The Favoured Child Read online

  There was little joy in the Dower House. Uncle John had grown quiet and thoughtful and spent the next few days alone in the library, reading and writing. Mama returned to the schoolroom in the village, but more out of a sense of duty than enthusiasm. She had appointed a Midhurst girl as a temporary teacher while we had been in Bath, and she spoke to John about giving the woman a cottage in Acre and handing the school over to her entirely. It was a sensible decision, but it gave us all the feeling that a gulf was opening between Acre and the Laceys.

  Only Richard was contented. He took Prince out on errands for Mama and for John, and he checked the stock, the cows and sheep, from the far side of their gates without mishap.

  And I? I was in a frenzy of anxiety. I was waiting for James. When Clary’s funeral was over, I stopped Jimmy Dart at the gate of the church and asked him to seek out James at his father’s offices in London. I had a gold coin inside my glove and I gave him it for the coach fare.

  ‘Tell him not to come to the Dower House,’ I said quietly. Richard was helping Mama into the carriage and had his back to me. ‘Tell him I want to see him privately. I will meet him in Midhurst, in the private room at the Spread Eagle Inn. Tell him I will be there, on Tuesday, at ten o’clock.’

  ‘Spread Eagle, Tuesday, ten o’clock,’ said Jimmy promptly. ‘I won’t fail you, Miss Julia. And neither will Mr James, I’ll be bound.’

  I looked at him quickly, and blinked away the haze of sudden tears. ‘Do you think so, Jimmy?’ I asked.

  Jimmy looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, Miss Julia,’ he said. ‘Anyone could see!’

  I glanced again towards the carriage. Richard was waiting for me, smiling his bright secretive smile. ‘I must go,’ I said quickly. ‘You’ll catch the early stage?’

  ‘I’ll be in London by noon,’ Jimmy promised. ‘And I’ll find him wherever he is.’

  I gave him a little smile and then turned for the carriage.

  Then I waited. I waited, and worried.

  James had thought that his own unchastity was wrong. Wrong, but forgivable. I was gambling all that I had on one thought, that he loved me enough to forgive me one terrible error, just as I had loved him enough to forgive him. But it was a big gamble. It was everything I wanted.

  I was no angel! The thought of saying nothing at all and marrying him as if I were an untouched bride went through my mind. But truly, I think it went through my mind only once. During those waiting days I knew for certain that I only wanted to marry James with honesty and honour between us.

  But I did not know how much I dared to tell him. I picked it over, like a woman picking lice out of old rags. I could tell him I had been forced. But I must also tell him that I lay on my back and smiled. I scorched with shame at that memory, and I knew I could never tell him of it. Or anyone. I could tell him it was rape, but he would want to know if I knew the criminal. But I could not tell him it was Richard. I was as fixed on that point as I had been the very afternoon when the lie of a fall from a horse was first told. But if I told him of the rape and said I did not know the man, I should have to invent a whole string of tales about how and where it happened. And why I had not told my mama.

  I seemed to have no solutions, no solutions at all, just more and more problems until I started the round again of thinking that I could certainly tell him I had been forced.

  On Monday night I did not sleep. At midnight I wrapped my blanket around me and sat in my window-seat and watched the moon travel across a cloudless silvery sky. The circular nagging worry went around and around in my head until I leaned back against my shutter and closed my eyes against the glare of the moon and the drumming of my fear that I would lose James, that I did not know how to hold him. I did not know the words which would make him forgive me. He was the only man I had ever loved, would ever love. And I did not know where to begin to keep his love.

  I slept then, cramped on the window-seat, my head against the shutter. I awoke at dawn, chilly and stiff for my pains. I could not sleep again, but put on my grey riding habit in the half-light and washed my face in the cold water in my ewer, and sat in my window-seat again and listened to the birds starting to sing.

  At six o’clock I thought I might go down to the stables and saddle Misty. I wanted to avoid my mama and Uncle John this morning. Most of all I wanted to escape the notice of Richard. I was in real fear of meeting Richard this morning, and I was longing for James.

  I was awkward, saddling Misty with one hand. But she whinnied when I gave her a carrot from my pocket, and that summoned Jem in his dirty flannels from the stables.

  ‘You can’t ride one-handed,’ he said, scandalized.

  ‘You know Misty is as gentle as anything. I can manage her, if you would just get the saddle on for me, Jem.’

  ‘And where d’you think you’re going?’ he demanded truculently.

  I looked at him, irresolute, and then my lower lip trembled and I told him the truth. ‘I have to meet James Fortescue,’ I said baldly. ‘We may have to call off the wedding. I have to go and see him this morning, Jem. Please help me.’

  His brown face at once creased into tenderness. ‘Your fine young man, Miss Julia?’ he asked tenderly. ‘I’ll drive you there in the carriage, of course.’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘No. I don’t want Mama or Uncle John to know. Nor Richard. Not anyone. Just get Misty ready for me and tell them I wanted an early ride, and that I could handle her. Please, Jem.’

  He paused. ‘Take her carefully, then,’ he said. ‘I can’t think how you came to fall the last time.’

  ‘I misjudged a jump,’ I said. ‘She didn’t throw me. Please put the saddle on her, Jem. I am so afraid of being late.’

  He took it from the stable door and swung it on her back, and then slid her bridle on. He led her into the yard and put both hands on my waist to lift me up into the saddle.

  ‘Go easy now,’ he said again. ‘What time do you have to be in Midhurst?’

  ‘At ten,’ I said.

  Jem looked at me incredulously. ‘Miss Julia, come down and get some breakfast. You don’t need to leave for three hours yet!’

  I smiled ruefully. I think it was the first time I had smiled all week since May morning. ‘I can’t eat!’ I said. ‘And I couldn’t sleep either. I thought I’d ride over the common for a while and then down to Midhurst that way.’

  Jem smiled at me. ‘Good luck, then, Miss Julia. A man would be a fool to let a maid like you go, and your Mr Fortescue knows it. Good luck. I’ll tell them you’re riding and won’t be back till noon.’

  I gathered the reins in my one good hand, and Misty moved delicately out of the yard, loud on the cobbles, but silent on the grass outside the bedroom windows. Then I trotted her up the drive and turned right to go to the common to ride away the hours before I needed to turn her head towards Midhurst.

  I was still too early, even after riding in a great sweep from our common land over to Ambersham. I was still too early by half an hour. But I was thirsty now, so I handed her to the ostler and went in by the stable door.

  They knew us in Midhurst and greeted me by name. I said that I was meeting a friend from London and that I should like coffee in their private parlour while I waited. The landlord showed me in and lit the fire in the grate, though the room was warm. I sat in the window-seat and sipped from my cup.

  It was a pretty room, overlooking a little patch of garden at the back which was bright with Maytime flowers. I would rather have been in the taproom, which had a view over the stable yard. But, though I could not see James’s arrival, I knew he would be here soon. I waited.

  The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. It seemed to be very slow. I checked it against my own little watch, which John had bought me, a tiny copy of his own on a chain like his. The clock was slow, by a couple of minutes. I put a finger under the minute-hand and pushed it up a little. Then I thought of advancing the time by half an hour and pretending to be angry with James for being late. But then, with a great swoop of apprehe