Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  ‘Now!’ he said. ‘I’ll guarantee to win a race against that racehorse of yours on this going!’

  I looked down at the path under the horses’ hooves. It was deep sand, dusty on top and thick. Very heavy going. A horse would have to have strong legs and sound wind to gallop far and fast on that.

  ‘A wager?’ I asked.

  Will laughed. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I bet you a side-saddle (for I’ve found it already but it’ll have to be repaired for you) against,’ he paused – ‘now, what do I want?’

  His eyes twinkled at me. I found I was smiling back.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what you want.’

  His eyes were suddenly a little darker. ‘If you were an ordinary girl,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I’d ride a race against you for a kiss. That’s what I want from you!’

  There was a silence between us for a moment which was no longer playful, and I was not smiling.

  I was about to say: ‘But I am not an ordinary girl…’ when Will interrupted me before I could speak.

  ‘But since you’re not an ordinary girl,’ he said. ‘I don’t want a kiss from you at all. I’ll ask instead that you let me read you a pamphlet on corporations and corporation farming.’

  I choked on a laugh. Will was a rogue and a cheat – I suddenly thought how Dandy would have loved him and the familiar pain thudded into my belly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked quickly as he saw my face fall. ‘What’s the matter, Sarah? It’s only a jest.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said. I struggled to find my show smile which can go on my face and hide everything, meaning nothing. ‘It’s nothing. A little pain in my belly.’

  His face was very gentle. He went to put a hand out to me but then he checked himself as he remembered that I did not like to be touched.

  ‘Well enough to ride?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh aye,’ I said, reining Sea in. ‘It’ll pass. And the bet’s on!’

  He said, ‘One two three and away!’ and I gave Sea his head.

  The race track was a wide white sand firebreak which wound for miles across the Common. I was in the lead as we broke out of the trees but the horses were neck and neck as we forged up towards a steady slope.

  Sea was panting, he hated heavy going, but the cob had a steady rolling stride which ate up the ground. As the hill got steeper the cob went ahead by a nose, and then by a little more.

  I raised myself up in the saddle and bawled at Sea, over the noise of the creaking leather and the thudding hooves and the flying sand, and he put his head down and went that extra bit faster. I guided him to the side of the path where the greening heather was a better foothold and his strong white legs reached forward, he put his heart into his speed and we forged ahead with a yell of triumph.

  ‘You win!’ Will shouted as the hill levelled out, and I pulled Sea up. He was panting, his flanks dark with sweat. ‘You win!’ Will said again. ‘And I’ll pay up, though riding on the edge of the firebreak is cheating.’

  I beamed at him. ‘I always cheat,’ I said. ‘Especially if the stakes are high.’

  Will nodded. ‘I should have known. What’s your game, Sarah? The bones?’

  I shook my head. ‘Cards,’ I said.

  Will chuckled and we turned the horses for home. ‘Where did you learn?’ he asked, entertained.

  The sun was warm on my back and I was happy to be out on the land. A cuckoo was calling loudly and contentedly away over to our right and some early gorse was making the air smell sweet. Will pulled his cob alongside Sea and we went along companionably side by side and I told him about Da and his cheating at wayside inns. I told him how I was taught, when I was just a little child, to go around the back of the card players and to see what cards they had and to signal it to my da. I told him how Da would tell me to fetch a fresh deck of cards from the landlord and how I learned to stack them in the right order to suit Da, whoever had the deal.

  ‘And did they never spot you?’ Will asked, amazed.

  I laughed at him for being a gull. ‘Of course they did, sometimes!’ I said. ‘I was only a little girl, my hands weren’t big enough to hide the stack. Mostly they didn’t. She was there too…’

  I broke off. I had been about to say that she was there too and she would sing, or do a little dance with her skirts held out, and that the men who were fools enough to play with Da were also fool enough to take their eyes off him when a woman, even a little girl, was up on a table where they could see up her skirt.

  I lost the thread of what I was saying and my face went bitter.

  ‘I can’t remember what I was saying…’ I said.

  ‘Never mind,’ Will said. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell me another time.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. I knew I never would.

  Will glanced at the sky. ‘About noon,’ he said. ‘I have to go up to the Downs later to check on the sheep. The lambs are with the ewes – would you like to ride up with me? They’re a pretty sight.’

  I was about to say yes, but then I remembered Lady Clara.

  ‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘Lady Clara is coming to see us this afternoon and I should change into the riding habit.’

  Will nodded equably. ‘I’ll take you home then,’ he said turning his horse’s head. ‘Can’t keep the Quality waiting.’

  ‘I’ll ride alone,’ I said. ‘I know the way.’

  Will paused, looked at me. ‘Pain bad?’ he asked, knowing with his quick cleverness that it had not passed as I said it would. He did not know, as I did, that this was a pain that would never pass. It was not a share of bad meat which was tearing my belly, it was the loss of her which hit me afresh, every time I laughed, every time I saw something which would have given her joy.

  ‘No,’ I said, denying his insight, and denying the comfort he might have given me. ‘I’ve no pain. But I can ride home alone and you can go to your work.’

  He nodded and held his horse still as I rode away. I felt his eyes on my back and I straightened in the saddle and even sang a little song which the wind would blow back to him and tell him that I was light-hearted. It was the song Robert used to order when he could get a fiddler to play the ponies in. It was a song from the show. My life was still all show.

  I rode home slowly, watching the high green horizon of the Downs and the little shapes of white which were Will’s flock of sheep moving slowly across it. The Downs were like a wall around this little village, they held it like you might cup your hand on something rare and strange like a butterfly or a tiny bright beetle.

  I passed some people on the Common, gathering brushwood and furze. They waved as I went past and called: ‘Good day, Sarah!’ and I smiled my empty smile back at them, and called back: ‘Good day,’ and thought that I had come a damned long way still to have no handle to my name.

  The path led me down to the back of the house and there was a little drystone wall which Sea popped over, hardly breaking his stride. A track led me to the back of the stables and I put him in his loose-box myself, he still did not like Sam. I was surprised that he let Will touch him.

  I was rubbing him down, hissing at him between my teeth, and he was turning his head and nibbling the top of my curls as I worked when I heard the noise of wheels on the gravel of the drive and peeped over the door to see a carriage turning in the gate.

  ‘Damme, it’s her la’ship,’ I said to Sea. ‘I hoped to be in a dress before she came.’

  I came out of the stables and watched the carriage draw up. I noticed the horses first. A pair of matching bays, very fine animals, well fed and with glossy coats. Their harness could have been better cleaned but the brass bits were shiny and bright. I nodded. I thought they had been made ready for a woman who liked the look of things to be right. The straps would wear out quicker for not being properly oiled but maybe she didn’t care for that.

  On the box was a driver in a bright ornate uniform, and behind the open carriage, looking like a pair of pouter pigeons, were a couple of f