The Favoured Child

22

Matthew Merry had been the butt of the village since he stammered his first words. In the hard years he had done badly for food, since his only protector was his grandmother, old Mrs Merry. While her word was law with the older village people, she carried little weight with the younger ones who could not remember the time when she had been the most skilled midwife and layer-out in the county.

He was easily frightened. Protected only by his grandma, he had been bullied from babyhood. I think that was why Clary first treated him so sweetly. He made her feel motherly and she shielded him from the others in that hard little wolf-pack which she ruled.

When he found her dead, he lost all his shy cleverness, which she had seen first and which Ralph had encouraged. The confidence he had drawn from the men who praised his poems deserted him at once and he behaved like the idiot they called him. They found him with her sodden body held tight in his arms, rocking at the river’s edge, crying her name over and over again. The tears were pouring down his cheeks so much that his face was as wet as dear, dead Clary’s.

Richard and Lord Havering’s man took him abruptly by an arm on each side and he made no effort to resist. They took him away from where he had found her, just above the weir by the mill-pond, where the body had stuck. He called her name louder as they led him away, but when they took him up in the Havering carriage with the coat of arms in the door, he fell silent and did nothing but weep. They made him sit on the floor, because he was so wet and grimy from the river. He did not object.

Then they questioned him. Where had he been that morning? When had he last seen her? As he was afraid, his stammer got worse. Richard blamed the stammer upon a guilty conscience; and all Matthew could do was to weep and say her name, over and over again. He could say no other word at all.

My grandpapa, Lord Havering, was not unkind, but he was brisk, impatient with the common people, familiar with lies and deceptions and accustomed to liars and criminals from Acre village. Richard had brought him an open-and-shut case, and all he needed to hear was young Matthew’s confession. He did not shout at Matthew or offer him clemency if he would own up to his crime. He just mended his quill and looked at Matthew with cold eyes. And Matthew, heartbroken, and with the memory of an angry parting with Clary on his conscience – and knowing full well that Clary would only have been walking alone by the Fenny because she was struggling with their quarrel in her mind-stammered like an idiot and wept in his fright. Finally he flung himself down on the floor and said, ‘It is my fault. It is my fault. It is my f-f-fault.’

That was as good as a confession of guilt, and his lordship called his clerk and had it written out fair. Young Matthew, blind and numb with grief, put his name to it, perhaps thinking to end this miserable interrogation so that he could go home and grieve for her in peace.

But they did not let him go. The clerk had two constables with him and they bundled him into their own carriage, a horrid affair with no windows and no door-handles on the inside. They took him to Chichester gaol and they threw him in with the self-confessed murderers and rapists to await sentencing at the quarter sessions.

And Richard rode home under a sickle moon humming the tune Matthew had sung with the others when we had brought the spring to Wideacre only the day before.

I was still asleep and I did not wake until the next morning when a great shout from downstairs woke me. It sounded like Ralph’s voice, but I could not believe that Ralph could have raised his voice in my mama’s house. I glanced at the window. It was late, nearly ten o’clock. Mama must have given orders that they should leave me asleep. For a moment I could not think why, and then my heart sank as I remembered that Clary was dead, killed by a stranger, and that there had been a murderer in the woods of Wideacre, that my wrist was broken in a fall from my horse and that I had somehow lost my courage – perhaps for horse-riding, perhaps for life – and that I could not stop a little tremor in my hands. I could not stop myself from weeping.

I stretched out for my wrapper at the foot of my bed and gave a little gasp of pain. I moved more cautiously then and dragged it on over my shoulders. I opened my bedroom door and listened. It was Ralph’s voice and he was shouting in the library.

‘An Acre lass dead, an Acre lad in Chichester gaol for her murder and a worthless confession to hang him! My oath, Dr MacAndrew, you have been damned remiss in this!’

Uncle John’s voice was soft; I could not make out the words.

‘Why was Julia not there, then?’ Ralph demanded. ‘If you did not summon me, why was it not done before Julia? She is part heir to Wideacre, equal to Master Richard. Why was Master Richard alone so busy in the matter?’

Ralph was silent while Uncle John answered, but I still could not hear what he said.

‘If Miss Julia was half dead with typhus fever, she should still have been there!’ Ralph bellowed. ‘This news has gone like wildfire around the village and everyone is angry, knowing a mistake has been made. Something like this could wreck the accord between the village and you. Acre has trusted you, and now there is an Acre lad behind bars with a hanging crime over his head.’

‘He made a confession.’ John’s voice was clear now, louder.

‘Aye,’ Ralph said with sarcasm. ‘And who was there? Lord Havering, who comes to the county in the shooting season and when he is short of funds. And Master Richard!’

‘What exactly are you saying, Mr Megson?’ Uncle John demanded, his tone as icy as Ralph’s was hot.

‘I’m saying that Acre does not trust the ability of Lord Havering to tell a horse from a haystack,’ Ralph said rudely. ‘We think he is half blind and half drunk. And I am saying that I do not trust Richard farther than I can pitch him. Why he should want poor Matthew Merry to hang, God alone knows, but everyone in Acre believes that Richard has sent that lad to gaol and will send him to the gallows.’

There was absolute silence in the library. I held my breath to listen.

‘I take it you will accept a month’s wages in lieu of notice, Mr Megson?’ asked Uncle John coldly.

‘I will,’ said Ralph, and only I could have heard the despair in his voice.

‘No,’ I said, and I ran across the landing to my mama’s room. She was sitting before her mirror, her hair down, with Jenny Hodgett frozen behind her, brush upraised. Mama looked around as I came into the room and nodded at the mute appeal in my face. She tossed the lovely unbound hair carelessly over her shoulders and went past me, downstairs. We went in together. I scarcely glanced at Ralph Megson. I was trembling again and praying inwardly that Mama would take control. I was as much use as a new-born kitten. I could feel the tears under my eyelids. Uncle John was sitting at the table, writing out a draft on his bank account.

‘Mr Megson must stay,’ Mama said. Uncle John looked up and noticed her morning dress and her hair tumbling down her back. His eyes were very pale and cold.

‘He has accused your step-papa of drunkenness and incompetence, and he has accused Richard of perjury,’ Uncle John said blankly. ‘I assume that he would not wish to work for us any more.’

I glanced at Ralph. His face was impassive.

‘Mr Megson,’ my mama said softly. ‘You will withdraw what you have said, won’t you? You will stay? There are so many things in Acre yet to be done. And you promised Acre you would help to do them.’

His eyes met hers for a long measuring moment, and then he nodded.

He was about to say yes.

I know he was about to say yes.

But I had left the library door open behind me; the front door opened and Richard came in and checked as he saw us. He took in the scene and he beamed at Ralph as if he were delighted to see him.

? problem?’ he asked.

‘Mr Megson thinks that Matthew Merry is innocent,’ John said abruptly. ‘Are you sure you put no pressure on him, Richard? It is a hanging matter, as I am sure you realize.’

Richard’s smile was as candid as a child’s. Of course not,’ he said. ‘Lord Havering was there all the time, and his clerk too. It was all completely legal. It was all conducted with perfect propriety.’

Ralph puffed out with a little hissing noise at Richard’s mannered enunciation of ‘perfect propriety’. I saw my hands were shaking and I clasped them together to keep them still.

‘And have you no doubt at all?’ Uncle John demanded. ‘Matthew is a young man, ill-educated, and he was taken by surprise. Are you certain he knew what he was signing? Are you positive he knew what he was saying?’

‘That is really a question for the examining Justice,’ Richard said easily. ‘You should ask Lord Havering, sir. It was his examination and deposition. I was just there because I reported the crime to him and told him that I thought there was a case against Matthew Merry if he chose to examine it. I had no other role to play in the matter.’

I said nothing. I was watching Ralph. His eyes were narrowed and he was staring at Richard. ‘You’re your mother’s child, all right,’ he said. Uncle John looked at him, and they exchanged a hard level gaze.

‘I’d like to stay if I can,’ Ralph said abruptly. ‘May I have a day to think it over, and also to go into Chichester to see what can be done for Matthew?’

Uncle John nodded. ‘I should like you to stay if we can agree, Mr Megson,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave the decision for a day and a night, if you please. We were both heated and I should hate to lose you because of hasty words of mine said in anger.’

Ralph’s shoulders slumped, and he gave John one of his slow honest smiles, ‘You’re a good man,’ he said, surprisingly. ‘I wish we were all clear of this coil.’ One swift hard look at Richard made it clear that he blamed Richard for all that had come about.

I looked from one to the other and I could not tell where my loyalty should lie.

Ralph nodded again. ‘There’ll be no work done today,’ he said, businesslike. ‘The carpenter is making her coffin and they’re digging her grave. She’ll be buried this afternoon at two o’clock, if you wish to attend. Tomorrow they’ll go back to work. They don’t want to keep the maying feast with the prettiest girl in the village dead and the sweetest lad in the village under wrongful arrest. It has all gone wrong for Acre this year.’

Uncle John said, ‘Yes’ softly, his head down. That last sentence seemed to toil in my head like the echo of a church bell which sounds on and on long after the ringers have stood still. It seemed I had heard it before. Then I saw John’s stricken face and guessed that someone had said it to Beatrice when she wrecked Acre, and that he was afraid that the Laceys were wrecking Acre again.

Ralph swung out of the room without another word and we heard his wooden legs clump across the polished floor of the hali I went weakly into the chair by the fireplace and sank down, my head in my hands, the tears spilling over, helpless.

My mama went to John. ‘Don’t look so desperate,’ she said. ‘It will all come right. We cannot help poor Clary, but you and I can go to Chichester, as well as Mr Megson. If Matthew denies his guilt today, now he has had time to think, then perhaps Richard and Lord Havering may find they were mistaken. Certainly the quarter sessions are not for months yet, so there is plenty of time to set things right if a mistake has been made.’

Uncle John’s head come up at that and suddenly I could see how aged and tired he looked. ‘Yes,’ he said. Then, more strongly, ‘Yes, Celia, you are right. Nothing is beyond our control. Events have moved very swiftly, but no final decision has been made. We can perfectly well see Matthew in prison, and if he tells a different story, then we can resolve the problem.’

We all looked towards Richard. One might have thought that he would fire up at this challenge to his judgement, but he was smiling and his eyes were the clearest of blues. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘whatever you wish.’

Something in his voice made me put my head in my hands and weep and weep.

Mama and John never spoke to Matthew. As they were getting in the carriage to go to Chichester to see him, a message came over from Havering Hall. The prison authorities had sent to Lord Havering to tell him that his prisoner, Matthew Merry, had been found hanged in his cell that morning. He had hanged himself with his belt. They had cut him down as they brought him slops in the morning, but he was already cold.

A bad business, Lord Havering wrote in his aristocratic, illegible scrawl, but saving the cost of the hangman, for the wretch was undoubtedly guilty.

John, Mama and I sat in silence, and I had a feeling – a bad feeling, and the first time I had known it – that things were going wrong, seriously wrong, and I could not hold them or control them.

‘Does this point to his guilt?’ Uncle John asked himself softly, and then he said, ‘No’, without waiting for a word from me. ‘This is bad news for Acre,’ he said more clearly. But I could see it cost him an effort to speak so calmly. As for me, I had my good hand clenched to stop it shaking.

‘How should we tell them?’ he asked.

Mama took a breath. ‘I will, if you wish,’ she said. ‘I was planning to go to Clary’s funeral. I could speak to them afterwards. But I shall go down now, and tell Mrs Merry.’

Uncle John nodded. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

So instead of driving to Chichester to see if young Matthew could be shown to be innocent and bailed, they drove to Acre to find his grandmama and tell her that the only child left to her was dead. A shameful death, and by his own hand.

That was the end of the May holiday and the end of the plans to dance on the green and feast and drink and make merry. The next day everyone was back to work and, although there was much to be done and the lambs were growing and the cows in calf, there was little joy for anyone in Acre.

There was little joy in the Dower House. Uncle John had grown quiet and thoughtful and spent the next few days alone in the library, reading and writing. Mama returned to the schoolroom in the village, but more out of a sense of duty than enthusiasm. She had appointed a Midhurst girl as a temporary teacher while we had been in Bath, and she spoke to John about giving the woman a cottage in Acre and handing the school over to her entirely. It was a sensible decision, but it gave us all the feeling that a gulf was opening between Acre and the Laceys.

Only Richard was contented. He took Prince out on errands for Mama and for John, and he checked the stock, the cows and sheep, from the far side of their gates without mishap.

And I? I was in a frenzy of anxiety. I was waiting for James. When Clary’s funeral was over, I stopped Jimmy Dart at the gate of the church and asked him to seek out James at his father’s offices in London. I had a gold coin inside my glove and I gave him it for the coach fare.

‘Tell him not to come to the Dower House,’ I said quietly. Richard was helping Mama into the carriage and had his back to me. ‘Tell him I want to see him privately. I will meet him in Midhurst, in the private room at the Spread Eagle Inn. Tell him I will be there, on Tuesday, at ten o’clock.’

‘Spread Eagle, Tuesday, ten o’clock,’ said Jimmy promptly. ‘I won’t fail you, Miss Julia. And neither will Mr James, I’ll be bound.’

I looked at him quickly, and blinked away the haze of sudden tears. ‘Do you think so, Jimmy?’ I asked.

Jimmy looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, Miss Julia,’ he said. ‘Anyone could see!’

I glanced again towards the carriage. Richard was waiting for me, smiling his bright secretive smile. ‘I must go,’ I said quickly. ‘You’ll catch the early stage?’

‘I’ll be in London by noon,’ Jimmy promised. ‘And I’ll find him wherever he is.’

I gave him a little smile and then turned for the carriage.

Then I waited. I waited, and worried.

James had thought that his own unchastity was wrong. Wrong, but forgivable. I was gambling all that I had on one thought, that he loved me enough to forgive me one terrible error, just as I had loved him enough to forgive him. But it was a big gamble. It was everything I wanted.

I was no angel! The thought of saying nothing at all and marrying him as if I were an untouched bride went through my mind. But truly, I think it went through my mind only once. During those waiting days I knew for certain that I only wanted to marry James with honesty and honour between us.

But I did not know how much I dared to tell him. I picked it over, like a woman picking lice out of old rags. I could tell him I had been forced. But I must also tell him that I lay on my back and smiled. I scorched with shame at that memory, and I knew I could never tell him of it. Or anyone. I could tell him it was rape, but he would want to know if I knew the criminal. But I could not tell him it was Richard. I was as fixed on that point as I had been the very afternoon when the lie of a fall from a horse was first told. But if I told him of the rape and said I did not know the man, I should have to invent a whole string of tales about how and where it happened. And why I had not told my mama.

I seemed to have no solutions, no solutions at all, just more and more problems until I started the round again of thinking that I could certainly tell him I had been forced.

On Monday night I did not sleep. At midnight I wrapped my blanket around me and sat in my window-seat and watched the moon travel across a cloudless silvery sky. The circular nagging worry went around and around in my head until I leaned back against my shutter and closed my eyes against the glare of the moon and the drumming of my fear that I would lose James, that I did not know how to hold him. I did not know the words which would make him forgive me. He was the only man I had ever loved, would ever love. And I did not know where to begin to keep his love.

I slept then, cramped on the window-seat, my head against the shutter. I awoke at dawn, chilly and stiff for my pains. I could not sleep again, but put on my grey riding habit in the half-light and washed my face in the cold water in my ewer, and sat in my window-seat again and listened to the birds starting to sing.

At six o’clock I thought I might go down to the stables and saddle Misty. I wanted to avoid my mama and Uncle John this morning. Most of all I wanted to escape the notice of Richard. I was in real fear of meeting Richard this morning, and I was longing for James.

I was awkward, saddling Misty with one hand. But she whinnied when I gave her a carrot from my pocket, and that summoned Jem in his dirty flannels from the stables.

‘You can’t ride one-handed,’ he said, scandalized.

‘You know Misty is as gentle as anything. I can manage her, if you would just get the saddle on for me, Jem.’

‘And where d’you think you’re going?’ he demanded truculently.

I looked at him, irresolute, and then my lower lip trembled and I told him the truth. ‘I have to meet James Fortescue,’ I said baldly. ‘We may have to call off the wedding. I have to go and see him this morning, Jem. Please help me.’

His brown face at once creased into tenderness. ‘Your fine young man, Miss Julia?’ he asked tenderly. ‘I’ll drive you there in the carriage, of course.’

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘No. I don’t want Mama or Uncle John to know. Nor Richard. Not anyone. Just get Misty ready for me and tell them I wanted an early ride, and that I could handle her. Please, Jem.’

He paused. ‘Take her carefully, then,’ he said. ‘I can’t think how you came to fall the last time.’

‘I misjudged a jump,’ I said. ‘She didn’t throw me. Please put the saddle on her, Jem. I am so afraid of being late.’

He took it from the stable door and swung it on her back, and then slid her bridle on. He led her into the yard and put both hands on my waist to lift me up into the saddle.

‘Go easy now,’ he said again. ‘What time do you have to be in Midhurst?’

‘At ten,’ I said.

Jem looked at me incredulously. ‘Miss Julia, come down and get some breakfast. You don’t need to leave for three hours yet!’

I smiled ruefully. I think it was the first time I had smiled all week since May morning. ‘I can’t eat!’ I said. ‘And I couldn’t sleep either. I thought I’d ride over the common for a while and then down to Midhurst that way.’

Jem smiled at me. ‘Good luck, then, Miss Julia. A man would be a fool to let a maid like you go, and your Mr Fortescue knows it. Good luck. I’ll tell them you’re riding and won’t be back till noon.’

I gathered the reins in my one good hand, and Misty moved delicately out of the yard, loud on the cobbles, but silent on the grass outside the bedroom windows. Then I trotted her up the drive and turned right to go to the common to ride away the hours before I needed to turn her head towards Midhurst.

I was still too early, even after riding in a great sweep from our common land over to Ambersham. I was still too early by half an hour. But I was thirsty now, so I handed her to the ostler and went in by the stable door.

They knew us in Midhurst and greeted me by name. I said that I was meeting a friend from London and that I should like coffee in their private parlour while I waited. The landlord showed me in and lit the fire in the grate, though the room was warm. I sat in the window-seat and sipped from my cup.

It was a pretty room, overlooking a little patch of garden at the back which was bright with Maytime flowers. I would rather have been in the taproom, which had a view over the stable yard. But, though I could not see James’s arrival, I knew he would be here soon. I waited.

The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. It seemed to be very slow. I checked it against my own little watch, which John had bought me, a tiny copy of his own on a chain like his. The clock was slow, by a couple of minutes. I put a finger under the minute-hand and pushed it up a little. Then I thought of advancing the time by half an hour and pretending to be angry with James for being late. But then, with a great swoop of apprehension, I remembered that we might not be on jesting terms. I went back to my seat and sat down, and waited.

I heard the clatter of the stage from the yard; the ten o’clock coach had arrived from Chichester. I knew at once it could not be James. The noise of the stage with the passengers bawling for drinks and food was unmistakable. I checked the clock and my watch. The stage was a little early, for it was not ten o’clock yet. James could come within the next three or four minutes and still be on time.

I wished I had brought a book, or something to distract me from the slow movements of the hands of the clock. It seemed to time my thoughts as they went around to its rhythm. Tick…I shall tell him I am dishonoured. Tock…I shall tell him I was unwilling. Tick…I shall refuse to name the man. Tock . . . that will make him very angry. Tick…if he is angry, he may not believe I was unwilling. Tock…I was not completely unwilling, not at first. Tick . . . no! I was unwilling as soon as I knew it was Richard. Tock…I must remember not to say Richard’s name. Tick . . . whatever happens, I must not say Richard’s name.

There were footsteps outside the door and ‘I leaped to my feet, the colour rushing into my face. It was Mr Jeffries, the landlord. Not James. Not James at all.

‘Just come for the coffee-tray, Miss Lacey,’ he said. ‘Coming post, your friend, is she?’

I stammered a reply.

‘Late anyway,’ Mr Jeffries said cheerfully. ‘I expect you are sorry to be indoors on a day like this, and it’s a busy time on Wideacre, I hear.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Mr Jeffries, would you bring another pot of coffee, please? And two cups this time. My friend will be here at any moment, I am sure.’

I waited for the coffee. I waited for James. There was a creeper growing up outside the window and it tapped on the glass softly, as soft as a kitten patting a ball of wool; but in the silence of each moment I could hear it. The sunshine was streaming through the window and little motes of dust danced in the beam. The carpet was faded around the window, where the sunshine of countless summers had bleached it. It was worn thin in a little track from the door to the table where landlord and serving wench had walked. I felt I had been in the little room all my life. I felt I would have to stay there for ever.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed a quarter chime. James was late.

In all our time in Bath he had never been late to see me. He was always there whenever I arrived. He told me once that he often waited for as long as an hour for me. I thought he must have found the roads harder going than he had expected. Or perhaps a horse had gone lame. But then I heard the door from the stable yard bang and my heart leaped. Footsteps came down the corridor and I stood unsteadily and walked towards the table waiting.

The footsteps walked past the room. It was not James.

The coffee came, and I sat beside the cooling pot and watched a blackbird on the patch of grass, making little runs and then freezing in silence, head cocked, listening to sounds which no one but he could hear.

The chime of the half-hour sounded very loud. The coffee was luke-warm. I drank a cup. I would order a fresh pot when James came.

When James came.

I knew he would come. I knew it was not possible that he should not come, just as in my deepest heart I knew that if he came and I told him frankly and truly what had happened to me, he would forgive me. I trusted him, I trusted my love for him, and his for me.

The clock ticked. The blackbird sprang forward, tugged a worm out and carried it triumphantly away in his beak.

The clock chimed the full three-quarters of the tune. It was quarter to eleven. I bet with myself that he would be with me in five minutes. But at ten minutes to eleven he still had not come. I bet myself a hundred guineas that he would dash into the parlour at five minutes to eleven, covered with dust and full of apologies. But he did not.

The clock struck the full chimes, jangly, tedious, loud. Mr Jeffries put his head around the door.

‘There’s a gentleman here…’ he began.

‘James!’ I said certainly and got to my feet.

‘Says that the road from London is clear, and he has passed no post-chaise in the last twenty miles,’ Mr Jeffries went on. ‘Maybe your friend is not coming, Miss Lacey.’

‘I’ll wait another half-hour,’ I said. I could feel the blood draining from my face so fast that I thought I might faint. I sat down on the seat again and leaned my head against the window-pane. The glass was cold. In one pane someone had tried to cut their name with a diamond. It looked like Stephen something, and last year’s date.

It was twenty minutes past eleven.

At half past eleven Mr Jeffries came in to ask me if I would like to leave a message with him, and he would promise to deliver it, to save me the further inconvenience of waiting. I said I would wait until noon.

The clock ticked. The blackbird came back.

I said to myself that it was not possible, that James would not just not come. He would never simply fail to meet me. I had asked him to meet me here and he had agreed. He must have had an accident on the road and, instead of sitting here doubting him, I should be sending out people to search the road for him and bring him home safe to Wideacre. But in my heart I knew he had not had an accident. He was not coming.

It was half past twelve before I knew with certainty. Even then I might have seen his post-chaise with delight, not surprise. But at half past twelve, two and a half hours late for our appointment, I told myself he was not coming and I might as well go home.

I rose from the window-seat like an old woman, stiff and tired. He was not coming. He had known I was waiting for him and yet he had not come to me. What I should say to him now was a problem for the future. He was not coming today, though I had asked him to come and see me.

My arm was aching and I did not know if I would manage Misty on the ride home. I was as weary as if I had been riding around on the downs all the day. Misty would be fresh from her rest in the stables, and I would have trouble mounting her with only one hand.

I pinned on my hat and went out into the yard.

Richard was there.

He was sitting in Uncle John’s gig with the steadiest of the driving horses between the shafts, and Misty hitched with a halter to the back. He was stretched out in the driver’s seat with his smart boots crossed before him on the splashboard. The smoke from his cigar circled in the still air above his head. He turned when he heard the door shut behind me and got down, slowly taking his tricorne hat off and smiling his secretive smile.

‘What a long time you have been, my dear,’ he said kindly. ‘As I had some business to do myself in the inn, I thought I would wait for you. Your mama was concerned at you riding. She will be glad that we met and I could drive you home. Where shall we tell her we met?’

He took me by the waist and lifted me up into the gig before I could say a word, and then he flapped the reins on the horse’s back, tossed a coin to the ostler and drove us out of the yard.

I said nothing for a moment. Just seeing Richard there was a shock. But then I found my voice. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘Business,’ Richard said as if he had business in a Midhurst inn every day of the week. ‘I had to see a man.’ He gave one of his sly giggles. ‘I had to deliver some letters to a gentleman,’ he said, ‘so I thought I would wait and drive you home. I thought you might be tired, coming out so early and with your hand still sore.’

‘I am,’ I said briefly. Indeed I was. I was so tired and disappointed I could have wept. All night, all week I had been readying myself to beg James to love me despite everything, and trying to prepare myself for his refusal. But nothing could have been worse than not seeing him.

Richard threw me a sideways glance which was as warm and as sympathetic as if he had known and cared for my despair. ‘Why don’t you take your hat off and let the wind blow in your face?’ he suggested kindly. ‘You’re looking so pale, little Julia.’

I did as he bid me and held the hat in my lap as we climbed the short hill out of Midhurst. Misty shied at a blowing piece of paper and her hooves clattered on the stones.

‘Better have a rest when you get home,’ Richard said sweetly. ‘You have shadows under your eyes, my darling. You look tired out.’

I tipped my head back so the sun fell on my face and made rosy patterns on my closed eyelids. ‘I am tired, for I could not sleep last night,’ I said.

‘You should have woken me,’ he said, making it seem the most reasonable thing in the world. ‘You know I would not want you to be wakeful on your own. It is horrible being the only person awake in a house, isn’t it? Poor Julia. Did you feel very lonely?’

I did not answer him. I looked down at my wrist and at Uncle John’s meticulous strapping, and at the blue bruise which showed above the bandage. I thought of the man he was and the playmate he had been. I thought of his warm friendly tones now, and of his demented hiss of a voice in the summer-house. And I felt so much that I wanted to be safe from his anger, safe from his hatred. No one could keep me safe from Richard, not Mama, not Uncle John, not even Ralph. And now James was gone. I had loved and feared Richard for all my childhood and girlhood.

Now that James was gone, the brief period when I hardly noticed Richard at all seemed an interruption of the normal feelings: my base, cowardly, fearful affection.

‘You should not have hurt me,’ I said.

It was the only protest I ever made.

Richard chuckled and made no reply at all.

I was bundled into my bed on my return. Mama exclaimed at my paleness and wanted to know what wildness had got into me to make me ride out all day, only days after a bad fall. I submitted without protest. I had nothing to say. I stayed in bed for the afternoon, but after dinner I walked for a little in the front garden to see the flowers. The primroses were as mild a yellow as little butter-pats all along the path, and the pansies were as dark as velvet. I heard hoofbeats, but I did not run to the gate thinking of James. I knew that James would never come. It was Ralph.

He pulled his horse up at the garden wall and I went down the path towards him. He touched his hat to me, but his face was unsmiling. ‘I’ve come to tell you that I’ve given orders to bring Matthew Merry’s body home from Chichester gaol to be buried here. They’ve released the body at last.’

I nodded, as formal as he. ‘Can he be buried in the churchyard?’ I asked.

‘Nay, he’s a suicide,’ Ralph said. ‘It will have to be Miss Beatrice’s Corner for him.’

‘What d’you mean?’ I asked swiftly. The corner of grass by the church gate was called Miss Beatrice’s Corner, but no one had ever told me why, of all the land which my aunt had made her own, that little patch had been named for her.

‘It’s the corner of the ground nearest to the graveyard, on t’other side of the church wall,’ Ralph said. ‘When Miss Beatrice ruled here, there were two suicides. They buried them there in unsanctified ground but as close to the church as they could get. They called it Miss Beatrice’s Corner in a tribute to the last Lacey squire who brought death to the village. Now there will be another grave there. It’s a new generation of Laceys and Acre is still dying for them.’

I gasped and the ready tears came to my eyes. I looked up at Ralph. High on his black horse, he was an inexorable judge, but there was something more than anger in his face. There was also despair.

‘I am so sorry,’ I said feebly. I could feel my eyes filling with tears and I was afraid they would start rolling down my cheeks.

‘Come out on the land, Julia,’ Ralph said urgently. ‘It’s going wrong, but you could catch it, even now, if you came out on the land with your sight and your skills. I can hold Acre together, but I cannot hold them to this trial of sharing with the squires if you and your family stay inside your great house and behave as if you think the village too lowly for you.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said instantly.

‘What is it, then?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you not in Acre these past few days? Why does Richard do all the work that you used to do? We would all rather work with you. No one likes Richard, and everyone blames him for what happened to Matthew. Ted Tyacke will not even speak to him.’

‘It was not his fault Matthew died,’ I said.

‘Matthew died by his own hand, I know,’ Ralph said steadily, ‘but no one in the village thinks he killed Clary. There are two Acre deaths and no murderer taken, and they all believe that you know who the murderer is.’ Ralph’s black look at me was intent. ‘They all swear that you can see him with the sight.’

‘I can’t,’ I said rapidly. I could feel my heart fluttering with anxiety.

‘They all say you would be sure to be able to see her killer,’ Ralph said, ‘as a Lacey girl with the sight, as her best friend. They all swear that if you looked with the sight, then you would see him, whoever he is. Then we could have him taken up, and hanged, and Clary and Matthew would be avenged and would sleep quiet in their graves. And you would be restored to the village.’

‘I can’t, Ralph,’ I said piteously. ‘I have a dream when I think he is coming nearer, but I dare not see his face.’

Ralph’s horse shifted impatiently as his grip on the reins tightened. ‘For God’s sake, Julia,’ he said roughly. ‘This is not a question of what you wish or what you dare. All our work here is falling apart and you must save it. Go into your dream, take the courage you inherited from Beatrice. Look Death in the face and come back and tell me his name and I will do the rest. Then you’ll be the squire in very truth. Then Acre can grow and trust again.’

‘I can’t,’ I said, my voice wavering higher. ‘I’ve told you already. I cannot do it! They may say I can, but they are wrong. I cannot do it, Ralph. You should not ask it of me.’

‘Then you are a coward and a traitor to Acre,’ he said harshly, ‘and I am ashamed of you.’

His horse wheeled on its hind legs as he whirled it around, the reins so tight that its mouth gaped, and then it leaped forward and threw up its head as it felt the whip. It took three wide paces of a canter, then jinked and shied in sudden fright at some weed blowing bright on the top of our garden wall. Ralph jerked it to a standstill and looked back at me, standing alone in my pretty garden.

‘You are bad blood, you Laceys!’ he shouted. And behind the anger in his voice I heard a bitter despair that he had trusted us and had again been betrayed, and that because of the mistake of his trust Clary was dead, and young Matthew too. ‘You are bad cursed blood, and I hate the whole race of you!’ he yelled, as angry as a rebellious youth. Then he was gone, round the bend in the track and hidden by the trees.

But I stayed as if I could still see him, staring at the track as if he were still there. I stayed without moving, without making a sound. My heartbeat was thudding in my ears and I was damp with sweat under my gown. I knew it had all gone wrong. It was my fault, and all I could say, over and over, was, ‘Oh, I am so sorry. I am so very, very sorry.’

They buried Matthew the next day, and Mrs Merry seemed to become yet older as they stamped the earth down on the little grave. It could have no headstone, but the carpenter made a little board with Matthew’s name and age on it, and the date. Dr Pearce said nothing when it appeared at the head of the fresh earth, nor did Uncle John.

We had to go to church past the little mound, and I saw that Mama turned her head and looked out of the other window. I was on that side of the carriage as we drew up at the lich-gate and I could not help but see it.

The wooden board was light; it would be rotted and gone in a few years. The little mound of earth was bare. They might plant it with flowers later, or it might simply grow over with weeds and grass like the two neighbouring unmarked graves.

The three little mounds seemed to accuse me as I stepped from the carriage. They were mute witnesses to the power of the Laceys. We went through the gate and I glanced back at the fresh grave. There were two smooth prints where Mrs Merry had knelt on the earth and pressed it flat, the marks of her knees. I knew then, as I had only thought before, that whatever it cost me in money, I might be better off if I did not own Wideacre. Ralph might be right about the ownership of the land and that it should not be trusted to the Laceys, or to any one family, that a squire on Wideacre could do so much wrong.

Uncle John’s face was grim as we went into the church, and there were no smiles for us as we walked up the aisle. The pew where Clary used to sit, supervising her brothers and sisters in a row of diminishing figures, was empty. None of the Dench children had come to church this Sunday. I felt the tears prickle under my eyelids at that empty plain wooden pew, and I glanced at Richard for a little comfort.

He was smiling.

He must have been thinking of something else. He must have been miles away in his thoughts. For as we walked up the aisle of that church, between the villagers who were grieving for a murdered girl and a hanged lad, Richard’s blue eyes were dancing with mischief and he was beaming at some private joke.

My hand was on his arm, and I pressed it gently.

‘Richard,’ I said softly, ‘what are you thinking of?’

He glanced down at me and the delight was wiped from his face at once. ‘You are quite right,’ he said. ‘Thank you for reminding me,’ and he at once looked grave and solemn and sad, and stepped back for me to precede him into the pew. Ralph Megson’s stony gaze was on me and I felt party to Richard’s deceit, as if I too had been laughing and then donned a mask of gravity.

We did not wait to chat after church and no one stayed Uncle John or me with a friendly hand as we walked back to the carriage. In the last few months a villager, or a tenant, or a worker had often stopped me on the way to the carriage to ask me something, or to complain about one of the hundred little problems which come from farming the land. On this day the churchyard was silent.

We walked past the tenants and labourers with no word spoken, and I saw Mama’s head was down and her eyes were on her feet. Uncle John looked weary to death. Only Richard’s head was up and his face was calm; Richard’s eyes were as clear as his conscience, his merry smile not far away.

Mama shivered when we got into the carriage and she stroked the velvet lapel of her jacket for comfort. ‘That was awful,’ she said in a low voice to John. ‘It was like the old days. John, if this scheme does not work with Acre, do say that we can leave at once. I have spent half my life on this land trying to get things right here, and we seem to face one failure after another. If Acre remains unhappy, do say we can sell up and leave.’

Uncle John’s face was haggard. ‘Celia, after all the plans .. .’ he said despairingly. The carriage moved off. Nobody waved to us from the churchyard. ‘I can’t believe it is hopeless,’ he said. ‘This gloom is natural indeed, but it is not as it was with Beatrice. Matthew Merry died most horridly, but no Lacey can be blamed. It is you and I who are so superstitious, Celia. Having seen the village in despair once, we are too quick to think it has all gone wrong again. I’m sure the children are more optimistic’

Mama and Uncle John looked at Richard and me, hoping we had some answer for them.

Richard’s smile was sunny and confident. Of course,’ he said sweetly. ‘Acre is in the sullens because the May feast was spoiled and because they are grieving. But that is no cause for us to blame ourselves. If Clary Dench upset her lover and he strangled her and then hanged himself, that is a nasty little tale, but not one that reflects on us at all.’ He smiled at my mama. ‘Aunt Celia,’ he said coaxingly, ‘I know what is amiss. You have not been to Chichester for days and you have spent no money!’

Mama smiled, but I could see it was an effort.

‘And what do you think, Julia?’ John asked.

I was silent for a moment. The noise of the horses’ hooves on the lane and the creak of the carriage-wheels on the sticky mud filled the silence. ‘I agree with Richard,’ I said in a small voice. I did not want to tell Uncle John that Ralph had begged me to use the sight for Acre and that I had refused him, and refused them. I did not want to tell Uncle John that Ralph had raised his voice to me and cursed me and cursed all the Laceys. I did not want to tell Uncle John that Ralph blamed me for cowardice, that the gloom of Acre was my fault; for I had refused them.

‘I agree with Richard,’ I said again.

Under the shelter of my pelisse and muff Richard’s hand came down and brushed the back of my gloved hand with the tips of his warm fingers. I stole a sideways glance at him and he was smiling down at me, his eyes warm. Imperceptibly he leaned towards me so that our shoulders were touching. As the carriage turned up the drive under the greening trees of Wideacre Park, with the air full of birdsong, I knew that the only person I could please was Richard, that only Richard and I knew the truth. We were partners in deceit once more.