Meridon Read online

  ‘Good day, Miss Sarah,’ she said.

  For a moment I did not smile. I did not reply. She had called me Miss Sarah. Miss. Not the only other handle to my name I had ever had – Mamselle Meridon the bareback rider – but Miss Sarah. As though I were gentry born and bred. As though it were natural to her to call me thus, and natural to me to respond to it.

  I nodded my head awkwardly at her.

  ‘This is Mrs Hodgett,’ Will Tyacke said. ‘She is a Midhurst woman who married the gate-keeper. The Hodgetts have always kept this gate.’

  I nodded again. ‘Good day,’ I said. I found I could smile my show smile, and I pinned it on my face. Then Will clicked to his horse, and Sea fell into pace beside it as we turned left down the drive to head towards the village of Acre.

  ‘Your village,’ he said half in jest. ‘In the old days, when Beatrice and Squire Harry ran the land, they owned outright every one of the cottages in the village, aye, and even the church and the parson’s house as well.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you still do,’ he said, surprised. ‘We’ve been without a squire for so long that we’ve forgot how the deeds run. Of course it would still be your village outright. The cottagers have not paid rent for years. Not since Squire Richard – your papa – was killed. Mr Fortescue excused all rents and fees so that we could launch the land-sharing scheme. All he withdraws for the Lacey estate is your share of the profits. We call the village Acre, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s a Saxon name, like mine. My family were here in this village long before the Le Says came over with the Conqueror and fought for it and won it from us.’

  ‘The who?’ I asked. I had never heard of the Le Says. Nor of the conqueror. I had a vague idea that it might be Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  Will looked at me in some surprise. ‘The Le Says were your family,’ he said. ‘They were French. Their name was changed later to Lacey.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Changing names was nothing new to me. Everyone in my world always changed their names when they were running from debts or from thief-takers.

  ‘They came with the Normans. When William the Conqueror invaded England,’ Will said.

  I kept my face blank and nodded. I was ashamed of knowing nothing.

  ‘They fought for the land?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh aye,’ Will said. ‘I can even show you where. It’s called Battle Field and the ploughboys still turn up human bones and bits of armour. Three days they fought – the village against the Le Says – and the battle only ended when everyone was dead.’

  ‘Then where d’you come from?’ I asked quickly.

  Will smiled. ‘Everyone was dead except one man from my family,’ he said. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes but his face was serious as if he were telling me the truth. ‘He was especially saved to found a dynasty of Tyackes. Saved from the field of battle because of his great skill.’

  ‘In fighting?’ I asked.

  ‘In running away!’ Will said and chuckled. ‘It’s old history, Sarah, nobody really knows. Anyway, the Laceys won the land from the people and they have kept it for themselves. Up until now. But the Tyackes have always lived here. And now it is my home.’

  I could hear the love and pride in his voice and we halted the horses so that I could see the place properly.

  It was a broad street, clean enough, with a few chickens scratching in the dust of the road. A line of cottages on the north side of the road had gardens bobbing with the fat green buds of daffodils and studded with primroses and dark purple crocuses. In one of them a young woman was sitting peeling potatoes in a bowl on her lap, a little child toddling towards her with a scrap of leaf in her hand, her face bright with discovery.

  The church stood at the end of the row. An old building with a spire of newer stone. Re-built, as James had said. On the other side of the road the cottages had yards on to the lane. There was a carter’s yard with a wagon being mended inside, a cobbler’s house facing the street with the cobbler cross-legged at his window, head bowed. A smithy, and a great shire horse tied outside waiting. A thatcher’s yard with piles of wood left to season and stocks of reeds under a thatch of straw to keep them dry. It looked what it was, a humming prosperous little village of some thirty houses.

  ‘Most of the people are out working,’ Will said. ‘I thought you’d rather take a glance at it now before everyone wants to meet you.’

  I looked down the street. The cobbler was watching us, but when he saw me look his way he waved a hand and bent his head to his last again as if he did not want to seem prying. The woman in the front garden raised her head and smiled but did not leave off her work.

  ‘I told them you’d come down and meet them all after church on Sunday,’ Will said. ‘I thought you’d want some time to look about you and gather your wits before you speak to everyone.’

  I nodded. The place made me angry, though I wouldn’t show it. The place was so solid. It seemed as if these people had been here, planted deep as trees for years. And I had been blowing like a burr looking for somewhere to catch on to, somewhere to root.

  ‘How many people?’ I asked.

  ‘With the small farmers who own their own fields and pay rent, and the squatters who live on the Common and claim squatters’ rights; it comes to about three hundred,’ he said watching my face with a little smile. ‘But you’ll rarely see them all together. Only a few of them come to church now they don’t have to. You’ll just walk up the aisle of the church to the Lacey pew so that everyone can get a good look at you, and when you come out I’ll make you known to the people you want to meet. The vicar will most likely invite you to Sunday dinner, so he’ll tell you about the village as well.’

  I nodded. Five new acquaintances would have terrified me, but walking up the aisle of a church and being stared at was just a performance like bareback riding. I thought if I had the right costume and a little training I could act it.

  Will saw the hardness in my face. ‘You need not do it, you know,’ he said gently. ‘If you have friends elsewhere that you would rather be with, or a life you would rather lead, you can just go away again. Mr Fortescue can arrange to send you your money. You need not live here if you do not wish it. The estate has run well in your absence, nothing need change unless you want to be here.’

  I looked down so that he should not see the flame of anger in my face at his suggestion that I might go elsewhere. I had nowhere else to go. I had longed for this place for all of my life. If I could not belong here then I was lost indeed. I no longer had her; if I lost Wide I would be a vagrant indeed.

  ‘Which is your house?’ I asked.

  He gestured at a lane which ran down to the right.

  ‘That’s mine,’ he said. ‘Set back off the main street, overlooking the watermeadow and the river. I came to live there with my aunt when my cousin Ted was hurt in a ploughing accident, three years ago. She needed help with him. When he died I stayed on. That’s how I come to be in charge here though I’m young for the job. Ted was foreman for the village, and they decided I could take over early. The Tyackes have always been an important family in the village. They’ve a stone in the church wall which is the oldest in the church.’

  I nooded. I could see the chimney and the stone-tiled roof. It looked like the best cottage in the village. Only the vicarage was bigger.

  ‘Where were you before?’ I asked.

  Will smiled. ‘Not far,’ he said. ‘Just down the road on the Goodwood estate. I was working in the bailiff’s office there, so I was used to farming and keeping the books too.’

  ‘Married?’ I asked.

  Will flushed a little. ‘Nay,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m not courting either. I had a lass but she wouldn’t stay in the village. She wanted to go into service and me go with her. I’m handy with horses and she wanted me to try for a job as coachman with the Haverings. I wouldn’t leave Acre. I’d not leave Acre for any lass, however bonny. So she went without me. That was last summer. I’ve had no one serious since then.

  ‘We go this w