The Favoured Child (78 page)

But I had one friend yet.

I thought of him. I had thought of him almost daily since the
death of my mama. I had thought of him without shame. I was not thinking of a man as a married woman should
not
think. I was thinking of a young man who was part of my careless childhood when Mama had been happy, and I had been happy, that short season in Bath.

I was thinking of James.

He was young, he was wealthy, and I knew he would do me a favour if I asked him.

I left the fireside chair and lit one of the candles at the mantelpiece. I went to the library and opened the drawer for paper, an envelope and sealing-wax. Then I took pen and ink and went back into the parlour, the women’s room of the house. I had thought the letter would give me some trouble to write, but I wrote it as easily and as simply as I had talked to him all those months ago when we had driven and walked and danced in Bath.

I could do no better than that in a hurry, in my worry for Ralph. I sealed the letter with the Lacey seal, and I called Jenny to the parlour.

‘It’s about Mr Megson,’ I said to her. I knew Richard was out, but I still kept my voice low. She glanced to see that the door was shut tight. ‘Take this letter down to the village,’ I said. ‘Take it to Jimmy Dart, and tell him to make sure that Mr James Fortescue receives it. He’d best take it to their home in Bristol. I hope that Mr Fortescue will help Ralph Megson.’

Jenny nodded. ‘Your young man,’ she said wistfully.

‘Yes,’ I said. Then I drew a deep breath. ‘My husband would not wish me to write to him,’ I said. I flushed scarlet with the shame of what I was saying. ‘Keep it hid, Jenny. It’s for Ralph’s defence.’

She nodded, her eyes sharp. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it down now. Mrs Gough won’t notice I’m gone if you don’t ring for an hour.’

‘I won’t,’ I said. I went to my writing-desk. ‘Give Jimmy this guinea,’ I said, ‘for his journey. And tell him to be as quick as he can.’

She nodded, a little smile behind her grave eyes. ‘We’ll get him free, Miss Julia!’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it!’

I nodded and let her go. A few minutes later I saw her trotting down the lane, her skirts held in one hand, the other one holding her shawl, and the letter hidden, if I guessed right, under her pinny.

Then I set myself to wait for the reply.

I thought James Fortescue might wait until he had seen Ralph before he wrote back to me, so I warned myself that I must be patient for at least a week. But I could look forward to the return of Jimmy. I thought he would come to the Dower House at once to tell me what James had said. I waited three days patiently. I waited for the fourth with concern. The fifth day I ordered out the carriage and went down to Acre.

Ralph Megson’s cottage, where Jimmy now lived alone, was shuttered, the door barred. Jimmy was not yet back, then. With
my hood pulled up against the cold drizzle I crossed the road, walking carefully in the greasy mud, to Rosie’s little cottage.

Her door was open, and Nat stood helplessly by a doused fireplace. Rosie was tying a knot in a shawl which was lumpy with what I guessed were all her clothes and perhaps a little food.

‘What is happening?’ I asked.

They had turned as they heard my foot on the doorstep. Neither of them smiled nor said a word of greeting. Rosie looked through me as if I were not there.

Nat struggled to answer my question.

‘It’s Jimmy,’ he said. His voice was still hoarse from the years of soot, and harsher now with bad news. ‘He’s been taken up by the Winchester magistrates for vagrancy. They’re holding him in the poor house. Rosie’s going to get him out.’

I looked blankly from one hard face to the other.

‘At Winchester?’ I asked. ‘When?’

‘We don’t know,’ Nat said. ‘He said he had a message to take to Bristol, that he wouldn’t tell no one about. He could have been taken on his way home.’

I nodded. ‘This is my fault,’ I said sorrowfully. ‘I sent him with a message. But I gave him a guinea for his fare. They can’t arrest a man with a guinea for his fare.’

‘He could have refused to be press-ganged,’ Nat suggested. ‘Or not taken his hat off when bid. They can arrest you for nigh on anything, Miss Julia, if they want to.’

‘What will you do, Rosie?’ I asked.

She spoke to me for the first time. ‘Dr Pearce has given me a letter to show them,’ she said. ‘And three guineas, which must be enough to get him off whatever charge it is against him.’

‘And then you’ll bring him back here,’ I said. I looked around the room. Rosie’s few goods were packed, the hearth was empty of her pan.

‘I’ve been given notice to quit,’ she said. ‘Jimmy too. I had a letter today, from your husband, the squire. I’ve to leave at once, and Jimmy’s tenancy is cancelled too.’

‘Richard is turning you out?’ I asked, disbelieving.

She looked at me and her face was hard. I had never seen her look at me like that before. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘It seems like only yesterday that you brought us here. I was glad of it then, but now it seems almost worse to have been here, to have planned for the future, and now to have to lose it all.’

‘I’ll speak to him ..,’ I said quickly.

Her shrug seemed to suggest my promises were worthless. ‘We all know you can do nothing, Miss Julia,’ she said. ‘You married the wrong man to give your baby a name. We all understand that. I don’t expect any good from you now.’

‘Rosie!’ I said. It was a cry for her forgiveness.

She smiled her weary smile at me and said, ‘It’s no good, Miss Julia.’ And she picked up her kerchief bundle and handed it to Nat, who hefted it over his shoulder and went out before her into the grey dampness.

‘Where will you go?’ I asked.

She turned in the doorway to answer me. Outside the drizzle had turned to sleet, lancing sheets of wet ice.

‘Back to Bath,’ she said. ‘We can get free passage there, and I can embroider gloves again. I know I can sell them in Bath and we know the city.’

I said nothing. There was nothing I could say.

She nodded at me in silence. Then she pulled her shawl over her bowed head and went out over the threshold into the cold.

I called the carriage over and rode home dryshod.

The weather worsened. We had a long week of fog when not even Richard got out often, and then we had three days of rain. Every day Richard’s new groom, George, came trudging through the mire, or rode on his skidding horse, with the post; but he brought no message for me from James.

I thought of everything.

My worst fear was that Jimmy had been arrested on his way to Bristol, that he had been stopped on his way. But I had faith in Jimmy. He would have walked across the Avon for Ralph, and
he trusted James as a worker of miracles. He would have gone to great lengths to get the message through. And he had wit enough to get it into the post – even from prison.

But I also feared that the message had come too late. Maybe Ralph was already hanged, and James could not bear to tell me. I hoped desperately that Ralph had escaped, and James was looking for him and not writing until he had clear news. Possibly James and Ralph had met and Ralph had forbidden James to send me news until the case was heard. I even wondered if James would simply ignore my letter. But I put that fear aside. I knew he would not. He had liked and admired Ralph. And he was always generous to me.

I thought I had thought of everything.

I thought of every option except the obvious one. As silly as a child, I did not think of that at all.

I took to rising early in the morning and putting on my wrapper, which enfolded me less and less as I grew broader, and going quietly downstairs to drink my morning chocolate in the parlour so I could watch the drive for George coming from the London stage with the mail.

He never came much before seven or eight, so I could as well have stayed in my room; but in some hopeful corner of my heart I thought I was keeping a sort of vigil. As the grey mist cleared away down the lane, I thought that perhaps Ralph was sitting up on some dirty straw in a London cell and opening his eyes knowing that James Fortescue had engaged a good lawyer for him, and knowing for certain that I had stood his friend and that my friendship could make a difference.

Richard saw me there one morning and asked me what I did. I told him I was just sitting, looking at the misty garden, doing nothing. I smiled deprecatingly to suggest it was a whim of pregnancy, and Richard nodded and went out through the kitchen door to the stable yard.

I heard Mrs Gough laugh as he went through the kitchen and I thought resentfully that she always had liked him best.

The next day he was up early again and saw me at the parlour window.

Again I told him that I felt restless, that I wanted to be sitting in the window-seat watching Jenny light the fire, her routine disarranged by my capriciousness. Richard nodded as if he understood, and his smile was a gleam of white, with a little hint of mischief at the back.

On the third day he was there when George rattled the doorknocker and I heard Stride cross the hall and open the door.

There were letters for the household.

There was a letter for me.

Stride brought it in on the silver salver and Richard paused on his way to the door. ‘Who could be writing to you, Julia?’ he asked, interested.

I flushed up to my forehead. ‘I think Sarah Collis, from Bath,’ I said. And the lie slid easily off my tongue, making me blush again.

Richard’s eyes were very warm and confident.

Open it, then,’ he said, and his voice was silky.

I should have been warned by that special sweetness of tone, but the letter was thick in my hand and I could only think that it would have news of Ralph.

‘I’ll open it later,’ I said, getting up and going to the door.

As I went past Richard, he caught my wrist and held me, rooted where I stood. I instinctively clutched the letter close to me and caught my breath. His face was not angry; it seemed there was nothing to fear. His smile was as sweet as a May morning.

Open it here,’ he said. ‘Read your letter here. I know girls have secrets. I shall not ask to see it, for I am going out now. Sit and read it here, my love.’

My eyes flashed to his face, for I was surprised at the endearment. He pressed me into the chair by the table and stood back, leaning against the wall, as I put my finger under the flap and broke the seal.

I did not look carefully at the seal.

There was no letter inside. There were eight pieces of torn paper and a torn envelope, a bulky package. I forgot Richard was
watching and tipped the eight thick jagged scraps out on the table before me, and pieced them together.

It was my writing on the envelope. It read: ‘James Fortescue, Esq.’

I slumped against the back of my chair, and my heart pounded so fast I was afraid for the little child who lay quiet inside me and depended on my body for its safety. But this is a dangerous world for little children. It is a dangerous world for grown men. I gave a little moan of distress.

My first thought was that James Fortescue had recognized my hand and had torn up the letter in a temper, and sent it back to me in spite.

But then I hesitated, and I knew I did him a disservice. James would never be spiteful. James was always generous.

I knew only one man who would post scraps of paper to me.

I raised my grey eyes to Richard’s face, and saw his deep, dangerous resentment.

‘You wrote to another man,’ he said.

I said nothing. My thumbs burned. I could hear a humming in my head. I could smell danger like smoke on the wind.

‘You wrote to another man. You thought to hide that letter from me,’ he said. His voice was soft and infinitely menacing. ‘I had to have Jimmy Dart arrested,’ he said. ‘I had been watching him a long while. I knew you would try and betray me. I was ready for your infidelity.’

I gulped like a landed fish. ‘Richard…’ I said beseechingly.

His eyes were like sapphires. He was my husband and my master. He was the squire, and he knew it. Oh, he knew it.

‘I won’t have it, Julia,’ he said simply.

He could invent rules for Wideacre, for Acre, for me, until the world ended. Richard was the squire and he had the power of God.

‘I won’t have it,’ he said, and I knew his word was law. ‘You wanted to be married,’ he said, his voice exultant. ‘I did as you wished. Now we are married, and you will behave as a proper wife to me. You will not write to other men, and you most
certainly will not discuss our business with them. There are means I can take to ensure you do not write to other men, or indeed to anyone.’

He hesitated to see if I would complain. But I said nothing. The scraps of paper lying on the table told me mutely that I was defeated. I looked blankly at them and thought of the little letter inside them which I had hoped would save Ralph. I knew then that nothing could save me, but I had hoped to help Ralph away from the wreck which was Wideacre.

‘You must learn your place, Julia.’ Richard said softly.

I bowed my head slavishly. I knew I must learn it indeed.

From that moment I rebelled not at all. The Chichester accoucheur advised against any long walks, and the weather was bad, so that I looked for no help from the dripping beech trees or the sorrowful burble of the Fenny. I did not mind being confined at home.