The Favoured Child Read online

  ‘Scots blood,’ he said to Mama. We were in the back garden of the Dower House, and Richard and Grandpapa had ridden over from the hall. Grandpapa judged that Richard might now keep his horse in the Dower House and ride without supervision whenever he wished. In any case, my grandpapa had wearied of teaching and was happy to hand over the job of coaching Richard to our groom Jem, or to Dench, the Havering man. Grandpapa was off back to London. He felt he had rusticated long enough.

  ‘Scots blood,’ he said ominously. ‘His papa, John MacAndrew, rides well enough, I grant you. But they’re not a nation of horsemen. No cavalry, damn small animals. No breeding, m’dear. On the distaff side he’s a Lacey, and there was never one of them who was not at home in a saddle; but he does not have the heart for it. He does not have the hands for it. He’s a good jobbing rider and he can get around safe enough. But he’ll never match his mama, Beatrice. God rest her soul!’

  ‘Well, I cannot regret that,’ my mama said in her soft voice, her face turned towards the orchard where Richard was trotting backwards and forwards. Scheherazade’s pace was steady and smooth, but her ears flickered warily. ‘Beatrice may have been a joy to watch on the hunting field, but she scared her family half to death with the horses she rode. And I cannot forget that her father died in a riding accident.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense!’ said Grandpapa impatiently. ‘You’re safer on horseback than walking down those damned uncarpeted stairs of yours, Celia. But have it as you will. The boy will never be a neck-or-nothing rider, he’ll never cut a dash. But I’ve done What I can for him. I’ve started him off and I’ll pay for his stabling.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mama gratefully. ‘And we both thank you.’

  Grandpapa nodded and blew a perfect circle of smoke out into the still afternoon air. ‘What about little missy?’ he asked. I was standing with my back to them at the orchard fence. And I gripped the paling of the fence post waiting for Mama’s answer.

  ‘I think we should leave it until she is older,’ she said. ‘She has no habit and we have no side-saddle.’

  Grandpapa waved a careless hand. ‘Soon right that,’ he said.

  Mama lowered her voice, but I could still hear her. ‘Julia has been raised too wild and too free,’ she said softly. ‘She is twelve now and she has to learn to be a young lady before she needs to learn to ride. I am happy that she should stay indoors with me.’

  I said nothing, I did not turn my head. I felt my colour rising and I had a pain where my heart was thudding. Unless Grandpapa insisted, I should not be able to ride Scheherazade. Unless he declared that I was a Lacey and riding was in my blood and I must be taught to ride, I should be confined to the parlour and my only pleasure from Scheherazade would be to see Richard’s growing confidence with her. I was glad for Richard, of course, of course I was – but some little rebellious spark inside me said, ‘Not fair, Mama! Not fair!’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Grandpapa. And the decision against me was taken.

  I lost my chance of being a rider, and I had to wait for Richard’s bounty. But as that summer turned into autumn, slowly but surely Richard suffered a greater loss. A greater loss than I could imagine. His voice started going.

  It was like a new game for him at first. Sometimes it would be high – his familiar clear golden notes – and sometimes he could make it low and husky. One evening in the parlour he created an entertainment as good as a play, telling the adventures of a butterfly exactly in the style of the novel Chrysal; or the Adventures of a Guinea. The butterfly he did in a high squeaky voice, and the villains which it encountered on its journey through London thundered with his deepest bass. I played rippling chords and imposing fanfares for when the butterfly was received at court, and Mama laughed so much that the tears poured down her face.

  She laughed a good deal less when she discovered that we knew the novel because Richard had ordered it from Grandmama Havering’s circulating library. My name was on the order, and my morals were the ones most likely to be corrupted from reading fiction. I took the blame; and Richard took the credit for his wit and imagination. He played with his surprising new voice and I believe he never thought – and I never knew – that his voice was altering for ever.

  Its range was not always steady. It was not always controllable. Sometimes in mid-sentence it would suddenly go high or suddenly break and become husky. Richard ceased to find it amusing and snapped at me when I laughed. Then, worst of all-while he was singing a simple high sweet song and I played a lilting harmony on the pianoforte – his voice broke.

  He frowned as if something small and trivial had happened, like a doorknob coming off in his hand. ‘Play it again, Julia!’ he said. ‘This stupid voice of mine…’

  I played it, but my fingers had lost their confidence and I hit a shower of wrong notes. He did not even reproach me. It was only a high G, and he could not hit it. Three times we tried, my piano part sounding worse and worse all the time. Richard did not even complain. He just looked at me in great perplexity and then turned his face to look out of the window at the grey sky and the heaped clouds.

  ‘It seems to have gone,’ he said, very puzzled. ‘I can’t do it.’

  He went from the room slowly, with none of his usual swinging stride. As he went up the stairs to his room, I could hear him clearly, all the way up the first flight of stairs, singing the phrase over and over again. And over and over again the leap to the high G quavered and broke. He had lost the high aerial reaches of his wonderful voice. His gift, his very very special gift, was being reclaimed.

  After dinner, when we were in the parlour, he said confidently, ‘I’d like to try that song again, Julia. The one we were doing this morning. I had a frog in my throat this morning, I think! I couldn’t hit the note at all. I can do it now, I know.’

  I fetched the sheet of music and propped it on the stand. I bungled the introduction badly, and the ripple of arpeggio that should have been smooth was as lumpy as an apple crumble.

  ‘Really, Julia,’ Mama said with a frown. And then she turned to Richard and smiled.

  He was sitting in the window-seat, looking out towards the trees, as beautiful as a black-headed cherub, utterly unchanged. He drew a breath ready to sing, and I hit the right chord for once.

  The note was wrong.

  Richard snapped it off short.

  And tried again.

  My hands dropped from the keys. I could not think of what to say or do. For a second Richard’s pure lovely voice was there, but then it quavered and broke and was gone. Richard looked at me in utter bewilderment, and then at Mama.

  ‘Your voice has broken, Richard,’ she said, smiling. ‘You are becoming a man.’

  Richard looked at her as if he could not understand her.

  ‘Early,’ she said. ‘You’re an early starter, Richard, at only eleven. But your voice is definitely breaking. You will not be able to sing soprano again.’

  ‘His voice will go low?’ I asked. I had never thought about such a process. Richard’s golden voice seemed such a part of him that I could not think of him without it. By the stunned look on his face, he could not imagine himself without it either.

  ‘Of course,’ Mama said smiling. ‘He would not make much of a man with a voice like a choirboy all his life, would he?’

  ‘But what shall I sing?’ Richard asked. He looked almost ready to cry. His colour had rushed into his cheeks and his eyes were dark with disappointment. ‘What shall I sing now?’

  ‘Tenor parts,’ Mama said equably. ‘Julia will be the soprano of the household now.’

  ‘Julia!’ Richard spat out my name in his temper. ‘Julia cannot sing. She sings like she was calling cows home. Julia cannot sing soprano.’

  Mama frowned at his words, but remained calm. ‘Hush, Richard,’ she said gently. ‘I agree, none of us have your talent for music. But there are many good tenor parts you will enjoy singing. Your uncle, Julia’s papa, had a wonderful voice. He used to sing all the tenor parts when we sang together. I