He pulled his horse up at the garden wall and I went down the path towards him. He touched his hat to me, but his face was unsmiling. ‘I’ve come to tell you that I’ve given orders to bring Matthew Merry’s body home from Chichester gaol to be buried here. They’ve released the body at last.’
I nodded, as formal as he. ‘Can he be buried in the churchyard?’ I asked.
‘Nay, he’s a suicide,’ Ralph said. ‘It will have to be Miss Beatrice’s Corner for him.’
‘What d’you mean?’ I asked swiftly. The corner of grass by the church gate was called Miss Beatrice’s Corner, but no one had ever told me why, of all the land which my aunt had made her own, that little patch had been named for her.
‘It’s the corner of the ground nearest to the graveyard, on t’other side of the church wall,’ Ralph said. ‘When Miss Beatrice ruled here, there were two suicides. They buried them there in unsanctified ground but as close to the church as they could get. They called it Miss Beatrice’s Corner in a tribute to the last Lacey squire who brought death to the village. Now there will be another grave there. It’s a new generation of Laceys and Acre is still dying for them.’
I gasped and the ready tears came to my eyes. I looked up at Ralph. High on his black horse, he was an inexorable judge, but there was something more than anger in his face. There was also despair.
‘I am so sorry,’ I said feebly. I could feel my eyes filling with tears and I was afraid they would start rolling down my cheeks.
‘Come out on the land, Julia,’ Ralph said urgently. ‘It’s going wrong, but you could catch it, even now, if you came out on the land with your sight and your skills. I can hold Acre together, but I cannot hold them to this trial of sharing with the squires if you and your family stay inside your great house and behave as if you think the village too lowly for you.’
‘It’s not that,’ I said instantly.
‘What is it, then?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you not in Acre these past few days? Why does Richard do all the work that you used to do? We would all rather work with you. No one likes Richard, and everyone blames him for what happened to Matthew. Ted Tyacke will not even speak to him.’
‘It was not his fault Matthew died,’ I said.
‘Matthew died by his own hand, I know,’ Ralph said steadily, ‘but no one in the village thinks he killed Clary. There are two Acre deaths and no murderer taken, and they all believe that you know who the murderer is.’ Ralph’s black look at me was intent. ‘They all swear that you can see him with the sight.’
‘I can’t,’ I said rapidly. I could feel my heart fluttering with anxiety.
‘They all say you would be sure to be able to see her killer,’ Ralph said, ‘as a Lacey girl with the sight, as her best friend. They all swear that if you looked with the sight, then you would see him, whoever he is. Then we could have him taken up, and hanged, and Clary and Matthew would be avenged and would sleep quiet in their graves. And you would be restored to the village.’
‘I can’t, Ralph,’ I said piteously. ‘I have a dream when I think he is coming nearer, but I dare not see his face.’
Ralph’s horse shifted impatiently as his grip on the reins tightened. ‘For God’s sake, Julia,’ he said roughly. ‘This is not a question of what you wish or what you dare. All our work here is falling apart and you must save it. Go into your dream, take the courage you inherited from Beatrice. Look Death in the face and come back and tell me his name and I will do the rest. Then you’ll be the squire in very truth. Then Acre can grow and trust again.’
‘I can’t,’ I said, my voice wavering higher. ‘I’ve told you already. I cannot do it! They may say I can, but they are wrong. I cannot do it, Ralph. You should not ask it of me.’
‘Then you are a coward and a traitor to Acre,’ he said harshly, ‘and I am ashamed of you.’
His horse wheeled on its hind legs as he whirled it around, the reins so tight that its mouth gaped, and then it leaped forward and threw up its head as it felt the whip. It took three wide paces of a canter, then jinked and shied in sudden fright at some weed blowing bright on the top of our garden wall. Ralph jerked it to a standstill and looked back at me, standing alone in my pretty garden.
‘You are bad blood, you Laceys!’ he shouted. And behind the anger in his voice I heard a bitter despair that he had trusted us and had again been betrayed, and that because of the mistake of his trust Clary was dead, and young Matthew too. ‘You are bad cursed blood, and I hate the whole race of you!’ he yelled, as angry as a rebellious youth. Then he was gone, round the bend in the track and hidden by the trees.
But I stayed as if I could still see him, staring at the track as if he were still there. I stayed without moving, without making a sound. My heartbeat was thudding in my ears and I was damp with sweat under my gown. I knew it had all gone wrong. It was my fault, and all I could say, over and over, was, ‘Oh, I am so sorry. I am so very, very sorry.’
They buried Matthew the next day, and Mrs Merry seemed to become yet older as they stamped the earth down on the little grave. It could have no headstone, but the carpenter made a little board with Matthew’s name and age on it, and the date. Dr Pearce said nothing when it appeared at the head of the fresh earth, nor did Uncle John.
We had to go to church past the little mound, and I saw that Mama turned her head and looked out of the other window. I was on that side of the carriage as we drew up at the lich-gate and I could not help but see it.
The wooden board was light; it would be rotted and gone in a few years. The little mound of earth was bare. They might plant it with flowers later, or it might simply grow over with weeds and grass like the two neighbouring unmarked graves.
The three little mounds seemed to accuse me as I stepped from the carriage. They were mute witnesses to the power of the Laceys. We went through the gate and I glanced back at the fresh grave. There were two smooth prints where Mrs Merry had knelt on the earth and pressed it flat, the marks of her knees. I knew then, as I had only thought before, that whatever it cost me in money, I might be better off if I did not own Wideacre. Ralph might be right about the ownership of the land and that it should not be trusted to the Laceys, or to any one family, that a squire on Wideacre could do so much wrong.
Uncle John’s face was grim as we went into the church, and there were no smiles for us as we walked up the aisle. The pew where Clary used to sit, supervising her brothers and sisters in a row of diminishing figures, was empty. None of the Dench children had come to church this Sunday. I felt the tears prickle under my eyelids at that empty plain wooden pew, and I glanced at Richard for a little comfort.
He was smiling.
He must have been thinking of something else. He must have been miles away in his thoughts. For as we walked up the aisle of that church, between the villagers who were grieving for a murdered girl and a hanged lad, Richard’s blue eyes were dancing with mischief and he was beaming at some private joke.
My hand was on his arm, and I pressed it gently.
‘Richard,’ I said softly, ‘what are you thinking of?’
He glanced down at me and the delight was wiped from his face at once. ‘You are quite right,’ he said. ‘Thank you for reminding me,’ and he at once looked grave and solemn and sad, and stepped back for me to precede him into the pew. Ralph Megson’s stony gaze was on me and I felt party to Richard’s deceit, as if I too had been laughing and then donned a mask of gravity.
We did not wait to chat after church and no one stayed Uncle John or me with a friendly hand as we walked back to the carriage. In the last few months a villager, or a tenant, or a worker had often stopped me on the way to the carriage to ask me something, or to complain about one of the hundred little problems which come from farming the land. On this day the churchyard was silent.
We walked past the tenants and labourers with no word spoken, and I saw Mama’s head was down and her eyes were on her feet. Uncle John looked weary to death. Only Richard’s head was up and his face
was calm; Richard’s eyes were as clear as his conscience, his merry smile not far away.
Mama shivered when we got into the carriage and she stroked the velvet lapel of her jacket for comfort. ‘That was awful,’ she said in a low voice to John. ‘It was like the old days. John, if this scheme does not work with Acre, do say that we can leave at once. I have spent half my life on this land trying to get things right here, and we seem to face one failure after another. If Acre remains unhappy, do say we can sell up and leave.’
Uncle John’s face was haggard. ‘Celia, after all the plans .. .’ he said despairingly. The carriage moved off. Nobody waved to us from the churchyard. ‘I can’t believe it is hopeless,’ he said. ‘This gloom is natural indeed, but it is not as it was with Beatrice. Matthew Merry died most horridly, but no Lacey can be blamed. It is you and I who are so superstitious, Celia. Having seen the village in despair once, we are too quick to think it has all gone wrong again. I’m sure the children are more optimistic’
Mama and Uncle John looked at Richard and me, hoping we had some answer for them.
Richard’s smile was sunny and confident. Of course,’ he said sweetly. ‘Acre is in the sullens because the May feast was spoiled and because they are grieving. But that is no cause for us to blame ourselves. If Clary Dench upset her lover and he strangled her and then hanged himself, that is a nasty little tale, but not one that reflects on us at all.’ He smiled at my mama. ‘Aunt Celia,’ he said coaxingly, ‘I know what is amiss. You have not been to Chichester for days and you have spent no money!’
Mama smiled, but I could see it was an effort.
‘And what do you think, Julia?’ John asked.
I was silent for a moment. The noise of the horses’ hooves on the lane and the creak of the carriage-wheels on the sticky mud filled the silence. ‘I agree with Richard,’ I said in a small voice. I did not want to tell Uncle John that Ralph had begged me to use the sight for Acre and that I had refused him, and refused them. I did not want to tell Uncle John that Ralph had raised his voice to me and cursed me and cursed all the Laceys. I did not want to tell Uncle John that Ralph blamed me for cowardice, that the gloom of Acre was my fault; for I had refused them.
‘I agree with Richard,’ I said again.
Under the shelter of my pelisse and muff Richard’s hand came down and brushed the back of my gloved hand with the tips of his warm fingers. I stole a sideways glance at him and he was smiling down at me, his eyes warm. Imperceptibly he leaned towards me so that our shoulders were touching. As the carriage turned up the drive under the greening trees of Wideacre Park, with the air full of birdsong, I knew that the only person I could please was Richard, that only Richard and I knew the truth. We were partners in deceit once more.
23
I had counted on Richard staying at home for the whole of May. But he had a letter from his tutor to say that a Greek expert was prepared to offer him extra lessons before the summer term started, and he smiled ruefully at Mama at breakfast and said, ‘Mama-Aunt, it seems that I shall have to leave you and go back to Oxford. It is a hard apprenticeship my father has put me to.’
‘I’m sorry indeed,’ Uncle John said with a smile. ‘But think of the training for your moral character, Richard! I am sure it will do you nothing but good.’
‘I would rather have a weak moral character and the rest of my holiday on Wideacre,’ Richard said. ‘But my tutor is right. My Greek is shamefully weak, and I did not enjoy looking like a fool in front of the others last term. I suppose I shall have to do as I am bid and go back early.’
I held myself very still, but when Mama and Uncle John had left the breakfast table, I said, ‘Oh, Richard, I wish you did not have to go!’
He smiled at me. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said. ‘This is a short term, only a couple of months, though they may ask me to stay for extra tuition at the end of term too! I shall be back at harvesting, I hope, and able to help you then.’
‘It’s not the work,’ I said. ‘It’s the way everything is now.’ I could not make myself say Clary’s name, but I thought of her then as I did all the time. I did not know how I would be able to work on Wideacre without her. I felt as if I had known her all my life, as if she was Acre, as if in losing her I had lost my special sense of the village, my special place there.
Richard leaned back in his chair and folded his letter. ‘I’m afraid I cannot stay,’ he said agreeably. ‘My tutor is most insistent, Julia. But if the village is surly and your great friend Ralph Megson is of no use, I really think you should mention it to my papa. The estate can hardly work well without some discipline.’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s not that, Richard. It’s the way everything seems suddenly to have gone wrong for all of us. I think it’s as bad for Acre as it is for us.’
Richard made a little grimace. ‘They’re a surly mob,’ he said. ‘And your great friend Ralph Megson is as big a villain as any of them. I tell you, Julia, you’ll get neither work nor respect out of them until you bring in the parish roundsman, and have them working at parish rates. It’s what I’d do. And if they didn’t work then, I’d bring in Irish labourers and have the whole crew of them thrown out of their houses and on to the parish,’ he said with a smile.
‘I know you’re joking, Richard,’ I said uncertainly. ‘But don’t. Acre is such a sad village these days.’
Richard shrugged. ‘So?’ he said. ‘They’ll get over it. All estates have their ups and downs. If it would mean anything to you, I’ll take the occasional Friday off and come home for the weekend. I’ll take Saint Monday too!’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I should like that. I will be lonely here . . .’ Without Clary, I thought. But I did not say it.
‘I’ll promise it to you, then,’ he said pleasantly. And he pushed his chair back and went towards the door. ‘Oh, Julia…’ he said from the doorway, seeming suddenly to think of it, ‘you will not hear from Mr Fortescue again.’
‘Mr Fortescue?’ I said blankly. ‘James Fortescue?’
‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘I have returned the letters he sent you and informed him that the engagement, if you called it that, is at an end.’
‘You saw him?’ I asked blankly.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Richard. ‘At the start he would not take my word for it and he wanted to pester you himself. But when I told him that we were betrothed and that I was empowered to return his letters, he accepted your apologies. He sent you his best wishes.’
For a moment I said nothing. I could not absorb what Richard was saying. ‘James?’ I said uncertainly.
‘He wrote to you three days ago,’ Richard said. ‘As I was up early, I took the liberty of opening it for you. I did not want him upsetting you again. It was a brief note, just returning your letters to him, and telling you he is going abroad again. He does travel a lot, doesn’t he? I suppose it is for his father’s business. They are tradesmen, shopkeepers or something, are they not?’
‘He wrote to me?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘Oh, but it is too late for you to reply. He had no forwarding address. I suppose he goes scurrying around from shop to shop. He left today. He said he would be away for about six months.’
My mind was whirling. I forgot that James would have been within his rights to set aside our betrothal as soon as I told him of my shame. I could only think of him and our time together in Bath, his easy smile and his warm eyes, his fidelity to the children of Acre, his tenderness to my mama. And that time in the glove shop when he had sat with his arms folded and taught me to be a Lacey squire before the most fashionable modiste in the town.
‘James,’ I said. It was as though I were summoning a ghost, not just his ghost, but also the ghost of the girl I had been when I rode like Beatrice, when I threw back my head and laughed, when I walked as if all the land around me for twenty miles in any direction was my own.
‘It was a pleasant flirtation, I dare say,’ Richard said coolly. ‘But it is ended now.’
‘James,’ I said again. Then my wits sharpened and I looked at Richard’s open cherubic face. ‘You met him,’ I accused. ‘When he was coming to meet me. You stopped him on the road.’
‘Of course,’ Richard said. He was smiling as at some amusing secret. ‘Of course I did, Julia. I met him with your letters in my pocket. You are such a silly little thing to try and hide them under the loose floorboard in your room. Surely you knew that it was the first place I would look. You have always hidden your treasures there, ever since we were little children. As soon as I saw them there, I knew that they were not really hidden at all. You wanted me to find them. So I took them, and read them, and gave them back to him, as a gentleman would do.’
‘You took his letters,’ I said. There was an anger building inside me, I could taste the heat of it on my tongue. ‘You had no right to take them.’
‘No right?’ Richard said. ‘No right?’ He shut the dining-room door with a sharp snap and strode back into the room and grabbed me by the upper arms, pulling me up to my feet. He stared down into my face, his colour rising with his temper.
‘You dare tell me I have no right!’ he exclaimed. ‘When you went to Bath betrothed to me and flirted like a coquette with a shopman! Have you forgotten what you wrote in your ridiculous little journal – oh, yes! I read that too! I knew you wanted me to read it. You wrote it just to make me jealous. You wrote it so that I would know how improperly you had behaved. I read it and it made me sick. You made me feel physically sick, thinking of you holding hands with him, and kissing him and promising him your share of Wideacre and then coming home and kissing me in front of all of Acre in the middle of a ploughing field, like the village slut you are! That I have no right, when I found you in the sunshine and you lay on your back and spread your legs and smiled at me!’
My throat was tightening. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I said unsteadily.