The Favoured Child Read online

  In my head I could hear the sweet singing noise which sometimes came to me on Wideacre, or when I was missing it. And the feel of the earth under my shoes was like a guarantee of happiness. In the days since Clary’s death and my own confusion I had lost my joy in the land. I had lost my ears to hear the singing, and I had lost my delight in the smell and feel of the place. Now, like a waterfall tumbling full upon me, it was coming back to me. Careless of my gown, I knelt down in the earth and sniffed at the crop as if it were a bouquet of flowers. It had the lightest aroma, like grass, but a little sweeter. Then I picked a stem and looked at the sound seeds which would grow and grow and ripen until we could cut it and thresh it, and grind it and bake bread with it, so that no one in Acre need ever go hungry again.

  I put the seed in my mouth and nibbled at it like a ravenous harvest mouse. It was hard, not sweet yet. But when I bit on the stalk, I could taste the sap inside the stem, and I turned back to the gig with it in my mouth.

  Oh, Julia,’ Mama sighed with a faint smile. ‘Do take that bit of grass out of your mouth. You look like an absolute natural.’

  I whipped it out with a little jump. ‘I am sorry, Mama, I was in an utter daydream. The field is so wonderful.’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘When Beatrice was a girl, she was just the same,’ she said. ‘She loved the land rather like you do, I think. And they used to say all sorts of things about her ability to make the land grow.’

  I climbed back into the gig. ‘They say it about me too,’ I said, rather pleased. ‘I know it is nonsense, Mama, but it is a rather nice idea that the land grows well for the Laceys.’

  She gave a little sigh. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know you like that thought. I suppose I am not country born and bred, and so the passion for a field is never one that I feel. But your papa loved his land very well too.’

  I gave one last lingering look at the common field and turned the gig for home. ‘It should be ready for harvesting by August,’ I said.

  Oh, good,’ Mama said, ‘for Richard is hoping to come home in time to see it.’ She paused. ‘What has gone wrong between you and James, my darling?’ she asked tentatively. ‘I have been waiting and waiting for you to take me into your confidence. You have not had a letter from James for nearly three weeks, and yet he should have come home to England by now. I did not want to press you, especially with you seeming unwell, but you should tell me.’

  My face fell at once, and the easy magic of the land deserted me. Mama saw the change. I searched my mind to find a lie I could offer her, to delay the announcement which I would have to make – that James and I would never marry.

  ‘I cannot say, Mama,’ I said softly. ‘It is private.’ I could feel the familiar easy tears coming and the choking feeling in my throat.

  She nodded, her eyes on my face. ‘His mama wrote to me,’ she said. ‘She wrote that James had decided suddenly to go abroad again, and that he had told her that the betrothal would not be made. That the two of you had agreed that you would not suit. That it was a mutually agreed decision.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Yet you are not happy,’ she suggested.

  ‘No, Mama,’ I said quietly.

  She said nothing for a moment and I set the pony to walk forward. We climbed the little slope away from the common field and went slowly down the lane, the sunshine dappling the track ahead of us and the shadows sliding up and over her parasol.

  She took a breath, and I saw her hands tighten on the handle of the parasol. ‘Julia,’ she said firmly, ‘I am your mama and it is my duty to know these things. You must tell me why you and James are no longer planning marriage.’

  I touched the reins and the pony stopped. I knew I would have to betray James, just as my fear of the sight had made me betray Clary and Matthew and my cowardice had made me betray my duty to the whole of Acre. ‘I discovered that he was unchaste,’ I said softly. ‘He has been with a woman.’

  Mama drew in her breath sharply. ‘I see,’ she said. She put out her hand and touched mine. ‘I think you are right,’ she said. ‘But the world we live in is a hard one, Julia. I believe most young men have a woman friend before they are married. As long as they are true to their wives after marriage, there are few people who think badly of them.’

  I knew I would have to betray James’s private conversation with me and smirch his character. I could feel the tears gathering behind my eyes. ‘It was not one woman friend, Mama,’ I said, and my voice was a thread as thin as the rope which hanged Judas. ‘He consorts with common women, he visits their houses. I could not be sure he would cease to do so.’

  ‘James Fortescue?’ Mama said in utter incredulity. And I loved her so dearly then, for disbelieving me, even though I had to convince her.

  ‘One of the Acre children,’ I said awkwardly. ‘You never heard about her. She was called Julie – named after me, I suppose. She had become a…a fallen woman. She called it street-trading.’ I took a little breath. ‘She recognized him, Mama. He did not deny it.’

  My mama gasped. She was a lady who had lived a sheltered life, a childhood in the best part of Bath, a womanhood on the isolated estate of Wideacre. She had never been to a place like Fish Quay Lane. She had never seen a woman like Julie. And she would never have understood, as I did, that someone can be driven one way by their desires, and another way by their duty. For my mama, duty and desire took one path. For the rest of us true-bred Laceys, life was hopelessly contradictory.

  ‘I see,’ she said inadequately. ‘I am very sorry, my darling. But do remember that you are young, and there are many young men who you will meet, and one of them you will love. I shall not trouble you now to tell me more, my darling.’

  I nodded. ‘I would rather not,’ I said.

  She touched my hand again, and I clicked to the pony and we moved forward.

  As soon as we were home, Mama sent me to lie down and rest, and she went herself to find John. He was in the library working, and Mama went in, leaving the door open behind her. With a heaviness in my heart I crept downstairs so that I could listen to their conversation. I was a liar, and now I had become an eavesdropper too.

  John’s tone was reasonable. ‘I can’t agree with you, Celia,’ he said firmly. ‘This is an excuse of delicacy. All young men seek experience, and the general belief is that they are better husbands for it.’

  This is not “experience”,’ my mama replied. Her voice was a little higher than usual. She was distressed. ‘I do not know exactly what you mean by that, John, nor do I wish to know. Julia tells me that Mr Fortescue has consorted with prostitutes, and that she cannot be certain that this would cease on marriage. That seems to me ample reason for breaking the friendship.’

  ‘Prostitutes?’ John’s voice was suddenly sharp. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am merely telling you what Julia told me,’ Mama said with dignity. ‘I did not press her on it. Apparently one of the lost Acre children had become a prostitute – the one who refused to come home. She recognized him.’

  ‘This is a good deal more serious,’ John said. ‘I was thinking of perhaps an older married lady. I would be very anxious indeed if Julia’s betrothed used bagnios and suchlike.’

  ‘I fail to see the difference,’ Mama said impatiently. I heard her heels click on the polished floorboards. ‘It is still unchastity.’

  John’s voice was warm, and I could tell he was smiling at her. ‘Morally, you are right, Celia,’ he said. ‘But speaking as a doctor.’ He paused. ‘There is a stew-pot of disease among the street women,’ he said. ‘Many of them are fatal, none of them curable. If James Fortescue has been with prostitutes, we should thank God that Julia learned of it in time.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mama said blankly.

  ‘You would not know,’ John said gently. ‘And I am content that neither you nor Julia will ever know how those women, and infected men, can suffer. But the diseases are easily caught and easily passed on. If James Fortescue habitually goes with such women, the