Wideacre

  He came to me beaming, as he always did. Of all the children I have ever seen Richard was the most sweet-tempered. One of the naughtiest too, I admit. At the age when Julia used to hold her toes in her warm cradle and coo to the delight of her grandmama and Celia, Richard was heaving himself up with chubby arms, and trying to climb out. Julia would play with a moppet in her cot for hours, but Richard would hurl it out on to the floor and then bawl for it to be returned to him. If you were fool enough to go to him he would play the same trick again. And again. Only a paid servant would return the number of times Richard thought necessary, before his dark eyelashes would close on that smooth and perfect cheek. He was the bonniest baby. The naughtiest, the sweetest, child. And he adored me.

  So I caught him from his nurse’s arms and hugged him hard and smiled when I heard his crow of delight at my sudden appearance. I passed him up to her when she was settled in the gig and made sure she held him tight. Then I put his rattle in his grabbing little hands and swung up beside them.

  Sorrel trotted down the drive and Richard waved the rattle at the flying trees and at the flickering shadows and sunlight. On either side of the silver toy were little silver bells and they tinkled like sleighbells and made Sorrel throw up his head and step out faster. I drove at a spanking pace down the drive and then up to the London road. We were in time to see the mailcoach go by in a whirl of dust and Richard waved to the passengers on the roof and a man waved back. Then I turned the gig and we headed for home. A small enough outing, but when you love a child your world shrinks to a proper size of little delights and little islands of peace. Richard brought me that. If I loved him for nothing else, I would have loved him for that.

  We were nearing the turn of the drive when he choked. A funny sound, unlike his usual open-mouthed barks of coughs. He gave an open-mouthed retching, a sort of gasping for air, a sound unlike anything I had ever heard before. I hauled on the reins and Sorrel skidded to a halt. My eyes met those of his nurse in mutual bewilderment and then she snatched the rattle from his hands. One of the tiny tinkly silver bells on the end was missing. He had swallowed it and he was gasping, reaching for his life’s breath around it.

  The gig lurched as I grabbed him and laid him over my knees, face down. Without knowing why, I slapped him hard on the back and then grabbed his little feet and held him upside-down with some vague memory of his birth and the little choking noises he had made then.

  He squawked some more, but no little silver bell fell on to the floor of the gig. I half flung him back at his nurse and cracked the whip at Sorrel, and shouted, ‘Where’s Dr MacAndrew?’

  ‘In the village, with Lady Lacey,’ she gasped, and clutched Richard to her shoulder.

  The noises he was making were more painful now, more shocking to hear. He was retching and choking and his little gasps were less and less effective. He was getting no air. He was dying, in my gig, on Wideacre land, on a sunny morning.

  I lashed Sorrel and he put his head down and went from his well-bred canter into a wild gallop. The gig bounced and bobbed like a boat on flood water but I held to the speed, not checking. The wind streamed into my face, I could scarcely see. But one glance at my son told me that none of this rush of air was finding its way into his little body. His gasps were quieter and he was hardly coughing at all. His lips were blue.

  ‘Where in the village?’ I yelled above the noise of Sorrel’s thundering hoofs and the creaks of the speeding gig.

  ‘At the vicarage, I think,’ shrieked Mrs Austin, her face as white as her collar, clinging to Richard in fear for him, and in terror at the headlong pace.

  We whirled into the village and I saw nothing, but heard the slap of a hen, neck broken under the gig’s wheels. I pulled Sorrel up so hard he half reared as he skidded to a halt, and I flung the reins at Mrs Austin and snatched Richard from her. It was too late. Too late. He was fighting for his breath no more.

  I ran up the garden path to the front door, his body limp in my arms, his eyelids as blue as his lips, his little chest so still. The door was opened as I ran, and Dr Pearce’s startled face was there.

  ‘Where’s John?’ I said.

  ‘In my study,’ said the Vicar. ‘What is wrong …?’

  I slammed open the door and scarcely saw Celia, Mrs Merry and old Margery Thompson bent over the table. I saw only John.

  ‘John,’ I said, and held out the limp body of my son to him.

  He had never touched him, though Richard was now nearly a year old. But now he snatched him from me, taking in the blue eyelids, the blue lips, in one fast raking glance.

  He laid the child on the table. Richard was limp; his head banged on the wood as if he were already a corpse. John was patting his waistcoat pocket for a little silver penknife he carried.

  ‘What?’ he asked, monosyllabically.

  ‘The silver bell, off his rattle,’ I said.

  ‘Buttonhook,’ he said to Celia. She was beside him, her eyes on my son’s face. He took Richard’s chin in one hand and forced it brutally upwards until the delicate skin of his neck was tight. And then he cut his throat.

  My knees buckled beneath me and I slumped in a chair. For one crazed moment I thought my husband had killed my son, but then I saw him jam the stem of one of Dr Pearce’s pipes in the little hole and I heard a rasping breath. He had slit a hole in Richard’s windpipe and Richard was breathing again.

  I dipped my head in my hands, unable to look, then peeped through my fingers to see John staring down Richard’s mouth, with his right hand outstretched towards Celia, as imperious as any Edinburgh surgeon.

  She had rummaged in her reticule and come out with a slender pearl-handled buttonhook and a little crochet hook. She put the buttonhook flat in his palm and stood beside him. Without a second’s hesitation she took Richard’s pale face in her own two hands and straightened him so that the pipe stem was not obstructed. His lips were turning pink again. John bent low, and probed down the tiny throat with the buttonhook. Behind me in the doorway Dr Pearce’s boots suddenly creaked as he shifted his weight in the silent horror of the room.

  ‘Too big,’ said John, straightening up. ‘What else?’

  Without a word Celia took one hand from steadying Richard’s head and offered John the crochet hook. He smiled, without looking away from my son.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perfect.’

  Everyone in the room held their breath. Mrs Merry, who had sneered at the clever young Edinburgh-trained man, Margery Thompson, the village gossip, Dr Pearce and me. John poked down Richard’s tiny throat with the slender silver hook and only he and Celia seemed unaware of the agony of tension in the sunlit study.

  There was a thin, incongruous tinkle. The little bell knocked against Richard’s milk teeth as John drew it out. And then, there it was, suspended on the silver hook.

  ‘Done it,’ John said, and he pulled his silk handkerchief from his pocket, pulled out the pipe stem from my baby’s throat, tied the handkerchief in a bandage around his neck and turned him on his front on the hard table. Richard retched and coughed, a wheezy hacking cough, and began, hoarsely, to cry.

  Celia said, ‘May I?’ to John and, at his nod, scooped my son into her arms and laid his head on her shoulder. She patted him on his back and whispered loving words while he wept for the confusion and the pain in his throat. Beside his curly head her face was alight with pride and love, and she met John’s look with her heart written in her eyes.

  ‘You were good,’ he said, sharing the credit. ‘The buttonhook was too big. We would have lost him if you had not thought of the other.’

  ‘You were good,’ she said. Her eyes met his in frank love. ‘Your hand was steady as a rock. You saved his life.’

  ‘D’you have some laudanum?’ John asked Dr Pearce, not taking his eyes from Celia’s bright face.

  ‘No, only a little brandy,’ said the Vicar, watching the two of them as intently as the rest of us.

  John grimaced. ‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘He nee
ds something. He’s had a nasty shock.’

  He took Richard from Celia’s arms as gently as a father and held the glass for Richard to sip. When the child squirmed he held his face still and tipped down the little measure with one practised gesture. Richard was soothed at once, and when Celia took him back into her arms, his head nodded on her shoulder and he dozed.

  Celia and John looked at each other for a brief, magical moment, then John turned to me, and the spell was broken.

  ‘You have had a shock too, Beatrice,’ he said coolly. ‘Would you like a glass of ratafia? Or port?’

  ‘No,’ I said dully. ‘I need nothing.’

  ‘Did you think you had lost him?’ asked Mrs Merry. ‘He looked so blue!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said desolately. ‘I thought I had lost him, the next Squire. Then all this, all this, would have been for nothing!’

  There was a silence. They all turned shocked faces to me. Every one. Every one of them looked at me as if I was an exhibit in some show of freaks.

  ‘You thought of him as the Squire?’ asked John, incredulous. ‘Your baby was dying in your arms, and you thought that your work would go for nothing?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I stared at the empty fireplace. Not caring what they thought of me. Not caring for anything, anymore.

  ‘If he had died, what would have become of Wideacre? The entail specifies them both. I have put everything on the two of them. And then I thought he was dead.’

  I dropped my face into my hands and I shuddered with deep soundless sobs. No one put a hand out to comfort me. No one said one kind word.

  ‘You are shocked,’ said Celia at last, but her voice was cold. ‘I came in the carriage. You can go home in it. John can drive me in your gig. Go home now, Beatrice, and you can put Richard to bed when you get home. Then you can rest yourself. You cannot know what you are saying. This has been a shock for you.’

  I let her walk me to the carriage and help Mrs Austin with Richard. Then I saw her step back from the window and Coachman Ben drove me home with my son’s warm sleepy body in my arms.

  As the trees of the drive flickered past the window, green in the April sunshine, I remembered the look that had passed between Celia and John when he had praised her quickness in thinking of the crochet hook, and she had praised his skill. And I thought also that when she said, ‘Your hand was steady as a rock,’ she had spoken not for his ears alone. She had praised him, and restored him as a first-class doctor. She had told that quiet room, and thus the village, and the wider world outside the village borders, that Dr MacAndrew was indeed the best doctor that the county had ever seen. She had restored John to society. The trick that I knew he could never have done alone, that I had sworn I would never do for him, Celia had done with one easy sentence.

  Wideacre might think that his fatigue and drunkenness had killed my mama, but that tale would be swiftly replaced with the story of how, when my child was in danger, I had driven like a devil to reach him. How I had run up the drive with my son in my arms. How I had asked for ‘Doctor’ MacAndrew, not ‘Mister’. And how John’s quick, nerveless skill had saved the life of my son.

  The carriage stopped at the front steps of the Hall and Stride opened the door and checked as he saw me inside and not Celia.

  ‘Lady Lacey is coming later in my gig,’ I said. But it was an effort to speak at all. ‘There has been an accident. Please send coffee to my room. I do not wish to be disturbed.’

  Stride nodded, as impassive as ever, and handed me down into the hall. I went wearily through the door to the west wing, not even waiting to see Richard’s nurse inside. She would know to put him into his cradle at once. She would know to watch over him while he slept. He did not need my care. And now there was a barrier between him and me. I had known and I had said aloud, that my son, my lovely son, was most important to me as the heir to Wideacre.

  I might love the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheeks, or his curly hair, or the sweet, sweet smell of him. But when I thought he was dying it was Wideacre I had thought of first.

  Wideacre. There were times when I thought the land had driven me quite mad. I shut my bedroom door and leaned my back against it, and sighed. I was too tired to stop and think. Too tired to consider what I was doing. Too tired even to wonder what had become of me if I cared for Wideacre first and foremost, even before the life of my darling son.

  John had left a bottle of laudanum by my bed. I looked at it dull-eyed. I felt neither threat nor fear. I measured out two drops into a glass of water and I drank them slowly, savouring them like a sweet liqueur. Then I lay back on my bed and slept. I did not fear dreams. The reality of my life seemed worse than anything I might meet in sleep. I would rather dream than wake.

  In the morning I wished I had not woken. There was a grey mist over everything. I could not see the hills from my window; I could not see the woods; I could not even see the start of the rose garden. The whole world seemed muffled and hushed. Lucy bringing my cup of chocolate found the door locked and called out, ‘Miss Beatrice? Are you all right?’ and I had to get out of bed on to a cold wooden floor and shiver across to open the door for her.

  Her eyes were bright with curiosity but there was no sympathy in them as she watched me jump back into bed and huddle the covers up to my chin.

  ‘Send for the kitchenmaid to light my fire,’ I said snappishly. ‘I forgot when I locked the door that she would not be able to get in this morning. It’s freezing in here.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ said Lucy without apology. ‘She’s away down to Acre. There’s no one to light your fire. There’s only the upper servants left in the house. Everyone else has gone to Acre.’

  The mist seemed to have penetrated my very room, it was so damp and cold. I reached out for the hot chocolate and drank it greedily, but it made me no warmer.

  ‘Gone?’ I asked. ‘Gone to Acre? What on earth for?’

  ‘It’s the funeral,’ said Lucy. She went to the tall wardrobe and took out my black silk dress for morning wear, and a sheaf of clean fresh-pressed linen.

  ‘Whose funeral?’ I asked. ‘You are talking in riddles, Lucy. Put those things down and tell me at once what is going on. Why have the servants taken a morning off without leave? Why did no one ask me?’

  ‘They’d hardly be likely to ask you,’ she said. She put my gown on the foot of the bed and spread the linen on the clothes-horse before the cold grate.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ I said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s Beatrice Fosdyke’s funeral,’ said Lucy. Her hands were free and she put them on her hips. Arms akimbo she looked challengingly at me. Not at all respectful. I sat in my bed more like a cold child than the Mistress of a great estate.

  ‘Bea Fosdyke isn’t dead,’ I contradicted her. ‘She ran off to Portsmouth.’

  ‘Nay,’ Lucy said with a gleam of superior knowledge in her eyes. ‘She ran off to Portsmouth all right. But she ran off to shame. She thought she’d get a job as a milliner or a shop girl. But she had no references and no training and she could not get work. She lived off the money she had been saving for her dowry for the first week. But her lodgings were expensive and she had no friends to give her a meal. Soon all that was gone. Then she gathered pure for a week or two.’

  ‘What’s “pure”?’ I asked. I was listening to this tale as a fairy story. But some coldness, the mist, just the mist, seemed to be drifting down my spine. I drew the blankets a little more closely, but I felt a finger of dread, like a draught down my neck.

  ‘Don’t you know that?’ Lucy’s look at me was almost a sneer. ‘Pure is the filth of dogs and the human filth that they throw out in the streets and into the gutters. The pure collectors pick it up and sell it.’

  I put my cup down. I could feel the rise of nausea at the thought. I made a pout of disgust at Lucy. ‘Really, Lucy! What a thing to talk about at this time in the morning,’ I said. ‘What on earth is it bought for?’

  ‘For cleaning booksellers’ leath
er,’ Lucy said sweetly. She stroked the calf-bound volume I had by my bedside. ‘Didn’t you know, Miss Beatrice, that they make the leather smooth and soft so you love to touch it, by rubbing it and scrubbing it with human and dog filth?’

  I looked at the book with distaste and back at Lucy.

  ‘So Beatrice Fosdyke became a pure collector,’ I said. ‘She was a fool not to come home. There’s little enough work here but the parish money would be better than that. She was a fool not to come home.’

  ‘She didn’t keep that work,’ said Lucy. ‘While she was walking the streets with her little bag, a gentleman saw her and offered her a shilling to go with him.’

  I nodded, my eyes a little wider. But I said nothing. I was still cold. The room was somehow damp too. The fog outside made ghostly shapes. It loomed up against the window.

  ‘She went with him,’ said Lucy simply. ‘And the next gentleman, and the next. Then her father went down to Portsmouth seeking her. He found her waiting down by the stagecoach inn, waiting for men to sell herself to. He smashed her face, in the open street, and he got back on to the coach and came straight home.’

  I nodded again. The mist was like a grey animal rubbing against the window. Its cold breath was icy in the room. I could not get warm. I did not want to hear about this other Beatrice.

  ‘She went back to her lodging house and borrowed a penny off the woman to buy a pennyworth of rope, to tie up her box, she said. She said her pa had come to rescue her. That she was going home. That she would never leave her home again.’

  Bright in my mind against the grey window was the picture of Giles, his corpse bent like a bow, because he would not go on the parish.

  ‘She hanged herself?’ I asked, to get the story over and to break the spell of Lucy’s malicious sing-song voice.

  ‘She hanged herself,’ Lucy repeated. ‘They cut her down and they’ve brought her body home. But she cannot lie in the churchyard. She will have to be buried outside. Next to Giles.’

  ‘She was a fool,’ I repeated stoutly. ‘She could have come home. No one gathers filth on Wideacre. No one sells themselves for a shilling to strangers. She should have come home.’