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

I was more cautious this time. My pride and my peace had been dealt a stinging blow by the birth of a useless girl. Never again would I worship my own swelling body, seeing in its new shape the certainty of my future. But I could not suppress a little rising smile, at the thought that having had one girl, surely the chances were greater that this time my brother and I had bred true – had conceived a son.

I could not wait. I had conceived in September, and it was already mid-October – I dared not. Celia had to be told and some plan to explain our departure from Wideacre had to be cobbled together, and it had to be done quickly. I called out to one of the grooms who had followed the hunt with a spare horse. He touched his cap, and lifted me into the saddle. I told him to tell the Master that I was tired and would hack gently home, and I left without saying goodbye.

But I had not reckoned on John. He forced no farewell or explanation from me, but when I glanced back at the ring of huntsmen under the sweeping trees I saw that Sea Fern was standing to one side, away from the bustle of the hounds and the round of silver flasks. He was watching me ride away, and in the tilt of his head I saw not the blind gaze of the lover but the hard, analytical scrutiny of the professional man. I straightened my back in the saddle, conscious of his eyes upon me, and thought yet again that Celia and I would have to hurry. It would be tedious indeed to be off on my travels again, and difficult to arrange. But Wideacre, with the hard sharp eyes of Dr MacAndrew on me, was unsafe for any secret.

I waited to be sure I could have Celia to myself for a good period of time, and after dinner asked her to come to my office on the pretext of some brocades I wanted her to help me choose. The parlourmaid served us Bohea tea at the great rent table and Celia smiled at the contrast of the pretty red porcelain against the heavy masculine furniture of the room.

‘Well, it is an office,’ I said, half apologetically. ‘If I had the labourers into my parlour they would break those delicate chairs and tread mud on the carpet.’

‘I don’t know how you can do it,’ murmured Celia, glancing at the ledgers piled on one side of my desk. ‘I should think it is so difficult to work out where all the money is coming from, and where it is being spent! And so boring!’

‘I find it hard, certainly,’ I said, telling an easy lie. ‘But I am happy to do it for it frees Harry from the worry of it. But, Celia, I really asked you to come here because I wanted to talk to you alone.’

Her velvet-brown eyes were instantly concerned.

‘Of course, Beatrice,’ she said. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘Not with me,’ I said firmly. ‘It is you I wanted to talk about. My dear, we have been home for four months, and you have shared a room with Harry for nearly two. I just wondered if you had noticed any signs to tell you that you might be expecting a child?’

Celia’s little face flushed as scarlet as a poppy and her eyes fell to her clasped hands in her lap.

‘No,’ she said very low. ‘No, no signs, Beatrice. I cannot understand it.’

‘Are you quite healthy?’ I asked her, with affected concern.

‘I thought so,’ she said miserably. ‘But yet I do not seem able to conceive. Harry says nothing, but I know he must be wondering about an heir. Mama suggested eating a lot of salt and I have done so, but it seems to make no difference. What makes it worst of all, Beatrice, is that you and I know that I did not even conceive Julia. I have been married a full year, and not conceived a child.’

I wrinkled my forehead, my eyes warm with concern.

‘My dear,’ I said, ‘perhaps you should take some medical advice. John MacAndrew or, if you preferred, a London specialist?’

‘How can I!’ Celia exclaimed. ‘Any doctor would be certain to ask about the conception of the first child and I cannot tell him that I have no first child when Julia is in the nursery, and Harry believes her to be his!’

‘Oh, Celia!’ I said. ‘This is what I feared. But what will you do?’

‘I can see nothing that I can do,’ she said. She reached in the pocket of her little silk pinny and brought out a handkerchief, a tiny scrap of lace. She wiped her wet cheeks and tried to smile at me, but her lower lip trembled like a child’s.

‘I pray and pray,’ she said low. ‘But my prayers are not answered. It is a dreadful thought that because of my inadequacy Wideacre will pass to your cousins. If I had known that I would so fail Harry as a wife I should never have married him. I would have spared him that disappointment.’ She ended with a little sob and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth.

‘But I know so little of these things, Beatrice,’ she said. ‘And I cannot ask my mama. A year is not so very long, is it? I could just have been unlucky so far?’

‘No,’ I said, squashing that hope as firmly as I could. ‘I believe that most women are most fertile in the first year of their marriage. Since you have not conceived yet, I think it is unlikely that you ever will.’

I gave her a pause for her to wipe her eyes again, her head bowed under the sentence I had delivered. Then I held out a ray of hope.

‘What if I were to conceive again, and we were to go away and I were to give you the child?’ I said, musing aloud.

Her tear-filled eyes came up to my face and she managed a watery giggle.

‘Really, Beatrice!’ she said. ‘You are too shocking!’

‘I know,’ I said impatiently. ‘But I am thinking of you, you and Harry. If I were to be betrothed, or even married, I would be prepared, indeed I would be happy to solve your most dreadful problem by giving you my child.’

‘No,’ she said, with a determined shake of her head. ‘No, it would never work. It could never work. It could not be arranged.’

‘These are just details,’ I said, containing my impatience. ‘I say it could be arranged. I could arrange it. Would it not be a relief to you to be able to bring another baby home to Wideacre? And if it were a boy you could bring an heir home to Harry!’

She looked at me doubtfully, and I felt a glimmer of confidence and hope.

‘Can you be serious, Beatrice?’ she asked.

‘I am hardly likely to joke, when your life and your marriage are in such desperate crisis,’ I said, trying to overwhelm her with despair. ‘I see you are miserable; I see Harry anxious. I see that Wideacre will be taken from Harry’s line and given to distant cousins. Of course I am serious.’

Celia rose from her chair and came to stand behind me. She put her arms around my neck and leaned over the back of my chair to rest her damp cheek against my hot one.

‘That is so very good of you,’ she said with emphasis. ‘Very generous, and very loving, and very like you and your sweet nature.’

‘Yes?’ I said. ‘So we could do it?’

‘No,’ she said, sadly and softly. ‘We could not.’

I turned in my chair to look up at her. Her face was sad, but she was resigned to her sadness.

‘I could not, Beatrice,’ she said simply. ‘You have forgotten that to carry out such a deception I should have to lie to Harry. I would put another man’s child in Harry’s home and that would be a betrayal of him as surely as if I had been unchaste. I could not do it, Beatrice.’

‘You did it before,’ I said crudely. She winced as if I had struck her.

‘I know I did, and that was wrong,’ she said simply. ‘In my fear of marriage and in my concern for you I committed a most dreadful sin against my husband whom I now love more than anything else in the world. I should not have done it, and sometimes I think that my punishment is not only to live with the consciousness of that sin, but also to have to live with my barrenness. I try to atone for it by loving Julia as well as if she were indeed my own precious daughter, and by never lying again to Harry as long as I live. But I know well that I should not have done it. And I should never do such a thing again, whatever the temptation.’