The Favoured Child Read online

  Ralph smiled. ‘Acre people never forget their friends,’ he said, and I heard a message to me in that. ‘We’ve long memories in this part of the world.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Uncle John said. ‘It will be easier to set the estate to rights if they feel they are working for someone they trust.’ He hesitated. ‘I expected you to organize the distribution of food, not to set in train a village revel.’

  Ralph Megson threw back his dark head and laughed. ‘I know you did, Dr MacAndrew,’ he said jovially. ‘But there are some things you must leave to me. I’ll not tell you how to doctor, don’t you tell me how to bring Acre alive again. It is not money they want. It is not even food. They have been hungering all this time for a little joy in their lives – you’d know that feeling yourself, I dare say. Setting the village to rights is a lifetime’s work which we can start as soon as we have properly understood the problems. Giving them a bit of hope is something which can begin at once.’

  Uncle John hesitated, but then he looked at the village street alive with chatter and laughter. ‘It’s not what I had planned,’ he said slowly, ‘but I can see you may be in the right.’

  Ralph Megson nodded. ‘You can trust me,’ he said simply. ‘I am serving Acre’s interests, not yours. But while your wishes and Acre’s run in harness, you can trust me.’

  Uncle John nodded, and a smile went between the two of them. ‘We’ll leave you now,’ Uncle John said. ‘Perhaps you’ll come to the Dower House after your dinner?’

  Ralph nodded and Uncle John turned to leave. He stopped for a word with Miller Green, and Ralph said to me in an undertone, ‘That was well done, Miss Julia. Well done indeed.’

  I shot a quick glance at his face and caught a warm smile that made me drop my gaze to my boots, white with drying chalk mud. I should not have told a lie and I should not have been praised for it. So I said nothing and he stood beside me in a silence which was not awkward, but was somehow delightful. I would have stood beside that man, even in silence, all day.

  ‘Mr Megson,’ I said tentatively.

  ‘Yes, Miss Julia,’ he said, his voice amused.

  ‘Why are you a hero to Acre, Mr Megson?’ I risked a quick glance up at his face and found his dark eyes dancing with mischief.

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘I would have thought that you would have known. Knowing everyone in Acre as you do – and they say you have the sight as well! Do you not know without my telling you, Miss Julia?’

  I shook my head, a wary eye on Uncle John, who was still deep in conversation.

  ‘I would have thought you would have known at once,’ he said sweetly. ‘I was told you had the sight.’

  I shook my head again.

  ‘Whose voice was it when you first saw me?’ he demanded abruptly.

  My eyes flew to his face and I shook my head. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. His eyes narrowed as he noted the lie I was telling, and I flushed scarlet that he should catch me in a deceit. ‘I am sorry, I do know,’ I amended lamely. ‘But it sounds so silly…and I did not want to say.’

  He gave a crack of laughter which made Uncle John turn and smile at the two of us. Ralph’s broad shoulders were shaking and his eyes danced. ‘No reason in the world why you should answer my question, and no reason why you should tell me the truth if you do not choose to,’ he said fairly. ‘But I’ll answer yours for free and for nothing.’

  He looked at me closely, taking my measure, and then he beamed at me as if he were telling me the lightest most inconsequential secret. ‘I was here the night of the fire,’ he said confidingly. ‘I led them up to the hall, to burn it down, and to murder Beatrice. I’m Ralph Megson, her lover from the old days, and her killer. In those days they called me the Culler.’

  My eyes flew to his face and I gasped aloud, but Ralph Megson’s confident easy smile never wavered. He turned away from me as if he had told me only the slightest of trivialities and then he went towards the head of the table where they were waiting for him to take his place.

  I stood where he had left me, in stunned silence. Uncle John had to speak to me twice and touch my elbow before I came out of my shock and was able to smile absently at him and start to walk home.

  Mr Megson watched me go. I could see his glance in our direction, and his casual, friendly wave to Uncle John. But I knew his eyes were on me. And that rueful almost apologetic smile was for me, and me alone. In the mist, with the weak sun trying to break through, I shuddered as if it were full night and I was caught in the cold rain of a thunderstorm.

  I knew that smile. I had seen it before. He smiled like that in the dream, though I had never seen his face. And I knew that the next time I dreamed it I would look up over the great horse’s shoulder and see Ralph Megson bending down to scoop me up to him and to knife me under the ribs as carefully and as tenderly as he might perform an act of love. And, though the girl in the bed in the grip of the nightmare would be screaming with fright, I knew that the woman in the dream was not afraid. I knew she would see Ralph’s smile as he came for her and she would be smiling too.

  6

  ‘So what is he like?’ asked Mama with polite interest. Stride was setting the decanter of port before Uncle John, but Mama and I were lingering with the informality of a happy family, with ratafia to drink and comfits to eat. ‘Your new manager,’ she said, ‘what is he like? Is he going to be of any use to you?’

  Uncle John was at the head of the table and he poured himself a glass of the tawny-coloured port. ‘I do indeed think so,’ he said. ‘In a London hotel room he was impressive, but in the Acre street he was magnificent! I think you will like him, Celia. He’s very much his own man. I would trust him entirely with money and with responsibility.’

  Mama smiled. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘for I am counting on having all three of you at home a good deal. If we have a proper manager on the land, then you, John, can concentrate on getting well and I can take Julia to Bath with a clear conscience.’

  ‘He was rude to me,’ Richard said abruptly. His head was turned away from his papa towards the foot of the table, to my mama, who always attended to his needs. ‘He knocked me with a sack of meal off the cart and into the road before all Acre.’

  Mama gasped and looked to John.

  ‘Forget it,’ John advised briefly. He raised his glass and looked at Richard over the rim. Richard turned at once to my mama again. ‘In front of all of Acre,’ he said.

  My mama opened her mouth to say something, but she hesitated.

  John leaned forward. ‘Forget it,’ he said, his voice stronger. ‘You and Mr Megson had some difference. No one in Acre even noticed. I have been down there and I asked specifically if there was any trouble. No one even saw.’

  I had to dip my head down to look at my hands clasped on my lap at that. No one ever saw anything in Acre which looked like trouble.

  ‘Ralph Megson is a man of the world and his judgement is good,’ Uncle John said gently. ‘He will not refer to whatever took place. I advise you to forget it, Richard. You will need to be on good terms with him.’

  Richard shot a swift burning look at his father, then he turned his shoulder towards him and addressed my mama. ‘I don’t like him,’ he said. ‘He insulted me and he should not work here if he cannot be civil.’

  Mama looked at Richard and her face was infinitely tender. ‘I know you are thinking of us,’ she said gently. Then her gaze slid away from his young cross face to Uncle John, calm at the head of the table. ‘Richard has had responsibilities beyond his years,’ she said, speaking to him directly. ‘He is only thinking of what would be the best for us.’

  John nodded. ‘It is a good sign that Richard is so responsible,’ he said kindly, ‘but I shall be the judge of this.’

  Mama nodded and smiled at Richard. He gave her one long level look, and I knew that he felt betrayed. Mama, who had relied so much on him, now had the man she loved at her side, and she would prefer his advice. She sipped at her glass. ‘Does he know enough about farming?’ she ask