‘Good day, Miss Sarah,’ she said.
For a moment I did not smile. I did not reply. She had called me Miss Sarah. Miss. Not the only other handle to my name I had ever had – Mamselle Meridon the bareback rider – but Miss Sarah. As though I were gentry born and bred. As though it were natural to her to call me thus, and natural to me to respond to it.
I nodded my head awkwardly at her.
‘This is Mrs Hodgett,’ Will Tyacke said. ‘She is a Midhurst woman who married the gate-keeper. The Hodgetts have always kept this gate.’
I nodded again. ‘Good day,’ I said. I found I could smile my show smile, and I pinned it on my face. Then Will clicked to his horse, and Sea fell into pace beside it as we turned left down the drive to head towards the village of Acre.
‘Your village,’ he said half in jest. ‘In the old days, when Beatrice and Squire Harry ran the land, they owned outright every one of the cottages in the village, aye, and even the church and the parson’s house as well.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you still do,’ he said, surprised. ‘We’ve been without a squire for so long that we’ve forgot how the deeds run. Of course it would still be your village outright. The cottagers have not paid rent for years. Not since Squire Richard – your papa – was killed. Mr Fortescue excused all rents and fees so that we could launch the land-sharing scheme. All he withdraws for the Lacey estate is your share of the profits. We call the village Acre, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s a Saxon name, like mine. My family were here in this village long before the Le Says came over with the Conqueror and fought for it and won it from us.’
‘The who?’ I asked. I had never heard of the Le Says. Nor of the conqueror. I had a vague idea that it might be Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Will looked at me in some surprise. ‘The Le Says were your family,’ he said. ‘They were French. Their name was changed later to Lacey.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Changing names was nothing new to me. Everyone in my world always changed their names when they were running from debts or from thief-takers.
‘They came with the Normans. When William the Conqueror invaded England,’ Will said.
I kept my face blank and nodded. I was ashamed of knowing nothing.
‘They fought for the land?’ I asked.
‘Oh aye,’ Will said. ‘I can even show you where. It’s called Battle Field and the ploughboys still turn up human bones and bits of armour. Three days they fought – the village against the Le Says – and the battle only ended when everyone was dead.’
‘Then where d’you come from?’ I asked quickly.
Will smiled. ‘Everyone was dead except one man from my family,’ he said. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes but his face was serious as if he were telling me the truth. ‘He was especially saved to found a dynasty of Tyackes. Saved from the field of battle because of his great skill.’
‘In fighting?’ I asked.
‘In running away!’ Will said and chuckled. ‘It’s old history, Sarah, nobody really knows. Anyway, the Laceys won the land from the people and they have kept it for themselves. Up until now. But the Tyackes have always lived here. And now it is my home.’
I could hear the love and pride in his voice and we halted the horses so that I could see the place properly.
It was a broad street, clean enough, with a few chickens scratching in the dust of the road. A line of cottages on the north side of the road had gardens bobbing with the fat green buds of daffodils and studded with primroses and dark purple crocuses. In one of them a young woman was sitting peeling potatoes in a bowl on her lap, a little child toddling towards her with a scrap of leaf in her hand, her face bright with discovery.
The church stood at the end of the row. An old building with a spire of newer stone. Re-built, as James had said. On the other side of the road the cottages had yards on to the lane. There was a carter’s yard with a wagon being mended inside, a cobbler’s house facing the street with the cobbler cross-legged at his window, head bowed. A smithy, and a great shire horse tied outside waiting. A thatcher’s yard with piles of wood left to season and stocks of reeds under a thatch of straw to keep them dry. It looked what it was, a humming prosperous little village of some thirty houses.
‘Most of the people are out working,’ Will said. ‘I thought you’d rather take a glance at it now before everyone wants to meet you.’
I looked down the street. The cobbler was watching us, but when he saw me look his way he waved a hand and bent his head to his last again as if he did not want to seem prying. The woman in the front garden raised her head and smiled but did not leave off her work.
‘I told them you’d come down and meet them all after church on Sunday,’ Will said. ‘I thought you’d want some time to look about you and gather your wits before you speak to everyone.’
I nodded. The place made me angry, though I wouldn’t show it. The place was so solid. It seemed as if these people had been here, planted deep as trees for years. And I had been blowing like a burr looking for somewhere to catch on to, somewhere to root.
‘How many people?’ I asked.
‘With the small farmers who own their own fields and pay rent, and the squatters who live on the Common and claim squatters’ rights; it comes to about three hundred,’ he said watching my face with a little smile. ‘But you’ll rarely see them all together. Only a few of them come to church now they don’t have to. You’ll just walk up the aisle of the church to the Lacey pew so that everyone can get a good look at you, and when you come out I’ll make you known to the people you want to meet. The vicar will most likely invite you to Sunday dinner, so he’ll tell you about the village as well.’
I nodded. Five new acquaintances would have terrified me, but walking up the aisle of a church and being stared at was just a performance like bareback riding. I thought if I had the right costume and a little training I could act it.
Will saw the hardness in my face. ‘You need not do it, you know,’ he said gently. ‘If you have friends elsewhere that you would rather be with, or a life you would rather lead, you can just go away again. Mr Fortescue can arrange to send you your money. You need not live here if you do not wish it. The estate has run well in your absence, nothing need change unless you want to be here.’
I looked down so that he should not see the flame of anger in my face at his suggestion that I might go elsewhere. I had nowhere else to go. I had longed for this place for all of my life. If I could not belong here then I was lost indeed. I no longer had her; if I lost Wide I would be a vagrant indeed.
‘Which is your house?’ I asked.
He gestured at a lane which ran down to the right.
‘That’s mine,’ he said. ‘Set back off the main street, overlooking the watermeadow and the river. I came to live there with my aunt when my cousin Ted was hurt in a ploughing accident, three years ago. She needed help with him. When he died I stayed on. That’s how I come to be in charge here though I’m young for the job. Ted was foreman for the village, and they decided I could take over early. The Tyackes have always been an important family in the village. They’ve a stone in the church wall which is the oldest in the church.’
I nooded. I could see the chimney and the stone-tiled roof. It looked like the best cottage in the village. Only the vicarage was bigger.
‘Where were you before?’ I asked.
Will smiled. ‘Not far,’ he said. ‘Just down the road on the Goodwood estate. I was working in the bailiff’s office there, so I was used to farming and keeping the books too.’
‘Married?’ I asked.
Will flushed a little. ‘Nay,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m not courting either. I had a lass but she wouldn’t stay in the village. She wanted to go into service and me go with her. I’m handy with horses and she wanted me to try for a job as coachman with the Haverings. I wouldn’t leave Acre. I’d not leave Acre for any lass, however bonny. So she went without me. That was last summer. I’ve had no one serious since then.
‘We go this w
ay up to the Downs,’ he said, and turned his horse away from the church up a little track which climbed the hill.
The horses went shoulder to shoulder up the track, but I loosened the rein and let Sea increase his speed and go ahead of Will so that I could ride alone without him watching my face. The singing noise which I had heard in my head from the very first time I had come to this land, through the dark and the cold, lit only by the moon, was now louder. I was riding up the track which I had seen so many times in my dreams. We were clear of the planted fields and the tall quiet beech trees were crowding close around us. The horses’ hooves were silent on the damp earth and on the leafmould. Sea’s ears pointed forward at the bright circle of light where the trees ended and we would come out…out to what?
I knew how it would be and yet I was suddenly afraid that it would not be as I thought it should. That so much else in this place was so different from my dream. Instead of finding a warm house and a father and being a copper-headed beloved daughter I was a gypsy who had come in out of the darkness, a stranger, an intruder. James Fortescue might say he loved me for my mother’s sake, or because it was his duty, or because he felt guilty that he had failed to find me – but those things meant nothing. In my world none of those things would make a man lift his hand to brush away a fly.
Will Tyacke might take an afternoon to show me around the estate and make me welcome – but I could see that this private little world had run perfectly well without me for sixteen years. They were used to having no one at the Hall. They preferred it that way. I was not a welcome heir, finding her way home at last. I was an unwanted orphan. My so-called guardian and the foreman of my village had done well enough without me all this time.
If the land was not right, I thought, I should go away. Not as they hoped, not a ladylike organized departure, telling people that I did not like the country, that I preferred to live in a little town. If the land was not right I should run off tonight. I would hack my hair into a bob, I would steal the silver and the pretty miniature portraits on the small tables in the parlour, and anything else light enough to carry in my pockets. I should ride until I found a hiring fair and hire myself out as a groom to a good stud farm where I could work with young horses. I was fit for nothing. I did not know the ways of the Rom – and besides, as the old woman in Salisbury had seen, I was no Rom. I was not one of those special people.
I could not go back to work with a show. I would never work again in a ring. I could not have smelled the woodshavings and the horse sweat without freezing with horror. And I did not belong here. Not in the Hall with this difficult mannered life, not in those rooms where you could scream at someone and then they would pour you tea, not in this mad village with these peculiar people who let squatters settle and paid them wages, and who paid a pension to people too old to work
If the land was wrong I would go away and try and find somewhere that I could be myself. Another place.
Another place to search for again.
Sea put his head down and cantered towards the circle of light at the head of the track and we scrambled up the last slope. Will had stayed behind, letting me ride alone. The light dazzled me, the sudden piercing sound of a lark singing up high was as sharp in my ears as the swelling singing which had come to me on this land. The spring grass was a bright mouth-watering green, the sky a pale pale blue streamered with white slight clouds. Sea breathed deep and blew out. I turned his head towards the valley and looked over Wideacre.
I could just see the house. Its pale sandstone yellow colour was like good butter, a little pat among the green of the park. I could see the round turret of the parlour and the wedge of the terrace in front of it. The heads of the trees were thick, like a sheep’s winter fleece, the pines standing out dark against the light spring green.
At the foot of the hill I could see the village. My village. The village my mama had known. I saw it through my eyes, I saw it through her eyes. I saw it as I had dreamed it for one longing dream after another. I knew that it was my home. I had been coming towards it all of my life, for all of my life. I had loved it and missed it and needed it, and now I was coming into the very heart of it.
I breathed in a deep gasp of the wind which was blowing softly across the top of the Downs. I wanted to belong here. I wanted this place. Even though I knew it was too late for me, I longed for it as a man might long for a woman who left him long, long, ago.
Will’s horse came up behind me and he pulled it up. ‘That’s our land, beyond the village: that’s Wideacre Common land up as far as you can see north,’ he said, pointing with his whip. ‘To the west that is the Havering estate. These Downs are Wideacre estate too, twenty miles going north, ten miles to the west. Then it’s Havering land again. All of this valley is Wideacre land.’
I breathed in the smell of it, you could almost taste the chalk in the soil. The grass was fine as hair and short-cropped, studded with flowers and in the hollows there were great clumps of violets and the pale yellow of primroses.
‘Gets thick with cowslips later on,’ Will said, following my gaze. ‘We come up and pick them to make cowslip wine. We come up here on Mayday morning too. You’d like that. We come up and watch the sun rise.’
I nodded my head, not speaking. I had a distant memory of a dream of standing looking towards Acre and seeing the sun come up pale and pink on a May morning.
‘It is as I always thought it would be,’ I said speaking half to myself. ‘I have dreamed and dreamed of this place ever since I can remember. I have wanted to be here all my life.’
Will brought his horse closer alongside Sea and put his calloused hand over mine as I held the reins. I flinched at the touch and Sea stepped to one side.
‘It will not be as you thought it,’ he said gently. ‘It could not be. Nothing ever is. And while you have been dreaming of us, things have been changing here, we have been working towards a dream of our own. We are trying to do something here which is both an example and a model to the rest of the country. And it is part of a long tradition. A forgotten tradition which people try to ignore. Ever since there have been landlords there have been ordinary men and women claiming the right to run the land in their own way, of earning their own bread, of living together as a community. It may seem strange to you now, Sarah, but I think we can be the family you don’t have.’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve got no family,’ I said coldly. ‘I dreamed of a landscape. I didn’t dream of you, or of James Fortescue. All the family I had are dead, and now you two tell me they weren’t even kin. And my real kin…well they’re dead too. I’ve got no one, and I need no one. It was the land I dreamed of; and it’s the land I want.’
Will shrugged his shoulders; and did not try to touch me again. He pulled his horse over to one side and let me admire the view on my own.
‘Would you like a gallop over the Downs and then round by the Common to your home?’ he asked, his voice carefully polite. ‘Or do you want to see more of the village?’
‘Common land and home,’ I said. I glanced at the sun. ‘What time do they eat dinner?’
‘At six,’ he said coldly. ‘But they’ll wait till you are home before they serve dinner.’
I looked aghast. ‘That would be awful,’ I exclaimed.
The black look was wiped off his face in a second. Will laughed aloud. ‘If you think so,’ he said chuckling. ‘I’ll get you home in plenty of time. Could your horse do with a gallop?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said. Sea had been fretting ever since his hooves had been on the soft turf.
‘This way then!’ said Will and his brown cob sprang forward, suprisingly quickly for a horse that size. Sea was after him in a moment, and we chased them along the level track which arrowed, straight as a die, along the top of the Downs. We drew level in a few minutes and I heard Will laugh as we forged past them, Sea put his ears forward at the thunder of the hooves and then slackened his speed so that the brown cob inched forward again. They raced side by side, changing the leads as
if they were enjoying themselves until Will called ‘Hulloa! Woah!’ and we slowed them down and they dropped into a canter and then we pulled them up.
‘We’ll go down this little track,’ Will said, and led the way down a track which was sticky with white creamy mud. Sea blew out and followed the cob as it skidded and slipped. The ground levelled off at the bottom and the mud gave way to white sand.
‘This is the Common,’ Will said.
It was a different kind of landscape entirely, but as familiar to me and as beloved as the Downland and parkland of my home. It was wild countryside, there were no hedges or fields or any sign of farming. As I listened I could hear the faint tinkle of a cow-bell or goat-bell. The busy village of Acre and the well-tended fields, away to the south, seemed miles away.
The hills were covered in heather, the fresh growth showing as a pale mist around the dead white flowers and grey of the old plants. All around us young fronds of ferns were growing leggy and short, necks curled up towards the sky. Over to my right there was a little coppice of silver birches, their trunks pale as paper.
‘Some of this has been enclosed, it is wonderful growing soil,’ Will said. ‘But most of it has been left as it always has been. A bit of a wilderness.’
He turned his horse’s head and Sea fell in beside the cob. The path was very wide, pure white sand, with a covering of black soil at the edges.
‘We keep this open for a firebreak,’ Will said.
‘It catches fire?’ I asked, bemused.
‘Sometimes in a very hot summer, but also we burn off the old heather and bracken so that it stays fit for grazing,’ he explained. ‘Even in the old days, when the Laceys ruled the land as they wished, it was always a right for the people of Acre to graze their own beasts up here. Cows mostly, but some people keep goats or sheep. Quite a few pigs, too.’
I nodded.
‘We’ll just go and look at the orchard, and then cut across the Common for home,’ he said. ‘Have I lost you yet?’
Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Page 28