Wideacre Read online

  I noted his tact in not referring to my health and I saw also, for the first time, what an attractive man he was. The other girls — the Havering sisters and Celia’s two other bridesmaids — were watching him like sparrowhawks out of the corner of their eyes, and I turned my head to smile at them and rub their silly noses in their simpering vanity.

  ‘Will you be away very long, Miss Lacey?’ he asked in his gentle Scots voice.

  ‘Just till Christmas,’ I said. ‘I could not bear to be away from home at Christmas and Harry and I both want to be back in plenty of time for the spring sowing.’

  ‘I hear you are a keen agronomist?’ He said it without a hint of the patronizing amusement I was used to from neighbours whose lands yielded half the profits of ours and yet thought my interest unbecoming.

  ‘I am,’ I said. ‘My papa reared me to take an interest in our land and I love Wideacre and am glad to learn all I can about it.’

  ‘It is a fine thing to have such a lovely home,’ he said. ‘I have not the advantage of a country seat. My family has always bought and sold property so frequently I never had a chance to put down roots.’

  ‘You are an Edinburgh family?’ I asked with interest.

  ‘My father owns the MacAndrew Line,’ he said diffidently. At once, pieces of information slipped into my head like the solution to a puzzle. His presence in the Haverings’ house was explained at once. The MacAndrew Line was a highly successful line of trading ships plying from London, Scotland and India. This young doctor came from a family of fabulous wealth. Lady Havering would be swift to overlook his unusual profession in return for a chance at one of the greatest fortunes in Britain. She would have already earmarked him for one of the girls, and Lord Havering would already have tried to persuade the young doctor to invest in some sure enterprise that his lordship could set in motion if he only had the advantage of a few of the MacAndrew thousands.

  ‘I am surprised he could spare you so far from home,’ I said.

  Dr MacAndrew laughed shortly. ‘I’m afraid he was unhappy when I left the family home and the family business,’ he said. ‘He wanted very much for me to work with him, but I have two older brothers and a younger one as well who will do that. I set my heart on medicine ever since I was a young boy and despite my father’s objections I managed to get my training at the university.’

  ‘I should not like to have much to do with sick people,’ I said, speaking without reserve to this gentle young man with the warm eyes. ‘I don’t have the patience.’

  ‘No, why should you?’ he said sympathetically. ‘I should like everyone in the world to be as fit and as strong as you. When I have seen you galloping your horse up to the downs, I have laughed with sheer pleasure at such a brilliant sight. You would not fit in a sickroom, Miss Lacey. I would always prefer to see such youth and loveliness in the open air.’

  I was flattered. ‘You should not have seen me galloping at all,’ I said demurely. ‘I was not supposed to go off the estate while we were in mourning, and I should never gallop in public. But when one has a good horse, and the wind is blowing just softly, I cannot bear not to.’

  He smiled at my enthusiasm and fell to talking of horses. I had noticed, even in the period of my illness, that he had a good eye for a horse. The bays that pulled his curricle were a splendid pair: high-stepping, arch-necked, ruddy-bronze.

  I had even wondered idly where a young doctor found the money to buy such beauties, but now he had explained that. I told him about the first pony Papa bought me, and he told me of his first hunting dog, and I forgot that half the eyes of the room were on us.

  ‘Beatrice, dear …’ my mother said hesitantly. I glanced up to see Lady Havering bearing down upon us. She swept Dr MacAndrew off like a competent hostess, to meet some of the other guests, and my mama reminded me that I must take Celia upstairs and help her change out of her wedding gown for the journey.

  The extent of my help was gazing dreamily out of the window while Celia’s maid bustled about, and making sure that my own cloak and bonnet were smooth and straight. I was miserable at leaving Wideacre. I could hardly bear to leave the familiar sight of the hills with the trees just starting to turn colour, and there were tears in my eyes as I kissed Mama goodbye and jumped into the carriage. She, silly dear, took them for herself, and kissed me warmly and blessed me. In the crowd of people around the post-chaise, kissing Celia’s hand and calling out reminders and good wishes, I looked for Dr MacAndrew. He was standing at the back of the crowd and his eyes met mine. There was a little warm smile in them, especially for me, and I felt suddenly still. In the noise of the crowd I could not hear what he said, but his lips formed three words, ‘Come back soon.’

  I sat back in the chaise with a smile on my face and a certain warmth around me as we drove off on honeymoon.

  8

  The wedding night was all that Harry and I had planned, with the added excitement for me of deceiving Celia who was sleeping next door. Harry had to hold his hand over my mouth to smother my cries of pleasure, and that hint of his violence and my helplessness excited us even more. When his own time came he had to thrust his face into the soft pillows to muffle his long, low groans. Afterwards we lay in silence and peace and I did not trouble to creep back to my own room.

  The Golden Fleece at Portsmouth is near the harbour walls and as we drifted into sleep I could hear the wash of the sea as the waves smacked the fortifications. The smell of the salt air made me feel that we were already on our journey and Wideacre hopes and Wideacre fears were far away from us. Harry sighed heavily and turned over, but I lay quiet in the strange room savouring the distance from home — while secure in the awareness that I had made it more my home than ever before. Unconsciously, my thoughts drifted to Ralph — the old Ralph of my girlhood — and his longing to lie with me between sheets in a clean bed. He was right to envy us. Land, and the wealth that land brings, is essential.

  I lay on my back gazing clear-eyed into the darkness, listening to the waves wash against the harbour wall as if they were sighing for the touch of the land. I had Harry now, and next door Celia slept, secure in my friendship. The old nagging ache in my heart, my fear of not belonging, of not being loved, had eased. I was loved. My brother, the Squire, adored me and would come to me at the snap of my fingers. I was safe on the land. He owned the land outright and would do my bidding. But I gazed unseeing at the grey ceiling of the bedroom and knew it was not enough. I needed something beyond him, something more. I needed whatever magic had possessed him when he brought in the harvest like a living sheaf of corn himself, golden-headed, golden-skinned, tall on the mountain of wheat. When I had stepped out of the shadow of the barn I had greeted not only the man I desired but somehow something more: I greeted the god of the harvest, and when he gazed at me he saw the old dark goddess of the earth’s green fertility. When he became a man in a nightshirt, snoring softly, I lost that vision and I lost my passion too.

  Of course I thought of Ralph. In all our meetings and kisses in the sunny days of caresses in hiding, the magic never left Ralph. He was always something dark from the woods. He always breathed of the magic of Wideacre. But Harry, as he said himself, could live anywhere.

  I rolled on my side and cupped my body around Harry’s plump bottom ready for sleep. I could never have managed Ralph as I could control Harry. I could never have brooked a master, but I could not help a secret squirm of disdain for a man I could train as easily as a puppy. Every good rider likes a well-trained horse. But who does not enjoy the challenge of an animal whose spirit you cannot break? Harry always was, always would be, a domesticated pet. And I was something from further back, from wild days when magic still walked in the Wideacre woods. I smiled at the picture of myself as some lean, rare, green-eyed animal. Then I dozed. And then I slid deep, deep into sleep.

  The bustle of the hotel woke me in plenty of time to slip through the adjoining door to my bedroom long before my maid had brought my morning cup of chocolate and hot water for