It was Jimmy Dart, with his arm around Rosie. She was flushed from the walk but scarcely out of breath. I could not have recognized in her the pale girl who coughed over her work in the dirty cellar. She laid her head on Jimmy’s shoulder; the love between them was as strong and as warm as the night breeze blowing.
‘Are you robbing Ralph Megson of his apprentice?’ I accused her in mock severity. She and Jimmy exchanged a glance and laughed.
‘It’s from his being a linkboy,’ she explained. ‘He can’t stop himself crossing the road.’
I laughed too. Ralph’s cottage was on the other side of Acre lane from the little cottage where Rosie lived, and Jimmy crossing from one side of the lane to the other was a regular sight.
‘We’re betrothed,’ Rosie said shyly. ‘We’ll marry when we’re sixteen. Mr Megson has promised us a cottage of our own.’
I nodded, smiling. Ralph had mentioned it to me, and I had written the news to James. ‘No more glove-making,’ I said with satisfaction.
Rosie looked sly. ‘Just one last pair,’ she said. ‘I’ve started them already, but I don’t know when they’ll be needed.’ She gleamed at me. ‘Your wedding-day gloves, Miss Julia! For the day you marry Mr Fortescue. I’m making you special Wideacre gloves, with a sheaf of wheat on them!’
Oh, Rosie!’ I said in delight. ‘Thank you! But you know the engagement has not been announced yet. Mr Fortescue and I are not betrothed.’
Jimmy laughed aloud at that. ‘Not formally engaged!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why the first time I ever met you, he wouldn’t have a light because he wanted to walk you home from the Pump Room in the dark!’
‘Come on,’ Richard interrupted suddenly. ‘Come on, Julia!’ His arm slid round my waist and his face was so close to me that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my hair. ‘Come on, my springtime lady, and let us search for your hawthorn bush,’ he said softly, drawing me away from the others. We walked slowly to the right along the hilltop, seeking the darker shadow of a hawthorn bush.
Richard was wearing his driving cape and as we walked arm in arm, he swung the side of it around me in a gesture which both warmed and claimed me for his own. I felt light-headed and sure-footed, walking on my land in the darkness.
We startled a ewe and her lamb, and they jumped up before us with a complaining bleat and scurried off into the darkness. The patch of grass where they had been lying was warmed and smelled of fleece. Richard tossed his cape down and I sat on a corner, then he wrapped the rest around me.
I was tense, remembering the last time we were on the downs together when he had kissed me without invitation and touched me against my will. But he held true to his word, and his arm around my shoulders was friendly, brotherly, nothing more.
We sat in silence for a time while the morning skies grew pearly; all around us the grass seemed at first grey, then it slowly grew green as the colour seeped into it with the morning warmth.
‘I love you, little Julia,’ Richard said softly, his voice tender. ‘I wish you would forget your city friends and come back to me, come back to me and to Wideacre.’
I looked at his hazy smiling eyes and saw my old love, the love of my childhood and girlhood.
‘It’s too late,’ I said, half regretfully. ‘You will understand when you fall in love, Richard. You will understand then.’
His smile in the brightening light was rueful. ‘I think I will never love anyone but you,’ he said sweetly. Then he said no more.
The sky was growing brighter now, and the first tentative notes of birdsong were growing louder, with more birds waking and singing too. All about us couples were rising up and out of the hollows, brushing off their clothes and smiling at each other, sly-eyed with stolen pleasures.
Everyone was making their way towards the head of the downs where the hills looked down into Acre. There was an outcrop of chalk there which could be seen from anywhere on Wideacre, like a white stripe up the forehead of the downs. They called it Chalky Streak, and when Richard and I were little children and had lost our sense of direction, we could always find our way home by putting Chalky Streak directly before us and walking towards it. Now the young people from Acre and Richard and I stood at the top of it and waited for the sun to rise.
We faced the east, and the rising sun turned our faces rosy with its pink light. They sang the song again. I had learned the chanting little tune now and I could sing it with them. I was happy there, in the sunlight, with Richard holding my hand and the young people of Acre around me. But my heart was heavy, thinking of Clary, and when I looked around for Matthew, I saw that he was gone too. I shuddered. Some shadow touched me.
We finished our song with a little ripple of half-embarrassed laughter, and then turned towards the gate to walk back down the footpath to Acre. They had brought Misty for me, and Richard cupped his hands for me and tossed me up into the saddle. She was a carnival horse, with a wreath of hawthorn around her neck. They gave me a flower crown and a peeled wand to carry in my right hand and told me to lead them down the track to Acre. Misty tossed her head – disliking the flowers around her neck – and I had my usual trouble with riding side-saddle in a walking dress. I pulled my skirt down as well as I could. Ted Tyacke gave me a cheeky wink at seeing my ankles, but I could not play the Bath miss at dawn on the top of the downs.
They sang as we came down the track, and together we brought the spring home to Acre and the springtime jokes with us. In the old tradition the young people went around the village with their branches and played little tricks on the villagers. A spinster who loved a boy who did not care for her knew her secret was a public joke when she opened the door and found a stripped wand of willow on the step. A husband who was ruled by his wife was left a branch and a hen’s feather to take in to her when he prepared the breakfast that morning. A father whose discipline of his son seemed too stern to the crowd had an ash twig pinned to his door, and a wife who smiled too easily at the young men of Acre had the dubious compliment of a hawthorn branch with red ribbons left at her gate.
On Clary’s doorstep they put one half of a flowering branch of hawthorn, and the matching half was pinned to Matthew’s door. The most popular couple in Acre was blessed with the crowd’s goodwill. Only I felt uneasy and saw them as funeral flowers, not good-luck charms at all. Only I knew that this very day the betrothal which had started in the bad days of Acre would be ended just when things were coming right.
21
Mama was sitting up in bed, drinking her morning chocolate, when I tapped at her door after changing into my riding habit and brushing the hawthorn petals from my hair.
‘Good morning!’ she said as I came in. ‘The Queen of the May herself! Do you have magical powers this morning, my dear? Could you give me eternal youth and beauty, please?’
I laughed. ‘I think you have it already, Mama,’ I said, sitting on the foot of her bed. ‘You have looked quite unfairly pretty ever since Uncle John came home.’
Mama smiled. ‘That is from being happy,’ she said lightly. ‘But how are you? Are you tired after your dawn chorusing?’
I stretched. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Feeling lazy, but not tired, though it is a longer walk than I thought. I always ride up that hill; I’ve never walked it before.’
‘You could have a rest before breakfast,’ Mama offered. ‘Or perhaps you should go back to bed and I will wake you at noon.’
I got up from the bed and went across to her window-seat. ‘Don’t tempt me,’ I said. ‘If the village is merrymaking, it is my job to check the animals. I shall go up to the downs after breakfast and see the sheep, and then down to the Fenny fields to see that the cows are well.’
Mama nodded and threw back the bed covers and slipped out of bed. ‘You put me to shame,’ she said. ‘I had thought we would all take a holiday!’
The garden gate banged.
‘Who is that?’ she asked, pulling on a wrapper and coming over to the window to stand beside me.
‘Jem is just back from
the London stage with letters,’ I said, going towards the door. ‘Maybe there’s something from James!’
I sped down the stairs and nearly collided with Jenny Hodgett taking the letters from Jem at the front door. ‘Any for me?’ ‘I asked.
Jenny turned, smiling. ‘Yes, Miss Julia,’ she said. ‘From your young man, by the looks of it.’
I took it. It had James’s familiar sloping writing on the envelope, but it had been franked for him. It had been posted in England.
‘Jenny!’ I exclaimed. ‘This was posted in England. James is home!’
She beamed back at me and I clutched the letter in both hands. ‘I’ll read it in the stables,’ I said, suddenly wanting to be alone and uninterrupted. ‘I’ll be in for breakfast, tell Mama.’ I slipped out of the front door and down the garden path and through the side gate to the stable yard.
Jem had gone back to his room above the tack room and the stables were deserted. Misty was in her loose box where I had put her, still with her saddle and bridle on, her wreath of blossoms on a hook outside her stable. I opened her door and slipped into her stable, and sat down on an upturned bucket. She nuzzled the top of my head gently and I smelled her oaty breath as she sniffed at me. The letter crackled as I slit the envelope and spread it on my knee, leaning towards the half-door of the stable to catch the light.
It was brief.
Dearest heart,
This letter precedes me by no more than six days. I returned to England this afternoon. I shall be with my papa’s lawyers tomorrow, and as soon as I have travelled to Bristol and reported to my papa, I shall pack my bags and be with you the day after that – May 6. If you can squeeze me into your little house, I shall come to dinner and stay the night. Or, if you cannot, I shall sleep in the flower-bed beneath your window; but if I cannot see you at once, I shall go utterly and totally insane.
The contracts for our marriage are finally done – I shall sign the deeds tomorrow. The settlement my papa is to make on us will build us a house even grander than your own Wideacre Hall. I shall bring some plans with me when I come and we can set to work building at once.
As far as I am concerned, we can be married tomorrow, if that suits you? Or perhaps you require longer to prepare a trousseau? I would not wish you to think me impatient. Next week will be soon enough.
My darling, I kiss your hands, your feet, the ground beneath your feet, and the rocks beneath the ground.
In all seriousness, all the business preparation for the marriage is done, and it remains only for you to name the day when you will make me wholly happy…and half squire of Wideacre!
Make it soon.
Yours for ever,
James
I reached a hand up and stroked Misty’s flank without being aware of the warmth of her smooth coat beneath my fingers. James was coming home at last, and there was no hitch, no difficulty. He might joke about being ready to marry tomorrow, but I knew James. If he told me, even in jest, that he was ready to marry, then he was. And, God knew, I was ready to be his wife.
I got to my feet, thinking to go into the house and tell Mama that James was home and to ask Mrs Gough for the best dinner she could devise for the day he was to arrive – but then I paused. I wanted to be somewhere quiet and alone for a little while longer. The happiness I had in this gentle sunlit morning was too much to mislay amid a hustle of menus and gowns and preparations. I tightened Misty’s girth and led her out of the stable to the mounting-block. I folded the letter and tucked it neatly into the little pocket of my riding jacket. Then I rode Misty out of the stable yard and turned her right up the drive towards Wideacre Hall.
I rode carelessly, on a loose rein, dreaming of how it would be when James came to me, whether I could go and wait for him at the Acre corner, and if he would drive himself or come in a post-chaise, whether he would smile to see me patient at the corner, or whether I would look foolish, like a village girl waiting for her swain. I passed all my dresses in rapid review, thinking which would suit me the best and wondering if I had any new gowns he had not seen in Bath which he might like. And I thought about the menu for his dinner, and what were his favourite cuts of meat and what puddings he cared for. I smiled as I rode, at peace in a little golden reverie of joy, because James was coming home.
The builders had taken the May holiday, so the garden and the new hall were deserted. I rode past the terrace towards the rose garden. I wanted to sit in the sunshine and dream a little more before I went home to tell Mama that we must start to prepare for my wedding day. I hitched Misty to the trellis on the old summer-house and went inside. It was sheltered here, warm. The birds were singing in the woods around the garden, and the summer-house smelled pleasantly of dry leaves and crumbling timber. I sat on the floor, careless of my cream riding habit, and leaned my head back against the wooden wall. With James’s open letter in my hand, I closed my eyes and dozed, still smiling, still dreaming of the day when he would be with me.
It seemed, at first, part of that dream – a kiss, as light as a butterfly’s wing, as soft as a feather on my cheek. I smiled and stirred, not opening my eyes. It seemed part of the dream of James, part of that previous dream in the summer-house when I had been a girl, when I had been Beatrice. I felt as tranced, as dreamy as I had then, and I relaxed, as contented as a sleeping child on the dusty floor of the summer-house, and felt my face covered with kisses. The weight of him came on me gently, warm. As feckless as Beatrice herself, I put my arms around his neck and welcomed his touch. He kissed me on the mouth and I opened my lips in pleasure.
The touch of his tongue in my mouth was like ice.
My eyes flew open, I jerked my head away.
It was Richard.
At once I struggled to be up and away from him, but he did not let me up. His weight, which I had welcomed, was suddenly a weapon. He was pinning me down, and I was not able to struggle against him to throw him off.
‘Richard!’ I said in anger. ‘Let me up! Let me up this minute!’
He said nothing in answer, he would not even meet my eyes. Instead he reached down and fumbled with my skirts and petticoats, ignoring my ineffectual pushes against his chest.
I gasped. Richard had pulled my skirt up to my waist. I had a sudden recollection of the goshawk bating away in a frenzy of terror. I struggled to get my left hand free and I slapped his face as hard as I could.
He shook his head like a bullock stung by a horse-fly and grabbed for that hand. His weight pinned my other arm between his body and mine. I wriggled, but I was helpless.
‘Richard!’ I said more loudly, sharply. There was a hard note of panic in my voice. I heard it, and Richard heard it too. He looked at me then for the first time. His eyes were blank, a glazed blue, bright as glass, expressionless. Then he pushed one hard knee between my legs and parted them, bruising the flesh.
I screamed.
I screamed without thinking if there could be anyone in earshot. I screamed out of terror, without thought of managing Richard or of dealing with him. I screamed in the same mindless fright as that of the goshawk who had launched herself blindly into the air, forgetting she was held fast.
At once, as if my scream were a signal, he twisted the wrist he was holding so tightly that the skin burned with pain and, though I opened my mouth to scream again, all I could do was gasp in horror as I heard the slight click of a small bone breaking, and felt my whole arm, my whole body, burn with pain. Richard dropped my hand and put his palm over my mouth instead.
‘If you struggle, I shall break the other wrist,’ he said softly, almost conversationally. ‘If you scream, I will strangle you. I will strangle you until you lose consciousness, Julia, and then I will do what I have to do, and then I may tighten my hands a little more. Do you understand?’
His face was so close to mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek. He was not panting, he was breathing evenly, steadily; he might have been taking a gentle stroll.
‘Richard…’ I said in a frightened whisper, ‘
don’t do this, Richard, please. Why are you doing this?’
His smile was darker and his eyes more navy blue than I had ever seen them. ‘You were going to bring in a rival squire,’ he said. His voice was a thread of hatred. ‘You were going to build a bigger house than Wideacre Hall. I read it in his letter. While you slept there, beside my house on my land, you were dreaming of bringing in a rival squire and claiming half of our land.’
I opened my mouth to disagree, my mind scrambling like a trapped animal for some way out.
‘You are my betrothed,’ Richard said. ‘I was a fool to let you leave Wideacre and a fool to try to win you back kindly. Now I am going to claim you for my own.’
His words, and their meaning, sank in.
‘Richard, no!’ I said. I could feel my throat tightening with terror. This nightmare in the summer-house was too like the bullying of our childhood. I could feel myself slipping from courage, from the strong abilities of my womanhood, into the panic-stricken victim that I had really been when we were children.
‘It will hurt,’ he said with unconcealed pleasure. ‘I think you will be afraid, Julia.’
‘No!’ I screamed, but my throat had clamped tight and no cry came out. I croaked silently, and Richard guessed that I was now too afraid to make a sound, and his eyes sparkled in utter delight.
He put one hand down and loosened his breeches and pulled them down. Then, with one hand holding my wrist, the other back over my mouth, forcing my head back on the dusty floor, he reared away from me, and with one hating, savage thrust he pushed into me, and my scream of pain was choked on his hard hand and my sobs retched in the depth of my throat.
It was like a nightmare, like the worst of nightmares, and it did not stop. While my hurting body registered the pain, I tried to find some courage from somewhere to say, ‘Well, it is done.’ But it was not done. Richard pushed into the blood and the hurt flesh again and again and again. He seemed to take delight in paining me so badly that I was screaming for help inside my head and hot tears were spilling down my face.