Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (25 page)

‘Do you have none of your baby clothes?’ he asked. ‘Did you never see them?’

I screwed my eyes up with an effort to remember. ‘I saw them,’ I said hesitantly. ‘We shared them, of course. I saw a white lace shawl, very fine, trimmed in lace. Someone must have given it to us.’ The memory of the white lace shawl slipped away from me as if it had disappeared into darkness. ‘Everything was sold after Ma died,’ I said again.

Mr Fortescue nodded, consideringly. Then he said, very softly. ‘You say “us”. Who was the child who shared your childhood?’

My chair scraped as I suddenly pushed it back. My hands on the table had started their trembling again. I looked at them carefully until they were still. Then the man who hated gin traps leaned over and put his large calloused hand over mine.

‘You don’t need to say,’ he said softly.

I took a deep shuddering breath. ‘I won’t say more than this,’ I said. ‘We were raised together, we were sisters. She never dreamed of Wide as I did. We were twin sisters, but we looked different.’

‘And where is your sister, your twin sister, now?’ Mr Fortescue asked.

I heard a low cry like an animal in pain and I hunched up over the pain which was like hunger-cramps in my belly. I felt a thud of pain on my forehead, over my eyes, and I heard a low thumping sound. Then another, and then another, and then someone grabbed my shoulders and I realized I had been banging my head on that dark shiny table. The man who hated gin traps pulled me around and held my shoulders tight until I stopped shaking and that distant moaning noise stopped.

‘That’s enough,’ he said over my head to James Fortescue. ‘We’ve got enough. It’s her. She can’t bear to tell us more now.’

I heard footsteps cross the room and the clink of a decanter on a glass. ‘Drink this,’ Mr Fortescue said, and I knocked back half a glass of cognac as if I were my da.

It hit me in the cold sad part of my belly and spread a warmth all through me. I rubbed my face with my hands, my cheeks were dry and warm. I had shed no tears, I felt as if I would never cry again. My forehead was sore. I felt a flicker of fear that I had been hurting myself so. But then the cold dullness was all around me and I did not care what they thought of me. I did not care what I did.

‘I’m all right now,’ I said. The man who hated gin traps still had his hands on my shoulders. I shrugged him off. ‘I’m all right now,’ I said again, irritably.

There was a silence in the dark room. Outside in the stable yard someone was whistling.

‘I have enough,’ Mr Fortescue said. ‘I had enough as soon as I saw her. I won’t vex you with more questions, Sarah. I shall tell you why I needed to ask you them.’

I nodded. I was still trembling from that welling-up of pain, but I took the cup of coffee for its warmth. There was a knack to balancing it on the little plate which was under the cup. I watched it carefully until I had it safe up to my mouth, and then I blew on it cautiously and supped it. It was a strange taste, but hot and sweet and strong. I thought about the taste of it, I watched the little plate under the cup, I curled my toes up hard inside my boots until I could get the picture of her, and my pain at losing her, out of my mind.

Then I looked up and listened to Mr Fortescue.

‘I believe that you are the daughter of Julia and Richard Lacey, and the only heir to this estate,’ he said simply. ‘Your mother was in fever after your birth and she gave you away to the gypsies. Your father was killed by an escaped criminal who came back here seeking his revenge. Your mother died shortly after.’ He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was even. ‘She wrote to me before her death,’ he said. ‘She had no close relations and she entrusted to me the task of trying to find her daughter and to care for the estate until the child was of age.’

He looked at me. ‘I am sorry I failed you so badly, Miss Lacey,’ he said. ‘I did indeed try, for all these years I have had men looking for you. We traced the gypsy family and then much later your foster mother; but then the trail went cold. I never knew of the man you call your stepfather.’

I nodded, but I said nothing. If they had found the two of us before some of the beatings I had taken. If they had only found us before Da sold us to Robert Gower. Or if they had found us just yesterday, when we were a day’s ride away and she had been playing in the sea and her hair had tasted of salt when I kissed her.

I shrugged off the pain and took a deep breath. In a few moments the picture of her would be out of my mind and I would be able to hear Mr Fortescue’s voice again.

‘I’ve done better with the estate, I think,’ he said. ‘We restored it to the profit-sharing scheme started by your mother, and we have expanded. It is now quite famous as a village corporation – an experiment in communal planning and communal land-use. Will Tyacke here acts as foreman and keeps in touch with me in my offices in London or Bristol. I only supervise. All of the decisions are made here, by the people themselves.’

‘Is it a wealthy estate?’ I asked bluntly.

Mr Fortescue looked down at a little case he had by his chair. ‘Run as a corporation it does not make a profit,’ he said. ‘It pays you an annual share of some £10,000. If you were to withdraw an economic rent you would earn some £40,000. I have the figures here for you to see.’

He went to pick them up but I checked him.

‘I…I cannot read,’ I said awkwardly.

He nodded as if there were no reason to think that anyone could. ‘Of course,’ he said gently. ‘Then we can go over them together another time. But you may believe me that you have a good estate, run as a corporation, with the people who live here sharing in the wealth. It is showing substantial and steady profits.’

I thought of the nine guineas I had in my little purse and the work I had done to earn them. I thought of her dancing with her
skirts up for pennies, and of Da selling us in a job lot with a young pony. I thought of Jack, so fearful of his father’s ambition that he killed to keep his favour, to inherit the show. And I thought of myself, flint-hearted and hungry…and wealthy beyond anything I could ever have dreamed.

I blinked. ‘It is mine?’ I asked.

Mr Fortescue nodded. ‘You are the heir to the whole of the Wideacre estate,’ he said. ‘All the debts on the land are paid, you own it entire. Your mother wanted it gifted to the village, I have a letter she wrote to me in which she makes clear that is her intention. She died before she could write it into her will. She wanted you to have the Hall as your home. The Hall, the gardens and parkland. We have set up a trust so that you could sign your rights to the land over to the village as soon as you wish. But while you are a minor,’ he looked at my confused face, ‘until you are twenty-one or married, then you may draw an allowance from me, and I shall act as your guardian and run the estate as I think fit. When you are twenty-one or married it is yours.’

I rose slowly from the table and went to look out over the cobbled yard. There was a man there mucking out a stable, I watched him fork over the soiled straw.

‘That man works for me,’ I said slowly.

Mr Fortescue, in the room behind me cleared his throat and said, ‘Yes.’

‘And Becky Miles,’ I said.

‘And Mistress Miles,’ he repeated. ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘if the village were run in the usual way with the workers hired by the quarter and paid wages instead of our profit-sharing scheme you would have something like a hundred people working for you.’

I leaned my head against the coldness of the thick glass and thought what this sudden wealth, what this sudden power meant. I need never go hungry, I need never go cold, I need never work in the wind or the rain or the cold. I need never work again at all. I would have a meal on the table, set before me by someone else, a servant, my servant, more than once a day, four times a day! I had won through to what I had always wanted, to what I
had always thought was impossible. I had not had to whore, I had not had to trap someone into marriage as Robert Gower had foretold. I had inherited as easily and as naturally as if I were one of the Quality.

I stopped myself there. I
was
one of the Quality. I was born Sarah Lacey with a silver spoon in my mouth and I was now where I belonged. Where I had an absolute right to be. And this house, this huge beautiful house was all mine, staffed with servants who were mine to command. No one would ever make me do their bidding again. I held that thought in my mind for a long moment. And I thought what it meant for me now.

‘It’s too late,’ I said desolately.

‘What?’

‘It’s too late,’ I said again.

I turned back to the room; they were both watching me, puzzled, uneasy. I looked at Mr Fortescue.

‘It’s too late for me, damn you for a fool!’ I exploded. ‘I wanted it for me, oh! yes, of course I did! I was hungry, I was beaten! I was tired all the time from working too hard and not enough food! But I wanted it for her! I wanted to give it to her! I wanted to bring her here and make her safe!’

I could hear my voice rising into a scream. ‘And all the time you have been sitting here, you fat merchant, sitting here on my land while I was out there, beaten and cold, and she was out there too and I could not keep her safe!’

‘Sarah…’ The man who hated gin traps was up from the table, coming towards me, his hand held out, like you would try to calm a frightened horse.

‘No!’ I screamed as loud as I could and dodged past him towards the door.

‘Where were you three nights ago?’ I shouted at James Fortescue. ‘I was a day’s ride down the road! You weren’t looking for me then! You weren’t doing all you could then! I was there alone, not knowing what to do to keep her safe! And she…and she…and she…’

I turned to the door and scrabbled at the panels in an agony of haste to get out of the room. I found the door handle and tore it
open and ran up the stairs to the room they had given me, my own room in my own house, while she lay cold and still in the ground and all her little things burned and scattered.

I flung myself into a corner of the bedroom and sobbed, deep aching hopeless dry sobs which seemed to tear me apart.

And when my throat was so sore that I was hoarse with sobbing, so that no more sound would come, the pain had not eased at all. It was still there, unslaked, as hot and hard and heartbroken as ever.

There was a knock at the door and James Fortescue opened it softly and came into the room.

He squatted down on the floor beside me, careless of creasing his fine breeches and coat, and he did not offer to touch me, nor did he say easy foolish words of comfort. He looked quickly at my red eyes which were still dry after nigh on an hour of weeping, and then he looked down at the carpet underneath his fine shoes.

‘You are right to blame me,’ he said softly. ‘I have failed you, and I have failed the woman I love. I know the grief you are feeling because I also loved a woman and I did not keep her safe.’

I looked up a little.

‘It was your mother,’ he said. ‘Her name was Julia Lacey and she was the bravest, funniest, most beautiful girl I ever met.’ He paused for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Those were the things that I loved most about her. She was very brave, and she used to tease me all the time and make me laugh, and she was very very lovely.’

He took a little breath. ‘You are very like her,’ he said. ‘Though she was fair and your hair is copper. Her eyes were set aslant like yours, and her face was shaped like a flower, like yours is; and her hair curled like yours does.’

He paused for a moment. ‘She was forced into marrying her cousin, your father, and he destroyed the plans she had made with the village,’ he said. ‘She wanted to send you away, off the land, so that you would be safe. And she wanted to end the line of the squires here so that people could make their own lives in their own ways.’

‘I’ve dreamed it,’ I offered. He turned quickly to look at me, as we squatted side by side on my bedroom floor, a foolish sight if there had been anyone there to see.

‘Dreamed?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I used to dream of Wide, of here. And often I dreamed I was a woman going out in the rain to drown her baby. Then she saw the gypsies and gave them the baby instead. She called after the wagon as it went away,’ I said. ‘She called after the baby. She said, “Her name is Sarah”.’

James Fortescue rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘I posted advertisements in all the local papers, I employed men to search for you,’ he said. ‘And I have gone on doing that, Sarah. Every year I changed the advertisements to show your right age and appealed for anyone who knew you to contact me. I offered a reward as well.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s too late now,’ I said bitterly.

He got to his feet slowly, as if he were very weary.

‘It is
not
too late,’ he said. ‘You are young and you are the heir to a fine estate. There is a fine future ahead of you and I will find ways to make up to you for the pains and sadnesses of your childhood, I promise it.’

I nodded, too sick at heart to argue with him.

‘You are home now,’ he said warmly. ‘Home on Wideacre; and I will love you like the father you never had, and you will be happy here in time.’

I looked at him and my face was as hard as every street-fighting hungry little wretch which has ever had to beg for food and duck a blow.

‘You’re not my father,’ I said. ‘He sounds like a real bad ‘un. You’re not my mother either. I
had
a woman I called Ma; and now you tell me I don’t have her either. I had a sister too…’ My voice was going, I swallowed hard on a dry throat. ‘I had a sister and now you tell me I never even had her. You’re no kin to me, and I don’t want your love. It’s too late for me.’

He waited for a moment longer, but when I said nothing more he gently touched the top of my head, as you would carefully pat a sick dog. Then he went out of the room and left me alone.

I had thought it would be awkward speaking to James Fortescue again but I had not understood Quality manners. It seemed that if you were Quality, someone could rage and shriek at you and you could be deaf to their anger and their sorrow. Quality manners mean you only hear what suits you. Becky Miles called me to come down to drink a dish of tea with Mr Fortescue in the afternoon and he was in the parlour waiting for me, as if I had never sworn at him and screamed at him and blamed him for failing me.

Becky poured the tea for us both and handed me a cup. I kept a wary eye on James Fortescue and saw that he did not hold the plate under the cup and drink like that. He held them separately, one hand on each. I did not dare take a plate with a little cake on it as well. I did not think I could balance them all.

When he had finished, and Becky had cleared away he asked me to come with him to the dining room.

He had spread out a map on the dining-room table.

‘I can’t read,’ I said again.

He nodded. ‘I know that, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I can explain this to you. It’s a map of Wideacre, of the Wideacre estate.’

I stepped a little closer and saw it was a picture of land, like you would see if you were a buzzard, circling high above it.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Wideacre is like a little bowl with the Downs on the south and west, and the Common to the north.’ His hand went a great sweep around the map and I saw the land was coloured green and brown.

‘Here we run a mixed farm,’ he said. ‘Much more fruit and vegetables than our neighbours because we have a skilled workforce who see the benefits of good profits. But we also farm sheep for their wool and meat, and a dairy herd.’

I nodded.

‘We grow our own fodder for the animals,’ he said. ‘As well as a lot of wheat which we sell locally and in the London market for bread.’

I nodded again.

‘It’s a most lovely country,’ he said, warmth creeping into his voice. ‘Here is Wideacre Hall, set in the middle of the parkland, d’you see Sarah? At the back of it is the Common: that’s free of fields for people to use for their own animals’ grazing, and for walking and gathering firewood or brushwood, taking small game and putting out hives. It’s bracken and gorse, some small pine trees, and in the valleys some beeches and oak trees and little streams.

‘Over here,’ he brushed the area south of the house, at the front, ‘here is the ornamental garden you see from the front window, a little rose garden, and a paddock. Then there is the woodland which stretches along the drive and right up to the road. There are some fields new planted here; but we’ve mostly kept it as a wood. This is your property, your mother wanted the parkland kept with the Hall. She played here when she was a little girl, by the side of the Fenny which runs through these woods, in the little pools and streams. She learned to tickle for trout, and she learned to swim with one of the village girls. In spring the woods are full of wild daffodils and bluebells. In summer there are little glades which are thick with purple and white violets.

‘Your boundary to the west is the Havering land.’ He pointed to a dotted line drawn on the map. ‘This map doesn’t show Havering Hall. It’s empty most of the year, the Havering family lives in London. They are distant kin to you,’ he said, ‘but they are only here in summer.’

‘Is this the village?’ I asked, pointing to a mess of little squares on the map on the right-hand side.

‘Yes,’ James Fortescue said. ‘If you come out of Wideacre Hall drive and turn right you go along the lane to the Chichester road, see? But if you go out of the drive and turn left you go down to Acre village.

‘Most of it is along the main street. The church is here,’ he pointed. ‘It was struck by lightning and has a new spire. The cottages on this side of the street were damaged in the same storm and some of them are new. But those on the other side of the street are older. In need of repair, too. Opposite the church is the vicarage – you’ll find the vicar, Dr Reed, does not wholly approve of the way Acre runs itself! And there are cottages down these lanes towards the common land. Then there are squatter houses, where people have come to make their homes but have not properly built yet.’

I nodded. I knew about squatters’ rights. It was one of the reasons the parish wardens always moved Da on. They were always in a terror that he would claim that he had been there long enough to be a member of the parish and claim parish relief.

‘Don’t you move them on?’ I asked shrewdly.

James shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We give them a chance to work and they can either take a wage – not a very big one – or take a share in the profits of the estate. If they plan to stay then they join the corporation. We don’t have so many people that we cannot afford to take them on.’

‘And where does that man live?’ I asked. ‘The manager?’

‘That’s Will Tyacke,’ James said. ‘He comes from a very old family. They have been here longer than the Laceys. His cousin was the first manager here after your mother died. But he had an accident and Will came over from another estate and took over. He lives in the manager’s cottage,’ he pointed to one of the little squares on the map set a little back from the main street. The blue wriggling line which indicated the River Fenny went past the back of the cottage through a small paddock.

‘And south of the road and south of the village are fields,’ James said. ‘Some of them are resting, we leave them to grass every third year. Some of them are fruit fields – it’s very sunny there. Most of them are wheat fields. This is a famous estate for high wheat production,’ he paused for a moment. ‘There were battles about that in the past,’ he said. ‘In the old days, before it was a corporation. There was a riot, and arson when the Laceys
were sending wheat out of the country but starving their workforce. But that changed when we started sharing the crop, and sharing the profits. We have fields as high up the hill as the horses can pull the plough. Above that the land is only good for sheep to graze. It’s very high land – up there on the Downs – covered with short sweet grass, and in springtime there are thousands of little flowers and orchids. There are great flocks of butterflies up there: tiny blue and yellow ones. The larks sing very loudly, and there are curlews.’ He broke off.

‘You love it here,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you live here?’

He shook his head. ‘I was going to marry your mother and build a house here with her,’ he said. ‘Once she was gone, I could not have lived here alone.’ He was silent for a moment.

‘I visit often,’ he said. ‘Will Tyacke knows more about farming than I will ever learn, but I like to come down to keep an eye on things.’

I nodded, looking at my land, spread out over James’s map like a patchwork of rich fabrics.

‘You will need to learn the land,’ he said quietly. ‘Now you are here, you will need to know your way around, and the crops that are planted, and the people who live and work here.’

I stared down at the map. It was as if it were my future laid out here, not just fields.

‘I suppose I will,’ I said.

‘Perhaps you would like to ride out, look round it,’ James suggested. ‘Will Tyacke said he would come this afternoon and take you out for a ride if you would like that. He is the best man to show you the land, and he knows everyone.’

I looked up at James and he could see the emptiness in my face. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll go.’

‘And Sarah…’ he said as I was at the door.

I turned. ‘Yes?’

‘You have wanted to be here, and now you are here,’ he said gently. ‘Let yourself enjoy the things here which are good. I won’t say forget the past because that would be folly and it would deny your previous life and the people you have loved. But open yourself up to Wideacre, Sarah. It is only you who are
hurt when you see this place as something which has come too late for you.’

I paused for a moment. He was right. The hurt inside, the coldness inside would not go away, would not be healed by more grief and more disappointment. But I was stubborn. And I was angry.

‘Is that all?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said, resigned.

I waited in my room until I saw the brown cob trot up the drive but when I got down to the stable yard Will was in one of the loose boxes, trying to get a bridle on Sea.

‘I told Sam not to worry him,’ he said pleasantly over the half-stable door. ‘He was having some difficulty with him and the horse was getting distressed. He looked frightened. Has he been ill-treated?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He don’t usually like men.’

Will smiled. ‘I don’t usually like hunters,’ he said. ‘We’ll both make an exception.’

He tightened the girth and led him out. ‘We’ve a lady’s saddle somewhere,’ he offered. ‘Sam can hunt it out for you if you prefer side-saddle.’

I shook my head and took Sea from him. ‘Nay,’ I said. ‘I wear my breeches so that I can ride astride. I only ever wore the habit…’ I broke off and cursed myself inwardly. ‘I don’t have a habit.’ I said. ‘I s’pose I’ll have to get one and ride side-saddle all the time.’

Will nodded, and held Sea’s head while I swung into the saddle.

‘I thought I’d take you up to the Downs,’ he said. ‘So you can get a hawk’s-eye view of the estate. It’s a good day. We’ll be able to see clear across Selsey to the Island looking south.’

I flinched inside at the mention of Selsey, but kept my face impassive. Will mounted his horse and led the way down the gravel of the drive, past the terrace with the rose garden on our right and out into the rutted stony lane.

The track was so old it seemed to have sunk into the soil and
become part of the earth itself. The stones in the ruts were wet and shiny, yellow in colour and the little drainage ditches either side of the road were pale and yellow too, speckled with the black of peat.

‘Sandy soil,’ Will said, following the direction of my look. ‘Wonderful for farming in the valley.’

We were shaded from the spring sunshine by a network of branches over our heads. The new leaves were showing like a green mist and the hedgerows and the woods looked as if a light grey-green scarf of gauze had been tossed over the black bones of their branches. Sea pricked his ears forward at the clip-clop noise of the hooves on the wet stones.

On our right were great old trees, growing thick right up to the very margin of the drainage ditch and the road. High grey-trunked beeches and the broad knobbly trunks of oaks. On the first bend the massive chestnut tree swooped its branches low over the track, the leaves spreading like fingers in their tiny greenness, bursting out of shells of buds as brown and sticky as toffee. Deeper in the woods, on little hummocks, there were tall pine trees and the scent of their rising sap made the spring air sweet, like a premonition of summer warmth. The birds were singing in the higher branches, as near to the sun as they could get, and in the depths below the trees was a rug of old leaves and bright spots of primroses and white violets.

‘These trees are all parkland,’ Will said gesturing with his whip. ‘Ornamental. They belong to the grounds of the Hall, we only fell the timber for clearing. But there’s game in them. Rabbits and pheasants, hares, deer. Ever since the estate was made into a worker’s corporation we’ve had no game laws here. The people from Acre hunt as they wish for the pot. We don’t allow hunting for sale. A few poachers come over from Petersfield or Chichester and we keep an eye out for them. We take it in turns to watch for them if it gets out of hand. But generally we’re left well alone.’

I nodded. I had a passing sense of belonging, as sweet as cold water after a day’s thirst. My mother – the woman who had called after the cart – had come here often. I could feel it. And her mother, too.

We rode in silence, I was looking around at the woodland on one side of the road and the tidy fields on the other.

‘This is the Dower House,’ Will volunteered. ‘Your family lived here until the Hall was rebuilt. It was your ma’s childhood home.’

I nodded and looked at it.

It was deserted but well secured. The double door at the front was shut tight, all the windows barred with shutters. The front garden was tidy, a flood of golden crocus under the front windows.

‘No one lives there now?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Will said. He gave me a rueful little smile. ‘The way the estate is run does not attract the gentry,’ he said. ‘We’ve not been able to get a tenant for it for some time.’

I nodded. I did not understand what he meant yet, but I was not ready on this ride to ask questions. I wanted to take the measure of this place, of these people. To see what this place was in reality that I had been dreaming of for so long.

‘It’s a good estate,’ he said tentatively. ‘Productive.’

I glanced at him sideways. He was watching the stony drive between his horse’s ears.

‘It’s not what I was bred to,’ I said frankly. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Not too late to learn,’ he said gently. I guessed he was thinking of my scream at James Fortescue that I had come to Wideacre too late. ‘If you were the son of the house, a Lacey, you’d be coming home from school at your age, ready to learn about the land,’ he said.

‘If I was coming home from school I’d have had a gentry childhood and I’d know how to read and write,’ I said.

‘Not the schools I’m thinking of!’ Will said smiling. ‘Real Quality schools teach lads to be as ignorant as peasants!’ He shot a little smile at me as we rounded a curve of the drive and came within sight of the little box of the gatehouse and the great iron gates which stood permanently open with white flowering bindweed entwined up the hinges. Will nodded to the left.

‘That’s one of our new crops,’ he said. ‘Strawberries. We’re
harrowing now, to make the soil nice and soft. We’ll be planting later. I reckon we’ll sell in Chichester. There’s a growing market for soft fruit. Wideacre strawberries could be famous.’

I glanced over the hedge. Two great shire horses were pulling a harrow, a little lad walking behind them, yelling instructions, the earth turning sweetly under the tines.

‘We planted it when the land was handed over to the people,’ he said. ‘It’s a crop which needs a lot of careful work. Weeding, and especially picking and packing. A casual paid workforce could waste more than they earned. But when people know they are working for themselves, they take more pride.’