia! Julia! I say! Are you deaf!’ It was Uncle John’s voice, shouting up the stairs. I jumped from my bed and pattered across the floor to open the door. ‘What is it?’ I called down.

‘A surprise,’ he said. ‘Come down at once!’ I threw off my wrapper and pulled on my oldest gown, a muslin sprig, which had once been pink but was now pale as a lily with much washing. In obedience to Uncle John’s haste, I did not wait to dress my hair, but tied a ribbon around my head and let it tumble down my back as if I were still a little girl. Then I pulled on my sandals and scampered downstairs.

The front door was wide open and Uncle John was on the doorstep.

Beyond him was Ralph.

Ralph was mounted high on a black horse, a new black horse, and I caught my breath at the sight of it. It was so like the horse in the dream when he rode up to the hall. I put my hand out to the door to steady myself and looked half fearfully up at Ralph. His face was smiling, warm. He knew what I was thinking and his smile said as clear as words, ‘Don’t be silly, Julia.’

I nodded, and then took in something else. Ralph was leading another horse. A mare. Her coat was so pale that it seemed almost silver. Her eyes were deep, deep liquid black. Her mane and tail were as white as the surf on a winter sea, tumbling over.

‘Look at this!’ Uncle John said, delighted. ‘I told Mr Megson I was looking for a horse for you, and see what he has found us!’

Ralph Megson smiled at me. ‘She’s a lady’s horse,’ he said. ‘She’s being sold by a farmer over by Rogate, whose daughter is giving up riding. He paid a handsome price for her and he’s asking an outrageous one. But I thought you should try her paces. I’ve seen her ridden and she’s a sweet goer indeed. I called in there yesterday, after the sheep auction.’

‘Wonderful looking,’ Uncle John said enthusiastically. ‘I had a grey once, Mr Megson, an Arab. That was a marvellous horse.’

Ralph nodded. ‘They still talk of it in the village,’ he said courteously. ‘Sea Fern you called him, wasn’t it?’

John smiled. ‘Fancy anyone remembering!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, he was Sea Fern, and as clean and bright a coat as this beauty.’

I hardly heard either of them. I had floated down the steps in a complete daze. Over my head Uncle John and Ralph exchanged amused glances, and then John was beside me, saying gently, ‘I dare say you’d like to try her at once, Julia?’

I nodded. The smooth grey head came down and nuzzled at my fingers, the lustrous eyes gazed at me. I went to her side and Uncle John threw me up in the saddle, as careless as I of my walking dress. I hooked one leg around the pommel and tried to pull my skirts down with little success. It was only the second time in my life I had ridden, and the first time in a lady’s saddle.

‘Take her out,’ Uncle John said to Mr Megson. ‘You’d like to try her, Julia?’

‘Yes,’ I breathed, quite speechless with delight at the feeling of the horse so warm and quiet beneath me.

Ralph nodded and leaned over towards me to give me the reins. He showed me how to hold them – like driving – and they felt easy and natural between my bare fingers. Then he turned his horse’s head and my sweet grey mare fell into pace beside Ralph’s rangy black hunter as if she were a grey satin ribbon with a broad black shadow.

‘This is good,’ Ralph said abruptly as we went slowly down the lane. ‘It is good to be riding down this track with you beside me.’

I said nothing. I scarcely heard him. I was completely absorbed in the rhythm of the horse’s pace and of the odd, and not very steady, feeling of riding side-saddle. ‘I’d rather ride astride,’ I said. ‘I feel so uneven.’

‘I should think you would!’ he said, chuckling. ‘But I can imagine your mama’s face if you asked her for breeches. And your Grandmama Havering’s!’

I laughed too at that, and returned with a bump to the real world. I had heard such a sweet singing in my head as soon as I saw the mare. I had been in a dream.

‘Beatrice rode as well as any man, and she rode side-saddle,’ Ralph said consolingly. ‘I think ladies would be safer astride indeed, but the world we live in cares more for ladies’ looks and less for what they can do.’

I considered that and nodded.

‘Let’s trot,’ Ralph said, and we did. I had some ungraceful lunges at the saddle to keep my balance, but then I found the rhythm and I could ride steady.

‘What is she called?’ I asked when Ralph had drawn rein and we were walking again.

‘Peggy,’ Ralph said. ‘I dare say that is not fancy enough for you!’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but isn’t it bad luck to change a horse’s name?’

Ralph gave a little laugh. ‘If you ride like Beatrice, you’ll have no need of luck with horses,’ he said. ‘You’ll make your own luck.’

‘Can I name her, then?’ I asked.

‘If you like her enough to keep her,’ he said, teasing me.

I thought for a moment. ‘What was Uncle John’s grey called?’ I asked.

‘Sea Fern,’ Ralph replied.

‘I’ll call her Sea Mist,’ I said. ‘Her mane and tail are as white as breakers.’

‘Misty for when you’re calling her?’ Ralph suggested.

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. So my horse was named, and we rode on in companionable silence. We went a little way down the drive and then we turned the horses for home.

‘Like to canter?’ he asked obligingly. When I nodded, he took the lead and let his horse slide into an easy steady-paced canter. I grabbed at the pommel for fear of falling, and the moment Sea Mist lunged forward I felt she was taking a high jump. Ralph glanced over his shoulder and laughed at my determined face and kept the pace steady. We thundered down the drive, and the shadows and light flickered over me, and I forgot about being nervous and anxious not to fall and look a fool; I bent down low over her mane and urged her on faster, and gave a great whoop of delight that made Ralph ahead of me laugh and let his horse go faster.

‘Good!’ Ralph said, pulling his big black stallion up outside the gate. ‘But remember, even if you think you are falling, hang on to the saddle or the mane. Don’t damage her mouth. She’s got a mouth like satin, that horse. I wouldn’t have brought her for you if I didn’t trust you to have light hands.’

I nodded.

‘What of Richard?’ Ralph said casually. ‘Does he want a horse?’

‘I think not,’ I said. ‘He didn’t want John to have the expense while he is busy studying. And when he wants to ride, he likes John’s horse, Prince, for hacking around the estate.’

‘What sort of a lad is he? What sort of a squire will he make?’ Ralph asked lightly.

‘He cares very much about being a Lacey,’ I said, choosing my words with care. I had a feeling, and rightly, that the question was very serious and the answer had better be accurate. ‘He would do anything for us to stay on the estate.’

Ralph nodded. ‘What about his temper?’ he asked.

‘It’s good,’ I said. ‘He is very seldom angry. Never with Mama, and never in public’

‘Doesn’t sound much like temper to me,’ Ralph said. ‘Sounds more like spite. What sets it off?’

I frowned, puzzled. I had never tried to understand Richard’s moments of black-eyed rage. I had merely accepted them, like the occasional storm in an otherwise sunny summer. ‘When he is crossed…’I said slowly, hunting for ideas. And then I checked. ‘No!’ I said. ‘It is when he is afraid he is not first with someone.’

‘Likes to be the favourite, does he?’ Ralph asked.

The word struck a chord in my mind. ‘He likes to be the favoured child,’ I said. My eyes met Ralph’s look and we both heard the resonance in the words as deep as a bell tolling. ‘He says he is the favoured child,’ I repeated.

Ralph was still for a moment. ‘Oh, that village and its superstition!’ he said, exasperated. ‘And even the Quality as bad as the worst of them!’ He shook his head to clear his mind of nonsense as old as fairytales. ‘Would you trust him to keep his word?’ he asked. ‘If he was first on Wideacre? If he was the favoured child indeed?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I trusted Richard from a lifetime of watching him and loving him.

‘I’m not blind,’ Ralph said brusquely. ‘I can see perfectly well that Richard cares little for this profit-sharing scheme. But if he is tied into it by John, and held to it by you, would he break it wilfully? Or would he feel honour bound?’

I was certain. ‘If he gives his word, he will keep it,’ I said.

Ralph looked sceptical, but he nodded and swung down from the saddle, and then took my reins.

The front door opened and Richard came out. At once I froze. The childhood memory of my ride on Scheherazade was still vivid in my mind, even after all these years, and I had an immediate rush of guilt that he should see me on horseback at all.

I kicked my feet out of the stirrups and slid down to the ground without waiting for Ralph to help me. I wanted to be at a distance from the horse, the lovely horse, in case the sight of her upset Richard, angered him. Despite my confidence that Richard did not want a horse, I was not sure how he would respond to the sight of me on one.

‘Richard!’ I said smiling nervously. ‘Look at this lovely horse Mr Megson has brought over from Rogate.’

I peeped up at Richard’s face, but to my relief he was smiling, and there was no shadow in his face.

‘A most beautiful animal,’ he said, courteously nodding to Ralph. ‘For sale, is she?’

‘Aye,’ said Ralph laconically. ‘She and Miss Julia suit well enough.’

‘Julia is a natural rider, I think,’ Richard said generously.

‘She’s a Lacey,’ Ralph said as if that explained it all. ‘I’ll take the mare around to your stable, Miss Julia,’ he said to me. ‘She’s on loan to you for a couple of days, and then you can decide if you’ll suit. If you don’t want her, I can take her back when I’m next over that way. But if you like her, I’ve told your uncle the price they are asking for her.’

‘Expensive, is she?’ Richard asked.

Ralph looked down at him and his face was expressionless. ‘Miss Julia needs a good horse,’ he said levelly. ‘Since she’s part heir to Wideacre, she needs to ride out on the land to see what is doing. And she needs a good animal in her position.’

Richard blinked. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There should be nothing but the best for Miss Julia.’ There was an edge to his voice which warned me that he was not best pleased, but when he turned to me, he was smiling. He took my arm and led me towards the garden gate, bowing me in with a pretty little play of courtesy. I hesitated and looked back at Ralph with a smile.

‘Thank you, Ralph,’ I said. And only he would have known how deep those thanks were felt.

‘Don’t get so grand on your lovely horse that you forget me!’ Richard said, walking up the path with me. ‘You looked quite the young lady. Don’t forget that you will always be little cousin to me!’

We went into the house together and we were alone in the hall. It was shadowy, lit only by the fanlight over the front door. Richard’s face in the dusk seemed leaner, strange. I could feel my heartbeat speeding and I felt breathless, as if Richard were not my dear familiar cousin, but someone exciting and unknown to me. I did not feel familiar and easy. I felt a-great ripple of something – certainly not pain, but not quite pleasure – and my knees felt weak.

Richard came closer to me and put his arm around my waist. ‘You look pale, Julia,’ he said. ‘I hope the ride did not tire you?’

‘No,’ I said softly. ‘No, I am not tired at all.’

‘Why,’ he said, his voice very low, ‘how slight you are, Julia! You must have lost some weight – or I have grown heavier! You have grown taller, but you are no plumper at all. See, I can almost span your waist with my hands.’ He stood before me and put his hands either side of my body. Through my muslin gown I could feel the warmth of his palms and the tightness of his grip.

‘Nowhere near!’ I said breathlessly. His face was very near mine and he still had his hands on my back. I could not resist glancing up at him and raising my face to him.

I could feel his breath against my cheek. His eyes were very dark, but not with anger. We stood for a moment, quite transfixed in that shadowy hall, not daring to move forward and quite unable to move back.

Then I heard Mama’s laugh from the parlour and we both jumped apart as guiltily as though we had been doing something wrong.

‘I had better go,’ I muttered, and I went to the stairs to change from my crumpled gown. It was nearly time for breakfast, and Mama would not thank me for coming to the table straight from horseback.

‘Julia,’ Richard said, and stopped me as I had my foot on the first step.

My hand was on the banister and I made no move as he came towards the foot of the stairs, but I could feel my head going swimmy with apprehension and delight.

He came no closer to me, but stood on the far side of the stair-rail. Then he dropped his dark head and kissed my hand, where it rested. He looked at me, his blue eyes quite inscrutable. And then he turned on his heel and went into the library and left me in the dark lovely hall all alone.

I put the back of my hand to my cheek where he had kissed it, and pressed it to my face. Then I went slowly, slowly, up to my bedroom. I felt I needed to be alone to think very, very carefully about something. But when I was upstairs with the door shut behind me, I could think of nothing. I had no thought in my head. All I could be sure of was two very different feelings-feelings which pulled me two ways. One was the sensual longing which I had come to think of as Beatrice’s; I knew that feeling was desire, and it suited me to think of it as Beatrice’s desire, and to think myself a little haunted by her in that dark hall. The other feeling was a great unease. I had lived with Richard so close for so long that I loved him as my brother, I thought of him as my brother. And although we had talked and talked about our future marriage and our ownership of the land, I had never thought that he would court me. I had never thought that he would naturally, one day, touch me. That touch of his hands on my waist, and the warmth of his breath on the back of my hand, filled me with desire, but made me shiver as if there were something wrong.

Something very badly wrong.

The unease held with me through breakfast, fuelled by a secret look from Richard when I entered the room. Uncle John and Mama were laughing together over a letter she had received and neither of them noticed my awkwardness.

‘What are your plans for today, my dear?’ John asked Mama as she poured coffee for all of us.

‘Today I become a sempstress, or milliner,’ she said with a merry smile. ‘The girls have begged to learn how to trim a gown with ribbons and how to trim a hat, so I am packing a box with scraps of material to teach them. The Acre poor-box must be the most frivolous in the country! I dread that Dr Pearce will see it!’

‘The parish accounts, don’t bear inspection either,’ John replied. ‘Mr Megson’s idea of urgent need is to give the girls dowries so they can marry when they wish. I live in daily dread of your step-papa coming home and finding me amid all this joyful improvidence.’

‘It’s not improvident,’ I said, defending Ralph at once. ‘It’s sound sense. If the girls can marry in Acre, then they do not have to go away into service. We keep families together and there are more reliable people to work the land.’

‘I know,’ John said, smiling across the table at me. ‘I do know that, Julia. And I know that if this estate cannot make young people happy, then we have all been wasting our time.’

Mama nodded. ‘I have to go soon,’ she said. ‘I want to have my materials laid ready for the girls to start. What are you doing today, Julia?’

I glanced at John. ‘Taking some of the day as a holiday, if I may?’ I said. ‘I want to try Misty’s paces up on the downs and see the new sheep Mr Megson has bought. And I shall look at some pamphlets on fruit farming first; there are some horrible diseases the trees can get, and I really don’t understand enough about them.’

‘Can’t you doctor Julia’s trees, sir?’ Richard asked his father. ‘Dose them, feed them up?’

‘One ought to be able to do so, certainly,’ John said, ‘but today I am off into Acre. If you need a prescription for your apple trees, Julia, you must let me know.’

We rose from the table and I followed Mama out into the hall. The front door stood open to the warm air. The mist and rain had cleared and Wideacre was new washed, well watered, alive with growth. I blinked at the brightness of the fresh leaves of the trees of the park.

‘How green it is today,’ I said.

Mama nodded, packing balls of wool into her reticule. ? good day today at last,’ she said. ‘But please be careful on your new horse. Only as far as the sheep field on the downs, and promise me you won’t try to canter,’ she cautioned. ‘Richard can ride home with you for dinner.’

I promised and then kissed her farewell and watched her down the garden path and into the carriage where it waited by the gate. Then I told Richard I should be at the barn at two, and watched him trot slowly up the drive on Prince, whose rolling stride seemed to eat up yards without effort. Then I put my feet up on a footstool and drew up the table with pamphlets and set to reading.

No! Not pamphlets! Alas for my good resolutions! Among the pamphlets were Mama’s novels from the Chichester circulating library. I just glanced at the title page to see if it was of any interest, and the next thing I knew Stride had tapped on the door to bring me my coffee and it was after one o’clock!

Oh, no!’ I exlaimed. ‘I promised Richard I should be on the downs at two. Stride, ask Jem to saddle Misty for me at once, will you? I shall be there as soon as I am changed.’

I carried my cup upstairs with me, and drank it as I pulled on my new riding habit. Mama had held to her promise to buy me a habit against the time when I would have a horse, and this was the first time I had been able to wear it. It was a deep cream colour, almost yellow, the colour of the mildest of butter sauces. It went over my head in a ripple of stiff velvet, and I smoothed it down over the curves of my breasts and the swell of my hips with a purr of pleasure at the feel of it, and the smell of it, and the look of it. It had a pretty little hat to match, with a feather dyed to the same colour, and at John’s insistence Mama had bought me riding boots with little yellow tassels, which I thought were the last word in elegance. I could have preened for hours before the little spotted mirror, but I remembered that Richard would be waiting for me and – almost more important – that Misty would be ready in the stable yard.

The sheen on her coat was so bright it made her look white instead of dappled. Jem had washed her tail and her mane as soon as Ralph Megson had left her in our loose box, and she looked like a unicorn out of a fairy story, not a horse at all. He grinned at my face and held out his cupped hand for my foot to toss me up into the saddle.

‘Take ’er slowly, mind,’ he said seriously, and I was reminded of his uncle, John Dench, who had given me my first ride. ‘Don’t canter her at all this first day,’ he said. ‘You takes your time with her, Miss Julia. We want you coming home on top of her, not on a hurdle.’

I nodded, only half hearing him, sweeping the white locks of her mane over to the right of her shining neck. ‘I’ll be careful,’ I promised, and I turned her lovely head for the drive. I saw her ears prick; I felt her mince lightly across the paving stones of the yard and sensed the spring come into her step as she reached the drive.

The branches over my head glowed green in the sunlight; the fresh new leaves were vibrant with growth. In the hedges on either side of the driveway were patches of cream from dogroses, and the banks were dancing with Lady’s smock. Deeper in the woods the ground was hazy with a mist of late bluebells and sharp with the smell of wild garlic. Above the canopy of the summertime leaves the skies were criss-crossed with frantic parent birds, and the wood was alive with the insistent calls of courting wood-pigeons. Above their dreamy call I heard the flutelike two-tone lilt of the cuckoo, calling for a mate away up on the downs.

At the lodge gates Jenny’s sister and her two small children were planting potatoes in their garden. They waved as I rode by, and the two little girls, Nell and Molly, came running down to their garden gate.

Oh, Miss Julia! What a lovely horse!’ they called, their faces peeping through the splintery bars.

They were through the gate at once, at my smile, and stood in the driveway, twisting their ragged short dresses in their dirty hands.

‘I cannot give you a ride today,’ I said, answering the unspoken question. ‘I am not nearly safe enough yet on this horse. She is new to me and I have to learn how to ride before I take anyone else up! But as soon as I feel safe enough, I shall come down and have each of you up in front of me.’

The children beamed and I waved at them and turned Misty left down the lane towards Acre. I did not go into the village itself but turned up the bridle-track which runs past the field which used to be farmed jointly by the village. Ralph Megson had insisted that the little strips of land – one for each cottage-be restored at once, so that the men and their wives could start growing their own food again and planting at once. But it had been my advice that one of the new fields enclosed by Beatrice would be better. It had only been sown the once, and left to fallow the rest of the time. It was nearer the village, and nearer the Fenny – an advantage if someone chose to plant a crop which needed watering.

‘And it was common land enclosed by Beatrice and now restored by you to the village as farmland,’ Ralph Megson had said sharply. ‘Miss Julia, I would hate to have you as an enemy. That is a clever move.’

I had smiled then. ‘Mr Megson, I hope you never will have me as an enemy,’ I had said smugly. ‘While my interests, and yours, and Acre’s all run the same way, there could be no cause for disagreement, let alone enmity!’

And Ralph had thrown back his grey head and laughed. ‘No cause at all!’ he said, chuckling. ‘And total unity between masters and managers and men for ever.’

‘Well, amen to that!’ John had said, looking from one to another of us.

‘Amen?’ Ralph had said, still smiling. ‘More like alleluia! Because the kingdom of heaven has come at once! Here as well as in France!’

We had laughed at that, but they had agreed that the field by the bridle-way should be planted with clover this year to put some strength back into the soil. Later we might use it for wheat or for vegetables, or even fruit.

You could still see the indentations in the grass where the division between one strip and another had been dug; and the older men of the village could still point to a nettle-strewn corner of the field and say, ‘That was once mine, and I grew carrots and parsnips and potatoes there.’ Although there were no deeds, and no entails, they could trace back the ownership of one strip or another for more than two centuries, naming not just the owners but the crops they planted.

Sea Mist put her ears forward at the sight of the smooth grassy track curving up the hill, and I forgot my promise to Mama and my promise to Jem as she altered her stride and broke into a smooth canter, which was an easier pace for me than her trot. I leaned towards her undulating neck to put my weight further forward and urged her faster and faster until we were thundering up the slope in a mud-slinging, wind-whistling gallop and the only noise was the drumming of her hooves and the rushing of the air and my calling, ‘Go on! Go on!’ to her as she went faster and faster and faster as if we were riding a race.

She checked of her own accord at the entrance to the field where the path narrowed; it was as well, for I had not thought how I would stop her if she had chosen to run off with me. But she was a lovely horse, a truly sweet-mannered mare, and I believe the thought of taking off up the path to the top of the downs was less in her head than it was in mine. I felt only too ready to play truant and ride away for the day, but I had promised Richard, and my conscience pricked me when I saw Prince tied outside the new barn. I took Misty over beside him and slid from the saddle, hitched her to one of the struts and went to the open doorway.

My eyes were dazzled by the bright sunlight, and for a moment I could not see what was happening inside. And then I blinked again, for I could not believe what was happening inside.

Richard was pressed flat against the wall at the far end of the barn. His hat had fallen off and in the gloom he appeared as white as a ghost; his eyes, huge in his pale face, were black with terror.

The sheep were around him in a great semicircle, standing shoulder to shoulder in a big wedge of a flock, impenetrable. I looked wildly around the barn for the shepherd, for his dog, for I had never seen sheep go so close, except when driven or perhaps protecting a ewe with a new-born lamb from some danger. But there was no one there except Richard and this arch of sheep some twenty feet away from him, packed as tight as if they were in a cart.

And they were getting closer to him.

As I watched, incredulous, the tup, a heavy-shouldered animal, stamped his cloven hoof down once, twice, and dropped his head. In a half-visible surge they moved forwards, their fleeces pressed a little tighter, their mad yellow eyes a little brighter and their white rounded faces with the dark slits of noses a little closer, just a little closer, to where Richard was backed up to the wall of the barn.

They were mobbing him, in the way that an angry upset flock will mob a little dog. But these sheep were mobbing a human.

For a moment I felt the terror which had pinned Richard to the back wall. That deep primeval terror of something one does not understand, something which is against nature or, at the least, against everything one has ever seen and known before. If I had been a superstitious woman, I should have thought them possessed by the devil, and when the ram stamped his pointy little hoof – as he did again – I should have fled in fright.

As it was I sniffed in abruptly – as if the very air of Wideacre could give me courage – and said, ‘No!’ – as if you could command sheep as you would a dog. ‘No!’ I said, and Richard’s head snapped around towards the door and he squinted against the bright square of it and me standing in the doorway.

‘Julia!’ he said, and his voice was a hoarse whisper of utter terror. ‘Julia! Get help! The sheep have gone mad!’

‘No!’ I said again, and I took a fistful of my riding habit in my hand to give me courage and walked straight towards them in my new boots with the yellow tassels.

They parted as I came. Of course they did. Sheep always do. They flurried out of the way and left my way clear right through the flock to Richard. The tup lowered his head at me and presented his horns, but I heard my voice say, ‘No!’ and he backed away on his dainty cloven hooves to the other side of the barn.

Richard did not move until I was beside him, and then he reached out his arms and clung to me as though he were drowning and going under for the third time.

I held him tight and we walked together, Richard half stumbling, towards the doorway. As he swung a leg over the hurdle, the tup and a couple of the ewes beside him came a little closer, their blank yellow eyes fixed on Richard. I said, ‘Shoo!’ like a farmgirl to her hens, and they stopped. I glanced around the barn. Richard had not fed them. There was a bucket of meal left beside the door. I picked it up and poured it into their trough and they went to it eagerly enough and paid me no more mind. I pushed through them towards the door and slid the hurdle aside so I could get out.

Richard was sitting outside in the sunlight, his eyes shut, his face turned up to the light and the heat. I went and sat down beside him on the springy turf of the downs, saying nothing. I did not know what had taken place in that dark barn.

But what I had seen was impossible.

‘They came for me,’ Richard said very low. ‘I went in to feed them and water them, and they made a ring around me. I put the buckets of feed down, thinking they were going for the pails, but they were not. They came for me.’

‘Where’s the shepherd?’ I asked.

‘He sent his child up to say he was ill,’ Richard said, shaking his head, for he could not believe what had happened. ‘I said it didn’t matter. I knew I could feed them and water them on my own. I was going to give them some hay too. But as soon as I was inside the barn, over the hurdle, they made a ring around me, and they started coming towards me. I stepped backwards, and still they kept coming. I went backwards and backwards and backwards, and still there were more of them between me and the door. And then I was back against the wall and they started coming closer.’ He gave a shudder and put his head down on to his knees. ‘Sheep don’t do that,’ he said.

I said nothing. I put an arm around Richard’s shoulder, and my fingers slipped under the collar of his jacket. His linen shirt underneath was damp with sweat. He had been terrified. In a sudden moment of clear memory I had a picture of Richard in the stable yard the day he first saw Scheherazade, and remembered how she had shied and put her ears back when Richard had come close to her.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said softly. There was nothing I could say. The scene in that darkened barn had been a nightmare, one of those insane nightmares where the most normal objects become infinitely menacing.

‘No,’ Richard said as if he wanted to forget as quickly as he could those moments of abject fear. ‘It doesn’t matter at all.’

‘Would you like to go home?’ I asked. I glanced at the sun and reckoned it was nearing half past two.

‘In a minute,’ Richard said. ‘What should we do about the sheep?’

‘I’ll open the doors and let them out into the field,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘I’ll check them as they come out and Giles Shepherd can look at them properly when he is well again.’

‘I’ll close the gate for you,’ Richard said. He went to fetch the horses and I saw him glance back nervously at me. I stayed still so that he would know that I would not release the sheep until I saw he was through the gate with it closed safe behind him. Prince stood rock-steady while Richard untied his reins, but Sea Mist threw up her head and sidled. He led the two horses through the gate and then closed it behind him. Only when he had swung into the saddle and nodded towards me did I move towards the barn.

In the gloom inside I saw the whiteness of the faces which turned to me. For a moment I felt a flash of the terror which had made it possible for them to herd Richard, the terror which every animal feels at being trapped or outnumbered.

‘No,’ I said again; and behind my own certainty was a line of power and knowledge which I knew came from the Laceys. I threw my head up like proud, red-headed Beatrice herself with her natural arrogance. ‘Certainly not,’ I said to the flock firmly, and dragged back the hurdle just wide enough to let one through at a time.

They dithered, but the sight of the downland turf was too much for them, and the old tup dipped his head and went quickly past me. Then the others scuttered after him until there was only one foolish one left, too afraid to go forward and nervous at being on her own. I opened the hurdle wide and shied an old turnip at her bobbing rump as she dashed past me. I was glad I hit her. I had been scared too.

‘AH done,’ I said cheerfully to Richard as I climbed over the gate. He led Sea Mist up alongside so I could step from the gate into the stirrup.

‘I hate sheep,’ Richard said lightly. ‘I shall tell my papa that I will never make a shepherd and that I don’t propose to try. I shall tell him I won’t supervise that flock. I’d rather concentrate on building the hall anyway. And there’s enough work to do there, Lord knows!’

‘Is there?’ I said, and we turned the horses and our minds away from the barn and the flock of sheep. ‘How near are you to finding the stone the architect wants to use?’

‘I think it will have to be Bath stone,’ Richard said. ‘The stone they can quarry here is much too soft, he thinks. I was hoping we could get some a little closer to home because of the cost of transport. Indeed, I am sure we can. But the design of the house does call for that yellow sandstone.’

‘I love the colour when it’s new,’ I said. ‘Can he use much of the old stone of the hall?’

‘That’s the other problem,’ Richard said. ‘I am trying to persuade him to follow the outlines of the hall as much as possible to save labour, so we don’t have to dig new cellars and foundations, and to reuse the stones and incorporate the walls which are still standing. But, of course, he wants to start from scratch.’

I nodded, and when the track broadened I brought Sea Mist up beside Prince and let Richard talk about the hall all the way home. We never mentioned the flock left on the lower slopes of the downs. Richard took a few moments alone with his papa before dinner to tell him that he would not work with livestock.

Uncle John – a town-bred man, and the son of a line of traders – did not think it odd. The sheep and the little herd of dairy cows became my responsibility from that day onwards. Someone had to do the work. Mama had her school, Uncle John had the health of the village and the business side of the estate, Ralph Megson supervised everything on the land, Richard took charge of the hall and I was out every day looking at the animals, and the fields, and the crops. I was busy, and weary…and very much a Lacey on her land.

Richard did not deal with livestock.

Richard did not deal with the land and the crops.

Richard did not deal with the tenants, and the copy-holders, and the cottagers and the labourers and the intricate details of land ownership and land sharing on Wideacre.

Richard’s great love, his great project, was his work on the hall. And Mama and I, and even Uncle John, had to accept that he knew more and more about the rebuilding of our home every day. Only Richard had the love – almost a passion – to pursue the right colour of stone through twenty quarries until he found one he thought fit.

‘It is darker than the usual sandstone,’ he explained to Uncle John and Ralph Megson and me in the library one morning when we had gathered to take a decision about planting soft-fruit crops. ‘It will blend with the old stone of the hall. The architect wanted it all new, and the builder too. But I am sure that I am doing the right thing in choosing this stone, even though it is so far to transport it. We will need half as much by using the old stone. And I like the idea of the hall being rebuilt from the ruins.’ Ralph Megson cocked an eyebrow at that, but kept his head bent low over the plans of the hall spread before us on the table. ‘I cannot spare many men,’ he said briefly. ‘They have not the skills. They could only do day labouring for you.’

Richard nodded. ‘I have spoken to the architect and we think it best to bring in experienced building labourers,’ he said. ‘They can be housed in Midhurst and come out daily in a wagon. D’you think that will cause any unrest in Acre?’

Ralph puffed out his cheeks and looked hard at John. ‘These men are on wages, I take it? No profit-sharing scheme for them?’

Uncle John met Ralph’s ironic gaze steadily. ‘I do not need to argue the fall of the Bastille here,’ he said. ‘They are on fair rates. After all, we are bringing in a ploughing and sowing gang this autumn to sow the wheat. They will be on day wages too. I see no reason why Acre should object.’

‘As long as we make a profit which is better than day wages, no,’ Ralph said.

‘Well, that is my intention,’ Uncle John said. ‘Mr Megson, will you oblige me by looking at this map…’ and he covered up Richard’s plan of the hall with a map of the fields of Wideacre coloured in different shades to denote the different crops. Richard and I exchanged a rueful smile. No one cared for the hall as much as Richard. ‘My intention is to have a thoroughly balanced farming estate,’ Uncle John said. ‘Whatever weather the climate produces should suit one crop. I should like us to grow a wide variety.’

‘All fruit needs sunshine,’ Ralph observed, looking at the swaths of fields coloured green to show fruit crops.

‘Yes, indeed,’ Uncle John replied. ‘But it can tolerate rain, and they are developing strains of fruit which are more and more hardy. There is a great market out there in the growing towns. I want Wideacre fruit to go to Chichester, to Portsmouth, even to London.’

Ralph nodded. ‘I think you see the future aright,’ he said briefly. ‘There will be more and more people in the cities and they will need to be fed. But if there is any chance of a war against France, the price of bread will go sky-high. Wheat is a good crop in wartime.’

Uncle John nodded. ‘What of Acre?’ he said. ‘How would they feel about a large corn crop?’

There was a silence in the sunny room. You could almost smell the smoke of old riots.

Then Ralph smiled. ‘Why not?’ he said wryly. ‘No one in Acre was ever against a reasonable profit. No one in Acre was ever against the export of food. No bread riot ever took place except with hungry people seeing their food sent away.’

‘You make riots sound reasonable,’ Richard said. His voice was level, encouraging. ‘Have you had personal experience of such affrays?’

‘I’ve seen bread riots,’ Ralph said. The slight sideways smile he shot at me told me well enough that he had never been a neutral observer. ‘I’ve never seen one that was not, in its own way, orderly.’

‘An orderly riot?’ Uncle John queried. But John had been raised in Edinburgh and had lived the past fourteen years in India.

‘Yes,’ Ralph said simply, ‘it’s generally the women anyway, so it is not as if it was fighting men or trouble-makers. I saw one in Portsmouth, where they surrounded a bread shop where the baker was selling light-weight loaves for the full price. They took the door off the front of the shop and sat on the baker while someone called for a Justice of the Peace. He looked at the weights the baker had been using. They were underweight, for he had shaved them off. The magistrate reweighed every loaf in the shop and sold them to the women at the proper price. Then they got off the baker’s fat belly and left him. He was unhurt, and his shop was not damaged, except that the door was off the frame, and he had cash in his cash-box.’

Uncle John was puzzled, but Richard and I were smiling. ‘The Justice of the Peace agreed with the rioters?’ John asked incredulously.

Ralph shrugged and smiled. ‘He believed in the old ways too. No one likes a cheating tradesman, no one likes bread-hoarders. And the women were pleasant respectable women, but, oh, my, they were angry! I’d have given them half the shop if they had so much as looked at me!’

‘They did look at you, though, didn’t they, Mr Megson?’ I asked slyly. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘I was doing nothing,’ Ralph Megson said innocently. ‘I was just standing there, holding the door…and the chisel…and the hammer.’

Uncle John, Richard and I laughed out loud, and Ralph chuckled too.

‘Those days are over,’ Ralph Megson said, sounding regretful. ‘The days when the poor people could insist on a fair price in the local market. It took me some time to see it, but I know it now. That’s why I’ve no objection to Wideacre sowing corn and selling it at a profit. The only way the poor of England are going to be fed is if there is enough food in all the markets, and food being moved around the country. The poor can no longer depend on their local produce, and they cannot control the movement of grain.’

Uncle John nodded. ‘With our profit-sharing scheme, we should sell surplus corn in London,’ he said. ‘Everyone would do better with the profits from a London sale than with cheap-priced corn in the Midhurst market.’

Ralph nodded. ‘You’d always need to keep enough back to feed Acre,’ he said, ‘but you could grow that on half a dozen fields, and Wideacre has the capacity for scores of fields.’

‘It’s not just Acre that should be fed,’ I said. ‘When our corn goes into Midhurst, it is bought by the poor from all around the area. The sensible thing would be to agree with other landowners that we should all supply the local market at a reasonable price, and then make what profits were possible with the surplus.’

‘A selling ring to benefit the poor!’ Ralph said with a chuckle in the back of his voice. ‘Miss Julia, you should be on the barricades. I have heard of selling rings to obtain the best price, but you are talking of one to make a fair price! A ring of producers to benefit the consumers! It would be a great novelty.’

‘And it might even work,’ Uncle John said thoughtfully. ‘You were not here, Mr Megson, when Julia’s papa, the squire, started his agricultural experiments and Beatrice ran the estate. During the good years Wideacre held sway in the whole county. Wideacre was much respected then and its example followed. If we could show that the estate was feeding the poor neighbours and all the workers and making a good commercial profit, there are many who would follow suit.’

‘And Wideacre showed that the other way, of chasing profit, did not work at all,’ I said.

Ralph smiled at my enthusiasm. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘You are in the right, Miss Julia.’

‘I agree!’ Richard said surprisingly. The two men turned to look at him, but he was smiling at me. ‘The prosperity of Acre does not depend solely on profits,’ he said. ‘The prosperity of any estate depends on its good relationship with neighbours. Let us sow large acres of corn and sell it at a fair price locally, and make what profits we can with the surplus. That’s fair.’

‘Done!’ said Uncle John as if we had shaken on a deal. ‘But I am still having a couple of fields for raspberries and strawberries.’

‘Aye,’ said Ralph dourly. ‘I know you are. And you may worry about how we will harvest them when they ripen at haymaking time.’

‘I shall harvest them!’ Richard said grandly. ‘For I will do anything rather than farm sheep!’

We all laughed at that, and Richard’s terror in that shadowy barn was hidden from everyone and half forgotten by me. It was generally known instead that young Master Richard could not be bothered with the stock. The stock was to be handled by Mr Megson or Miss Julia, and for this autumn Ralph would hire plough-boys and sowing gangs with their own gear and horses to plant Wideacre with wheat again.