‘A reward of two hundred pounds has been offered for information to bring about the capture of Mr Megson and the men who fled with him,’ I said. I was repeating Richard’s words by rote and they would all know well enough that this was an empty formality we were enacting. ‘My husband wishes you to know that if Mr Megson is taken in Acre, he will reward the village handsomely. He will pay one hundred pounds each to every man who assists in the recapture. There will be free flour and free milk for the whole village until sowing time.’
There was a ripple of interest at that, not because they saw the opportunity for earning such wealth, but because they read from that bribe the extent of Richard’s fear. I saw all around me that people were hiding smiles, and I could scarce keep the amused contempt from my own voice.
‘My husband asks me to remind you that Mr Megson was a known rioter, and a dangerous man,’ I said. ‘It is thought that he may be hiding with the gypsies, and you are ordered to report any new gypsy families arriving on the common at once.’
They nodded. I waited a moment, then I turned to go back into the coach. I was unaccountably weary and my back ached. I wanted to drive home as fast as I possibly could and go to bed for the afternoon. I would call for the kitchenmaid to light a fire in my room and watch the flames flicker while the light drained from the window. I just wanted to be in the warm darkness and away from this cold land, and these icy skies and these betrayed people.
‘Miss Julia!’ someone said. I paused. George had folded up the steps, but he paused and held open the door so I could lean forward and see who wanted me.
It was old Mrs Merry.
I flinched away from her worn face as if I feared she might strike me. All my life I had known that round face, as rosy and as wrinkled as a winter apple. But since the loss of her grandson, all the skin had dropped down, and all the lines around her eyes, around her mouth, had lost their habit of smiling.
She came to the front of the crowd and looked up at me, sitting in the rich high-sprung carriage lined with pink silk which Richard had bought for us to replace the bloodstained one abandoned outside Haslemere. I looked down at her like some fairy princess with an old fortune-teller. ‘Yes, Mrs Merry?’
Her pale blue eyes were swimming, and the soft wrinkled skin of her cheeks was wet with her old-woman tears. But I knew that she was not weeping for herself and for her loneliness and the death of her grandson. She was weeping for me. She pitied me.
‘You deserved better than this, sweetheart,’ she said, and her thin voice was full of compassion. A couple within earshot nodded their support and I saw them all looking at me as if I were a victim, as well as Acre. ‘We all hoped for a better world,’ she said. ‘We have been betrayed by the squire, by the power of the gentry. But even though you are gentry yourself, you were not safe. You’re a woman and you have had to learn your master, even as we have learned that lesson again.’
I thought how Richard had mastered me, through my loyalty and love for him, through his violence, and then by the convention of the world which said I had to marry the father of my child.
‘I hate him, Mrs Merry,’ I said. ‘I wish he were dead.’
She nodded, her face showing no shock. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘You would do. But don’t waste your courage on hating him. Keep yourself to yourself, dearie. And keep up your courage and think of a healthy baby.’
‘I won’t have another squire for Wideacre,’ I said in swift contradiction. I had raised my voice, and a couple of the men turned and listened to what we were saying. ‘I won’t be the mother of a squire. I won’t set a child to have power over the land, nor power over you people. I won’t do that.’
She nodded. ‘It would be a better world indeed if the masters would refuse to rule,’ she said. ‘All Acre has ever done is refuse to obey, and we have been tricked and betrayed out of that resolve time after time.’
I hung my head. It was my high hopes and my bright plans and my quickly dishonoured promises which had tricked them this time. Everything around me, my love of the land, my love of Richard, seemed to have been corrupted and made bad.
‘I must go,’ I said miserably.
Mrs Merry stepped back and George shut the door, his town-bred face impassive. I pulled down the window strap and leaned out. George turned to get up on the back, out of earshot.
‘What can I do?’ I said urgently to Mrs Merry. ‘How can I stop this?’
Her head came up slowly and her eyes met mine and, surprisingly, flowered into a broad sweet smile. ‘Do?’ she said. ‘You need do nothing, Miss Julia!’ George was on the box, smart in his livery, straining his ears, I guessed. ‘Ralph will do it,’ Mrs Merry said sweetly. ‘Ralph is on his way home again.’
‘What. . .?’ I started, but the horses were moving forward and one of the men had taken Mrs Merry’s arm to hold her safely away from the high carriage-wheels. He saw my face, the astonishment, the dawning hope and he grinned at me, the old Acre grin of complete equality.
It was the grin of conspirators who at last have some hopes of victory. The carriage whirled me away and I fell back against Richard’s silk cushions. I knew I was smiling too, and my heart suddenly became light.
‘What did they say in Acre?’ Richard demanded of me. He was at the garden gate, ready to hand me from the carriage.
‘Nothing,’ I said. I let him lead me up the path and into the hall, but I hesitated when he opened the parlour door. ‘I want to rest in my bedroom, Richard. I am very tired.’
He let me go to the stairs, but he wanted more news. ‘Did you say what I told you to say?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And what did they say?’ he pressed me.
‘They said nothing,’ I said.
‘Did you speak to no one privately? Did no one mention whether the gypsies were on the common yet? Did no one in particular ask about Megson? What about Ned Smith? – he was always very thick with Megson.’
I looked at Richard, standing at the foot of the staircase, and I raised my eyebrows at him. I was insolent and I knew it. But I had a new courage, a new reason for courage, because I knew that there was a clock ticking away under our life in the Dower House, because I knew that soon the hour was going to strike and the clapper would fall and this whole rotten life would smash to pieces. Two events were converging: the child in my belly was moving slowly to be born, and Ralph was travelling the secret ways from London, concealed in a gypsy cart, along little tracks down hidden paths that the gentry did not even know.
‘I spoke to no one privately,’ I said, ticking off Richard’s questions on gloved fingers. ‘No one said whether the gypsies had arrived on the common yet, but since they always come around Christmas, I should think they will be there any day now. No one asked about Mr Megson. Ned Smith was there with the rest of them, but he did not speak out.’
Richard took my hand roughly in a tight grip. ‘What has got into you?’ he demanded. His eyes were sharp, and he looked me over from my suddenly brightened face down to my feet standing squarely on the stair. ‘Someone said something which has made you feel that you can challenge me,’ he said accurately. ‘Someone has made you feel that you can look at me with those impertinent grey eyes. Someone has tried to make you forget what I can do to you.’ He broke off and he looked at me measuringly. I could feel his hand tighten on mine, I could feel the bones shift together and the sinews sing in pain.
‘No one,’ I said. ‘I have lost my fear of you because I can see that you are afraid. I can see that you think that Ralph Megson is on his way back home. And you are afraid that he is coming for you.’
I paused. Richard had gone white, and his grip on my hand was suddenly slack. My bones were throbbing with pain, but my heart was pounding in excitement.
‘I think you are right,’ I said, and my spirits leaped to see how his eyes flashed to my face, alert with fright. ‘If Ralph is indeed coming home, then he will be coming to settle his score with you. I know him well,’ I continued sweetly.
‘And I must say that if I were you and had betrayed him to his death, then I would rather be dead and in the family vault than have Ralph Megson coming after me. For be very sure, Richard, it is the only place you will be safe!’
Richard blenched and dropped his eyes, and I looked at his downcast face for a second before I turned on my heel and went up the stairs to my room. I felt his eyes on my back and I kept my head high as I climbed one weary step after another. Not until I was safe in my room did I lean back against the door and shudder.
I might face Richard down when he was in a twitch of nerves about Ralph, but without the courage given me by one frail old lady I was in a poor state. The baby was heavy in my belly; I was drained by the weight of it and the fatigue of it.
I might talk bravely about ending the line of the squires, but my heart was weak with love for my baby. Knowing its father and our line, I could not help fearing the birth of some dread monstrosity, some freak. Then I thought of the feel of that perfect little hand through my belly wall and I wanted to weep for love of it, a love that I should never be able to show.
The baby had to be sent away and Richard had to be stopped. I had to find some courage from somewhere to face the struggle with Richard, to resist his anger, to resist his corrupt power and somehow to keep free of the sucking madness which Richard had released upon us.
I might talk bravely of dying in childbirth and thus ending the line, but in truth I was very much afraid.
I might talk bravely about fostering the child, or killing it, but my heart was weak for its touch, and I longed to hold its little body.
I might talk bravely about defeating Richard, about hating him, but I had loved him all my life, and I sometimes thought I had imagined the monster which he had become.
I fell into bed like a sickly child and slept while the January sky darkened at my window. I awoke cold, in a darkened room, at neither dawn nor dusk, and I did not know where I was, nor what time it was, and felt afraid.
30
Richard was not at home for dinner that afternoon. Stride said that he had ridden in to Chichester and would not be back until late. I thought I knew where he had gone. He came into the parlour when Stride brought in the tea, and he confirmed my guess. He had ridden to Chichester and been all day at the barracks. He had brought home with him half a dozen soldiers to be quartered at the Bush in the village.
‘I told them that Acre cannot be trusted, and that Ralph may come here and try to start a riot against us,’ Richard said. He waved away a dish of tea and rang the bell for a mug of ale.
He had not eaten since breakfast; his eyes were very bright. Richard, the lovely brave child of my girlhood, was a very frightened man. I watched him over my dish and my heart was torn between triumph and sadness for the boy that had gone.
‘I had a deal of trouble making them take me seriously,’ he said. His face was sulky with worry. ‘If it hadn’t been for the first riot here, I think they would have refused me,’ he said. ‘It’s too bad! I wish Grandpapa Havering was here; they’d have to listen to him.
‘All they would tell me was that they thought it most unlikely that Megson would stay in the country, and that there was good intelligence from London that he and the others had taken ship to the Americas. They simply would not credit the fact that I believe he will come here.’
I nodded and said nothing.
‘The gypsies have arrived,’ Richard said. ‘I told the soldiers to keep close watch on them. It is just the usual families. But you never can tell with those people.’
I nodded again. Richard went to the parlour door and hallooed towards the kitchen for another mug of beer. He was thirsty. I imagined he had been drinking Hollands in Chichester for courage, after his visit to the barracks.
‘Why did you lie to me about your visit to Acre?’ he said suddenly.
I jumped, and spilled a little tea on my dark gown. ‘I didn’t,’ I said, too quickly.
‘You did,’ he said. He was smiling slightly now. It always cheered Richard to catch me out. He came back inside the room and went to his favourite chair. Stride, his face a frozen mask of disapproval, brought in the second mug of ale on a silver tray and placed it by Richard’s elbow. Now his humiliation at the barracks and his fear of Ralph were half forgotten in the pleasure of bullying his servants and his wife. ‘You spoke privately with one of the old women,’ he said. ‘Who?’
I heard the hectoring tone of the bully of my childhood and my old craven spirit quailed. Then I thought of Ralph coming slowly along the secret paths towards Acre, and my baby coming along the secret tunnels to the world.
And I thought also, at last, of myself. My survival in these lonely times depended on my finding some rock in my own life which I could build on. I had lost Clary and my mama. I had lost Ralph. I had lost my land and the power of being the heir to Wideacre. From somewhere in my own heart I had to find some base in my own life. If I trembled every time Richard was crossed, he would master me indeed. He would master me for ever.
‘I did speak privately with one of the old women,’ I said steadily. ‘It was nothing which need concern you. It was not business.’
Richard looked at me askance. ‘I hear you mentioned my name,’ he said. ‘I’m told you spoke against me.’ Richard looked shifty. He trusted neither his informant, nor his wife, nor the village which was his own.
I paused with a sudden fear. Surely there could be no friend to Richard in Acre? No paid informant who had spoken against me? Someone who would inform against Ralph? In all my confidence of Acre’s loyalty I had always been certain that Acre could not be suborned. But someone had listened to me talk to Mrs Merry. And someone had reported that speech to Richard.
George.
Richard’s smart new groom, George.
It could be no other. He was a newcomer from out of the county, hired by Richard for his sly face and his quick ears to replace Jem. He did not know one old woman of Acre from another, so the report he brought to Richard was vague.
I looked at Richard with contempt. And he, in his morass of suspicion, saw only that I was unafraid and thought that George had lied to him, that he could trust no one, not even his paid spy.
‘You listen to servants’ tittle-tattle and you’ll get false reports,’ I said disdainfully. Richard flushed dark red. ‘I spoke to no one,’ I said coldly. ‘But you need not reprimand your spy for getting things wrong. He will not again ride behind me when I drive. Not to Acre, not to a bishop’s tea-party. I won’t have a dirty little spy in my employ. So you can dismiss him, or, if he is on the box, you will be alone in the carriage.’
My head held as high as a princess’s, I swept from the room and did not stop until I reached my bedroom door and shut it tight behind me. It was a gamble. No one knew that better than I.
But if I could face Richard down when he was afraid of the rumour of Ralph’s return, if I could look at him with eyes of burning scorn when he had, indeed, caught me out, then I thought I might have some sort of future on the land.
Acre was smiling again. Acre had once more the impertinent grin of a community which knows itself to be badly mastered and recks little what the masters say. I thought that even I, in the big house, in the bed of the squire of Acre, might learn that courage too.
I undressed, but I kept on Mama’s rose-pearl necklace and her ear-rings. They comforted me a little as I slid between the cold sheets. Since the baby had grown so large, I had taken to sleeping on my back with my rounded moon-shaped belly pointing at the ceiling. I sprawled out in the bed and sighed as the little kicks and wriggles started, making my own body leap like a net of eels. Sometimes I loathed this child as the misbegotten heir of Wideacre, sometimes I adored it as the fruit of my body, my own child. And sometimes, like now when I was tired, I just sighed like any pregnant woman and wished the hours away and the sleepless night over.
The baby was quieter than usual, and I fell asleep by candlelight, forgetting to blow out the flame. So Richard was in my room, an
d naked in my bed, before I was awake and before I could stir myself to protest.
He had one hand over my mouth in case I should cry out, and the other, urgently, pulled at my nightgown. I could have bitten his hand, I suppose. The palm was salty against my teeth, and it felt dirty. But I did not think of doing it.
I did not think of doing it.
I was shamed that I did not think.
I thrashed a little, under the sheets, encumbered by the great belly on me and the tucked-in covers. I gave a little smothered moan behind his hard hand, and he saw my eyes widen in distress and darken with horror. But he smiled his blue-eyed devil’s smile, and I knew then that the madness was on Richard and that it might – at last, at last – be the end for me tonight.
It was not lust for him. It was not love or desire, nor any hot half-forgivable sin. It was power and cruelty which were driving Richard onward. He had seen the tilt of my head, he had seen the bright courage in my eyes, and he had waited until I was asleep and unguarded, and then he had come for me. He was in my bed, his hand hard on my face, his other hand pulling up my nightdress and his weight coming down on top of me.
He drew the hem of the gown up to my neck, and I froze as his hand brushed across my throat, across the pearls. I knew he was thinking longingly of throttling me as I lay there, eyes wide with fear, beneath him.
When I saw him smile, I knew I was lost.
I was ready. I had promised Mrs Tyacke, I had promised Mrs Merry with all of Acre listening. I would not give them another squire to rule over them. I would end the line of the Laceys. If Richard killed me tonight, that would be the end of me and of Richard’s heir – and of Richard too, for they would have to take him up for my murder. I gritted my teeth at the discomfort of the weight of him on top of my rounded belly, and at the distasteful hand against my mouth. And I gritted my teeth for courage and said a swift farewell in my mind to the things I had loved-to James, to Wideacre, to Mama. For I was readying myself for death.