Meridon Read online

  ‘I don’t think you would either of you enjoy the country at this time of year. At any time it is dreary enough, but in February I should think you would both go mad with melancholy cooped up at Havering.’ She paused. I waited but Perry said nothing.

  ‘Besides,’ she said. ‘Many of the Havering staff are here, there is no butler nor chef in Sussex. You had better wait until the Season ends in the spring, Sarah.’

  ‘We were planning to go to Wideacre,’ I said. ‘It does not matter that your staff are here, Lady Clara. Perry and I are going to stay at Wideacre.’

  ‘Better not,’ she said smoothly. ‘There has been gossip enough, I should like you to be seen around town, Sarah. I don’t want you down in the country, it looks too much as if we had something to hide.’

  I looked back at her. Her blue eyes were limpid, the candles before her made her face glow with colour. She was sitting at the head of the dining-room table, Perry at the foot. I was placed in the middle, insignificant.

  Perry cleared his throat. ‘Sarah did want to go, Mama,’ he said. ‘She has not been well, she needs to rest in the country.’

  His mother flicked him a look which was openly contemptuous. ‘I have said that is not possible,’ she said.

  I could feel my temper building inside me but I was not a young lady to shriek or have the vapours, or throw down my napkin and run out of the room. I took a sip of water and looked at Lady Clara over my glass.

  ‘We’ve lost our manager on Wideacre,’ I said. ‘I need to be down there to meet the new man. I don’t want to be away so long. There will be talk down there too about this marriage. I’d like to go down. I had planned to go down within a couple of weeks.’

  The footmen started to remove the plates, the butler brought a plate with slices of beef in a red wine sauce to the table and served Lady Clara, then me, then Peregrine. There were artichokes and potatoes, carrots and small green sprouts. Perry fell to and ate as if he was trying to deafen himself to any appeal I might make to him. But I was not such a fool as to think that Perry could help me.

  ‘It’s not possible, Sarah,’ Lady Clara said pleasantly enough. ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, but I need you both in London.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said mirroring her regret. ‘But I do not want to stay in London.’

  Lady Clara glanced at the footmen and at the butler. They stood against the wall as if they were deaf and blind. ‘Not now,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Now,’ I said. I did not care what London society thought of me, I certainly did not care what Lady Clara’s servants thought of me. ‘I want to go to Wideacre at once, Lady Clara. Perry and I are going to go.’

  Lady Clara looked down the table at Perry. She waited. He had his head bent low over his plate and he was trying not to meet her eye. The silence lengthened.

  ‘Perry…’ she said; it was all she needed to do.

  Perry looked up. ‘I am sorry, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Mama is right. We’ll stay in London until the roads are a little drier, later in the year. We will do as Mama wishes.’

  I felt myself flush red but I nodded. There was nothing more to say. I had not thought that Lady Clara and I might pull Perry in opposite directions, I had not thought that I would be under the cat’s paw. But the laws of the land said that Perry was my master, and he was ruled by his mama.

  I nodded at her, indeed I bore her little ill will. I had wanted my way and she had wanted hers, and she had won. I had learned about power in my hard little childhood. I had been a fool to think people lived in any other way just because they ate well and slept soft.

  ‘I thought it was agreed that I might live as I please?’ I asked levelly.

  She looked around uncomfortably at the footmen again, but she answered me.

  ‘I did agree that,’ she said. ‘But that was before this nonsense with Maria blew up. I need you, Sarah, I need Perry too. I cannot afford any scandal talked about this family if we are to hold Basil. Once this Season is over it can be as you wish.’

  I nodded. I did not doubt she meant it, but I had learned in that brief exchange that I was as tied to her as I had been sold to Robert Gower, and owned by Da. I was not a free woman. I was apprenticed for a lifetime. All I could ever hope to do was to change the masters.

  They cleared the dinner plates and served the puddings. There were three different sorts. Perry got his head down and ate as if he never expected to see food again. He was on to his second bottle. Both his mama and I saw his flight into drunkenness, and she shook her head at the butler when Perry’s wine glass was empty again.

  All in all, it was not a happy meal. Elegant; but not happy.

  Nor a happy evening. Maria was dressed in scarlet as if to shame the devil and she greeted us at the head of her stairs with her head held high and Basil looking hang-dog at her side.

  ‘Why, here is your mama-in-law!’ she exclaimed as Lady Clara came up the stairs. ‘And Perry, and the gypsy heiress!’ she said in a lower voice.

  ‘My dear…’ Basil complained. He took Lady Clara’s hand and bowed low. Maria stepped forward and kissed her mama, Perry, and then me. Her cheek was cold and dry with powder, she was white under her rouge.

  ‘Everyone’s here!’ she said brightly. ‘I don’t think there’s been such a squeeze since Lady Taragon ran off!’

  Lady Clara’s face was stony at the reference. ‘Keep your voice down, Maria,’ she said in a biting undertone. ‘And behave yourself.’

  Maria shot a bright defiant look at her, but she greeted her next guests more soberly, and nodded to the servants to pass around chilled champagne among the crowd.

  Basil came over and drew Lady Clara into the window-seat. I could see his bald head nodding and his thin voice droning on. Lady Clara spread her fan to shield them and looked compassionately at him, over the top. Perry and I were alone. He took another glass off a passing waiter and downed it.

  ‘I am sorry, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t tell her “no”.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘All you had to do was to tell her that you agreed with me, I’d have done the rest.’

  He shrugged. One of Maria’s footmen came and took the empty glass and exchanged it for a full one. ‘I don’t know,’ he said miserably. ‘I don’t know why. I’ve never been able to stand up to her. I suppose I can’t start now.’

  ‘Now’s the time you should start,’ I said. ‘I’m there to help you, we both know what we want to do, and you have control of your fortune. What can she do if she doesn’t like it? She can get angry, but she can’t do anything.’

  ‘You don’t know what she’s like…’ he said.

  ‘What who’s like?’ Maria asked from behind me.

  Perry made a face at her. ‘We wanted to go down to Havering, but Mama is keeping us in town,’ he said dolefully. ‘She wouldn’t have minded if you hadn’t been kicking up a dust, Maria.’

  He turned away from Maria’s reply, looking for another glass of wine. Maria looked hard at me. ‘I suppose you think it’s awful,’ she said harshly.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said steadily. I was not afraid of Maria.

  ‘I’d have thought a young bride like you, and married for love, would think it was awful…’ she said again.

  ‘I’m not married for love and you know it,’ I said. I kept my voice low and the hum of conversation around us and the distant ripple of a harp and a violin were enough to drown out my words for anyone but Maria. ‘But I’d not be fool enough to marry a man old enough to be my father for his money and then hope to get away with playing fast and loose.’

  Maria’s eyes were very bright. ‘Is that what you think it is?’ she asked her voice hard. ‘I fell in love with Rudolph, I didn’t hope to get away with it. I wanted us to run away altogether. I didn’t even care about the money.’

  I said nothing. Maria looked around and saw her mama side by side with her husband, their heads together.

  ‘She’s got me where she wants me,’ she said resentfully. ‘And he has. The two of