The Favoured Child

by Philippa Gregory

  The tracks would lead Richard, sniffing blood like some predator, across the hall and to the front door. But outside it was dark and the wind was tossing the trees around. Soon it would rain and all trace of me and my little child would be gone. The Fenny would be up, the waters very high. You can hide anything in the Fenny when it is in flood. Richard, of all people, who had thrown a young woman’s body into the river, should have remembered that.

  The front-door latch clicked, but the noise was masked by the squeak of the tree branches rubbing together in the wind outside. The gusts of air whipped into the hall, but the library door was tight shut, and Richard did not know his house was wide open to the storm. He did not know that his front door was open to the wind, to anyone. And that the child he longed for was out in the rain, and would never come back.

  I gasped as the rain slapped my face like an unforgiving enemy.

  A great scud of water, hard as hailstones, smacked me in the face, and stayed like tears on my cheeks. I shook my head like a dog coming out of a river and tucked the baby more securely into my side.

  My feet stung with the cold as I crept down the garden path and out of the gate into the drive. I was a fool to go barefoot, but I was not thinking. I was not thinking at all. I was on my way to the Fenny, and neither the stony drive nor the nettles and old brambles of the Wideacre wood footpaths would stop me.

  I was biting my lip to stop myself whimpering with the pain as I walked up the drive, stumbling on the chalk stones and splashing in the puddles until the cape and the nightdress were drenched. There was only one dry spot on me and that was the warm little bundle in my left arm. I could feel her breathing softly and sweetly, and some distant thought in my mind said to her, ‘This is Wideacre, and you are a Lacey.’ But no words crossed my lips. This child, my daughter, would go out of the world as she had come into it – owning nothing.

  As I turned under the shelter of the trees, the rain stopped beating in my face and I could breathe a little better. My feet had stopped hurting, for they were numb with cold. When I glanced down at them, I thought they were black with mud in the moonlight, but then I realized that they were cut and bleeding. The birth and the loss of blood, the pain of my feet and the storm had all made me light-headed, and instead of stumbling and struggling down to the Fenny, I felt I was gliding, dancing along the little path. Some old strange magic of Wideacre was singing in my head, and I knew with utter certainty that I was at last in command of myself and in tune with the land around me.

  I stumbled over a tree root, and there was the Fenny before me, and I gasped. I had been out so little, I had not seen it since this year’s rain had started swelling it and making the waters flow faster and faster. It was frightening. It was boiling like a great dangerous flood, up to the very rim of the steep banks, and threatening to swell over at any moment and drown the whole Wideacre valley. The tree behind me seemed to be trembling with fear at the thought of that flood, and I put my hand out on the trunk to reassure myself that the dry land and the tall trees were safe.

  The river roared like some great animal; it was not like the safe waters where I had played. I would hardly dare come to the bank now for fear that it would give way beneath me. Nothing, least of all a little baby, could go into the flood and come out alive.

  I looked upstream for the fallen tree which spans the river and serves as a crossing point. I could not see it at all and I thought it must have been swept right away. Then I looked downstream and could see the great spouts of water where the river had overflowed at a weak part of the bank and was engulfing even the trunks of the big trees and slamming against them in great rocking waves. Above the roar of the river and the noise of the creaking branches and the rush of the wind I heard myself give a little sob of fear.

  But I knew what I had come to do.

  And nothing, now, could stop me.

  I knew what I had to do: to set myself free, to set Acre free, to finish the Laceys and to destroy Richard.

  I left the shelter of the oak tree and went as near as I dared to the bank. I could feel the ground shudder with the water rushing past it and as I watched, a huge lump of riverbank was peeled away and fell with a splash into the torrent. The ground beneath me seemed to be shaking, and I put out a hand to steady myself on the root of a fallen tree.

  I balanced myself against the tree and put my cold hand carefully in under my cape. Sarah sighed as I lifted her clear of my protecting warmth and opened her eyes and looked directly at me. I held her to my cold rain-washed face and then I bent down to the flood and lowered her towards it as tenderly as I might have put her in a cradle.

  The sound of the river was as deafening as if I were drowned myself and it was flowing through my head, so I heard nothing; but I saw, like a silent ghost, a woman detach herself from the shadow of the trees on the other side of the river.

  I froze. Sarah was just inches away from the water, her eyes wide, her mouth opened, crying, but I could hear nothing above the awful roar, roar, roaring of the hungry river.

  The woman came to the bank of the river on the other side; she crossed over and came to me. I stared at her as if she were a ghost. From my position, bent low over the water, it looked like she had just walked across the river, walking lightly on the flood as if it were as safe as a dancefloor, but as I straightened up, I saw she had been walking on the tree-bridge. It was half covered with water and in shadow, so I had not seen it properly.

  She moved back to the bridge, and then she turned and walked away from me again. I stared after her, and then, not knowing why, I raised Sarah up and tucked her into my side again. I scrambled to my feet and went up river till I came to the bridge. I clung to Sarah with one hand and then stepped cautiously into the swirling, ankle-deep water and picked my way on the slippery wood, clinging to the branches of the tree to keep me steady.

  She was waiting for me on the other side. She had glided across as if she knew the bridge and the woods even better than I did, or as if she were indeed a ghost which need not fear death by drowning in a tumbling river.

  As soon as I reached the bank, she turned and walked away from me and I followed her in a dream. The storm was still blowing loudly enough, but here in the shelter of the woods I could scarcely hear anything. The noise of the river died away behind us as the deep-green curtains of spruce and pine enfolded us. I followed her, stumbling, but she did not stumble. She walked lightly and did not seem to touch earth.

  She was leading me towards the common, and I wondered with sudden hope if she was taking me to Ralph, if Ralph had come back to Wideacre not for vengeance at all but to rescue me. To take me away.

  We came out of the shelter of the trees to the little gate in the park wall and she opened it and glided through. As I followed her, I caught a glimpse of her face in the moonlight.

  She was beautiful; a young woman, with hair as red as a chestnut horse’s mane, and eyes as green as downland grass, set slanting in her oval face. She reminded me of someone, but I could not think who. I stared at her, trying to trace some memory, to find some family resemblance to someone I knew well.

  Then she smiled at me, a rueful familiar smile, and I gave a little gasp. She reminded me of myself, and that smile was the one that had called them out in Acre. It was the Lacey smile. It was Beatrice.

  I put out a hand to stay her, but she was gone, walking lightly ahead of me as if she could see the path as clear in moonlight as in daytime. I followed her, a ghost like her, a witch like her. I was not even surprised when she led me up the steep cold heather-covered hills and I saw she cast no shadow on the silvery sand.

  I had to watch my bruised feet as I staggered up the track. The wet sand was heavy going, and I was afraid of falling with Sarah. Besides, I could feel that I was bleeding more heavily; a warmth was running down the inside of my legs, warning me that I had gone nearly as far as I could go that night. I still had not done what I had come for. When I reached the crest of the hill and struggled to the top, I looked ar
ound for her, but she was gone.

  There was no slight figure to follow, there was no lingering, inscrutable smile. She had gone as suddenly and as inexplicably as she had come. I had followed a will-o’-the-wisp and was now almost two miles from home and the Fenny; and Sarah was still alive and on Wideacre.

  I gave a little sob of despair then, that I should get it all wrong again, and I half turned to go back down the path, back towards the Fenny, to drown Sarah and to drown myself, when a movement caught my eye. It was a ring of carts, loaded up and packed and ready to leave, a ring of gypsy carts in the usual sheltered hollow of the common. I was a few hundred yards from them with my child in my arms and Mama’s rose pearls around my neck.

  I went down the hill in a sliding dreamlike rush and approached the nearest cart. A man was at the horse’s head, tightening the leathers and adjusting the harness. On the driver’s seat there was a woman.

  She was a young woman, about my age, with a scarf tied down over her hair and a piece of sacking around her shoulders to keep out the rain. In the cart behind her were the family belongings, with the tent lashed down over them to keep them dry. In her arms, feeding at her breast, was a small baby. She had milk.

  I stumbled on my hurt feet up to the side of the cart and she looked down at me without surprise. I fumbled in the fold of my cloak and lifted Sarah up to her, holding her awkwardly so she awoke and cried to find herself suddenly cold, and suddenly in mid-air without an arm around her.

  The woman reached out and gathered my baby in to her without a word as if she had been waiting for me. I glanced around at the circle of carts. It seemed like they were all waiting. It seemed like they had packed and readied themselves for one of their unknowable wanderings, and then waited. They had waited in the rain and the dark for someone to come to them out of the shelter of the Wideacre woods.

  I put my hands up to my neck and took off Mama’s rose-pearl necklace. The woman put her hand out for it and slid it into a pocket hidden in her layers of clothing. As if I had bought my child her rights, she immediately uncovered the other breast and gave my baby suck. The feet of the Lacey heir and the gypsy child kicked in unison as they fed from the same woman.

  I stepped back. It was a dream. There was nothing I could say, there was no need to say anything.

  The man at the horse’s head tightened a final strap and glanced up at the woman sitting high on the cart. At her nod he clicked to the horse and started to walk beside it. The horse lowered its head against the load and pulled hard at the weight of the cart in the softness of the sand. The side of the cart was painted, but in the moonlight and shadow as the storm-clouds blotted out the light, I could not see the patterns nor any colour. The scene was all silver and grey and black; it was a scene out of a dream without colour, in some moonlit landscape as desolate as a white desert.

  The other carts had moved away first, the pans swinging at the sides, lashed on with pieces of twine. Many carried baskets of pegs and carved wooden flowers, or little ornaments, all tied on to the sides for easy sale. As the carts jolted away, the pans clinked together, making insane music, and the flowers jogged like dream dancers. The line of six carts moved off, and I suddenly came out of my reverie and realized what I had done.

  The woman raised her hand to me and I took a hasty step forward, but the cart stuck, and then lurched too fast for her to hear me call. A horn lantern swinging on the side of the cart illuminated the pure white of the shawl around my baby’s head, but even as I stared, the light flickered and went out and I could not see her. The cart was going away from me too fast.

  I took half a dozen hasty paces after it, but my blood was flowing and my head was light, and the stars and the storm-clouds seemed to be whirling around between me and my child, between me and my daughter. And I knew that it was no dream. I had given her away and I should never see her again.

  ‘Her name is Sarah!’ I screamed towards the back of the cart and I tried to run again, but my knees gave way beneath me and I sank down into the sand, crying and crying, trying to catch my breath so that I might call loud enough for them to hear me. ‘Her name is Sarah!’ I shouted to the dark jolting cart which was going away so quickly into the night. ‘Sarah Lacey of Wideacre!’

  I don’t know how long I stayed there, after that call to the jolting cart. I watched them go until my eyes were hot with staring into the darkness and so filled with hopeless tears that I could see nothing, not even the whiteness of the shawl around my little girl’s head. I stayed kneeling in the wet sand, with the great drops of rain pouring down upon me, and then for a little while I think I pitched forward and wept.

  I lifted my head and saw that it was getting lighter. A whole long night had passed. I was free.

  Richard had no hold on me that he could ever use again. I had seen him for what he was, and I had conquered my fear of him. Richard was a madman, a cunning charming madman; and he would have killed me last night if I had not begun to give birth to his child.

  I had done my duty to Wideacre when I threw away the heir, my lovely, lovely little girl. I would go home and do one further duty. I would face my Grandpapa Havering and tell him that Richard had shot Jem, and Uncle John, and my mama, and I would show him the fraudulent marriage licence as proof of motive, and the rose-pearl ear-rings as evidence. They would take him to Chichester and they would hang him. Then I would pull down the walls of the new Wideacre Hall and live in one of the cottages on the green, alone, mourning, lonely for all I had lost, glad for all I had saved.

  I was the squire, the last squire. My last job was to rid Wideacre of Richard.

  I pulled my drenched heavy cloak around me and got to my feet. I staggered with weariness and for a moment feared that indeed I might not get home at all. I might collapse out here and be dead of cold and loss of blood before anyone thought to look for me on the common.

  Then I gritted my teeth and turned my face for home. I put one bruised and bloody foot before another for a hundred counted paces, and then a hundred more, and then a hundred more. It was the only way to get home I could think of, so I counted my way like a little child. I went back into the dark woods of Wideacre, over the perilous river bridge, where the counted numbers were little gasps of fear as my feet slipped and the river tugged at my heavy cloak and nearly pulled me down to drown, and then, counting, counting, counting, down the little footpath where I had run so easily as a child with my beloved cousin before me. I was counting, counting, counting the paces back to my home where there would be someone – surely there must be someone-to help me to bed, so I could rest and ready myself to tell Richard that I had destroyed his heir and that I would destroy him too.

  As I came out of the woods on to the drive, it was nearly dawn; the sky was growing pale, though the storm-clouds were still black over the downs. The wind was high, sighing in the treetops. But above the noise of the wind I thought I heard people shouting in the woods.

  I supposed they were all out looking for me. I hoped very much Richard was out too, then I could get to my room and sleep and sleep before I had to face him. Richard had to die. Richard had to be utterly destroyed. And I knew I was not yet strong enough to do it.

  The front door stood open as I limped up the path, and the house was deserted. It was as I thought: everyone was out in the woods searching for me, and I might be able to creep upstairs and rest before I had to face Richard.

  But I was a Lacey, not a silly child, and I thought that the least I could do was to write a note and pin it to the front door so that the men out in the rain could be sent home and would not spend all day looking for me while I lay safe and snug abed. I went into the library to fetch paper and pen to write my note before I went to bed.

  Richard was in the carved heavy chair at the head of the table, in his breeches and linen shirt. His chair was tipped back on its two back legs with his weight.

  His face was like a skull, his lips drawn back in a terrible piteous grin of fear, his eyes staring, looking to me as his resc
uer, as the only person in the world who could save him from certain death.

  Ralph was behind the chair, one hand pulling Richard’s head back with a tight grip on Richard’s curling hair, the other hand holding a long sharp knife against Richard’s throat.

  They were both watching the doorway. They had heard me come in and the slap, slap, slap of my wet nightgown and cloak as I crossed the hall. I took in the scene in one swift glance and quickly pushed the door shut behind me so that no one else could come in, so that no one but us would know. And I leaned back against it.

  Richard’s whole face trembled in a pitiful appeal. ‘Julia!’ he said, and I could hear him trying to put his charm into his voice. ‘Julia!’

  I looked at him out of my red-rimmed weary eyes. I looked at him, the brother I had loved all my life, and I knew I would never cease loving him. My brother, my blood, my kin.

  I raised my head and Ralph’s dark, understanding eyes met mine.

  Ralph waited in silence for my decision.

  ‘Kill him,’ I said.

  Ralph’s sweep of the knife was as clean as a butcher’s.

  Meridon

  Philippa Gregory

  Meridon, the desolate Romany girl, is determined to escape the hard poverty of her childhood. Riding bareback in a travelling show, while her sister Dandy risks her life on the trapeze, Meridon dedicates herself to freeing them both from danger and want.

  But Dandy – beautiful, impatient, thieving Dandy – grabs too much, too quickly. And Meridon finds herself alone, riding in bitter grief through the rich Sussex farmlands towards a house called Wideacre – which awaits the return of the last of the Laceys.