The Favoured Child (16 page)

‘Wait and see!’ she said tersely, slapping a mound of pastry on the floured table. ‘But your ma said to tell you, Miss Julia, to
change into your best gown, and you are to put on your Sunday suit, Master Richard!’

‘Lord Havering,’ I hazarded. Mrs Gough pressed her lips together, rolled out some of the pastry and turned it a quarter of the way around to keep it smooth.

‘Lady de Courcey!’ Richard guessed.

Oh, get along, do!’ she said with the tolerance in her voice which was always there for Richard. ‘Can’t you see that I’m rushed off my feet! Go and get dressed, Master Richard! And you, Miss Julia, be a good girl and go into the yard and see if Jem is back yet. He’s fetching some fruit and vegetables and some game for me from Midhurst, and I cannot get on without it!’

I nodded and went obediently to the back door, but Richard stood his ground and went on guessing. Jem still had not come, and the rising flush on Mrs Gough’s pink cheeks warned even Richard that her temper was about to boil over. We made ourselves scarce, creeping through the green baize door into the hall. A gentleman’s hat was on the hall table with tan gloves beside it, good-quality leather. We could hear the murmur of voices in the parlour and suddenly Mama’s laugh rang out as clear as a flute. I had never heard her laugh so joyously in all my life before.

Richard would have listened at the door, but Stride came out of the dining-room and shooed us upstairs.

‘Who is it, Stride?’ I asked in a whisper as I hovered on the stairs.

‘The sooner you are dressed for dinner, the sooner you will know,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘Now, go, Miss Julia!’

I dropped my muddy things on my bedroom floor and drew my new cream silk gown out of the chest. ‘New to you,’ Mama had said ruefully. It was cut down from an old gown from Mama’s half-sister, and the seams showed pale where the colour had faded. But the main silk of the gown was shiny and yellow, bright as the heart of a primrose, and I felt taller and older as soon as the ripple of sweet-smelling silk eased in a flurry over my
head. I stood on tiptoe to see as much of it as I could in my little mirror and saw how the colour made my face glow warm and my eyes show hazy and grey. Then Richard banged on my door and I spun around to slip into my best shoes and we went downstairs to see who was the guest for dinner so important that his identity was an exciting secret and Mrs Gough was allowed to buy fruit and game for his meal.

It was John MacAndrew.

I knew it the second the door opened. Not because he was standing, tall but slightly stooping, at the fireplace as close to the hot fire as he could get, needing the heat, but because I saw Mama’s face, pink and rosy like a girl’s, glowing with a happiness I had never seen before.

‘Julia! This is…’

‘My Uncle John!’ I interrupted, and ran into the room with both hands held out to him. He beamed at my welcome and caught both hands in his and drew me to him for a hug. Then he set me back and kissed my forehead like a blessing, and stepped back to see me.

Suddenly the easy smile went cold on his lips and his pale blue eyes lost their warmth. He looked at me as if he were seeing an enemy, not his own niece. He looked over my head to Mama, who had risen from her chair and was watching his face with something like fear in her face.

‘What is it, John?’ she asked, her voice urgent.

‘She reminded me so…she reminds me so…’ he said, searching for words, his eyes fixed on my face. He looked afraid. I stepped awkwardly away from him, towards my mama, and looked to her for prompting.

‘No!’ she said abruptly, and I jumped at the sharpness in her voice. ‘She is nothing like Beatrice!’

At the mention of her name Uncle John breathed out.

‘She is not like Beatrice at all,’ Mama said again, like some brave rider going for a difficult fence. ‘She has quite different hair colour, quite different eyes. Quite different altogether. You
have been away too long, John. You have had the picture of Beatrice in your mind for too long. Julia is not in the least like her. She is very much my daughter. She is very like me. She is naughty sometimes, and Wideacre-mad! But all children are naughty at times and it means nothing. Julia is
my
little girl. If you had seen her yesterday – before she put up her hair – you would not have thought her a young lady at all!’

Uncle John shuddered and shook his head to clear his mind. Of course,’ he said, and he smiled at me, drawing strength from Mama’s common sense. Of course. It was the way she ran into the parlour, and her voice, her smile, and the set of her head…but she will have learned that grace from you, Celia, I know.’

‘I am glad you think so,’ Mama said. ‘For I think her a most mannerless hoyden!’

He smiled at that and I saw the warmth in his eyes which made me glad for Mama. I could see at once that he loved her. And the first picture I had – of a man stooped and tired, yellow-faced and ill – faded before the sparkle in his eyes and the way his mouth made a little secret smile as though he could not help laughing but was trying to stay serious.

‘Uncle John,’ I said shyly. ‘Here is Richard too.’

John turned swiftly towards his son, and I saw his shoulders suddenly straighten, taking on a burden that he had long promised himself. He put out a hand as Richard came into the room, and his voice and his smile were practised. ‘Richard,’ he said, ‘I am very glad to see you’, and he put his arm around Richard’s shoulders and hugged him hard, and then, still holding him, turned to Mama and laughed. ‘Celia, all this while I have been picturing you with little children, and here is Richard nearly as tall as me and Julia up to my shoulder.’

Mama laughed too, and I knew that she had expected that hesitation from Uncle John and was skilfully glossing over it before it could be noticed. ‘And the clothes they need! And the shoes!’ she exclaimed.

‘I see I shall need all my rubies and diamonds,’ Uncle John beamed.

‘Do you have rubies and diamonds, sir?’ Richard asked quickly.

‘Minefuls of ’em!’ Uncle John replied promptly.

Mama beamed at him. ‘We shall spend them all,’ she promised. ‘But do sit down now, John, and rest before Stride serves dinner. And tell us your news. You can unpack your elephants later!’

The dinner was the best that Mrs Gough could rush together and was served on the Havering china with the crest; and we used the best crystal glasses. Lady Havering had spared no trouble when Jem had been sent out again after his return from Midhurst to tell her that Dr MacAndrew was home. She had even packed a cold bottle of champagne, and we drank it with the pudding and toasted all our futures.

‘We must talk, Celia,’ said Uncle John when Mama rang for Stride to come and clear the plates.

‘We can talk later,’ she offered with a loving concerned glance at his pale face.

John summoned a smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I
am
tired, and I don’t mind admitting it. I had dose after dose of fever in India, and it has left me weaker than I should be. But there are things I want us to decide as a family, and I want us to decide quickly. Let’s go into the parlour and have a council of war.’

‘Who are we making war on, Uncle John?’ I asked him with a smile as we crossed the hall to the parlour. The fire had burned down in the grate and Mama rang for fresh logs as we settled ourselves around the parlour table.

‘I think we are making war on the past,’ Uncle John said seriously. ‘The old bad ways of thinking, and the old bad ways of doing things. I want us to remake Wideacre, and that would be a victory indeed.

‘I have been a lucky man in India,’ Uncle John said by way of introduction. ‘I was able to do a service to one of the independent Indian princes.’ He paused and smiled wryly. ‘The villages under my supervision escaped an epidemic which was very serious for the rest of the country. The combination of luck and cleanliness was credited to me and he has awarded me a very large grant of
land. It is good land for growing tea and spices. In addition to that there is a small mine, which is profitable now and could be expanded.’

Richard raised his head. ? mine?’ he asked. ‘Mining what?’

‘Opals,’ said Uncle John. He smiled, but his tone was ironic. ‘It seems I am to have another chance at being a wealthy man,’ he said. ‘I lost my last fortune on Wideacre. I shall take better care of this one!’

‘Opals,’ said Richard softly. He licked his lips as if they were something sweet to eat..

‘I have come home to help,’ Uncle John said firmly. ‘I have come home to set the land right, and the people right. Wideacre is notorious. Acre men are blacklisted locally and cannot find work. The local farmers will not have fire-raisers on their land. That is a heavy legacy for a village to carry. It is Beatrice’s legacy,’ John said quietly. ‘Poverty in Acre, hatred between village and gentry, a village notorious for violence. And a wicked inheritance for the children.’

‘Uncle John,’ I interrupted, but when he turned his severe face towards me, I could say little except, ‘I don’t understand.’

He glanced at my mama. ‘You have told them nothing?’ he asked.

‘As we agreed,’ she said steadily. ‘We agreed they should not be burdened with such a past while they were young. I have told them nothing but that there was a fire and the Laceys and Acre were ruined, even though at times they pressed me for more information. I think they are ready to know the outlines of the story now.’ I fancied she emphasized the word Outlines’.

John nodded. ‘Very well, than. You will have heard that the estate was farmed well by Julia’s papa, the squire, and his sister, Beatrice. But that was not so. They wrung the land dry to meet mortgages to pay to change the entail so that the two of you could inherit jointly. Both Celia and I opposed them. We opposed both the changing of the entail and the planting of nothing but wheat.

“The countryside was very poor, and there were starving mobs.
One night a mob came to Wideacre Hall. We had received advance warning, and Celia and I took you children away to Havering Hall. But Beatrice decided to stay. She died in the fire. Julia’s papa died of an attack of apoplexy. He always had a weak heart. It is a family weakness.’

Richard and I exchanged one long bemused look.

Oh,’ Richard said blankly. ‘My mama was left all alone at the hall with the mob coming?’

‘Yes,’ Uncle John replied levelly. ‘It was her choice, and we had not lived as husband and wife for some time. It was not my duty to make her leave, nor to stay and protect her. I considered my duty to be to protect the two of you. Beatrice elected to stay behind. She could have come in the carriage if she wished.’

There was a bowl of pale primroses on the table, and I was staring at them. Staring at them but hardly seeing them. They were wilting over the rim of the silver bowl and they reminded me of another silver bowl and the heavy heads of cream roses looking down at their reflections and my mama’s voice saying so bitterly, ‘You are a wrecker, Beatrice.’

They had left her in hatred. I knew it. I did not know why. But I remembered the silence of the dream and the sense of peace I had felt to know that at last they had all gone and the house was empty. That all the work and the lying and the cheating were over. And I remembered Beatrice looking down the drive, waiting for the mob.

‘Did they have a leader?’ I asked suddenly, thinking of the old god who was half-man, half-horse.

‘No one was ever taken,’ John said steadily.

‘Where did they all come from?’ Richard asked.

‘No one ever knew,’ John said again in the same level tone.

I looked up from the flowers and saw his pale-blue eyes upon me. I knew he was keeping back the truth from us. Beatrice knew the mob. I thought she even knew the man they now called a god in Acre. But I had a strong sense of grown-up secrets and long-ago fears, and I knew nothing for certain.

‘What does this mean?’ I asked. ‘What does this all mean for us?’

‘It means I want to set the estate to rights,’ John said. ‘It is time for a new chance for the estate. A new life for all of us. I have some detailed ideas about new crops – fruit and vegetables which we might sell in Chichester or London. And I want us to try to share the profits with the village. That will bring them back to work, and draw them into the new century which is coming.

‘I have been following the events in France,’ John said, and his eyes were bright with enthusiasm. ‘I truly believe that there is a new age coming, a time when people will work together and share the wealth. A time of science and progress and a brushing away of old restrictions and superstitions. The new age is truly coming, and I want Wideacre to be part of it!’

We were all silent, a little overwhelmed by Uncle John’s fervour, and also by the prospect of a changed Wideacre.

‘Julia will have a proper season,’ my mama said slowly. John nodded.

‘And the hall can be rebuilt,’ Richard said.

‘Rebuilt, and the parkland refenced, and the estate growing and fertile again,’ John confirmed.

‘And no more poverty in the village,’ I said, thinking of the children and the parish overseer due for another visit to take paupers away to the mills in the north.

‘That is my first priority,’ Uncle John said.

There was a silence while we absorbed the fact that all our dreams might be a reality.

‘I am counting on all of you,’ Uncle John said. ‘I shall find a manager to run the farmland. But I shall need all your advice and support. This is your inheritance we are setting to rights, Richard, Julia.’ He nodded gravely to each of us in turn. ‘I shall need your help.’

‘Shall I not go to university, sir?’ Richard asked eagerly.

John smiled, his eyes suddenly warm. ‘You most certainly shall,’ he said firmly. ‘The time for squires who know nothing but their crops is long gone. You shall go to Oxford, and Julia shall go to Bath for the season and to London also. There will be
time enough during the summer months for you to work on the land.’

‘Good,’ said Richard.

Uncle John looked at me. ‘Does that suit you, Miss Julia?’ he said with an affectionate, jesting tone.

I beamed at him. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, indeed. Ever since I first made friends in the village I have been longing for the day when it would be possible to put it right. I am very, very happy.’