Philippa Gregory - The Complete Wideacre Trilogy - Wideacre, The Favoured Child, Meridon

‘Oh, yes,’ I said with polite interest. ‘Bread riots where?’

‘In Portsmouth, Mama said, I think,’ he said vaguely. ‘Apparently a mob broke into two bakers’ claiming the bread was made with adulterated flour. They were led by a legless gypsy on horseback. Fancy that!’

‘Fancy,’ I repeated slowly, uneasy with a feeling of dread I could not properly understand.

‘Fancy a mob being led by a man on a horse,’ George said with youthful scorn. ‘Why, next they’ll be looting with a curricle and pair.’

‘When was this?’ I asked sharply, some premonition drawing a cold fingernail down my spine.

‘I don’t know,’ said George. ‘Some weeks ago, I think. They’ve probably all been caught by now. I say, Miss Lacey, will you dance at Celia’s wedding?’

I found a smile to meet his open admiration. ‘No, George,’ I said kindly. ‘I shan’t be fully out of mourning. But when I am, at the first party I shall dance with you.’

He coloured up to his ears and escorted me up the steps to the Hall in breathless silence. Mama and Lady Havering were not speaking of the Portsmouth bread riots when we entered the drawing room, and there was no opportunity to ask more about it. It remained a faint shadow on my mind, like the cold shiver that country people say is someone walking over your grave. I did not like to hear of angry men on horses, of legless men leading mobs. But I could hardly have said why.

In any case, the most pressing problem before me was to seize my God-given chance to join the wedding tour. Some wise instinct made me delay telling Harry that his bride had asked me along for company until we were at tea: Mama, Harry and myself. I wanted to make sure that Harry could not refuse me as a lover what he could be forced to grant me as a brother.

I stressed that it was Celia’s invitation to me, and said that I had told her I could give her no answer without mama’s consent. I watched Harry’s face carefully and saw the brief leap of anticipation and pleasure at the news, succeeded by the more permanent expression of doubt. Harry’s good conscience had the upper hand again and I realized, with a pang of jealousy and pain, that he was looking forward to being alone with Celia, far away from her overbearing mother, far away from his stultifying, smothering, loving mama. Far away, even, from his desirable, mysterious sister.

‘It would be a marvellous opportunity for you,’ Mama said, glancing towards Harry to guess what her darling boy would prefer. ‘And so like Celia to think of giving you pleasure. But perhaps Harry feels he needs you here while he is away? There is always a lot of work to do on the land in autumn, I know your papa used to say so.’

She turned to Harry, having prepared the ground so he could merely indicate his wishes and we would all rush to satisfy them. Everything in this house went to Harry. I curbed my impatience.

‘Celia was actually begging me to come,’ I said, a smile on my face. I looked directly at Harry down the walnut table. ‘She rather dreads, I think, being left in a strange town while Harry seeks out some experimental farmer.’ My eyes held his and I knew he would read my secret message. ‘She does not yet share your tastes, as I do.’

He knew what I meant. Mama glanced curiously from his face to mine.

‘Celia has many years ahead of her to learn to share Harry’s tastes,’ she said gently. ‘I am sure she will do her very best to please him and make him happy.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said in ready agreement. ‘I am sure she will make us all happy. She is such a sweet good girl; she will be a marvellous wife.’

The thought of a lifetime with a ‘marvellous wife’ cast a shadow over Harry’s face. I took a gamble on Mama’s innocence and rose from my seat and walked to the head of the table. To Mama’s view from the foot I was prettily coaxing my dear brother, but he and I knew as I came near him the speed of his pulse was raised and, at my touch and at the smell of my warm perfumed skin, his breathing became faster. I kept my back to Mama and put my cheek against his face. I felt his skin grow hot under mine and I knew that my touch, the glimpse of my breasts at the top of my gown, were winning the battle for me against Harry’s weathercock feelings. There was never any need to argue with Harry. He was lost at the first reminder of pleasure.

‘Do take me with you, Harry,’ I pleaded, in a low coaxing tone. ‘I promise I will be good.’ Hidden from our mother, I breathed a kiss high on his cheek near his ear. He could stand no more and gently pushed me from him. I saw the muscles around his eyes were tense with self-control.

‘Of course, Beatrice,’ he said courteously. ‘If that is what Celia desires, I can think of no more agreeable arrangement. I shall write her a note and join you and Mama in the parlour for tea.’

He got himself quickly out of the room to cool off and left me alone with Mama. She was peeling a peach and did not look at me. I slipped back into my seat and cut a few grapes from the fat cluster with a pair of delicate silver scissors.

‘Are you sure you should go?’ Mama asked evenly. She kept her eyes on her neat hands.

‘Why not?’ I asked idly. But my nerves were alert.

She groped for a good reason and could not answer me at once.

‘Are you anxious at being left alone?’ I asked. ‘We shall not be gone very long.’

‘I do think it would be easier if you stayed,’ she concurred. ‘But I dare say I can manage for six or eight weeks. It is not Wideacre …’ She let the sentence hang, and I did not help her to complete it.

‘Perhaps they need time to be alone together …’ she started tentatively.

‘Whatever for?’ I said coolly, gambling on her belief in my virginal innocence. Gambling also on her own experience of marriage, which had not included courtship as a preliminary, nor a honeymoon as an introduction, but had been a business arrangement contracted for profit and concluded without emotion, except mutual dislike.

‘Perhaps you and Harry would do well to be apart …’ she said, even more hesitantly.

‘Mama,’ I said challengingly with my brave courage high. ‘Whatever are you saying?’

Her head jerked up at the strength in my voice and her pale eyes looked half frightened.

‘Nothing,’ she said, almost whispering. ‘Nothing, child. Nothing. It is just that sometimes I am so afraid for you – for your extreme passions. First you adored your father to such a height of feeling, and then you transferred that affection to Harry. All the time you will do nothing but roam around Wideacre as if you were a ghost haunting the place. It frightens me to see you so obsessed with Wideacre, so constantly with Harry. I just want you to have a normal, ordinary girlhood.’

I hesitated. ‘My girlhood is normal and ordinary, Mama,’ I said mildly. ‘It is not like yours because times are changing. But even more so because you were reared in town whereas I have had a country childhood. But I am no different from girls of my own age.’

She remained uneasy, but she would never have the courage to look into the pictures she had of Harry and me, to see clearly what was taking place before her frightened half-shut eyes.

‘I dare say you are not …’ she said. ‘I cannot judge. We see so few young people. Your papa had little time for county society and we live so withdrawn … I can hardly judge.’

‘Don’t be distressed, Mama,’ I said soothingly, my voice warm with assumed affection. ‘I am not obsessed with Wideacre, for, see, I am leaving in mid-autumn, one of the loveliest seasons. I am not possessive of Harry for I am happy at his marriage and I am making close friends with Celia. There is nothing to fear.’