by Anna Jacobs
Chapter 11
On the Wednesday of the following week, another carriage turned into the driveway of Broadhurst Manor, a dusty vehicle with tired horses, which had obviously come a long way.
Will, who was working in the grounds, didn’t like the look of this. He didn’t know what Sarah might have to face now, but was determined not to leave her to confront whoever it was on her own. Face grim, he ran over to the house, entering the back way and demanding water to wash his hands and a cloth to rub the mud off his shoes. At once, if you please!
By the time Hannah went to answer the front doorbell, which had now been repaired, he had finished his rapid ablutions and slipped into Sarah’s parlour. ‘I don’t know who it is, but you’re not facing them on your own!’
She gave him her wide, calm smile and said simply, ‘Thank you, Will.’
They turned together towards the door.
‘Mr Jamieson to see you, mistress,’ announced Hannah, as Sarah had taught her.
Sarah’s face cleared and she limped quickly across to the figure in the doorway. ‘My dear Mr Jamieson! Whatever brings you down to Dorset? I hope there’s nothing wrong? Hannah, fetch us a tea-tray, will you? No, I remember, you don’t like tea, do you, sir? Claret, then, and some glasses, please, Hannah.’ She only hoped the wine they’d found would be palatable.
Mr Jamieson shook her hand and retained it in his as he eyed her searchingly. ‘You look very well, my dear,’ he said, in a distinct tone of surprise. ‘And the house too! You have wrought miracles!’
‘I am well, sir, as you see.’ But he was frowning suspiciously at Will and she couldn’t have that. She held out her hand to bring him over to join them. ‘And I’m very happy to be able to present Mr William Pursley to you. No, you know him already, do you not? But what you will not know is that Will and I are betrothed.’
The two men shook hands stiffly and Sarah saw with dismay that Mr Jamieson was very much on his dignity. She gestured to a chair. ‘Won’t you sit down, sir, and rest after your journey? Hannah will be along in a moment with refreshments. Will, you’ll take a glass of wine with us, won’t you?’
It was a command, not a suggestion. He nodded.
Sarah waited until they were all seated, then turned to her visitor. ‘Now, my dear sir, pray tell me what brings you to these parts?’
Mr Jamieson decided to be blunt. ‘I received a letter telling me of your proposed marriage. What the writer had to say worried me, so I felt I must come down to see you about it.’ The look he cast upon Will was distinctly unfriendly. ‘Er - I would prefer to speak to you alone, if you please, my dear Mistress Sarah.’
‘I’m not leaving her to face things on her own!’ declared Will at once. ‘She’s had enough people upsetting her!’
Sarah was rather more diplomatic. ‘I’d prefer Will to stay. We have no secrets from one other. What letter are you talking about? Who can have been writing to you about me? I gather you haven’t yet received my own letter telling you about our coming marriage?’ As if she couldn’t guess who’d written! Only one man would have the temerity.
‘I received a letter from Matthew Sewell. Paid for in advance, too. He is, I understand, Squire of this village, now that your grandfather is dead, and he’s worried about you, my dear, as was I when I read his letter. He says . . . let me see . . . ’ He fumbled in his pocket.
‘He says I have taken leave of my senses and am about to squander my inheritance upon a farmer,’ Sarah finished for him, trying for a light, joking tone, to spare Will. ‘Am I correct?’
‘Well - er - yes. Though he said it was a - a cowman. He didn’t mention Mr Pursley by name. I hadn’t realised it was him you were to marry.’
She could sense that her betrothed was almost ready to explode. Indeed, she was feeling extremely angry herself. But they would gain nothing, least of all Mr Jamieson’s approval, by ranting and raving. ‘Is there no limit to the man’s effrontery?’ she asked as calmly as she could. ‘Lady Tarnly tells me he wrote to her husband in a similar vein. Lord Tarnly calls Mr Sewell “that damned impudent upstart of a tea-merchant”, I gather.’
‘Lady Tarnly tells you?’ Mr Jamieson asked quickly, not slow to pick up the implications of this.
‘Yes, sir. I have made one or two acquaintances in the district. Lord and Lady Tarnly have been kind enough to call on me, and his lordship offered only a few days ago to give me away at my wedding. He was my mother’s godfather, you know.’
‘He has offered to do that?’
‘Yes. Hasn’t he, Will?’
‘Aye.’ Will was still glowering, because it was plain to him that Mr Jamieson was hostile to the idea of him marrying Sarah, and Will didn’t know how to deal with him, since he could see both sides of the question and knew some would rightly call it a mismatch.
‘Then he - Lord Tarnly approves of the match, unequal though it is?’
‘Yes indeed, sir.’
‘And Sewell is not the Squire of Broadhurst, either,’ put in Will, for this point had grated upon him as much as anything. No person of sense would consider a fellow like Sewell to be Squire! Only think of all the trouble and unhappiness he’d caused in the village! Only think of the ruffians who served him! It was a Squire’s job to look after his people, not cause trouble.
‘But why did he do it, then?’ worried Mr Jamieson.
‘Because Sewell hates me and has tried to run me out of the village - and I suppose because he wants to get hold of Sarah’s land, to add to his estate, and that will not be possible if she marries me. And when he wants something, that man won’t take no for an answer, but uses any means he can to obtain it.’
‘Mr Sewell told me when I first came here that Broadhurst was already promised to him,’ Sarah added, ‘because of a letter you wrote to him.’
‘Promised to him? But that’s ridiculous!’ exclaimed Mr Jamieson, diverted from the question of Sarah’s marriage. ‘At no time did I have the authority to accept it without the owner’s consent, and so I told him. He can’t possibly believe that it was promised to him!’
‘Well, he does. He is a man of choleric disposition and little rationality, and he’s much disliked in the district for his overbearing ways. Did you not meet him when you came down here after my grandfather’s death?’
‘No. He was away in Bristol, I believe. But - to say the estate was promised to him! It was no such thing!’ Mr Jamieson’s indignation was so great that his speech was punctuated by angry little puffs of air, but he was still looking suspiciously at Will and added, ‘Be that as it may, my dear Sarah, I am not happy to see you rush into an - er - unequal marriage.’
‘’Tis a fair bargain,’ declared Will. ‘Else I wouldn’t have agreed to it.’ He put his arm protectively around Sarah’s shoulders and she leaned against him, looking happy and comfortable.
Mr Jamieson jerked. ‘Agreed! What do you mean, agreed! Sarah, surely that does not mean that you . . . ?’
Sarah smiled across at him, a smile of such radiance that the ageing lawyer blinked at the way it transformed her face, which he had previously considered rather plain.
‘Yes, sir. It was I who asked Will to marry me, not the other way around. And had to work hard to persuade him to it, as well!’
She could see that he was beginning to come round and said coaxingly. ‘We have made a good bargain, my dear sir, I do truly believe that. I have land, but not the skill to make the best of it. Will has the skill, but not the land. Why, you said yourself that I couldn’t hope to manage this place without a husband!’
‘But you hardly know Mr Pursley. Surely you should wait until you get better acquainted to marry.’
‘I am twenty-eight. If we are to have children, I cannot afford to wait. And my land cannot afford to wait for heirs, either.’
Mr Jamieson opened his mouth, then shut it again, feeling this subject to be too delicate for him to discuss.
‘Dear sir,’ she said coaxingly, ‘I get on very well with Will and I want to marry hi
m! In fact, we have set the wedding for next week.’
There was silence and Sarah grew anxious as she saw the frown on Mr Jamieson’s face.
‘Then you and Mr Pursley had better hear the other condition of your grandfather’s will,’ he said at last.
‘Condition?’ she whispered, white-faced. ‘What other condition did he make?’ Was she to lose her only chance of a husband now?
‘That if you marry, your husband must take the name of Bedham, or the inheritance will be forfeited.’
She said nothing, greatly relieved that it was no worse, but she looked anxiously at Will, who would be most affected by this condition. His face had taken on its dark, closed look.
‘Can a man do that?’ he asked at last. ‘Can he just change his name and take another?’
‘Yes,’ answered Mr Jamieson. ‘Though it’s best done properly. There will be a Justice of the Peace in the district, no doubt. It would be better to make a formal declaration before him. But there would be no difficulty. Mistress Bedham changed her name in order to inherit Broadhurst and her husband must do the same. These were the late Squire’s conditions.’
But they weren’t really listening to him. They were engrossed in each other.
‘Shall you do it, Will?’ Sarah asked hesitantly.
He patted her hand and his dark features lightened briefly into a near smile. ‘Aye, Sarah, I shall. If I set my hand to a task, then I do not give up so easily. But all the same, it’s hard for a man to lose his name. I shall be the last of the Pursleys now.’
Her hand went out to touch his for a moment. ‘Thank you, Will.’
Then she became brisk again and turned back to the lawyer. ‘Are there any other conditions of which you have not informed me, sir?’
‘No. That’s the only one. I’m sorry, my dear. I really should have told you before, but I thought - I thought there would be no need.’ He broke off, embarrassed to realise how unflattering to her this explanation was.
She smiled slightly, knowing perfectly well that he hadn’t told her because he hadn’t considered her likely to marry. But this thought no longer had the power to hurt her, for now she had Will. ‘Then if that is settled, will you please stay for the wedding? Mr Rogers has been a good friend to us both and Lord Tarnly has been very kind, offering to give me away, but I would prefer it if - would you give me away instead, my dear sir? You seem as near as I can get now to family.’
He smiled back at her, won over in spite of himself. ‘I’m honoured that you ask me, my dear Sarah. And I would be happy to stand in place of a father to you - though I must warn you that I have no experience in giving people away.’ And, he thought, we shall just have to hope that this marriage works out well for her. At least, if I have a few days here, I shall be able to sound the fellow out a bit more and draw up proper settlements to protect her interests. Pursley has always seemed a dour, surly type to me, but he is reputed to be a good farmer, and I have found him scrupulously honest.
‘Thank you, Mr Jamieson,’ she said gratefully. ‘And now, here’s Hannah with the wine. Will, you’ll take a glass with us, won’t you?’
‘Er - no. You know I’m not one for drinking wine, especially in the middle of the day, with half my work yet to be done. If you’re all right now, Sarah, I’ll go and show the men where to water their animals. There is no stable-boy here, you see, Mr Jamieson.’
‘Bless me, I’d quite forgotten the post-boys! Well, if I’m to stay, I must pay them off and send them back to Bath. They shall return for me next week.’ Mr Jamieson bustled out, but Will lingered for a moment before following him.
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right now?’ he asked. ‘He won’t try to bully you, will he?’
‘No, no. He has my welfare at heart. And he has been more kind to me than could be expected of a family lawyer. We dined together a few times before I left London. I’ve grown to regard him almost as an uncle.’
‘He mislikes the match.’
‘He will grow used to it, and anyway it’s me you’re marrying, not him.’
He nodded, but his expression didn’t lighten.
‘What is it?’ she coaxed.
‘I mislike the way people take me for a - a fortune hunter! ‘Tis not like that between us!’
‘As long as we know where we stand, Will, I think we need not fear malicious tongues. And Mr Jamieson’s presence will lend the marriage even more respectability.’ But she could see that he was still disturbed. Nothing in life was easy and straightforward, she thought wistfully, even marriage to the man you loved.
When Mr Jamieson returned a few moments later, Sarah had a smile lingering on her face and he couldn’t help but realise once again how happy she was now.
As if reading his mind, Sarah turned back to him. ‘It was a miracle, that day in London, wasn’t it? I never thought to have so much - Will, the house, children perhaps, if we’re really lucky. Now, pray let me give you that glass of wine and one of Hannah’s little honey cakes.’
* * * *
During the next few days, Sarah and Will were both made aware of the sharp brain behind Mr Jamieson’s kindly exterior. He wanted to know all their plans and their smallest concerns, and asked shrewd questions, even about matters he knew little of, like the cattle and Will’s plans for breeding better beasts. On the Saturday, he even inspected the ram and half dozen ewe-lambs Will had bought at Sawbury market.
‘Why these sheep?’ asked Mr Jamieson, walking round them. ‘Sheep all look much alike to me, I must confess.’
Will answered confidently, sure of his ground. ‘They’ve more meat on them, see, and shorter legs, which is a good thing. Not so scrawny as the others, and the fleece is good, too. Give me a few years and I’ll have a flock worth something. Times are changing, sir. Some men are beginning to breed their farm beasts more carefully, as they do their horses - and they keep more of them alive through the winter, too, so there can be fresh meat whenever it’s wanted. I mean to be one of those new men! I mean to breed sheep and cattle that other men will pay good gold for to breed with their own flocks.’
‘Hmm!’
That evening, Sarah went out, as she often did now, to watch Will drive in the cows for milking. They stood together as the placid beasts made their way into the yard and Mary, who seemed to prefer outdoor jobs, walked past them with her milking stool and pail.
‘Sarah!’ Will turned and gripped her arms abruptly. ‘Sarah, if you should wish to change your mind - well, I wouldn’t hold you to it! I know how far below you I am. Your lawyer - you can see that he’s worried, and . . . ’
To his surprise, she flung her arms round his neck. ‘Don’t talk like that, Will! Don’t ever talk like that! I need you in so many ways! I shall always worry that I’ve forced you into a marriage that is distasteful. What have I to offer a man? I’m not even pretty!’ And she burst into tears.
‘Sarah! Sarah!’ He lifted her face from his shoulder and kissed her on the mouth for the first time, kissed her good and long. ‘How you do go on about not being pretty!’ he said when he drew away, smiling down at her. He shook her slightly to emphasise his words. ‘I like your face well enough, I promise you. And I like your company, too. I believe we shall do very well together.’ Then he patted her on the shoulder and walked back to his cows.
She watched him go, not trying to guard her expression for once. If he turned, she was sure he would see clearly written on her face all the love she felt for him. Raising one finger to her lips she touched them gently. He had kissed her, lingered on the kiss, too. She hoped he would do that often. He made her feel - happy inside when he touched her.
She laughed softly at herself and went back to her work, feeling much happier.
* * * *
On the Sunday, Mr Jamieson escorted Sarah to church, and if his dignity suffered from riding there in Will’s farm cart, he didn’t let his feelings about that show.
‘Have you no carriage?’ he asked Sarah when they returned.
‘
Oh, yes, two of them - but no horses, apart from dear Lally, whom Will found for me.’
He could only shake his head in disapproval.
That evening, he produced a property settlement, carefully drawn up to ensure that Broadhurst Manor and the other bits of land or cottages were held in trust for Sarah, giving her absolute freedom to choose her inheritor. She protested that there was no need to protect her from Will, but her betrothed also read the document through carefully, asking for explanations of the words he didn’t understand and pronounced it a good idea.
This pleased Mr Jamieson greatly. The marriage might turn out quite well after all. Pursley was certainly not stupid, and could read and write better than some lords that Mr Jamieson had dealt with.
At Sarah’s urging, however, another clause was added, bequeathing the land to Will if she should die without heirs of her body. She would never allow anyone to take his land from him again.
That generosity brought Will near to tears when he found out, so that he couldn’t speak for a moment, only clasp her hand tightly and swallow hard.
* * * *
The wedding took place on the first Wednesday in June. The morning dawned fine and sunny, with the promise of a hot day to follow. Only occasional clouds drifted across the sky and trailed their shadows over the fields. The birds and insects came out to enjoy the sunshine, and chirped or hummed a distant chorus that followed Sarah throughout the day, forming a counterpoint to the joy which was singing through her veins and overflowing into everything she said and did.
Always after that, throughout her whole life, she would be reminded by a particularly fine summer’s day of her wedding and of the happiness she had felt as she was driven to the church, with the future stretching before her, all rosy with promise.
Mary came up to the bedroom to fill the wooden tub with warm water as soon as she heard Sarah stirring. ‘It be a fine day, mistress,’ she announced unnecessarily, beaming all over her round face, ‘An’ we all d’wish you joy in your marriage.’