Wideacre Read online

  I stretched my hands out behind me and felt the rough bark of an oak tree under my icy fingers. I slumped backwards and leaned against it, my eyes looking sightlessly up to the branches and the blue sky beyond, where the courting birds criss-crossed with full beaks. Every time I thought I had reached the worst point of this year, another gulf opened up beneath my feet and I could do nothing but step bravely, bravely into it, and hold on to all my bright courage during the long nightmare tumble. Every little, necessary act I took seemed to be followed with the consequences of a tragedy. The slight decision to turn a little part of the common over to wheat had led me to this oak tree and this black wall of despair. I was hated and reviled on the land I loved by the people I still thought of as mine.

  My fingers dug like claws into the bark to keep my legs straight and my mind conscious. But I felt so ill with misery and with this blackness that I could do nothing more than stand. I could not walk home. And for the first time in all my life I wished that I could just go to sleep, here if needs be, on the sweet damp earth of Wideacre. And never wake up to this pain and this loneliness again. I stood, leaning back against the tree, aching with sorrow, and as immobile as if my legs had been caught in a trap and my lifeblood was seeping away as I watched in horror. I did indeed feel that I was bleeding to death. All my wise, loving common sense for Wideacre had drained from me, and all I had left was the empty knowledge that any fool could have. That idiots like John Brien and Harry could have. Men who never heard the deep dark heart of Wideacre beating in the earth. And now I could hear it no longer.

  The cold brought me to my senses. At some time I had slid down the trunk and was on my knees in the soft loam. My dress was stained and damp, and the sun had gone down. The chill spring evening awoke me like a jug of cold water over my head and I shook myself like a soaked puppy and clambered to my feet. My legs were useless with cramps and I hobbled across the felled tree like an old lady. I made my slow, chilled, awkward way home and felt like an old lady too. Not the proud matriarch of my fantasy with her children and grandchildren round her, and her line stretching down through the mists of time to rule Wideacre for ever. But a defeated, miserable crone, very near death. And ready for death. And longing for death.

  A week later, the post came, and I thought of death no more. It was the deed of entail. The lawyers had finally done it. My eyes scanned it as if I would eat it with my hungry mind. It transferred the entail from Charles Lacey to Julia and Richard. And it provided that the first-born child from Julia’s marriage or Richard’s line, girl or boy, would inherit for ever. I smiled at that. Another girl might yet come to own Wideacre outright. If my first grandchild was a copper-headed girl with green slanty eyes, she would own the land and have to pay no price for it. She would inherit by acknowledged right, and ride over the land with no thought of a threat to her ownership. If she had my wits she would marry some poor Squire to give her children for Wideacre, and then pack him off to Ireland or America with half an unkept promise to follow. And if she was like me — but did not break her heart and her wisdom as I feared I had done — she would laugh out loud in her freedom and her spirits and her love of the land. And the people of Wideacre would laugh too — for joy at having a good Mistress, fair pay, and food on the table.

  Pinned to the change of entail deeds was the contract that would bring all this about. One half-written piece of vellum trimmed with the usual rash of red seals and glossy ribbons. But simple enough paragraphs considering what they would bring. And considering what they had cost.

  It said only that herein and hereinafter was a contract between Richard MacAndrew and Julia Lacey, now aged one year and two years. That the estate, hereinafter known as ‘the estate’, should belong to the two of them jointly, and be inherited, jointly, by the first-born child of the marriage of either party.

  I held it in my steady hands and sniffed at the smell of the wax and felt the texture of the thick vellum between my fingers. The red ribbons along the bottom were silk and they felt soft and warm to the touch. I scarcely read the two paragraphs; I savoured instead the very existence of the piece of paper that had cost me so much.

  I dipped my head and laid my face against the document. The vellum was warm, smooth but textured. The seals were scratchy like scabs along the bottom. The ribbons smelled faintly of perfume as if they had been bought by the yard in some haberdasher’s whose perfumes and powder were kept beside his silks. A tear rolled down my face and I lifted my head to wipe it so that it should not blot this most precious piece of paper. Only one tear, no more. And whether I was weeping for relief that this struggle was now over and I could rest a little or because I had succeeded, I could not have said. The haze of pain that had cut me off from Wideacre had also cut me off from myself, and I no longer knew whether I was winning or losing. I could only go on and on and on. The sharp plough in the furrow, the sharp scythe in the field. And whether it was a toad killed, or a hare maimed, or my own life-blood on the bright blade, I could no longer tell.

  Then I rang the bell and ordered the carriage for Chichester that afternoon, and bade Stride tell Harry that I needed him to escort me into town to transact some business.

  And even at this late, last, final fence, Harry would have jibbed.

  ‘Why don’t we wait for John’s return?’ he said pleasantly as we bowled down the hard high road to Chichester, through the pretty downland villages, and dragged more slowly around the steep slopes of the shoulder of the downs.

  ‘Well, we don’t know how long he will be, nor in what state,’ I said, my tone equally light. ‘I should rather get this signed and sealed while it is still fresh in our minds. Then we can tell Celia and John together as a surprise.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry hesitantly. ‘But it’s damned bad from John’s point of view, y’know, Beatrice. I know he’s keen on Wideacre but we have spent his entire fortune to make Richard the heir. I do wish we could have consulted him.’

  ‘Oh! So do I!’ I said emphatically. ‘But what could we do? If we had left it very much longer there would have been rumours about Celia’s barrenness, and that would have distressed her beyond belief. Those rumours would have made Charles Lacey increase his price because they would have made him hopeful of inheriting the estate. We simply had to go on with it when we did. John will understand. It’s the decision he would have taken.’

  ‘Well, if you’re certain,’ Harry said comfortably. The carriage rocked slightly as he settled back in his corner. Harry was gaining weight alarmingly fast. He would have nothing in the Wideacre stables that could carry him if he continued to eat at his present rate and spend lazy afternoons with the children on his knee or taking them for little walks around the garden. And if his heart was weak like Mama’s, it must be strained.

  ‘But there’s no reason why we should not wait for his return to sign the contract,’ Harry said, still uneasy. ‘It looks so odd, Beatrice. It says “signature of Julia Lacey’s parent or guardian”, and there I put my name. And then it says “signature of Richard MacAndrew’s parent or guardian”, and there’s my name as well! Anyone who did not know us would think we were up to some sort of cheat.’

  ‘Yes, but everyone knows us,’ I said easily. ‘It is so obviously the most sensible and best arrangement for everyone, there could be no slurs cast on it. The only person who loses at all is Charles Lacey and even he has been well compensated.’

  Harry chuckled at the thought. ‘Poor old Charles, eh?’ he said. ‘He must have started to get hopeful, d’you think, Beatrice?’

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘You outwitted him finely then, Harry!’

  ‘We did,’ said Harry generously.

  ‘Well, it was your excellent “idea that started the plan,’ I said. ‘And now it is coming to fruition. How well you have ordered the future, Harry! What a certainty of happiness lies before the two children.’

  Harry nodded and gazed out of the window. We were coming off the high ground now, dropping down a thickly wooded road which leads