Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  ‘You are right to blame me,’ he said softly. ‘I have failed you, and I have failed the woman I love. I know the grief you are feeling because I also loved a woman and I did not keep her safe.’

  I looked up a little.

  ‘It was your mother,’ he said. ‘Her name was Julia Lacey and she was the bravest, funniest, most beautiful girl I ever met.’ He paused for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Those were the things that I loved most about her. She was very brave, and she used to tease me all the time and make me laugh, and she was very very lovely.’

  He took a little breath. ‘You are very like her,’ he said. ‘Though she was fair and your hair is copper. Her eyes were set aslant like yours, and her face was shaped like a flower, like yours is; and her hair curled like yours does.’

  He paused for a moment. ‘She was forced into marrying her cousin, your father, and he destroyed the plans she had made with the village,’ he said. ‘She wanted to send you away, off the land, so that you would be safe. And she wanted to end the line of the squires here so that people could make their own lives in their own ways.’

  ‘I’ve dreamed it,’ I offered. He turned quickly to look at me, as we squatted side by side on my bedroom floor, a foolish sight if there had been anyone there to see.

  ‘Dreamed?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I used to dream of Wide, of here. And often I dreamed I was a woman going out in the rain to drown her baby. Then she saw the gypsies and gave them the baby instead. She called after the wagon as it went away,’ I said. ‘She called after the baby. She said, “Her name is Sarah”.’

  James Fortescue rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

  ‘I posted advertisements in all the local papers, I employed men to search for you,’ he said. ‘And I have gone on doing that, Sarah. Every year I changed the advertisements to show your right age and appealed for anyone who knew you to contact me. I offered a reward as well.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s too late now,’ I said bitterly.

  He got to his feet slowly, as if he were very weary.

  ‘It is not too late,’ he said. ‘You are young and you are the heir to a fine estate. There is a fine future ahead of you and I will find ways to make up to you for the pains and sadnesses of your childhood, I promise it.’

  I nodded, too sick at heart to argue with him.

  ‘You are home now,’ he said warmly. ‘Home on Wideacre; and I will love you like the father you never had, and you will be happy here in time.’

  I looked at him and my face was as hard as every street-fighting hungry little wretch which has ever had to beg for food and duck a blow.

  ‘You’re not my father,’ I said. ‘He sounds like a real bad ‘un. You’re not my mother either. I had a woman I called Ma; and now you tell me I don’t have her either. I had a sister too…’ My voice was going, I swallowed hard on a dry throat. ‘I had a sister and now you tell me I never even had her. You’re no kin to me, and I don’t want your love. It’s too late for me.’

  He waited for a moment longer, but when I said nothing more he gently touched the top of my head, as you would carefully pat a sick dog. Then he went out of the room and left me alone.

  19

  I had thought it would be awkward speaking to James Fortescue again but I had not understood Quality manners. It seemed that if you were Quality, someone could rage and shriek at you and you could be deaf to their anger and their sorrow. Quality manners mean you only hear what suits you. Becky Miles called me to come down to drink a dish of tea with Mr Fortescue in the afternoon and he was in the parlour waiting for me, as if I had never sworn at him and screamed at him and blamed him for failing me.

  Becky poured the tea for us both and handed me a cup. I kept a wary eye on James Fortescue and saw that he did not hold the plate under the cup and drink like that. He held them separately, one hand on each. I did not dare take a plate with a little cake on it as well. I did not think I could balance them all.

  When he had finished, and Becky had cleared away he asked me to come with him to the dining room.

  He had spread out a map on the dining-room table.

  ‘I can’t read,’ I said again.

  He nodded. ‘I know that, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I can explain this to you. It’s a map of Wideacre, of the Wideacre estate.’

  I stepped a little closer and saw it was a picture of land, like you would see if you were a buzzard, circling high above it.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Wideacre is like a little bowl with the Downs on the south and west, and the Common to the north.’ His hand went a great sweep around the map and I saw the land was coloured green and brown.

  ‘Here we run a mixed farm,’ he said. ‘Much more fruit and vegetables than our neighbours because we have a skilled workforce who see the benefits of good profits. But we also farm sheep for their wool and meat, and a dairy herd.’

  I nodded.

  ‘We grow our own fodder for the animals,’ he said. ‘As well as a lot of wheat which we sell locally and in the London market for bread.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘It’s a most lovely country,’ he said, warmth creeping into his voice. ‘Here is Wideacre Hall, set in the middle of the parkland, d’you see Sarah? At the back of it is the Common: that’s free of fields for people to use for their own animals’ grazing, and for walking and gathering firewood or brushwood, taking small game and putting out hives. It’s bracken and gorse, some small pine trees, and in the valleys some beeches and oak trees and little streams.

  ‘Over here,’ he brushed the area south of the house, at the front, ‘here is the ornamental garden you see from the front window, a little rose garden, and a paddock. Then there is the woodland which stretches along the drive and right up to the road. There are some fields new planted here; but we’ve mostly kept it as a wood. This is your property, your mother wanted the parkland kept with the Hall. She played here when she was a little girl, by the side of the Fenny which runs through these woods, in the little pools and streams. She learned to tickle for trout, and she learned to swim with one of the village girls. In spring the woods are full of wild daffodils and bluebells. In summer there are little glades which are thick with purple and white violets.

  ‘Your boundary to the west is the Havering land.’ He pointed to a dotted line drawn on the map. ‘This map doesn’t show Havering Hall. It’s empty most of the year, the Havering family lives in London. They are distant kin to you,’ he said, ‘but they are only here in summer.’

  ‘Is this the village?’ I asked, pointing to a mess of little squares on the map on the right-hand side.

  ‘Yes,’ James Fortescue said. ‘If you come out of Wideacre Hall drive and turn right you go along the lane to the Chichester road, see? But if you go out of the drive and turn left you go down to Acre village.

  ‘Most of it is along the main street. The church is here,’ he pointed. ‘It was struck by lightning and has a new spire. The cottages on this side of the street were damaged in the same storm and some of them are new. But those on the other side of the street are older. In need of repair, too. Opposite the church is the vicarage – you’ll find the vicar, Dr Reed, does not wholly approve of the way Acre runs itself! And there are cottages down these lanes towards the common land. Then there are squatter houses, where people have come to make their homes but have not properly built yet.’

  I nodded. I knew about squatters’ rights. It was one of the reasons the parish wardens always moved Da on. They were always in a terror that he would claim that he had been there long enough to be a member of the parish and claim parish relief.

  ‘Don’t you move them on?’ I asked shrewdly.

  James shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We give them a chance to work and they can either take a wage – not a very big one – or take a share in the profits of the estate. If they plan to stay then they join the corporation. We don’t have so many people that we cannot afford to take them on.’