I sniggered, and Perry laughed beside me. ‘She’ll pull it down herself if she doesn’t watch out,’ he observed.
We watched together smiling, but there was no sport. Will Tyacke went quickly to her and made the man put her on her feet. He bent over her and I saw she was quite a small woman. He put his arm around her and he led her to the cart. Out of the cottage behind her came three little children, the smallest a baby, lugged by the others.
Will lifted all of them one by one, into the cart and then went back into the cottage for their goods: a cooking pot, one stool, a clutter of plates and bedding. Not much. Even less than we had in the old days in the wagon.
‘Poor sport,’ Perry said in sudden distaste.
‘Aye,’ I said. I had a bad taste in my mouth and I went to spit but then I remembered that ladies do not spit. ‘Let’s ride!’ I said and touched Sea with my heels and turned his head.
We cantered along the crest of a hill until we came to the stone post which marked the start of my land. At once the path was wider, it had been cut back as a firebreak and there was a wide track as good as a race-course of the pure white sand bordered with the black peat of the Common.
‘Race?’ Perry called, and I nodded and held Sea back so that we drew level and then let him have his head.
We thundered along the track together, Sea going faster than I had ever known him go at the challenge from another high-bred horse. Perry’s horse was probably the better, but Sea was fitter from my daily rides. He was carrying a lighter rider too and we managed to pull ahead before the firebreak crested up a hill and I pulled up at the top.
Perry and his hunter were half a length behind us and Perry came up smiling and jumped from the saddle.
‘Lost my hat,’ he said with a grin. ‘We’ll have to go back that way.’
Without his hat his golden curls had tumbled into a blond mop. His blue eyes were clear and shining, his colour bright. Any girl in the world would have fallen in love with him at first sight.
I put my hand down and touched the top of his head. He looked up at me, and reached up to lift me down from Sea’s back, his hands on my waist for a brief moment. Then he released me as soon as my feet touched the ground.
‘I didn’t like seeing that at the village,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘Me neither,’ I replied.
Perry turned from me and swung his jacket down on the heather. We sat side by side looking down into the Fenny valley. Havering Hall woodland was a dark mass to our right, Acre was over to our left. My home, the home I had longed for but seldom even visited was below us, hidden in the trees at the back of the house.
‘It’s Mr Briggs’s doing,’ he said. ‘I have no say in how the place is run until I am married, or reach my majority.’
‘Twenty-one?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Four years,’ he said.
‘It’s even longer for me,’ I said. ‘I’m only sixteen now. I’ll have to wait five years.’
Perry looked sideways at me. ‘I know it is what my mama wants,’ he said carefully. ‘And to be honest, Sarah, she told me to ask you. In fact,’ he said with scrupulous honesty, ‘she said she’d pay my gambling debts if I asked you.’
‘Asked me what?’ I said. But I knew.
‘Asked you to marry me,’ he said without any heat at all. ‘I tell you why I said I would.’ He lay on his back, as idle and as lovely as a fallen angel, and counted his white fingers up at the clear sky.
‘One, I would get hold of my land and capital. Two, you would get hold of your land and capital. Three, we could run them together and we could make sure that Wideacre is run sensibly but that people are not treated so badly as they have been on Havering. Four, we would not have to marry anyone else, or court, or go to London parties unless we wanted.’
I stretched alongside him and leaned my head on one hand so that I could watch his face.
‘Why don’t you want to court girls?’ I asked. ‘I’ve lived with you for months now and I’ve never even seen you sneak out late at night except to get drunk. Don’t you like girls, Perry?’
He turned his head to face me and his eyes were clear and untroubled.
‘That’s point five,’ he said. ‘We neither of us like being touched like that. I don’t mind my sisters, and I don’t mind you. But I cannot stand being pulled about by girls. I don’t like how they look at me. I don’t like how they stroke my sleeve or find ways of touching my shoulder or standing close to me. I just don’t like it. And I know I’ll never get married if I have to court someone and kiss them and pull them about.’
I nodded. I understood well enough. It was my own prickly independence but perhaps a little worse for a young man who would be expected to fondle and fumble and get his face slapped for his pains.
‘If we married we’d have to get an heir,’ he said bluntly. ‘But once we had a son we could live as friends. I thought you’d like that, Sarah.’
I drew my knees up to the ache in my chest and hugged myself for comfort.
‘I don’t know,’ I said softly.
Perry closed his eyes and turned his face up to the sunshine. ‘I thought it would be a way out for both of us,’ he said. ‘I know you’re afraid of going into Society, even with Mama there. This way, you’d be known as my affianced bride. You’d not have to go around so much. Men wouldn’t trouble you. My mama or my sisters could always be with you. And you could always have me there.’
I nodded. Deep inside myself I had been dreading the London Season, and cursing the obstinacy in myself which had insisted on moving in the best of circles when I was no more fined for it than any bareback dancer.
‘I’d like that,’ I conceded.
‘And you could run your own estate,’ Perry pointed out. ‘As you wanted, without having to wait all that time.’
I nodded. Five years was an unimaginable lifetime from my sixteen-year-old viewpoint. I could not imagine waiting until I was twenty-one. And the shrewd business streak in me warned me that five years was a long time to leave Will Tyacke and James Fortescue in charge of my fortune.
‘And we’re neighbours,’ Perry said. ‘If you marry anyone else they’ll take you away to live in their house. They could live anywhere. You’d only be able to get back to see Wideacre when they let you.’
‘Oh no!’ I said suddenly. ‘I hadn’t thought of that!’
‘You’d have to,’ he said. ‘And your husband would put his manager in and he might do it even worse than it’s being done already.’
I put my hand out and turned his face towards me. He opened his eyes.
‘Kiss me,’ I said.
The kiss was as gentle and as cool as the brush of his mother’s fingertips on my cheek. His lips barely touched mine, and then he pulled back and looked at me.
‘I do like you,’ he said. ‘I do want us to be friends. Mama wants us to marry and I think she is right. But I do want us to be friends anyway.’
The loneliness and sadness I carried with me always suddenly swelled and choked me as he offered his friendship. The kiss had been as light and as cool as Dandy’s good-night pecks and I suddenly thought how long it had been since I had been touched by someone who liked me. I gave a little moan and buried my face in my hands and lay face down on the heather.
I did not cry. I had promised myself that day that I would never cry again. I just lay, stiff as a board and heard myself give three or four little moans as if my heart were breaking with loneliness.
Perry did nothing. He sat there like a beautiful flower, waiting for me to have done. When I ceased and lay still he put out a hand and rested it on the nape of my neck. His hand was as cool and as soft-skinned as a woman’s.
‘I’m unhappy, too,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s why I keep drinking. I’m not the son Mama wants. That was George. She’ll never love me like she loved him. I thought that if you and I could marry we could both be less lonely. We could be friends.’
I turned around. My eyes were sore with unshed
tears, as sore as if I had grit from the road blown into them. I rubbed them with the back of my gloved hand.
‘Yes,’ I said. I spoke from the depths of my loneliness and from my despair in knowing that I would never love anyone again. ‘Yes, it might work. I’ll think about it,’ I said.
Nothing could be worse than this arid waiting for the pain to pass. Perry and I were children who had been left behind. My sister had gone, his talented, brilliant brother George had gone. We two were left to inherit all the wealth and the land and the houses. We might be able to help each other feel more at home with them all. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘All right then,’ Perry said. We got to our feet and he shook his jacket carefully and put it back on, pulling down the coat-tail and smoothing the sleeves down. ‘Mama will pay my gambling debts now,’ he said pleased. ‘Shall we tell her at dinner?’
‘Yes,’ I said. It seemed like years since someone had shared a decision with me and asked for my help. It was good to be part of an ‘us’ again, even if it were only poor silly Perry and me.
‘We can marry when the contracts have been drawn up,’ Perry said. ‘In London if you like, or here.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter to me.’
Perry nodded, and cupped his hand to throw me up into the saddle.
‘Mama will be really pleased with me,’ he said and smiled up at me. He feared his mama at least as much as he loved her, probably more.
‘She’ll be pleased with both of us,’ I said, and I felt glad to be part of a family, even a cold-blooded Quality family like the Haverings. I smiled for a moment, thinking of her and her hopes of a Quality marriage, of netting some flash young squire. Who’d have thought in those days that plain dirty little Meridon would be saying ‘yes’ to marriage with a lord! My smile turned into a little rueful grimace, and then I clicked to Sea to follow Perry’s horse back down the slope. And who’d have thought that I’d say yes to a marriage not for need, nor for desire, nor in any hope. But because need and desire and hope were gone and I was instead looking for power and wealth and control over my land.
Love I did not think of at all.
We told Lady Clara that night at dinner. I think if she had shown the least gleam of satisfaction I would have been on my guard. As it was she looked at me steadily across the table and said:
‘You are very young, Sarah, this is a big step. Do you think you had not better wait until you see what London society has to offer you?’
I hesitated. ‘I thought this was your wish, Lady Clara?’ I said.
The door behind me opened and the butler came to clear the table. Lady Clara made one of her graceful gestures and he bowed at once and withdrew. I knew I would never in a million years learn how to do that.
‘Certainly it is my wish that the estates be run together, and I can think of no two more suitable young people,’ she said. ‘Your upbringing has been unusual, Sarah, but Perry is the only young man of Quality that I know who is entirely free from any snobbery. He is informal to a fault, and you two are clearly very fond of each other.’ She paused and smiled slightly at Perry who was sitting on her right, between us. ‘And you two are well suited in temperament,’ she said delicately.
Perry looked glumly down at his plate and I nearly snorted with suppressed laughter at the thought of Lady Clara recommending him to me because he was cold and I was unwomanly.
‘But I do not know what Mr Fortescue will say,’ she said. ‘It will mean that you can take the running of the estate away from him at once.’
‘There is nothing he can say,’ I said brusquely. ‘The matter will be out of his hands. He cannot control my choice of husband, and in any case, no one could object to me marrying Perry who is a lord, and a neighbour, and a cousin.’
‘Voice,’ said Lady Clara.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
She raised her eyebrow at me.
‘I mean, I beg your pardon,’ I amended.
She smiled.
Perry kept his head down and poured himself another glass of port.
‘If you are so determined then there is nothing I can say,’ Lady Clara said with a fair show of helplessness. ‘The engagement can be announced at once. Then Perry can be with you at all the balls and parties of the Season and when the Season is over we can come back here and perhaps have a wedding next spring at Chichester cathedral.’
I nodded and Perry said nothing.
‘You should write to Mr Fortescue at once to tell him of your decision,’ Lady Clara said. ‘And inform him that I will be notifying my solicitors to draw up a marriage contract. They will contact his solicitors for sight of the deeds of Wideacre, of course.’
‘Wideacre will still be mine,’ I said. ‘It is entailed upon the oldest child, whether male or female.’
Lady Clara smiled. ‘Of course, Sarah,’ she said. ‘It will be entailed upon your first-born. Havering is entailed upon the first-born son. There should be enough meat in that to keep the lawyers occupied all summer and autumn.’
‘But Wideacre will still be mine,’ I repeated.
Lady Clara paused. ‘Married women cannot own property, Sarah,’ she said gently. ‘You know that. Wideacre will become Peregrine’s when you marry. Any husband of yours would own Wideacre.’
I frowned. ‘Even though it is me that inherited it?’ I asked.
‘Even though it is I who…’ Lady Clara amended.
‘There’s nothing I can do about that?’ I queried.
‘It is the law of the land,’ she said dryly. ‘Wealthier women than you have had to hand over bigger fortunes. But you could consult your lawyer or Mr Fortescue if you wish. You’ll still be better off with the estate properly run under Peregrine’s name, than held for you by Mr Fortescue and his band of Jacobins.’
I nodded. ‘I know that,’ I said certainly.
‘Anyway, Sarah can run it herself,’ Peregrine said. He had taken another glass of port and his cheeks were pink. He smiled at me very sweetly. ‘No reason why not,’ he said. ‘She’s been riding all around learning about the fields. If she doesn’t want a bailiff she could run it herself.’
Lady Clara nodded and picked up her fan. ‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘That is for the two of you to decide. How nice to have another wedding in the family!’
Peregrine rose steadily enough and took his mother’s arm as she went towards the door. He opened it and held it wide for her and me to pass through. As I went by he gave me a grin as brotherly and warm as an urchin who has scraped out of an adventure.
‘Pretty fair,’ he said under his breath, and went back to the table.
27
I went to bed early that night, and drew back my heavy curtains from the window. After years of sleeping in a wagon I should have rejoiced in the space and the comfort of having a whole room to myself, of being able to see the moon through clear clean glass. But I was a silly, ungrateful drab. After all my pining for the gentry life I was low that night and missed the wagon and the noise of other people snoring, breathing, dreaming all around me. I missed the warm dirty smell of the place. I missed the sight of Da’s rumpled head and Zima’s dirty locks. I missed the little snorting breaths of the baby. I made sure I did not think about the bunk opposite from where I used to see her dark head and her slow lazy waking smile.
Robert Gower had been good to me, by his lights. He had paid me my ten guineas and he had cared for Sea without charge. When I came off the trapeze he had me nursed in his own house and I never paid him a penny out of my wages for the doctor’s bill. I thought of the little house off Warminster High Street, I thought of the wagon with the painting and the curly writing on the side and how, somewhere, it would be parked up for the night, the fire burned down to embers outside the steps, a pan of water nearby for Robert to wash in the morning. On the side of the wagon there was my likeness and my name. My old name. The one I would never use again from the life I had left.
It seemed that all my life there were departures. The one
I had only seen in my dream, when the little baby was held to a strange breast and did not hear her mother call after her. The crude sale when Da handed us over and drove out of town too quick for us to change our minds. And the evening when I took my horse and my gold and my string and gold clasps and went away from Robert Gower as if he had been my enemy. I thought now that perhaps he had been a good friend and I could have stayed there, and that he would have helped me with my grief. Here I could not speak of it, could not be seen to be grieving. Here I had to lock it up in some cold part of my heart and never let anyone know, never let anyone see, that I was cold and aged and as dead as a smashed doll inside.
I leaned my head against the cold glass of the window and looked out. The sky was cloudy tonight, the moon three-quarters full, misty and shaded by ribbons and lumps of clouds over its face. My room faced east, over the paddock at the back of the house, towards the Common. I looked towards the skyline where a little clump of firs showed black against the sky. I had wanted to sleep and wake with this view all my life. I was home. It was foolish to find that it gave me no joy at all.
I turned from the window and drew the curtains. The room seemed too big, too full of echoes and ghosts and longing without the cold light of the moon showing a bed far too big for me, in a room far too big for me. With a little sigh I slipped off my costly dress and laid it carefully over a chair. I kept on my chemise and petticoat and wrapped myself in the coverlet from the bed and lay down on the hard carpet without a pillow. I knew tonight would be one of the nights when I would get no rest unless I slept hard and woke cold. Sometimes the life was too soft for me, I could not bear that it should be so easy for me when the one who would have loved it, who would have been extravagant and playful and laughing and spendthrift, she – and I still could not say her name – she had gone.
If I had been the crying sort I would have wept that night. But I was not. I lay wrapped tight in the coverlet on my back. When I woke in the night my face was wet and the carpet under my head was damp as if all the tears from the day, and from all the days, had crept out from under my eyelids when I was asleep. I got up then, stiff and chilled, and slid between the sheets. It was about three o’clock in the morning. I wished very much that it had been me who had died and not her.