Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (29 page)

‘I am not sure of the direction, my lord,’ I said.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he said confidently. Then the next minute I felt the weight of his head as he slumped forwards and leaned against me. Fast asleep.

Havering Hall has two entrances, though I did not know it then. The main one is on the London road which Lord Peregrine had already trotted blithely past; but there is another way, a little bridleway which leads to the hall off the Acre lane. I should have missed it, and ended up taking Lord Peregrine to breakfast at Wideacre if I had not met Will Tyacke riding towards us, going to Midhurst to see if he could beg or borrow a spare harrow. He stared in surprise when he saw the double load on Sea, and then recognized me with Lord Peregrine at my back.

‘Sarah!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? And with Lord Peregrine too!’

I shot him a level look. ‘He’s drunk,’ I said briefly. ‘He’d never get home on his own. What would you have had me do? Leave him where he dropped in the road?’

Will hesitated. ‘As you wish, Sarah,’ he said politely. It was obvious that he thought that
would
have been a reasonable, even a desirable thing to do. ‘Where are you taking him?’

‘To Havering Hall,’ I said. ‘But he went off before he could tell me the way. Can I find it alone, is it near here?’

Will nodded, stiff with disapproval. ‘It’s a track which runs off to your left, just before the ford,’ he said. ‘If you follow the track you will come out at the hall. His mother, the Dowager Lady Clara, is at home. But they keep town hours there, Sarah. They’ll all be still asleep. The only people awake will be servants.’

‘They’ll do,’ I said. ‘They can put him to bed and stable his horse. Have you seen how lame it is?’

‘I saw at once,’ Will said. ‘Looks as if it lost a shoe and he rode it like that for miles. It’s to be hoped the sole of the hoof isn’t damaged. Can that grey of yours carry the weight of two?’ Will asked. ‘I can take him up behind me if you wish me to take him home.’

I was about to answer when the words stuck in my throat as I remembered riding home from the sea with her up before me and her hair blowing in my face as we cantered on the soft grass at the verges of the road. I could remember the smell of her, and the taste of salt on her hair, and the warm afternoon breeze blowing in my face. When Sea had last ridden with two on his back.

Instinctively I tightened his grip around my waist, as if I were holding her safely on behind me. ‘The horse can manage two, he’s done it before,’ I said gruffly, and I touched his sides to make him start.

‘I’ll come to Wideacre Hall later, when I’ve run this errand,’ Will called after me as I rode away. ‘I’ll ride with you this afternoon.’

I nodded. I did not want to speak. The thought of that afternoon had set the pain working again in my belly as if I had swallowed some burning poison. Without thinking I leaned back a little for the comfort of Lord Peregrine’s nodding head on my shoulder, as if he could comfort me with his drunken feckless warmth.

Will was right, Havering Hall was easily found. The track to it was more overgrown than the drive to Wideacre, few people used it. Carriage folk took the main drive off the London road, only logging carts and poachers came this way. The track was deeply rutted and I took Sea slowly and steadily. The bay alongside us stumbled once or twice, bone weary. Lord Peregrine was foolish to neglect such a good horse, I thought. I shrugged. I had known minor gentry at fairs and shows. They seldom cared for their possessions, even for the things they loved. This dazzling idler was of better breeding than any I had ever seen. I did not doubt he would be even more careless.

A pheasant suddenly exploded out of the bushes on our right and Sea shied sideways in alarm. The bird shot away through the trees scolding, and I put a hand backwards to steady Lord Peregrine. He had moved with the horse as if he were born to the saddle, even in his sleep. I heard his lazy chuckle and I felt myself smile as if he had told me some jest.

‘I was dreaming,’ he said as delighted as a child. ‘I was dreaming I was home in my bed. Where the devil are we?’

‘I’m taking you home, sir,’ I said politely. ‘I think you dozed off.’

‘Oh yes, I remember,’ he said with quiet satisfaction. ‘Good lad. I’ll give you a shilling. That’s two I owe you. Don’t forget.’

I smiled. ‘I won’t,’ I said.

‘When we get there, if it’s early morning…’ he broke off. ‘Is it early morning?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘About six I should think.’

‘Still?’ he said interestedly. ‘When we get there, you shall come round to the kitchen with me and we can have breakfast together. You’ll like the kitchen at my house.’ He paused. ‘Because I am a lord,’ he said confidently, ‘I can eat anything I like!’

‘Gracious,’ I said.

‘I haven’t always been a lord,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘When Papa was alive and George was alive I was only a second son. That was a dead bore. But then George died of the typhus fever and Papa was drowned on his way to the Americas. So then there was just Mama and me and the girls. That made me a lord and since then I have always done whatever I wanted.’

I nodded, but said nothing.

‘What about you?’ he asked, demanding some information in return.

I shrugged. ‘I think we are some sort of cousin,’ I offered. ‘I’m not a stable lad, I’m Sarah Lacey of Wideacre Hall. I’ve come home. I was just wearing these clothes because I haven’t got my new ones yet.’

‘You’re a girl?’ he asked.

I nodded. He leaned to one side and tapped me on the shoulder so I turned my head so that he could see my face.

‘Stop,’ he commanded. ‘Get down.’

I shrugged and checked Sea and we both dismounted. He put his hand up to my hat and I let him take it and pull it from my head. My hair tumbled down in a shower of red and bronze and I laughed at the amazement on his face as he saw me properly for the first time.

‘Then you can’t come to the kitchen,’ was all he said. ‘You’ll have to come into the parlour. And I thought we could have been friends.’

The disappointment on his face was so great that I could have laughed.

‘I’ll put my cap back on and come to the kitchen,’ I offered. ‘No one need ever know I’m Sarah. Or you could go into the larder and bring some food out. I am hungry.’

He brightened at once. ‘I’ll do that!’ he said. ‘You wait here. I won’t be long. It won’t take a moment. Go down that way – ’ he waved to where I could hear the sound of water, the river where Sea had stopped the first night, ‘go and find us somewhere nice to sit and I’ll bring back a picnic!’

He took the reins of his horse from me and set off down the path, the dappled bars of sunlight shifting over them as they walked, making his hair gleam like gold and then brass.

I found a patch of sunlight where the old beech leaves were warm and dry and smelled nutty. I took Sea to the river bank and he leaned over and drank some sweet water and then I hitched him to a nearby tree. I sat and watched the flow of the river over the sandy yellow stones, and once or twice I saw the mottled brown shadow of a trout moving slowly upstream.

Lord Peregrine was so long that I thought he had forgotten, or taken his horse into a stable and fallen asleep on the hay bale. But then I heard footsteps and a voice calling, ‘Halloo! Halloo!’ like an unseasonal huntsman and I jumped to my feet and called, ‘Over here!’

He came crashing through woods, ducking beneath the low branches, carrying a large wickerwork picnic-box.

‘Look what I’ve got!’ he said proudly. ‘It’s later than we thought, about seven o’clock. Most of the kitchenmaids were up and they made me this. Our housekeeper was there as well and Mama asked to be wakened early this morning for she’s going to Chichester today. They told Mama I had met you and you’re to come and see her when we’ve had our breakfast and she’s dressed.’

‘I can’t,’ I said, suddenly fearful of another person who would watch me like Will and James Fortescue watched me. My sense of holiday from those two drained away from me at the thought of having to face Lord Peregrine’s mother.

He grinned. ‘Oh you’ll be all right, don’t worry,’ he said bracingly. ‘She’s got her eye on you all right. You could walk in there stark naked and she would tell you how pretty you were looking. We’ve all been waiting to see what would happen to the estate. My papa had a mind to buy it years ago, but your guardians or whatever would never sell. As soon as I said in the
kitchen that I had met you, old Mrs Bluett our housekeeper was up the front stairs like a whirlwind to tell Mama that the mystery heiress had come home.’

He lifted the lid of the picnic box and suddenly checked. ‘I say, it isn’t all a hum is it?’ he asked. ‘You weren’t making a fool of me? You really are her?’

I nodded. ‘I am,’ I said. ‘It’s not a game I would play if I had a free choice, I am her.’

‘That’s all right then,’ he said, uninterested in anything else. ‘Here, have some chicken.’

He heaved the picnic basket between us and laid aside the napery and the silverware, the fine china with the crest on it and chose instead to eat with his fingers. I hesitated for a moment, unable to believe that Lord Peregrine himself could eat like a gypsy brat; and then weak with relief and hunger I tore a drumstick off the perfectly roasted chicken and settled down into the leaves to eat the first meal I had enjoyed since coming to Wideacre.

We were like children, Lord Peregrine and I in the equal uncritical sunshine. We were like children of the childhood I should have had. I was only sixteen, I guessed he was little older; and we sat in the warmth of the early day and ate greedily and messily until there was nothing left but chicken bones sucked clean and a handful of crumbs. I leaned over the stream and drank deeply of the sweet chalk-clean water until the bones of my face ached with its icy touch. I dipped my face right in and washed in the coldness. I came up with dripping bedraggled hair and Lord Peregrine carelessly tossed a fine linen napkin to me and I wiped myself dry.

‘There should have been wine,’ he said, lying on his back and looking up at the sky. In the tops of the trees a cuckoo was calling and wood-pigeons cooed. ‘Or champagne would have been nice.’ He put both hands behind his head, his profile a line as clear as a statue against the darkness of the wood behind him, the wind lifting his fair curls off his forehead. ‘They keep trying to stop me drinking,’ he said sulkily. ‘They even suggested I had come home inebriated!’

‘You were drunk as a lord,’ I said plainly, watching the droop of his lazy eyelids.

They flashed open at that but the blue eyes were merry. ‘I say, that’s rather good!’ he said with a chuckle. ‘And yes, I was! But what else is a chap supposed to do? Anyone would think it was a household of Methodists the way my sisters go on. Mama is all right most of the time. But even she scolds a bit. And now I’m down from Oxford it’ll be even worse.’

‘Down?’ I asked, not understanding him.

‘Thrown out,’ he explained. He grinned at me, his white teeth even and straight. ‘I never did any work – not that they cared for that – but I kicked up a few larks as well. I think it was the hole in the dean’s punt which finished me off!’

I stretched out beside him, lying on my belly so I could watch his quick, fluid face.

‘Candlewax!’ he said. ‘I made a hole and then filled it with candlewax. It took ages to do, and a good deal of planning. It went perfectly as well! It didn’t sink till he was well out in the river. It was a wonderful sight,’ he sighed, a smile haunting his mouth. ‘Everyone knew it was me, of course. He never could take a joke.’

‘What will you do now then?’ I asked.

Lord Peregrine frowned a little. ‘Where are we?’ he asked vaguely. ‘Not July yet is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Nearly May.’

His face cleared at once. ‘Oh well then,’ he said. ‘London for the end of the season if Mama will give me some money that will take me till June. Then I’ll be here and Brighton for the summer, as well as going to some house parties. I go to Scotland for the shooting in August, every year, and then to Leicestershire for the fox-hunting. That sort of thing.’

I nodded. I had not known that the Quality had a seasonal movement as clear as that of travelling folk. It was only the respectable middling sort, from the yeoman farmers like Will Tyacke up to city folk like James Fortescue, who stayed in the same place and could tell you what they were doing year in, year out with no changes for any seasons.

‘It sounds fun,’ I said cautiously.

Lord Peregrine closed his smiling eyes. ‘It is,’ he said with deep satisfaction. ‘If there were more money in my pockets I should think myself in heaven. And if I don’t have to go back to university in September I shall be in heaven indeed.’

He stretched out and dozed and I rested on one elbow and watched his face. The trees sighed over our heads, the river babbled softly. We were so still that a kingfisher came out of its hole a little further upstream and darted away, a fat little dart of turquoise, past us. Then he stirred and sat up and yawned.

‘Come and meet my mama then,’ he said. He got to his feet and put a hand out to me and pulled me up. I went unwillingly and unhitched Sea.

‘I had better go home and change and come back in my riding habit,’ I said. ‘And I should tell Mr Fortescue where I am.’

Lord Peregrine laughed. ‘Don’t you dare!’ he said. ‘She’s delighted to catch you before anyone has a chance to warn you off. She and Mr Fortescue have been daggers drawn for years. She doesn’t like the way he runs Acre, she thinks he keeps wages up and wheat prices down. She’ll love you just as you are, and if it upsets Mr Fortescue – all the better!’

I led Sea out through the wood and Lord Peregrine came behind swinging the basket.

‘Does she really dislike him, Lord Peregrine?’ I asked. A seed of an idea was in my mind. If Lady Havering knew anything about wages and wheat prices she might be the very person I needed to give me an outsider’s view of what was talking place on my land.

‘Call me Perry,’ he said negligently. ‘They were on good terms at first, she approached him about buying the Wideacre estate. Papa was alive then and there was some money around, we would have mortgaged it of course, and rented it out. Probably built some houses on the farmland, or planted more wheat. Your Mr Fortescue read her a lecture on profiteering and refused outright to sell. They didn’t like that much of course. But then when the whole estate went over to this Levellers’ republic both Mama and Papa thought that Mr Fortescue was simply insane! Playing ducks and drakes with your money, too!’

I nodded. ‘Did she ever tackle him with it?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes! He told her,’ Perry’s eyes sparkled. ‘He told her that there were more important things than an extra percentage on investment! He told her that there were more important things in life than a quick return on capital!’ He laughed aloud, a joyous innocent laugh. ‘My papa had died by then and my mama would say that there was nothing more important than money. Especially if you don’t have enough of it!’

I nodded and said nothing. I liked the sound of her ladyship more and more.

‘Does she run this estate or do you?’ I asked.

Lord Peregrine looked at me as if I had suggested an impossibility.

‘Well I can’t yet,’ he said. ‘Not while I’m at university. My mama does it all with her bailiff. When I’m married and take over I shall run it then, I suppose. Or I’ll keep the bailiff on and he’ll do it all.’

‘So she does it now?’ I confirmed.

‘She does it,’ he said. ‘Until I marry or come of age.’ He broke off and looked at the trees consideringly. ‘It’s a plaguey long time to wait,’ he complained. ‘I’m only seventeen now and I never get enough money. I shall owe the place a thousand times over by the time I get hold of the full income.’

The track we were following took us to the side of the house and Lord Peregrine led the way around the back of a tall-walled garden. ‘Formal garden,’ he said nodding at one section. ‘Kitchen garden,’ he said where the pale greying stone turned to soft red brick. He opened a little gateway into a cobbled stable yard and showed me the loose-box where I could leave Sea. I went in with him and took off his saddle and bridle. Lord Peregrine watched me over the half-door, not offering to help.

‘Why are you dressed like that?’ he asked, as if it had just occurred to him.

I glanced up. The sunlight behind him was glinting on his fair hair so that it gave him a halo around his perfect face. The world of the show and the travelling life and the noise and the hardship was unspeakably distant.

‘I was working before I came here,’ I said briefly. ‘These were my working clothes. I haven’t any new ones yet.’

He nodded and opened the stable door. He leaned towards me confidentially. I could smell the warm hint of brandy on his breath, he had taken a drink in the house while they were packing the picnic.

‘It’s awfully improper,’ he said owlishly. ‘Thought you should know. I don’t mind. Mama won’t mind, because it’s you. But there’s no point in setting other people’s backs up for nothing. Much the best thing to wear girls’ clothes.’

I nodded, ‘I will,’ I said as serious as he.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘Mama.’

He took me in through the stable door across a marble floor patterned with black and white tiles where my boots sounded common and loud and where Lord Peregrine’s footsteps weaved noticeably from the direct path. He led me up a shallow graceful flight of stone steps. I had a confused impression of another floor and a huge arched window making the whole place coldly bright. Then up another flight of stairs, dark noisy wooden ones this time and along a gallery lined with pictures of forbidding ladies and gentlemen who looked down on Lord Peregrine as he tacked from side to side, narrowly missing the occasional armchair and table. Then we went along a carpeted corridor and he tapped on a large double door set in the middle of the wall.

‘Enter,’ said a voice, and Lord Peregrine made a funny face at me, and we went in.

The Dowager Lady Clara was sitting up in a massive fourposter bed, holding a delicate scarlet cup in one hand, swathed in impressive folds of pale blue silk. Her hair was hidden by a blue silken cap, very grand and high with many bows; her face was smooth and pink and smiling, her eyes were as sharp as gimlets.

‘Here she is,’ Lord Peregrine announced. His mother shot one cool look at him and Lord Peregrine swung into a deep bow. ‘Mama, may I present Miss Sarah Lacey of Wideacre Hall? Miss Lacey this is my mama, the Dowager Lady Clara Havering.’

I made a little bow, as if I were in the ring. A curtsey did not suit breeches, and anyway I was too awkward to move.

Lady Havering reached out her hand, heavy with large-stoned rings.

‘You may kiss me, my dear,’ she said. Her voice was lowpitched and strong. ‘I think I must be your aunt. Certainly your nearest relation. Welcome home at last.’

I stepped forward awkwardly and brushed my lips against her cheek. She smelled heavenly, of flowers. I had never smelled such perfume before. Her cheek was cool and dry under my reluctant lips and she let my hand go at once, before I had time to feel uncomfortable.

‘Peregrine, you may go,’ she said. ‘Tell someone to bring a fresh pot of chocolate and two cups. You should go and bathe and change your linen. Miss Lacey will stay here with me, send someone over to Wideacre Hall to tell them where she is.’ She turned her face to me. ‘Will you keep us company for the day, Sarah?’

I flushed. ‘I cannot,’ I said stumbling. ‘I thank you, I should like to, but I cannot. Mr Fortescue will expect me home and there are business affairs to attend to…’

‘Well thank the Lord you are able to attend to them yourself at last!’ she said waspishly. ‘And thank the Lord there are any business affairs left on that estate!’ She smiled at me again. ‘Very well, not today. But within the week you must come to us for the day.’ She gave a rich deep chuckle. ‘I should think you would be glad to escape from that awful Bristol merchant, won’t you, my dear?’

She turned to Lord Peregrine. ‘Go then, dear,’ she said sweetly. ‘You may come back when you have changed.’

Lord Peregrine smiled at me and wavered out through the double door. I turned back to his mother with some trepidation. She was openly staring at me.

‘Tell me then,’ she said invitingly. ‘Where in the world did you spring from? And where have you been all this while?’

I hesitated. Meridon of Gower’s Equestrian Show was dead and gone. I would never bring her back.

‘I was given away to gypsies,’ I said evasively. ‘I had to work for my living. I was travelling with them.’

She nodded. ‘Poor?’ she said. It was hardly a question.

‘Very,’ I replied.

She nodded. ‘But now you are poor no longer,’ she said. ‘Now you are one of the Quality, and wealthy. How do you think you will like it?’

I looked away from her towards her bedroom window. The Hall faced west and I could see some of the Downs away to the left. ‘I shall accustom myself,’ I said steadily.