The Favoured Child (63 page)

‘That is really a question for the examining Justice,’ Richard said easily. ‘You should ask Lord Havering, sir. It was his examination and deposition. I was just there because I reported the crime to him and told him that I thought there was a case against Matthew Merry if he chose to examine it. I had no other role to play in the matter.’

I said nothing. I was watching Ralph. His eyes were narrowed and he was staring at Richard. ‘You’re your mother’s child, all right,’ he said. Uncle John looked at him, and they exchanged a hard level gaze.

‘I’d like to stay if I can,’ Ralph said abruptly. ‘May I have a day to think it over, and also to go into Chichester to see what can be done for Matthew?’

Uncle John nodded. ‘I should like you to stay if we can agree, Mr Megson,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave the decision for a day and a night, if you please. We were both heated and I should hate to lose you because of hasty words of mine said in anger.’

Ralph’s shoulders slumped, and he gave John one of his slow honest smiles, ‘You’re a good man,’ he said, surprisingly. ‘I wish we were all clear of this coil.’ One swift hard look at Richard made it clear that he blamed Richard for all that had come about.

I looked from one to the other and I could not tell where my loyalty should lie.

Ralph nodded again. ‘There’ll be no work done today,’ he said, businesslike. ‘The carpenter is making her coffin and they’re digging her grave. She’ll be buried this afternoon at two o’clock, if you wish to attend. Tomorrow they’ll go back to work. They don’t want to keep the maying feast with the prettiest girl in the village dead and the sweetest lad in the village under wrongful arrest. It has all gone wrong for Acre this year.’

Uncle John said, ‘Yes’ softly, his head down. That last sentence seemed to toil in my head like the echo of a church bell which sounds on and on long after the ringers have stood still. It seemed I had heard it before. Then I saw John’s stricken face and guessed that someone had said it to Beatrice when she wrecked Acre, and that he was afraid that the Laceys were wrecking Acre again.

Ralph swung out of the room without another word and we heard his wooden legs clump across the polished floor of the hali I went weakly into the chair by the fireplace and sank down, my head in my hands, the tears spilling over, helpless.

My mama went to John. ‘Don’t look so desperate,’ she said. ‘It will all come right. We cannot help poor Clary, but you and I can go to Chichester, as well as Mr Megson. If Matthew denies his guilt today, now he has had time to think, then perhaps Richard and Lord Havering may find they were mistaken. Certainly the quarter sessions are not for months yet, so there is plenty of time to set things right if a mistake has been made.’

Uncle John’s head come up at that and suddenly I could see how aged and tired he looked. ‘Yes,’ he said. Then, more
strongly, ‘Yes, Celia, you are right. Nothing is beyond our control. Events have moved very swiftly, but no final decision has been made. We can perfectly well see Matthew in prison, and if he tells a different story, then we can resolve the problem.’

We all looked towards Richard. One might have thought that he would fire up at this challenge to his judgement, but he was smiling and his eyes were the clearest of blues. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘whatever you wish.’

Something in his voice made me put my head in my hands and weep and weep.

Mama and John never spoke to Matthew. As they were getting in the carriage to go to Chichester to see him, a message came over from Havering Hall. The prison authorities had sent to Lord Havering to tell him that his prisoner, Matthew Merry, had been found hanged in his cell that morning. He had hanged himself with his belt. They had cut him down as they brought him slops in the morning, but he was already cold.

A bad business
, Lord Havering wrote in his aristocratic, illegible scrawl,
but saving the cost of the hangman, for the wretch was undoubtedly guilty
.

John, Mama and I sat in silence, and I had a feeling – a bad feeling, and the first time I had known it – that things were going wrong, seriously wrong, and I could not hold them or control them.

‘Does this point to his guilt?’ Uncle John asked himself softly, and then he said, ‘No’, without waiting for a word from me. ‘This is bad news for Acre,’ he said more clearly. But I could see it cost him an effort to speak so calmly. As for me, I had my good hand clenched to stop it shaking.

‘How should we tell them?’ he asked.

Mama took a breath. ‘I will, if you wish,’ she said. ‘I was planning to go to Clary’s funeral. I could speak to them afterwards. But I shall go down now, and tell Mrs Merry.’

Uncle John nodded. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

So instead of driving to Chichester to see if young Matthew
could be shown to be innocent and bailed, they drove to Acre to find his grandmama and tell her that the only child left to her was dead. A shameful death, and by his own hand.

That was the end of the May holiday and the end of the plans to dance on the green and feast and drink and make merry. The next day everyone was back to work and, although there was much to be done and the lambs were growing and the cows in calf, there was little joy for anyone in Acre.

There was little joy in the Dower House. Uncle John had grown quiet and thoughtful and spent the next few days alone in the library, reading and writing. Mama returned to the schoolroom in the village, but more out of a sense of duty than enthusiasm. She had appointed a Midhurst girl as a temporary teacher while we had been in Bath, and she spoke to John about giving the woman a cottage in Acre and handing the school over to her entirely. It was a sensible decision, but it gave us all the feeling that a gulf was opening between Acre and the Laceys.

Only Richard was contented. He took Prince out on errands for Mama and for John, and he checked the stock, the cows and sheep, from the far side of their gates without mishap.

And I? I was in a frenzy of anxiety. I was waiting for James. When Clary’s funeral was over, I stopped Jimmy Dart at the gate of the church and asked him to seek out James at his father’s offices in London. I had a gold coin inside my glove and I gave him it for the coach fare.

‘Tell him not to come to the Dower House,’ I said quietly. Richard was helping Mama into the carriage and had his back to me. ‘Tell him I want to see him privately. I will meet him in Midhurst, in the private room at the Spread Eagle Inn. Tell him I will be there, on Tuesday, at ten o’clock.’

‘Spread Eagle, Tuesday, ten o’clock,’ said Jimmy promptly. ‘I won’t fail you, Miss Julia. And neither will Mr James, I’ll be bound.’

I looked at him quickly, and blinked away the haze of sudden tears. ‘Do you think so, Jimmy?’ I asked.

Jimmy looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, Miss Julia,’ he said. ‘Anyone could see!’

I glanced again towards the carriage. Richard was waiting for me, smiling his bright secretive smile. ‘I must go,’ I said quickly. ‘You’ll catch the early stage?’

‘I’ll be in London by noon,’ Jimmy promised. ‘And I’ll find him wherever he is.’

I gave him a little smile and then turned for the carriage.

Then I waited. I waited, and worried.

James had thought that his own unchastity was wrong. Wrong, but forgivable. I was gambling all that I had on one thought, that he loved me enough to forgive me one terrible error, just as I had loved him enough to forgive him. But it was a big gamble. It was everything I wanted.

I was no angel! The thought of saying nothing at all and marrying him as if I were an untouched bride went through my mind. But truly, I think it went through my mind only once. During those waiting days I knew for certain that I only wanted to marry James with honesty and honour between us.

But I did not know how much I dared to tell him. I picked it over, like a woman picking lice out of old rags. I could tell him I had been forced. But I must also tell him that I lay on my back and smiled. I scorched with shame at that memory, and I knew I could never tell him of it. Or anyone. I could tell him it was rape, but he would want to know if I knew the criminal. But I could not tell him it was Richard. I was as fixed on that point as I had been the very afternoon when the lie of a fall from a horse was first told. But if I told him of the rape and said I did not know the man, I should have to invent a whole string of tales about how and where it happened. And why I had not told my mama.

I seemed to have no solutions, no solutions at all, just more and more problems until I started the round again of thinking that I could certainly tell him I had been forced.

On Monday night I did not sleep. At midnight I wrapped my blanket around me and sat in my window-seat and watched the moon travel across a cloudless silvery sky. The circular nagging
worry went around and around in my head until I leaned back against my shutter and closed my eyes against the glare of the moon and the drumming of my fear that I would lose James, that I did not know how to hold him. I did not know the words which would make him forgive me. He was the only man I had ever loved, would ever love. And I did not know where to begin to keep his love.

I slept then, cramped on the window-seat, my head against the shutter. I awoke at dawn, chilly and stiff for my pains. I could not sleep again, but put on my grey riding habit in the half-light and washed my face in the cold water in my ewer, and sat in my window-seat again and listened to the birds starting to sing.

At six o’clock I thought I might go down to the stables and saddle Misty. I wanted to avoid my mama and Uncle John this morning. Most of all I wanted to escape the notice of Richard. I was in real fear of meeting Richard this morning, and I was longing for James.

I was awkward, saddling Misty with one hand. But she whinnied when I gave her a carrot from my pocket, and that summoned Jem in his dirty flannels from the stables.

‘You can’t ride one-handed,’ he said, scandalized.

‘You know Misty is as gentle as anything. I can manage her, if you would just get the saddle on for me, Jem.’

‘And where d’you think you’re going?’ he demanded truculently.

I looked at him, irresolute, and then my lower lip trembled and I told him the truth. ‘I have to meet James Fortescue,’ I said baldly. ‘We may have to call off the wedding. I have to go and see him this morning, Jem. Please help me.’

His brown face at once creased into tenderness. ‘Your fine young man, Miss Julia?’ he asked tenderly. ‘I’ll drive you there in the carriage, of course.’

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘No. I don’t want Mama or Uncle John to know. Nor Richard. Not anyone. Just get Misty ready for me and tell them I wanted an early ride, and that I could handle her.
Please
, Jem.’

He paused. ‘Take her carefully, then,’ he said. ‘I can’t think how you came to fall the last time.’

‘I misjudged a jump,’ I said. ‘She didn’t throw me. Please put the saddle on her, Jem. I am so afraid of being late.’

He took it from the stable door and swung it on her back, and then slid her bridle on. He led her into the yard and put both hands on my waist to lift me up into the saddle.

‘Go easy now,’ he said again. ‘What time do you have to be in Midhurst?’

‘At ten,’ I said.

Jem looked at me incredulously. ‘Miss Julia, come down and get some breakfast. You don’t need to leave for three hours yet!’

I smiled ruefully. I think it was the first time I had smiled all week since May morning. ‘I can’t eat!’ I said. ‘And I couldn’t sleep either. I thought I’d ride over the common for a while and then down to Midhurst that way.’

Jem smiled at me. ‘Good luck, then, Miss Julia. A man would be a fool to let a maid like you go, and your Mr Fortescue knows it. Good luck. I’ll tell them you’re riding and won’t be back till noon.’

I gathered the reins in my one good hand, and Misty moved delicately out of the yard, loud on the cobbles, but silent on the grass outside the bedroom windows. Then I trotted her up the drive and turned right to go to the common to ride away the hours before I needed to turn her head towards Midhurst.

I was still too early, even after riding in a great sweep from our common land over to Ambersham. I was still too early by half an hour. But I was thirsty now, so I handed her to the ostler and went in by the stable door.

They knew us in Midhurst and greeted me by name. I said that I was meeting a friend from London and that I should like coffee in their private parlour while I waited. The landlord showed me in and lit the fire in the grate, though the room was warm. I sat in the window-seat and sipped from my cup.

It was a pretty room, overlooking a little patch of garden at the back which was bright with Maytime flowers. I would rather
have been in the taproom, which had a view over the stable yard. But, though I could not see James’s arrival, I knew he would be here soon. I waited.

The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. It seemed to be very slow. I checked it against my own little watch, which John had bought me, a tiny copy of his own on a chain like his. The clock was slow, by a couple of minutes. I put a finger under the minute-hand and pushed it up a little. Then I thought of advancing the time by half an hour and pretending to be angry with James for being late. But then, with a great swoop of apprehension, I remembered that we might not be on jesting terms. I went back to my seat and sat down, and waited.

I heard the clatter of the stage from the yard; the ten o’clock coach had arrived from Chichester. I knew at once it could not be James. The noise of the stage with the passengers bawling for drinks and food was unmistakable. I checked the clock and my watch. The stage was a little early, for it was not ten o’clock yet. James could come within the next three or four minutes and still be on time.

I wished I had brought a book, or something to distract me from the slow movements of the hands of the clock. It seemed to time my thoughts as they went around to its rhythm. Tick…I shall tell him I am dishonoured. Tock…I shall tell him I was unwilling. Tick…I shall refuse to name the man. Tock . . . that will make him very angry. Tick…if he is angry, he may not believe I was unwilling. Tock…I was not completely unwilling, not at first. Tick . . . no! I was unwilling as soon as I knew it was Richard. Tock…I must remember not to say Richard’s name. Tick . . . whatever happens, I must not say Richard’s name.