Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3)

by Philippa Gregory

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Well enough. We’ve ploughed and planted winter crops. The apples did well, and the plums. We’ve enough feed and wheat to get through the winter. Things are well at home.’

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. Will seemed like a messenger from another world, I could almost smell the cold autumn air of Wideacre on him. I thought of the house nestling in the parkland and the trees turning yellow and gold. I thought of the beech trees going purple and dark and the animals coming down from the higher fields.

  ‘Does the land look nice?’ I asked. It was a foolish question but I did not have the right words.

  Will’s smile was understanding. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘The roses at the Hall are still flowering though it’s getting late in the year. The Fenny is high, you’d hardly recognize it. The trees are turning colour and all the swallows are gone. The owls call very loud at nights. The moon has been very bright and yellow. I miss you.’

  I drew my breath in with a little hiss and froze. Will’s gaze dropped from my face to his horse’s mane. ‘I’ve come to town on business of my own,’ he said. ‘But I promised myself I could come and find you and tell you this. I understand that you wanted your Season, that you wanted to see what the Quality life was like.’

  He paused and then went on softly, persuasively. ‘You’ve seen it now, you’ve seen it all. You’ve been to balls and danced with lords. Now you should come home. I’m come to tell you that, and I’ll escort you home if you’ve had enough of being here. Your bedroom is ready at the Hall. You could be home by nightfall. We’d all be glad to see you back.’

  A cart loaded with milk churns came noisily down the street and Sea flinched and I had to steady him. ‘Come to the park with me,’ I said. ‘Sea needs exercise.’

  Will nodded at the groom. ‘I’ll take her,’ he said. ‘Away and get yourself something to eat. You look half clemmed.’

  ‘I am that,’ the man said gratefully and pulled his dirty cap in my direction. ‘Shall I come round to the house for the horse when you’ve finished your ride, Miss Lacey?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring him back.’

  He wheeled his horse and trotted down the street back to the stables, and Will and I turned towards the park, riding abreast.

  Will told me other news of Wideacre, a baby had been born and was to be called ‘Sarah’, the vicar had been away for a week and was greatly put out on his return to find no one had attended church for the curate he had installed in his absence. A vagrant had come through the village begging and had stolen all the linen off the washing lines. The gypsies were back on the Common where they always camped. They were early which was the sign of a hard winter.

  ‘Everything the same as ever,’ Will said with a smile.

  We rode side by side in a sedate canter. Sea remembered the races on Downland and Common and threw up his head and wanted to gallop but I held him back.

  ‘And you?’ Will asked. ‘Is it how you expected?’

  I shrugged. ‘It passes the time,’ I said. I shot a sideways look at him and then I told him how it was in truth. I told him about the pleasures of the new life: the dresses, the hats, the morning rides. I told him about the extraordinary people who were accepted as normal in this odd new world. I told him about the young men, and I made him laugh until he had to cling to his horse’s mane when I told him about Sir Rupert left gasping on the sofa clutching his balls.

  ‘And Lady Havering? And Lord Peregrine?’ Will asked. ‘Are they good to you?’

  I hesitated. ‘As much as they can be,’ I said. ‘Lady Clara is as cold as ice. I’ve met kindlier women laying-out paupers. She cares for nothing but the Havering estate and the succession.’

  Will nodded. ‘I heard she cared for her oldest son well enough,’ he said. ‘The one that died.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said crudely. ‘Men are always more lovable when they’re dead!’

  Will laughed at that. ‘But Lord Peregrine,’ he said and his voice was carefully bright. ‘Do you see much of him now? Is the engagement still on?’

  I nodded. I did not look at him. ‘The contracts are with the lawyers,’ I said. ‘I will marry him, you know.’

  Will was looking straight ahead, down a little avenue where the pale yellow fronds of the chestnut trees made an archway over our heads. We were quite alone and the clatter of the town in the early morning seemed far away.

  ‘I thought you might meet someone you fancied better,’ he said. ‘I thought you were using him to get yourself comfortable in London – that you’d throw him over when you were settled.’

  I smiled a little wry smile. ‘You think highly of me, don’t you?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘It won’t be the first time a girl’s jilted a milksop,’ he said. ‘I thought when you had a chance to look around you’d see someone you fancied more.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have a fancy for a man.’

  ‘Hard luck on the man who loves you,’ Will offered neutrally.

  ‘Very,’ I said. I shot a sideways look at him. ‘A disaster for the man who loves me,’ I repeated. ‘If he married me he would find me always cold. If he did not he could waste his life in loving me and I would never return it.’

  ‘Because you loved her, and now she is dead?’ he asked very quietly.

  I flinched as soon as he even neared the pain that was as sharp and fresh inside me as the evening she died.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Perhaps because of that. But even before, long before that, I think it was already spoiled for me.’

  ‘Lord Peregrine gets short measure then,’ Will said.

  I smiled. ‘He gets what he wants,’ I said. ‘He’s cold. He doesn’t like women much. He’s mortal feared of his ma, he likes me because I don’t fuss him and want petting.’

  ‘He’s an odd one,’ Will suggested.

  I frowned. ‘He’s a drunkard, I think,’ I said. ‘And I think he’s a gambler. He was well enough in the country, but now he is out every night and I think gambling has a hold on him.’

  I paused, thinking of men I had seen at fairgrounds losing everything they owned on the turn of a card. ‘I am afraid it might get to him,’ I said. ‘I should like to take him away.’

  There was an open stretch of grass before us. We let the horses’ stride lengthen and then Sea threw his head up. I caught his wildness in a moment and in my mind, my gypsy-brat voice said, ‘Damn the rules,’ and I let Sea go. The ground seemed to leap from under us, and I heard Will yell with pleasure behind us as his horse gave chase. We were in the lead, and Sea was going as if he wanted to gallop all the way to Sussex. I had to steady him, I had to pull him up. We were nearly by the road which intersects the park. It would have caused talk if I had been seen galloping, and that with a working man.

  Sea blew out softly, but he was not winded. He could have gone on for hours. I could tell by the feel of him that he was puzzled that we had stopped so soon.

  Will’s big bay thundered up to us and spattered us with mud as Will pulled him up.

  ‘That’s better!’ Will said. ‘That’s the first real smile I’ve seen on your face since I’ve been here! You should gallop more often, Sarah.’

  I shook my head, still smiling. ‘I’m not allowed,’ I said.

  Will said something under his breath which sounded like an oath. ‘Not allowed!’ he said. ‘You’re the squire of Wideacre. Why take these damned rules? Why take this hopeless man? You say yourself he’s a drunkard and a gambler. Haven’t you had enough sorrow and trouble without taking on a fool as well?’

  I turned Sea’s head homeward, and I bit back a quick and angry reply.

  ‘I need to run my own land,’ I said carefully. ‘I need a husband so I can live as I please without Mr Fortescue’s old chaperone, or anyone bothering me.’

  Will nodded, but looked like he wanted to interrupt.

  ‘I can’t marry an ordinary man,’ I said. ‘You know why. I’d drive an ordinary man mad within a week. I’ve no love to give, and
I want none. I can manage Perry. I can keep him from gambling and from the drink when we live in the country. It doesn’t matter that he is a weak fool. He’s kind-hearted enough, he’s gentle with me. I can manage him. He is the only husband I could deal with.’

  Will looked at me carefully. ‘He might like lads,’ he said bluntly. ‘Had you thought of that?’

  ‘What?’ I asked. I pulled Sea up and stared blankly at Will. ‘Lads?’

  Will cleared his throat in embarrassment. ‘Don’t be so daft, Sarah, for the Lord’s sake,’ he begged me. ‘I just thought you should think about it. He might like lads. You know. He might be a gentleman of the back door. You know!’

  I exploded in a shout of laughter. ‘A what? A gentleman of the what?’

  Will was scarlet with embarrassment. ‘Now have done, Sarah,’ he said. ‘You should think about this. You’re going to marry him and you won’t always have his ma there to keep him in order. If he gets drunk he might ill-treat you. If he likes lads he could fill the house with them and there’s no one to say him nay. He could get the pox and give it to you. Think about it, for God’s sake!’

  I sobered then, and nodded. ‘Thank you,’ I said frankly. ‘Thank you for thinking of me. I had not thought that Perry might like lads. I will consider it. But for me it is no great disadvantage. I don’t want a normal husband, I want one that will leave me alone. He’s told me we have to get an heir and then we will not bed together again. That’s a bargain for me in return for a gentry husband and an estate next door to Wideacre.’

  ‘And you’ll use the Havering power and knowledge to break the Wideacre corporation,’ Will said frankly.

  I sighed. I looked into his honest brown eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Thought so,’ he said. We turned the horses and walked on.

  ‘What have you come to London for?’ I asked. ‘You said you had business here.’

  ‘I have,’ he said. ‘Though I couldn’t have left the town without seeing you. I’ve come for a meeting of a society of corporations. There’s a few other places trying to farm the land together, and we all meet together every six months or so to see how things are going. There’s talk of a newspaper as well. Wideacre is one of the more successful corporations. There’s lots who want to know how we do it. I’m to give a speech to a public meeting tonight.’

  I nodded, rather impressed. ‘What will you say?’ I asked.

  Will smiled. ‘You’d not like it,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell them how Wideacre suffered most harshly from enclosures – that was your grandmother, Beatrice Lacey. Then the estate went into ruin after the riot. Then I’ll tell them about the rebuilding of the estate and running it as a sharing scheme with the landlord during your ma’s lifetime, when Ralph Megson was manager. And then I’ll tell them that when the estate was run by the Trust we set up the corporation.’

  ‘And what will you tell them about me?’ I asked.

  Will’s face was grim. ‘I’ll tell them that we don’t know what the future will hold for us,’ he said. ‘That if the new squire chooses to go against us we will see the corporation ruined and we will have to leave and start again elsewhere or accept that we will become again an ordinary poor village.’

  ‘Leave?’ I said blankly. I had never thought that anyone might one day leave Wideacre. I had never thought of any greater change than that I should have more of a share of the profits, that it should be my decision how the land was to be used.

  ‘Oh aye,’ Will said. ‘There’s a few who will be there tonight who are thinking of setting up corporations: gentlemen farmers and owners of big factories in the north who want to try their hand at co-operative farming. They’d be glad to have a manager who had done something of the sort before – and made it pay,’ he added with a smile. ‘There’s a few from Acre who’d rather move than be ruled by a landlord again.’ He looked at me sideways with a half-smile. ‘Once you start changes Sarah, you may find they take you further than you meant to go.’

  ‘Who would stay in Acre if you went?’ I asked.

  Will shrugged as if it were not his problem. With a sudden jolt of apprehension I realized that it would indeed not be his problem.

  ‘Those that didn’t mind working for a landlord again,’ he said. ‘Those who had not saved money over the last few years and could not afford to leave. Those who had saved enough to pay the new expensive rents you would bring in.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Each family would feel differently,’ he said. ‘Some would not bear to go. Some have been there so long, and love the countryside so well.’

  ‘I had not thought anyone would leave,’ I said.

  ‘Most would,’ Will said bluntly. ‘I’d not stay one day after your marriage. I’ve no time to waste.’

  ‘You’d go to one of these experimental farms?’ I asked.

  ‘Or America,’ he said.

  I gasped, involuntarily. ‘America!’ I said.

  Will looked at me and his brown eyes were smiling. ‘I could be persuaded to stay,’ he said.

  I smiled back, but my eyes were steady. ‘I have to have the money and the land,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Then you could not keep me,’ he said gently. We turned the horses and headed for home.

  ‘When’s this wedding to be, then?’ he asked, as we turned down the little lane towards the stables.

  ‘At the end of the Season,’ I said. ‘Spring, next year.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Plenty of time for you to see his paces. Time for you to change your mind if you wish. No one can constrain you, Sarah.’

  We had reached the stable yard and the groom came out to take Sea. I slid from his back and patted his neck. He turned his great wise face around and lipped at my pocket, seeking a sugarlump stolen from my breakfast tray.

  ‘Will you come to London again?’ I asked. My voice sounded desolate. I had not meant to sound like that.

  I turned and walked out to the street outside the stable yard, Will swung down from his horse’s back and led him, following me.

  ‘Do you want me to?’ he asked.

  I turned and faced him. ‘Yes,’ I said honestly. ‘If you’re coming up to town I should like you to come and see me and bring me news of Wideacre.’

  He nodded. ‘If you needed me, I should find a room and be here for you, to ride with you every morning, to see you every day,’ he said. He spoke in the same level tones as if he were asking me if the plough horses should be shod.

  ‘No,’ I said sadly. ‘I should not ask that of you. You should be at Wideacre.’

  He swung into the saddle and looked down at me, where I stood on the pavement. ‘So should you,’ he observed.

  I raised a hand to him. ‘When shall I see you again?’ I asked.

  He smiled. ‘You tell me when, and I will come,’ he promised.

  ‘Next week?’ I hazarded.

  Will smiled, a warm generous smile. ‘It just so happens that I need to come to London next Wednesday. You have just put me in mind of it. I’ll stay overnight and ride with you in the morning.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and I reached up my hand to him. Will took it and bent down low and pulled back my glove so that my wrist was bared. He pressed a kiss on to the delicate skin of the inside of my wrist and then buttoned the glove again. It was as if the touch of his lips was kept safe inside.

  ‘Send for me if you need me,’ he said.

  I nodded, and stepped back. His horse trotted forwards and I watched them go.

  30

  Even if Will had not warned me of Perry I should have been watching him anyway. His drinking was getting worse, his nights were getting later. One morning, when I came out for my ride I found him retching hopelessly, clinging to the railings in broad daylight.

  I took his collar in a hard grip and hauled him to his feet, and then slung his arm over my shoulder and half dragged, half walked him up the steps to the front door. The tweeny, who was up to light the fires before anyone else, let us in, horror-struck at having to open the d
oor, which should be done by the butler, and aghast that it was his lordship.

  ‘Help me,’ I said sharply. ‘I’ll never get him up the stairs on my own.’

  She bobbed a scared curtsey and dived under his other arm. ‘Yes’m,’ she said. ‘But if you please ‘m, I’m not allowed up the front stairs.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said through my teeth. Perry had got a grip on one of the railings and would not let go. ‘Come on, Perry!’ I said. ‘Stay here much longer and your ma will see you!’

  I thought that would shift him, but it did not. He turned his face towards me and I saw his blue eyes were suddenly filled with tears. ‘She wouldn’t care,’ he said. ‘She never did care for me, and she doesn’t care for me now.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said briskly. I unclasped his hand from the railing and nodded at the maid. We both made a little rush at the step and got him over it. I heard a clatter of hooves behind me and there was Gerry, the groom from the stables riding his horse and leading Sea. ‘Wait for me!’ I called, and then grabbed Peregrine as his knees buckled underneath him as we made it into the hall.

  Peregrine collapsed on to the bottom step of the stairs and looked up at the maid and me. ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘Sarah? Now there are two of you.’

  ‘Oh come on! Perry!’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get you to your room. People will be getting up soon, we don’t want them to see you like this.’

  Perry’s perfect mouth turned down again. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘They don’t care. Everyone knows I’m not as good as George. No one expects me to be as good as George. No one likes me as much as they liked him.’

  I nodded to the maid and we grabbed hold of an arm each and turned him around to face the stairs.

  ‘Everyone loved George,’ Perry said glumly.

  The maid and I went up two steps and then, borne back by the dead weight of Perry, we went back one.

  ‘He was the image of my papa,’ Perry said. ‘And my papa loved him like his own son.’

  We made a bit of ground while Perry considered this, nearly as far as the first landing. But Perry grabbed at the banister and turned to explain to me. ‘He was his son, you see,’ he said.