Wideacre

by Philippa Gregory

  That would make him hopeful. He would think that whatever sweet, tempting, teasing smiles I could give him, and however breathtakingly lovely I looked, however desirable I was, at least he would be spared the other ‘sight — of two fresh bottles of whisky dewy-sided in his study, and a key in the lock so he could be alone with them.

  So at breakfast we drank tea and lemonade, and Harry huffed into his pint pot, but said nothing. Celia gave up her drive to Chichester with me, preferring to stay home. If I knew my sister-in-law, she planned to tempt John out for an airing, to fortify him with sweet tea, and to keep him by her, with chatter and smiles, and play with Julia until dinnertime. She was fighting for his soul, and she would put all her loving, loyal little heart into it.

  So Harry and I drove alone to Chichester and tested our new resolve to save money for Wideacre against the beauties of carriages that the carriage-maker showed us. Harry’s resolve, predictably, wavered. But I held firm. What I needed was a smart little gig or trap to get me round the estate, and the well-built low-slung models were both too costly and too unstable for the rutted lanes that I would need to travel on if I wanted to spare myself a walk in the winter snow to check on the lambing.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ I said, affecting a sigh when we had finally reached a decision. ‘Let’s go and beg some tea from the de Courceys.’

  Lady de Courcey was an old friend of Mama’s and her two children were only a little older than Harry and me. Of all the Chichester families the de Courceys were the nearest to us in rank, according to Mama’s precise calculations. They owned no local land, but they were wealthier. They were an older family, but they had not been in the same house for years as we Laceys. We visited the bishop, whoever the present incumbent might be, of course. We visited two or three other families, but we were friendly only with the de Courceys.

  Although we had now lost Mama’s chilling sense of social gradations, Harry and I had not yet moved out of her chosen circle to make new friends. Partly it was because we lived at such a distance from Chichester as to make a visit there something of an expedition rather than a regular event. But also it was the nature of our Wideacre life. Like Papa we met only the people who lived close to us, or hunted with us, or kin. The roads were often muddy, and in mid-winter utterly impassable. Our work on the land was time-consuming and physically tiring. And, perhaps more than anything else, Harry and I, and now Celia and John too, were an absorbed self-centred little group. Given the choice, I would have been willing never to leave Wideacre for a single day, and while no one loved the place as I did, they all confessed to being content to stay inside the park walls for weeks and months at a time.

  The Haverings were our friends, and the de Courceys. We occasionally had relations of Mama’s to stay, or sometimes some of the Lacey family. But, like many families of our rank, we were a little isolated island amid a sea of poor people. No wonder Mama, who saw those beneath her as an anonymous mass, nearly invisible, had been lonely. No wonder I, catching the slightest hint of threat from those surrounding hundreds, thousands, felt sometimes afraid.

  It was different for town dwellers. The de Courceys’ house stood well back from the road among Scotch firs and was surrounded by a high wall topped with handsome, vicious, metal spikes. When Harry and I drove up there were three carriages already standing on the gravel sweep of the drive and I grimaced at him.

  ‘A tea party,’ I said. ‘Don’t desert me to the old ladies.’

  Harry chuckled and handed me up the shallow flight of steps, while our footman hammered on the door. The de Courceys’ butler escorted us over the black and white marble floor and threw open the parlour door.

  ‘Mrs MacAndrew, Sir Harry Lacey,’ he announced, and Lady de Courcey hurtled towards us from her chair.

  ‘Beatrice! Harry! Darlings!’ she said, and kissed us both soundly on both cheeks. I was slightly taller than her, and had to stoop for her kisses. She always made me feel as if she were too young to have been my mama’s friend. She seemed to me to be eternally the twenty-year-old beauty who had captured the whole of London for a season and then scooped the best suitor on the market, Lord de Courcey. With no money and no family, she had got to this beautiful house and to her wealth on her looks alone. She struck me, with my keen eye for advantage and ownership, as an adventuress. But there was never a hint of that in her behaviour. She was a pattern card of social graces. It was only my view of her, as having gained wealth and position solely by a pretty face, that made her seem to me a clever cheat.

  Now her drawing room was filled with some of the best of Chichester society. Most of the faces we knew, and I was led to make my curtsy to the old tabbies, and to shake the Bishop’s hand. Harry, eyeing a plate of cakes, chatted to Lady de Courcey’s daughter-in-law behind the tea trolley, and to her son Peter, standing by the fire.

  Half a tedious hour we stayed before it was courteous for us to take our leave and then I turned on impulse to Isabel de Courcey and asked her if they would care to dine with us. Peter was keen to come; Lady de Courcey smilingly gave permission; in ten minutes they were ready, and the informal, impromptu invitation excused as part of my impulsive charm.

  Celia was watching for us from the parlour window and came out on the doorstep when she saw the second carriage with the de Courcey arms emblazoned on the door following behind.

  ‘How delightful,’ she said, with her easy sweet manners. But I saw a shadow on her face, and I knew why.

  She had spent all day with John keeping him from alcohol, nerving him for dinner with me, assuring him there would be no wine on the table. Now, dressed for dinner and waiting for him to come downstairs and for us to come home, she discovered with horror that he would be faced with a gay social event, and not the quiet helpful dinner party of a loving family.

  I left the de Courceys with Celia and flicked up the west-wing stairs to change. This evening I had a gown of black taffeta, cut low along the square neck, and I wore a pair of jet ear-rings that dangled low and emphasized the length of my neck. I glanced at myself in my glass as I turned to the door and was well pleased with what I saw. The look of me, the perfect shape, would fill any man with desire. I knew, as surely as I knew where I was going, that to see me so lovely and to hate me so much, every night of his life, would destroy John MacAndrew.

  He had gone through a stage when, fired with drink, he could attack me. He had gone through a stage when he needed a drink to face the sight of me. Now he discovered that the drink that had been his support, that had kept him alive through the nightmare of the recent months, was no help to him at all. He saw now why there had always been a bottle placed by his bedside, always a glass on his morning tray. He saw now that the bottle in the study, in the library, in the gun room, was no accident. That I had ordered it so. And he learned now, slowly, that he had two enemies and they were allied. One enemy was the woman he had loved. And the other was the drink he could not now refuse. He feared he was near defeat. He could feel himself falling. He could not bear bis life, filled as it was, with loss. No child, no wife, no work, no pride, no affection from any source except Celia. And she was pouring her love to help him in a reform he feared he could not sustain. He feared also that failure.

  I smiled to myself and saw how my mirror showed a woman so radiant that you would think I was still a bride on my wedding day. Then I sped down the stairs, the taffeta billowing behind me. Stride was in the hall, loitering for me.

  I smiled at him with my quick awareness.

  ‘I know,’ I said, half laughing. ‘But we really cannot expect the de Courceys to drink lemonade. Serve sherry in the parlour and wine in the dining room. We will have the best claret with the meal, and I think, champagne with the fruit. The gentlemen will have port as usual.’

  ‘Is Mr MacAndrew’s glass to be filled?’ Stride asked, his voice neutral.

  I showed no nicker of my awareness that Stride, and thus the rest of the household staff, had ceased to call my husband ‘Doctor’. He would be ‘Mr
MacAndrew’ to them now for the rest of his life, and they would hear no reprimand from me.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, and passed Stride and went into the parlour.

  They were all there. John had himself well under control and Celia’s eyes were on him full of love. Harry was looking around for the sherry decanter as Stride brought it in, and he poured with a liberal hand for the de Courceys, for me, and for himself. Celia took a glass of lemonade, and John held the pale yellow drink in his hand, untouched. I could see his head was up, turned towards Harry, and with my keen instinct, I knew he was scenting the air, smelling the perfume of the sherry, warm in the firelight.

  Dinner was served and Celia took in the array of glasses on the table with one glance, and a sharp look at me. I shrugged slightly, and nodded my head towards the de Courceys. ‘What can I do?’ my eyes said, silently to her.

  John ate little, but he minded his manners and maintained a stilted conversation with Isabel on his left. I listened to every word as I talked to Peter, who was beside me. John touched neither the white nor the red wine through the meal, and I saw how his eyes followed the glasses when they were taken away. Then the great silver bowl of fruit was placed on the table and there was the promising pop of the champagne cork and the appetizing swish of it bubbling into the glasses.

  I was watching John’s face; he loved champagne.

  ‘Just one glass,’ he said, half to himself, half to Celia. Celia shook her head fiercely at the footman who stood ready to pour into John’s glass. There was an awkward moment. He stood with the bottle poised over the tall slim glass. John’s eyes fixed on the deep green mouth of the bottle and secret hiss of the good wine fizzing within.

  ‘No,’ said Celia in an urgent undertone to the footman. He was Jack Levy — an orphan who would have been in the parish workhouse if I had not given him the job of lighting the fires, ten years ago. Now he was well fed, cocky, and handsome in livery. His eyes went straight to me for his orders, and he obeyed my slight nod. He poured the effervescing golden liquid into John’s glass, and moved on. Harry gave a toast. Harry is the sort who always gives toasts. And we drank. John gulped at his glass as if he was parched. Levy glanced at me again and obeyed my nod to refill John’s glass. And refill it again. And again.

  Isabel was talking about their London season, and about the parties they had attended, and Harry was asking her town gossip. Peter de Courcey was telling me about his plans to buy a shooting lodge in the north, and I recommended he speak to Dr Pearce who knew the area well. No one attended to John, whose eyes were bright and who was drinking steadily. And no one except me noticed Celia, who sat silent, with her head bowed, and tears running down her cheeks.

  I waited till her shoulders had straightened, and she had glanced surreptitiously around and wiped her wet face on her table napkin, then rose to withdraw. The men got to their feet, John holding to the back of his chair for support. I suspected the room was spinning around his fuddled head. I led the ladies to the parlour, and we sat by the fire.

  The rest of the evening passed but slowly. When the gentlemen joined us they came without John and I cocked an eyebrow at Harry and saw his mouth turn downwards in a grimace.

  ‘The footmen are putting him to bed,’ he said in a low voice to me. ‘Peter de Courcey saw nothing odd, but really, Beatrice, it is disgraceful.’

  I nodded, and moved to the tea table to pour the tea. The de Courceys drank their tea in a rush and left in a hurry to be home while the road was bright in the moonlight. Their carriage was at the door, and they bundled inside with hot bricks at their feet and rugs up to their ears.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I called from the doorstep, my breath like smoke on the freezing air. ‘Lovely to see you. Thank you for coming.’

  Then their carriage rolled away down the drive and I went back into the house. Harry had taken himself off, sleepy with the port and the conversation, but Celia was waiting for me by the parlour fire.

  ‘Did you invite the de Courceys, Beatrice?’ she asked. I hesitated. There was a note in Celia’s voice I had never heard before. A hardness.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I temporized. ‘Harry or I.’

  ‘I have asked Harry,’ she said. ‘He says it was your invitation.’

  ‘Then it must have been,’ I said lightly. ‘We often have them to dinner, Celia. I did not think you would have any reason to dislike a visit from them.’

  ‘I did not dislike it.’ Celia’s voice was high with incredulity. ‘But whether I should like it or dislike it is not the question, Beatrice. John has been planning all day to drink nothing. Never to drink again. All day I promised him that you had given your word and there would be no drink at Wideacre. All day I assured him that he could sit down to the dinner table and that no one would offer him alcohol to drink. Then he conies to dinner and has to sit with a glass of cool white wine before him, then a glass of red, and finally his favourite champagne. Beatrice, it was too much for him! He is drunk again now, and he will be miserable in the morning! He will feel he has failed, and indeed he has. But he failed because of our selfishness and folly!’

  There were tears in her eyes, but there was the bright pink of temper in her cheeks. I scarcely recognized my gentle little sister-in-law in this determined, angry woman.

  ‘Celia,’ I said, reproachfully.

  Her eyes fell; her colour died down.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, with the discipline of long years of good manners. ‘But I am most disturbed about John. I hope that tomorrow night there will be no drink in the house.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But when we have guests we can hardly serve them lemonade. You do see that, don’t you, Celia?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said unwillingly. ‘But we expect no one for the rest of this week, do we?’

  ‘No,’ I said with a smile. ‘And while there is just you and Harry and me, I think it is right that there should be no drink to tempt John. We will all try to help him.’

  She came to me then and kissed my cheek in an empty gesture of courtesy. But her lips were cold. Then she went to bed and left me by the fire looking at the red pyramids and castles, caverns and caves, in the embers, and seeing a long long line of despair and failure for the man I had married for love.

  The next night Mr Haller came to dinner so we had to serve wine; John had a glass and then another. Celia and I left him, Harry and George Haller to their port. John’s valet put him to bed, dead drunk.

  The night after Dr Pearce came up from Acre to take pot luck. ‘For a little bird told me you were having hare in red wine sauce, and that is my favourite dish,’ he said sweetly to Celia.

  ‘What little bird was that?’ she asked, her eyes flickering to me.

  ‘The most beautiful little bird in the parish!’ said Dr Pearce, kissing my hand. Celia’s face was stony.

  The following night we had an invitation to dine with Celia’s parents and by common consent it was agreed that John should not come.

  Celia spent some time with Stride and I imagined she was making him promise that John should have no wine with his meal and no port thereafter. Stride met me in the hall. He looked patient. His pay was certainly high enough to cover the problem of resolving contradictory orders, and in any case there was only one voice that gave orders at Wideacre, and it spoke now.

  ‘Mr MacAndrew is not to be served wine or port tonight,’ I said. ‘But you will put two bottles of his whisky with a glass and water in the library for him.’

  Stride nodded. His expression did not change by a flicker. I think if I had told him to set up a hangman’s noose in Mr MacAndrew’s bedroom he would have done so without comment.

  ‘I told Stride, John should have nothing to drink tonight,’ Celia said to me as we settled ourselves under the rugs in the carriage for the drive to Havering Hall.

  ‘Of course,’ I nodded. ‘I only hope he has no whisky.’

  Celia looked shocked. ‘I had not thought of that,’ she said. ‘But I feel certain that if he
is not actually offered drink he will not order it brought to him.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said piously.

  Harry grunted his reservations but said no more.

  I made sure the evening was a long one. Lord Havering was at home and was happy to beg his wife for another game of cards when I was his partner, sitting opposite him, my slanty green eyes decorously on my cards but sometimes sliding to his raffish, bloodshot face with a secret smile.

  But when we got home every light was blazing and the curtains were not drawn.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said, my voice sharp with alarm, and I sprang from the carriage before the steps were down.

  ‘Is Richard all right? Julia? Is it the Culler?’

  ‘It’s Mr MacAndrew,’ said Stride, coming out to the carriage. ‘He has set fire to the carpet in the library and smashed some china.’

  Harry gave an exclamation and strode past me to the library and flung open the door. It was in chaos. The priceless Persian carpet was blackened and scorched with a great wide hole burned in it. The glass cabinets had been staved in, and some floor-standing flower vases had been flung across the room and smashed. Books had been tipped from the cases and were scattered, leaves curled, in the middle of the room. And in the midst of this wreckage stood my husband, booted and in his shirtsleeves, with a poker in his hand, looking like the Prince of Denmark in the travelling theatre.

  Harry froze on the threshold, too stunned to speak. But Celia dipped like a flying bird under his arm and ran into the room to John.

  ‘What is it, John?’ she said, her words tumbling out in her distress. ‘Have you gone mad? What is it?’