The Favoured Child Read online

‘Not all the way,’ he repeated as slowly as if he were writing down my answer in a copy-book. ‘She did not walk all the way. So, Julia, did you trot?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quickly. Too quickly. ‘I trotted her a little.’

  ‘You trotted,’ he repeated again. ‘Your first time on horseback and you trotted? A rising trot, Julia? Or did you just bump about, clinging on and hoping for the best?’

  ‘I trotted properly!’ I said, stung. ‘And I cantered too!’

  Richard’s head snapped up. His eyes were as black as the centre of a thundercloud.

  ‘You took my horse without my permission and you cantered her?’

  ‘Richard!’ I said desperately. ‘I had to! I had to! Dench told me to! He had to look for you and I had to call out Acre and come home and tell Mama. I could not refuse to go. Dench knew what to do and he ordered me!’

  There was an utter silence.

  ‘Dench, was it?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You should have refused,’ Richard said, a little frown on his face.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do!’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Richard. Dench seemed to know what had to be done, so I did as he told me.’

  ‘He never liked me,’ Richard said, gazing at the blank wall at the foot of the bed, seeming to see Dench’s impassive face on the pale lime-wash. He was seeing again in his mind Dench’s stony face as he watched Richard struggling to learn to ride, and Grandpapa’s impatience. ‘Not from the first riding lesson. Not before. He never liked me. He wanted you to have Scheherazade from the start,’ he said reflectively, reviewing the scene in the stable yard and remembering Dench’s smile as I walked towards the mare. ‘Then he used the excuse of my accident to get you on her.’

  I said nothing. I knew it was none of it true. But the threat of Richard’s rage seemed to be passing away from me. I felt icy cold inside, and the thudding in my head, behind my eyes, warned me that I would have a dizzy nauseous headache unless I could get away at once from this stuffy room. I sat in silence on the window-seat, the cold pane of glass chilling my back, fearful to make a move in case Richard’s rage should come back towards me.

  ‘It’s Dench’s fault,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ I said, thinking only of my need to get away. Richard said nothing more, and I sat frozen.

  He turned and looked at me and I saw with relief that his eyes were a hazy blue, as if he were daydreaming, as if he were happy. He smiled at me, smiled as sweetly as the dearest of friends. ‘Don’t look so terrified, Julia,’ he said as if it were rather funny. ‘I’m not angry with you any more. I thought it was your fault. But I see now that it was Dench’s.’

  I smiled back, still wary.

  ‘You’re sure he ordered you?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure it was he who made you ride my horse? You didn’t think you would seize the chance selfishly for yourself?’

  ‘No! No!’ I said hastily. ‘It was all his idea.’

  ‘Good,’ Richard said, and smiled his seraphic smile at me. He put his right hand out to me and I reached forward and took it in my icy fingers. Obedient to his tug, I slid forward to kneel at his bedside and he put his hand to my face and stroked my cheek as gentle as a lover. Then he kissed my forehead, just where the headache was starting to thud, and at his touch I could feel my fear and strain melting away, and the beat of the pulse behind my eyes grow quiet again.

  ‘That’s better now, isn’t it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said softly.

  ‘I hate it when we quarrel,’ he said, his voice low. ‘There is nothing worse in the world for me than when I think you have been selfish and ugly. You must love me like a true lady, Julia. You must be pure and unselfish.’

  I blinked back the tears in my eyes. ‘I do try,’ I said humbly. ‘I try all the time, Richard.’

  Richard smiled, his eyes warm. ‘I know,’ he said sweetly. ‘That is how it should be.’

  Then I laid my head on his pillow and smelled the sweet nutty smell of his warm body and his dark curly hair and felt such a peace between us.

  Richard was angry with me no more.

  3

  Richard’s convalescence from the fever and the mending of his collar-bone and arm progressed without any problems. The surgeon came from Midhurst again to make sure the break was healing and he told Mama he would not need to call again. Richard was irritable during the days when he was cooped up in his tiny low-ceilinged bedroom, but once he could come downstairs for his meals – looking very grand in Grandpapa’s old jacket for a dressing-gown – he became his old sweet-tempered self. I thought that his short temper over Scheherazade had come from the fever and the pain and the very great blow it had been to his pride that I should be seen riding a horse which had just thrown him.

  Bearing that in mind, I was discreet in my visits to the stables with crusts of stale bread for Scheherazade. I did not dream of riding her again, and I scowled at Dench when I met him chatting with his nephew Jem in our stable yard and he told me of a ladies’ saddle he had found which was being sold cheap.

  ‘I am not allowed to ride her,’ I said as I might have said,’Get thee behind me’ to my greatest temptation. ‘She is Richard’s horse, not mine.’

  ‘He can’t ride her,’ he said frankly. ‘He was always afraid of her, she was always unsettled with him. Tell him that you’ll ride her for him while his arm’s mending. Jem’ll give you a few hints on how to manage her.’ Jem beamed at me and nodded. ‘She needs exercising,’ Dench said. He made it sound as if I would be doing Richard a favour instead of giving myself the greatest joy I could imagine. ‘No horse likes to be neglected. She’ll get bored and fretty locked up in the stable all the time. Tell Master Richard that she needs to go out. He can watch you ride himself if it makes him feel any better.’

  ‘I’ll tell Mama she needs exercising,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to ride her.’

  ‘Pity,’ he said succinctly.

  Jem nodded. ‘You should stand up for yourself, Miss Julia,’ he said. ‘You’re the Lacey, after all.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘D’you want to lead her down to the orchard?’ Jem suggested.

  ‘Oh yes!’ I said. Jem turned to fetch her from the loose box and she came out in a rush. Dench stepped quickly aside and put a hand up for her head collar, but I stayed still. She stopped before me, as though it were me she had been in a hurry to see, and she dropped her lovely huge chestnut head to sniff at the front of my gown. I held her soft nose and laid my cheek along it.

  Then I saw a movement at the library window, and I froze. Richard was watching me. As soon as I saw him, I moved, instinctively, away from the horse, ashamed as if he had caught me rifling his possessions or reading his private letters. I lifted my hand in a little wave, but Richard did not respond. He stepped back from the window before Jem and Dench had turned to see who was there.

  ‘Richard was watching,’ I said feebly. ‘I won’t take her to the orchard, Jem. You do it.’

  Jem made a hissing noise through his teeth and clipped a rope on to the head collar. He and Dench exchanged one sour look, but said nothing.

  ‘I must go,’ I said, and turned away from the horse, the lovely horse, and went back to the parlour.

  It was a quiet day, like all the other days, and the only excitement of the afternoon came when Richard and I were playing piquet at the parlour table and I won one hundred and fourteen pounds in buttons. Richard declared himself bankrupt and ruined and tossed down the cards. He glanced across at my mama, sitting at the fireside, and asked her, as if he had just thought of the question, ‘Mama-Aunt, what is Lord Havering going to do about Dench?’

  ‘Dench?’ my mama repeated in surprise. ‘What about Dench?’

  Richard looked blank. ‘Surely he has been reprimanded,’ he said, bewildered. ‘After taking such dreadful risks with Julia’s safety that day?’

  Mama paused. ‘I was very shocked at the time,’ she said.