Wideacre twt-1 Read online

  John’s eyes were as sharp as Celia’s were bland. ‘Planning for the future, Beatrice?’ he said, and anyone could have heard the suspicion and hatred in his voice. I shot a hard glance at the footman by the door but his face was correctly wooden. I knew him though; I knew them all. This one was one of the Hodgett lads, a son of the gatekeeper. He had been taken into the house by me after being in trouble with Harry’s keeper over a ferret he would set to work in the preserves. I saved him a beating; I saved his father some time and trouble. He adored me. There would be no rumour of this talk outside this room, except as an outburst by young Hal that Miss Beatrice’s young husband wasn’t worthy to kiss the ground she rode on.

  ‘Of course I plan for the future, John,’ I said, and I saw him wince when I used his name. ‘I plan for our baby, just like any mother. And I plan for you and me, just like any wife. You can be sure that I will always be thinking of you, and planning for you, just as long as you live.’

  Celia looked relieved at the sweetness of my tone, and at the loving nature of the words. But John went pale and looked sickly as he heard the threat behind them. I would hear no more from him today. And I would find a way, I most certainly would find a way, to silence him for ever.

  I rose from the table.

  ‘My room, in ten minutes, Harry?’ I asked.

  Harry rose to his feet and nodded his assent as I made to leave. John was a little slow in rising to show his respect for me, and I waited, motionless, my eyes on him, until he had done so. His pushing back of bis chair was like a surly boy and I felt secret pleasure at mastering him, as steadily and as surely as one trains an ill-bred dog. But some dogs are such trouble that one puts a stone around their neck, and drops them in the Fenny.

  I went to my office.

  Anywhere at Wideacre I am at peace, but when I sit in the Squire’s chair with the great round rent table before me, and the papers on all the tenants tucked safe in the drawers, the map of the estate on the easel board, and the swallows swooping low outside the window, I am in bliss. This is where the heart of Wideacre beats. In the deep secret hidden places in the woods, in the son, sandy, sunny common, and on the high thyme-scented downs, but also here where the lives of the people, our people, are recorded in my clear ledgers, and their futures planned on the great charts of the desk. This is where the revenue comes in, in the weekly rents, in records of yields surpassing yields, in the banker’s orders from Chichester corn merchants, in the wool sale cheques, in the meat market gold. And this is where the wealth is spent: in the orders for equipment, for new stock, for new seed, and for the ceaseless buying for the house, which Celia seems to think is needed, and which I do not refuse. We live well on Wideacre, and my ledgers tell me, in reassuring thick black pen strokes on a white page, that we can afford to live well, for this country makes us rich.

  And now this wealth, this steady circulation of paper and gold money must be diverted to a new reservoir — a fund to buy my son into the chair where I sit, into the room where I give the orders, into the land and into the power. Richard, my lovely baby, whose bath I would go and watch in a few minutes, would be Master here if any act, any act at all, of mine could put him in this place.

  Harry tapped on the door and came in. His kiss on my cheek was the second he had given me that day, but it recognized that our first kiss of greeting at breakfast had been in public, as brother and sister. This one, no warmer or more loving, was a private one between old, familiar lovers.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said, and he drew up a chair to the table.

  ‘I shall be writing to the London solicitors this morning to raise the question of the entail with them, and when we know how much they estimate the purchase will cost, we will know better where we stand,’ I said in a businesslike tone.

  ‘Good,’ said Harry, nodding in assent.

  ‘But I think we should keep this matter between ourselves, until we know we can go ahead,’ I said. ‘I shall not tell John yet, and I think it would be better if you did not tell Celia.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Harry. ‘Why not?’

  Oh, Harry,’ I said. ‘You understand so little about women! If Celia knows you are planning to make Julia your heir, she will know you believe she is barren. I think that would break her heart. Worse, she will know that I told her sad secret to you, so she will feel betrayed by me. Until we know for certain that we can buy the entail, indeed, until the entail is actually purchased and signed over to Richard and Julia, I think Celia should know nothing about it. It would only be a reproach to her for something she cannot possibly help.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Harry, with the quick tenderness he always had now for Celia, his pretty wife. ‘I should hate her to be distressed. But she will know that I think there will be no more heirs when the contract of partnership between Richard and Julia is signed.’

  ‘But then she will have the comfort of knowing that Julia’s future is secure and that at least she has played a part in providing Wideacre with an heir. Julia and Richard will inherit jointly.’

  Harry nodded, and got up from the table to gaze out of the window. I heard the scrunch of footsteps on the gravel, and went to stand beside him. My husband was wandering aimlessly towards the rose garden. I could tell from the droop of his shoulders that he had found the drink I had left in the library and he had taken a glass to help him face the day looming ahead. All day without laughter, or joy, or love in a house that stank of sin. He had lost the quickness and lightness of his step. He had lost the pride that made him a swift walker, a fast dancer, a fine lover. I had taken the virtue, the strength and the power from him. If I could see my way to it, I would take more.

  ‘What about John?’ Harry asked in an undertone.

  I shrugged. ‘As you see,’ I said. ‘I shall tell him of no plans. He is indiscreet, he is incompetent to judge. If he continues to drink in this way then I shall write to his papa and see if you and I can have power of attorney over his MacAndrew shares. He is not to be trusted with a fortune. He could spend it all on drink tomorrow.’

  Harry nodded, his eyes still on John’s bowed back.

  ‘He is ashamed because he made a mistake with Mama’s dose?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘I suppose that is it. He does not confide in me. He knows I cannot forgive his behaviour that night. If he had not been drunk our darling mama might have lived.’ I rested my head against the window frame. ‘I cannot stop weeping when I think of her in illness, and that clown muddling the dose.’

  Harry’s face was flushed with anger. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘If we had only known! But, Beatrice, we cannot be sure. She always had a weak heart; we all knew that one day we would lose her.’

  ‘What I cannot bear is to have lost her through his folly!’ I said.

  ‘I wonder what set off Mama’s attack,’ Harry said, his cowardly eyes on my face. ‘Does John have any idea?’

  ‘No,’ I said, lying in my turn. ‘Mama collapsed just before she came into the parlour. Perhaps she came down the stairs too fast. John has no idea what caused it.’

  Harry nodded. He was greedy for sweet untruths when reality was uncomfortable.

  ‘I know we cannot be sure,’ I said. ‘But you believe it, and I believe it; the whole house knows how drunk he was. All of the county knows he attended her although he was drunk, and that she was dead the next day. Of course I cannot forgive him. Of course he is ashamed. He has not shown his face off the estate except for her funeral since it happened. And he is not called out even to the poorest houses. Everyone believes he was drunk and made a mistake.’

  Harry nodded. ‘It must be a bitter thing for him,’ he said. John was walking along the paths of the rose garden that led to the little summerhouse. As we watched he dawdled up the steps and sat down inside as if he were worn out.

  ‘It is indeed,’ I said. ‘His whole life and his pride was in his practice of medicine. I expect he wishes he were dead.’

  The relish in my voice penetrated even Harry’s dullness.