The Favoured Child Read online

  Richard brought a letter. It was from a Justice of the Peace at Haslemere. The common outside the little town had been troubled with highwaymen. It seemed that a highwayman had held up the travelling coach and ordered Jem to stand to. And then he had shot them dead.

  Jem, Uncle John and my mama.

  The next travellers along the road saw the coach pulled in at the roadside, the horses grazing on the verge. Jem was dead on the box and John was lying on the floor inside; it seemed he had been trying to shield my mama with his body. My mama had been shot dead.

  The cash in John’s travelling box had gone. My mama’s rose-pearl ear-rings and her beautiful Indian rose-pearl necklace, which she had worn every day since John gave them to her, were missing.

  The magistrate, Mr Pearson, said he was very sorry. He said he had posted notices for information about the killer, and that if we wished to offer a reward, we should contact him. He said he was making arrangements for the bodies to be sent home. He said he commiserated with us in our grief.

  ‘What should we do, sir?’ Richard asked Lord Havering, his blue eyes wide. ‘What should Julia and I do?’

  ‘You’ll stay here, of course,’ my grandmama interrupted. ‘You will stay here with me until we can sort things out. I shall take care of Julia; she is my granddaughter. And there will always be a home for you here, Richard.’

  I said nothing. I could think of nothing. In the distant back of my mind was a great gash of pain and longing for my mama and, increasingly, as I sat in silence, a great need of her help. I could not think how I would manage without her. I could not think where I would live or what would become of me, or of my unborn child.

  ‘Lady Havering,’ Richard said firmly. ‘I have to tell you and his lordship some news which will be a surprise to both of you.’

  I did not know what Richard was about to say. I could hardly hear his words. All I could hear was a little cry of pain, as thin as a thread, in the back of my mind, which said, ‘Mama.’

  So I sat in silence, and I was passive when Richard walked over to me and drew me to my feet. He held my hand in one hand, the letter announcing my mama’s murder in his other. He tucked my icy right hand under his arm and faced my grandparents.

  ‘Julia and I are married,’ he said. ‘We will be making our lives together,’

  ‘Good God!’ said Lord Havering. He looked at his wife for prompting and then he looked back at the pair of us. Richard seemed assured and somehow prepared for this scene. I was nothing more than a wan shadow at his side, deprived of speech, deprived of thought. I was calling for Mama inside my head, calling for her in silence.

  ‘Good God!’ said Lord Havering again.

  ‘Did your father know of this, Richard?’ Lady Havering demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘Lady Havering, it is useless for us to pretend to you. My papa gave his permission, and Julia’s mama gave her permission, because Julia is with child. I am the father.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Lord Havering once more, and dropped into a chair like a stone.

  Lady Havering’s face was as pale as crumpled vellum, but her first thought was not for the conventions but for the daughter she had lost.

  ‘Oh! My poor Celia!’ she exclaimed. ‘That would have been the last straw for her. That must have broken her heart.’

  I dropped my head. I felt I had killed Mama myself. She had left the house without a word of love between us and she had gone to her death. I was ready to believe that when her killer shot her, he was completing the injury I had started when she learned I was unchaste. I was so ashamed I could not speak.

  ‘I suppose this alters things,’ Richard said with careful courtesy.

  ‘It does!’ Lord Havering said. ‘It does, by God!’

  Lady Havering made a slight gesture and his lordship fell silent. ‘I’ll recognize you,’ she said grimly. ‘Whatever else Julia is, she is my granddaughter, and I’ll do it for Celia’s sake. I’ll acknowledge you, and we’ll announce the marriage in the papers. No one will expect any sort of reception with your parents’ funeral taking place in the same week. We can make it appear that you have been married for some time.’ She hesitated. I did not look up. ‘When’s the baby due?’ she asked.

  ‘At the end of January,’ Richard said.

  ‘We’ll say you were married privately in the spring, then,’ she said. Her voice was as hard and dispassionate as a general planning a campaign. ‘In these circumstances, there is no reason why the two of you should not go home at once.’

  ‘No!’ I exclaimed suddenly. ‘I don’t want to go home!’

  Richard’s eyes met mine with unmistakable menace in their blue hardness.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded my grandmama sharply.

  I hesitated. Richard’s eyes were on me, but I trusted my grand-mama’s love for me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said weakly. ‘I just don’t want to, Grandmama. Please let me stay here with you. I don’t want to go home.’

  She hesitated, and I knew her long affection was weighing more heavily than her shock and dismay at what I had done. I knew she would keep me with her until I felt strong enough to go home and face Richard and decide what we should do in the wreckage of our lives. I felt I had suddenly found some safe ground under my feet. I knew my grandmama saw the appeal in my eyes, and I knew that I had an ally who was very strong.

  ‘You may stay if you wish,’ she said slowly. But then she looked away from me. She looked to Richard. ‘But you are a married woman now, Julia. You must do as your husband wishes.’

  I gaped at her. I could barely understand her. ‘Richard?’ I queried. I could not believe that she was referring a decision to my childhood playmate. I could not believe that she would permit him to take a decision about me, in her house.

  ‘You are a married woman, Julia,’ she said. It was as if there were a cell door closing. ‘You are a married woman. It must be as your husband wishes.’

  I looked around.

  Lord Havering was nodding. My grandmama’s face was strained, but her eyes were steady. Last of all I looked at Richard. His eyes were gleaming in secret triumph.

  ‘I think we should go home, Julia,’ he said gently. ‘This has been a dreadful shock for us both. I think we should go home and you should have some hartshorn and water and go to bed early. There will be much to arrange tomorrow, and this has been an unbearably distressing day. I think you should come home and rest in your own house.’

  I glanced at Grandmama for her help, but her face was impassive. My grandpapa stared sombrely at the carpet between his boots. I looked again at Richard. There was only one way out for me. I could tell them that Richard and I were brother and sister and that the marriage must be annulled. But if I spoke of that, then Grandmama would know that I had lain with my own brother and that the little child, my own little child, was the fruit of a perversion. Worse, she would know that I was not her grandchild at all; that I was the daughter of Beatrice, the witch of Wideacre, and her brother Harry, the fool; that I was no kin.

  I could not do it. I could not lose mother and grandmother in one day. I could not tell her she must look on me as a stranger stained with sin. I could not find the words.

  ‘Very well,’ I said dutifully. I somehow got to my feet. Lord Havering ordered the Havering carriage and I drove home in it alone, while Richard rode behind.

  Stride opened the door to me and I could see he had been weeping.

  Oh, Stride!’ I said sadly.

  There was time for no other words. Richard came in and ordered Stride to send Jenny Hodgett to take me to bed with a bowl of soup and a glass of port. When I was undressed and in my bed, Richard himself came up with a glass of hartshorn and water and said he would sit with me until I slept.

  I dropped back on the pillows and closed my eyes so that I should not see him in my window-seat, blocking my view of the late-evening sky and the sighing tree outside the window. My grief for my mama was so strong that I thought it would choke me to hold in the sobs which g