The Favoured Child Read online

  I gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘I always liked Matthew. And I’ve always liked the way he treated you. But how will your mother manage without you?’

  Clary gave a little sigh, her head half turned from me so she could look out into the woods with the trees going past us, ghostly slow.

  ‘I’ll take the two older children to live with me, and Alice is going into service at Midhurst. So that’ll only leave Ma with Joe and the new baby.’

  I nodded. Clary had mothered her brothers and sisters for so long that I could not have imagined her leaving them. Hearing her talk like that made me feel more than simple pleasure at a friend’s happiness. I felt as I did when I saw the saplings going in, or when I saw the ditches newly dug or a ploughshare going into fallow ground. That Acre was coming right. Coming right for the land and for the people.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Clary abruptly. ‘Is it to be Richard for you?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s a secret,’ I warned her.

  ‘Pretty well known for a secret, then,’ she said with a smile. ‘Everyone in Acre has known you two would be married ever since you were born.’

  ‘They may know it in Acre,’ I said drily, ‘but if it gets back to Mama or Uncle John, I should be in trouble.’

  Clary shot a sideways glance at me. ‘Are they still against it?’ she asked. ‘Even now that there is money?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They’ve not changed on that.’

  ‘Maybe your ma thinks you could do better,’ Clary suggested tentatively.

  ‘There could hardly be a better match for the estate,’ I protested, but Clary shook her head.

  ‘Not for the estate, Julia,’ she said. ‘For you. Someone who would come to you fresh, who would love you, who would see you for yourself and not as part of his childhood and his fortune.’ Her voice was so low I could scarcely hear her. ‘Someone who would treat you tender,’ she said softly.

  We had reached her cottage gate and I checked the pony and sat very still in the twilight.

  ‘We can’t all have a Matthew,’ I said at length. ‘I love Richard and I don’t complain.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. And we were both silent.

  ‘Drat,’ she said in a quite different voice looking at the dark silhouette of her cottage. ‘The fire’s gone out again.’

  ‘I’ll come in and help,’ I offered.

  ‘Nay,’ she said kindly. ‘You’ve done a full day’s work too. I reckon you were working harder than any of us. You were up and down those rows twenty times measuring the distance.’

  ‘And then I got it wrong!’ I said.

  Clary laughed. ‘That was the funniest thing I ever did see,’ she said. ‘I thought Ted was going to choke.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, at least Acre’s got an apple tree out of it. Are you sure you don’t want me to come in?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘The sooner I start, the sooner I’ll get done.’ She got down from the gig, stiff with tiredness as if she were an old lady and not a lass of seventeen. ‘Eh,’ she said ruefully, ‘I shan’t be dancing tonight!’

  ‘Me neither,’ I agreed, and she turned up the path to her little cottage as I waved my whip at her in farewell and headed the pony for home.

  10

  ‘Julia! Julia! Julia! I say! Are you deaf!’ It was Uncle John’s voice, shouting up the stairs. I jumped from my bed and pattered across the floor to open the door. ‘What is it?’ I called down.

  ‘A surprise,’ he said. ‘Come down at once!’ I threw off my wrapper and pulled on my oldest gown, a muslin sprig, which had once been pink but was now pale as a lily with much washing. In obedience to Uncle John’s haste, I did not wait to dress my hair, but tied a ribbon around my head and let it tumble down my back as if I were still a little girl. Then I pulled on my sandals and scampered downstairs.

  The front door was wide open and Uncle John was on the doorstep.

  Beyond him was Ralph.

  Ralph was mounted high on a black horse, a new black horse, and I caught my breath at the sight of it. It was so like the horse in the dream when he rode up to the hall. I put my hand out to the door to steady myself and looked half fearfully up at Ralph. His face was smiling, warm. He knew what I was thinking and his smile said as clear as words, ‘Don’t be silly, Julia.’

  I nodded, and then took in something else. Ralph was leading another horse. A mare. Her coat was so pale that it seemed almost silver. Her eyes were deep, deep liquid black. Her mane and tail were as white as the surf on a winter sea, tumbling over.

  ‘Look at this!’ Uncle John said, delighted. ‘I told Mr Megson I was looking for a horse for you, and see what he has found us!’

  Ralph Megson smiled at me. ‘She’s a lady’s horse,’ he said. ‘She’s being sold by a farmer over by Rogate, whose daughter is giving up riding. He paid a handsome price for her and he’s asking an outrageous one. But I thought you should try her paces. I’ve seen her ridden and she’s a sweet goer indeed. I called in there yesterday, after the sheep auction.’

  ‘Wonderful looking,’ Uncle John said enthusiastically. ‘I had a grey once, Mr Megson, an Arab. That was a marvellous horse.’

  Ralph nodded. ‘They still talk of it in the village,’ he said courteously. ‘Sea Fern you called him, wasn’t it?’

  John smiled. ‘Fancy anyone remembering!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, he was Sea Fern, and as clean and bright a coat as this beauty.’

  I hardly heard either of them. I had floated down the steps in a complete daze. Over my head Uncle John and Ralph exchanged amused glances, and then John was beside me, saying gently, ‘I dare say you’d like to try her at once, Julia?’

  I nodded. The smooth grey head came down and nuzzled at my fingers, the lustrous eyes gazed at me. I went to her side and Uncle John threw me up in the saddle, as careless as I of my walking dress. I hooked one leg around the pommel and tried to pull my skirts down with little success. It was only the second time in my life I had ridden, and the first time in a lady’s saddle.

  ‘Take her out,’ Uncle John said to Mr Megson. ‘You’d like to try her, Julia?’

  ‘Yes,’ I breathed, quite speechless with delight at the feeling of the horse so warm and quiet beneath me.

  Ralph nodded and leaned over towards me to give me the reins. He showed me how to hold them – like driving – and they felt easy and natural between my bare fingers. Then he turned his horse’s head and my sweet grey mare fell into pace beside Ralph’s rangy black hunter as if she were a grey satin ribbon with a broad black shadow.

  ‘This is good,’ Ralph said abruptly as we went slowly down the lane. ‘It is good to be riding down this track with you beside me.’

  I said nothing. I scarcely heard him. I was completely absorbed in the rhythm of the horse’s pace and of the odd, and not very steady, feeling of riding side-saddle. ‘I’d rather ride astride,’ I said. ‘I feel so uneven.’

  ‘I should think you would!’ he said, chuckling. ‘But I can imagine your mama’s face if you asked her for breeches. And your Grandmama Havering’s!’

  I laughed too at that, and returned with a bump to the real world. I had heard such a sweet singing in my head as soon as I saw the mare. I had been in a dream.

  ‘Beatrice rode as well as any man, and she rode side-saddle,’ Ralph said consolingly. ‘I think ladies would be safer astride indeed, but the world we live in cares more for ladies’ looks and less for what they can do.’

  I considered that and nodded.

  ‘Let’s trot,’ Ralph said, and we did. I had some ungraceful lunges at the saddle to keep my balance, but then I found the rhythm and I could ride steady.

  ‘What is she called?’ I asked when Ralph had drawn rein and we were walking again.

  ‘Peggy,’ Ralph said. ‘I dare say that is not fancy enough for you!’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘but isn’t it bad luck to change a horse’s name?’

  Ralph gave a little laugh. ‘If you ride like Beatrice, you’l