‘This, this is nonsense,’ I stammered. I was overwhelmed by the memory of my mama’s sense of sin, of something dirty and black in the house that she could smell but not see. I had trusted my mama to be too much of a coward, too much of a fool, to track down the foul thing and look it in the face. When she saw it, the two-backed beast before the fire, she had died with horror.
But Celia might almost dare to track it into its very lair and face it. Armed with her love for her child and her courage, Celia might go where my mama’s nervous thoughts had failed her.
‘Stop it, Celia!’ I said abruptly. ‘You are distressed. We will talk no more of this tonight. If you really dislike the whole idea we will change it. But let us have tea now, and then go early to bed.’
‘No, I won’t stop here, and I won’t have the tea tray, and we won’t go to bed until I understand more. How was Charles Lacey compensated? What are the terms of the contract?’
‘Oh, my!’ I said lightly. ‘Business, then? Well, very well, if you wish it.’ I snowed her under then, with rack-rents and revisions of tenancies, and long leases made short, and cottagers’ rights, and enclosure acts and the price of corn. How to sell when it is standing in the field, how to gamble on the growth and on the rise of the market when other farmers have poor crops. I even threw in the battle I had won over the water rights until her unlearned head spun.
‘So we have changed our farming system slightly to make greater profits, and we used the MacAndrew money too,’ I finished.
She nodded only to clear her head; there was no assent there. She could not have understood a word of the garble.
‘John’s money?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That is Richard’s contribution, as it were, towards being made heir of Wideacre, jointly with Julia.’
‘You have used John’s money without his consent?’ she asked. Her voice was even but her face was appalled.
‘As a loan merely,’ I said with assurance. ‘The whole idea of the power of attorney is to safeguard the patient’s interests. Obviously it is in John’s interests — and mine as his wife and the mother of his son — that he should get maximum interest. The loan he has made to Wideacre is paying far more than the MacAndrew Line dividends. And it secures Richard’s future, too.’
‘You have used John’s money without his consent and committed his son to Wideacre without him knowing?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Of course,’ I said, challenging her, face to face. ‘Any proper parent would be delighted, as Harry and I are, that the entail can so be changed.’
She smoothed a hand over her forehead as if to wipe away the confusion. It was ineffectual.
‘That is a matter for John and you,’ she said, her mind in a whirl. ‘I cannot think it right. I cannot believe that Harry could have so used John’s entire fortune, and that while he was ill, but if the contract is not signed, perhaps it can all wait until John returns from hospital?’
‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ I said soothingly. ‘I am not exactly sure. Harry has been making the arrangements, not I. I undertook only to reassure you, that although Harry was grieved to understand that you are barren there should be no unhappiness between the two of you, because he has found this way around that sorrow. That your lovely little girl can inherit her father’s land.’
‘You plan that she and Richard will be joint owners?’ Celia repeated slowly. ‘That she and Richard should grow up together on the land, learning about the land together?’
I nodded.
‘And you and Harry would take them both out on the estate, looking at the land and learning to farm. And all the time they would be growing closer and closer. And only you and I would know that they are not just partners, and not just cousins, but half-brother and half-sister?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But Celia …’
‘But we would not be able to tell them that!’ she said. ‘They would be best friends and playmates and business partners. They would think they were first cousins, but they would be close kin. They would learn to love each other, and their interests would lie together. How could they then turn aside from each other and learn to love the people they will be betrothed to marry? How can my Julia have the life I had hoped for her and planned for her as a girl of Quality if she is an heiress from the age of two in a partnership with a boy who is neither husband nor distant relation?’
She spun on her heel so she did not face me and buried her face in her hands.
‘It is a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I cannot tell what it is but some danger is threatening Julia from this. I do not know what!’
‘You are being foolish, Celia,’ I said coldly. I took her shoulders in a firm grip and felt a shudder run through her like a terror-struck foal. ‘Wideacre is a family business,’ I said levelly. ‘Julia would always have had obligations to meet on the estate. She will simply work with Richard as Harry and I work.’
That reassurance tripped her control.
‘No!’ she said, and it was nearly a scream. ‘No! I forbid it! You gave her to me and said that she should be my child. I claim my right as her mother to decide her future. She shall not be with Richard as you and Harry are, for I am afraid of something about you and Harry, even if I have no words for it but only a dread that chills and frightens me when I wake in the night. I do not know what I am afraid of, and I make no complaint against either of you. But I am afraid, Beatrice! I am afraid for Julia! I do not want her to be part of another brother-and-sister partnership. No. I do not give my consent. I shall tell Harry.’
I leaped for the door and spread my arms so that she could not get past me.
‘Celia, wait,’ I said. ‘Don’t dash out to Harry like that while you are distressed. He will think it most odd. He will think we have quarrelled. Calm yourself and consider what you mean to say. If you do not want Julia to be joint heir with Richard she can always sell him her share when they are older, or he can sell his. There is no need for you to become so upset over this, Celia.’
She had heard none of it. She was looking at me as if she had seen me for the first time. She was looking at me curiously, with disbelief, as if there were some mark scrawled on my face, or as if I had spiders crawling in my hair, or some other horror.
‘Stand aside, Beatrice,’ she said. Her voice was low and hard. ‘I want to speak with Harry.’
‘Not while you are so overwrought,’ I pleaded, and I did not move.
‘Stand aside,’ she said again. And I remembered her before the library fireplace with two smashed bottles of whisky dripping from her hand.
‘You will distress Harry,’ I said. ‘He planned this to make you happy.’
‘Stand aside,’ she repeated, and her eyes flickered towards the bell pull. For one brief moment I wondered if she could face the scene of the butler coming and her ordering him to push me out of the way by forcing open the door. But I saw the look on her face and knew I was arguing with a woman on the edge of hysteria.
‘Beatrice, I have asked you three times,’ she said and her voice was tight with control that might break at any moment. I feared Celia in a panic more than I feared her when she could judge to speak or be silent. If she screamed out that Richard and Julia were brother and sister then I would be irreparably lost. But if she kept herself under control, and if I went with her, I might manage this scene still.
I opened the parlour door for her with a little ironic bob curtsy and followed, hard on her heels, as she swept across the hall to the dining room. A footman was coming through the door from the kitchen bringing more biscuits for Harry, and I scowled at him so he turned on his heel and went back behind the baize door again. Celia saw nothing, heard nothing. She flung open the dining-room door and made Harry jump with the bang. He had a plate before him heaped with cheese and biscuits, and the flagon of port by his hand. He had butter on his chin. I could trust him as far as I could flick water.
‘I do not consent to this arrangement,’ said Celia in her high, hard voice. ‘The documen
ts are not to be signed. I do not wish it for Julia.’
Harry’s blue eyes were wide with surprise.
‘But it’s done!’ he said simply. ‘We signed them this afternoon. The entail’s changed, and Richard and Julia are joint heirs.’
Celia opened her mouth and screamed, a thin wail like a small animal trapped. She stood motionless, her eyes on Harry’s face, his cheeks still full of biscuits. I was frozen too. I could not even think what I could say to stop Celia’s mouth. But her horror and her fear of the unknown thing that hid in the corners of Wideacre and that one could almost feel breathing among us kept her wordless.
Her mouth still open, she gave a little whimper like a child with a finger trapped in a door. Her eyes rolled from Harry, motionless at the head of the table, to me, silent behind her. She found one word in her panic-stricken mind. She said, ‘John.’ Then she picked up her silk skirts in her hands and whirled from the room.
Harry bolted his mouthful and looked wildly at me.
‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
I shrugged. My shoulders were stiff and I could feel the gesture was wooden. My face must have been as white as a sheet. I could feel the control and the power slipping through my fingers like the sands of the common.
‘Listen!’ I said. I heard the door to the west wing bang and straight away thought of my desk and the incriminating bundle of Celia’s letters to John, which had never reached him. Without a word to Harry I dashed after Celia and to my office. The room was in darkness; she was not there.
I called sharply, ‘Celia!’ but I had no answer. I could not think where she might be. I checked my west-wing parlour but although the candles and the fire had been lit there was no Celia weeping on the pretty sofa. I ran up the stairs to my bedroom, to John’s room; I even glanced into the nursery to see my son sleeping like a tousled angel. But no Celia. Then I heard the sound of wheels on the paving stones of the stable yard and ran to the window. The coach was out and Celia was stepping inside.
‘Celia!’ I called. ‘Wait!’ With fumbling desperate fingers I struggled with the catch and the window swung open.
‘Stop!’ I shouted. The stable lads looked up at my voice even as they were shutting the door to Celia’s carriage.
‘Stop!’ I said. ‘Wait!’
Celia’s head appeared at the window and I could see she was repeating the order to drive on to the coachman. I knew the coachman. I had given him a chance when Papa had been looking for a new man only six years ago. I had told Papa then that Ben was one of those people that can charm horses into the shafts. I could not remember his surname. He had been ‘Coachman Ben’ to us for what seemed a lifetime. But he was Wideacre born and bred. I had given him his job. I paid his wages. I knew he would stop, and Celia would have to climb down out of the carriage; then, between us, Harry and I, we could pet her and bully her, and confuse her and mislead her until this show of courage and activity was knocked out of her. And I could carry on, ploughing my straight furrow, scything in my straight line. Whatever stood in my path.
‘Coachman Ben!’ I called in my clear tone. ‘Wait! I am coming down!’
I slammed the window shut and swirled round for the stairs. It took me less than a minute to be downstairs and through the west-wing door to the stable yard. But I heard the clatter of wheels as the coach rolled away, and I saw the lights go round the corner to the front of the house, to the drive, to Acre lane, and from there, if I guessed aright, to Bristol, to John.
‘Stop!’ I shrieked like a fishwife into the wind of the April night at the vanishing flickering lights. I gazed wildly round for a stable lad to send after them, to order Coachman Ben to stop. To tell him Miss Beatrice demanded his return this instant. But then my angry orders died on my lips and the rage in me died. I stood very still in the cool April night and shuddered from the cold that was in my chilled heart.
I knew why the coachman had not stopped.
I had remembered the coachman’s surname.
It was Tyacke.
He was Gaffer Tyacke’s nephew.
I turned on my heel and walked slowly, slowly back inside. Harry was still seated at the table, though he had been sufficiently disturbed to stop eating.
‘Where is Celia?’ he asked.
‘Gone,’ I said heavily, and threw myself into the chair at the foot of the table. Harry and I faced each other down the long length of the dining table, as we had the first night after our first lovemaking on the downs. That seemed very far away now, and very long ago. He pushed the decanter of port towards me and I fetched a clean glass and slopped a generous measure in. I threw it off with one gulp. It warmed my throat and belly but it did not touch the cold weight of fear beneath my ribs. Who could have imagined that one afternoon of sweet passion on the downs could have led us down this road? Each little step had seemed so easy, so safe. Each little step had led to another. And now the youth who had filled me with irresistible desire was a plump, ageing Squire. Too stupid to lie to his wife. Too foolish to manage his own affairs. And the dazzling, dazzled, girl that I had been was gone. I had lost her somewhere. She had died a little in the fall that killed her papa. Then a little bit more in the trap that bit off Ralph’s legs. A little of her had been blown out like a candle when her mother had sighed her life away. And drop by drop, like an icicle growing, the girl that I had been had slipped away, and this ice that was my heart had been left.
‘I don’t begin to understand what is going on,’ said Harry petulantly. ‘Why was Celia so upset? Where has she gone? She can’t have gone calling at this hour, surely? Why did she not tell me she was planning to go out?’
‘There is no need to be quite so dense,’ I said sharply. ‘You can see perfectly well that Celia and I have had a quarrel. No one is asking for your support, so there is no need to pretend that you do not understand what it is all about. Celia would rather that Julia lost Wideacre than ran it with Richard in the sort of partnership that you and I have. I took offence at her tone and we had words. Now she has flounced off. I expect she is going to see John. I imagine she is going to tell him that we have spent his fortune and to ask him to help her to reverse all our trouble and to revoke the contract between Julia and Richard.’
Harry gaped. ‘That’s bad,’ he said. I pushed the decanter back to him and he poured himself a glass and returned it to me. The room stank of conspiracy. Harry did not know much, but he knew when his comfort and his wealth were in danger. And he knew that in any battle over Wideacre business he would be on my side.
‘They can’t do that without our consent, can they?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘And they cannot persuade Charles Lacey to give back the MacAndrew money. So they can do nothing.’
‘You said John would be pleased,’ Harry said petulantly. ‘You said Celia would be pleased too.’
‘How could I have guessed they would not be?’ I said. ‘I dare say John would have been happy enough about it. But not if Celia bursts in on him with tales of his being robbed behind his back in order to benefit your daughter.’
‘She would surely never say such a thing!’ protested Harry. ‘She knows I would never do such a thing. Celia is too loyal to turn against me so.’
‘Yes, but I think she caught something of John’s madness from him,’ I said. ‘By the time they took him away she was almost ready to believe that I was having him locked up out of spite, or perhaps even to gain his fortune. Madness, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Harry uneasily.
‘I don’t think either of us realized how close those two had become,’ I said. ‘Celia spent a great deal of time with John after Mama’s death. They were always talking in the parlour or wandering together in the rose garden.’
‘She loves him dearly,’ Harry said stoutly.
‘I hope she does not love him too dearly,’ I said. ‘It would be a terrible thing if her loving nature had led her astray. If she was even now thinking not what would make
you and your child happy but worrying about John and the MacAndrew fortune.’
Harry was aghast. ‘That’s just not possible,’ he said.
‘No, I’m sure it is not,’ I agreed swiftly. ‘It is just that this dash of Celia’s off to Bristol looks so much as if she was joining forces with John against us. Against you and me and Wideacre.’
Harry reached for the decanter again, and buttered himself a biscuit with fingers that trembled.
‘This is all madness!’ he burst out. ‘Nothing has been right since Mama died! John went crazy and now, as you say, Celia is behaving most oddly too. If I have any nonsense from Celia about business arrangements you and I have seen fit to make, I shall be very clear with her indeed. She knows nothing about the land. Indeed, I have been happy to let her know nothing about the land. But she cannot now try to interfere in perfectly proper business affairs.’
‘That is right, Harry,’ I said. My tone was calm but I was panting with relief. ‘You have been too sweet, too gentle with Celia, if she thinks she can dash off into the night without even taking her maid, to speak to your brother-in-law, my husband, about our personal and confidential affairs.’
‘Indeed, yes!’ said Harry. ‘I am most displeased with Celia. And when she comes home I will tell her so.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘I think it needs to be said.’ I paused. Harry was seething in his chair, stimulated with temper. I knew what would come next and I resigned myself to a tedious hour or two in the room at the top of the stairs. I knew the signs in Harry. We were together in the secret room seldom these days, for I had my security on the land through the money and through the lawyers, and Harry was too lazy and too idle to think of it often, but it still held its old lure for him. He poured himself another glass and reached a hand out for my glass. I half stood to slide it to him and as he leaned forward to pour his eyes were on my breasts.
‘Mmm, Beatrice?’ he said, slumping back in his chair. I smiled a heavy-lidded lazy smile at him.