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

‘It is a fine country,’ John said, following my loving eyes as I looked all around me at the familiar but always different trees, and hedgerows, and ground. ‘I do understand that you love it.’

‘You will come to love it too,’ I said certainly. ‘When you live here, when you spend your life here, you will care for it as I do, or nearly as much as I do.’

‘No one could equal your passion, I know,’ he said teasingly. ‘It is not the same for Harry, is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think only my papa cared for it as I do, and even he could bear to be away from it for shooting or for a season in town. I would be happy if I never left the estate again as long as I live.’

‘Perhaps we may take leave of absence once a year,’ said John, laughing at me. ‘And when it is a leap year we might go to Chichester!’

‘And for our tenth anniversary treat I shall let you go to Petworth!’ I said, not to be outdone.

‘We are agreed then,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘And I am well content with the bargain.’

I smiled in return and then we rounded the drive and drew up outside the steps where the candles stood in the parlour windows to light our way home.

The announcement that John made after dinner, when the servants had withdrawn and the fruit and cheese were laid out, was greeted with as little surprise as we could wish. And as much joy. My mama’s face was tender with tears and smiles as she held out both hands to John and said, ‘My dearest boy, my dearest boy.’

He took both hands and kissed them, and then hugged her to him and kissed her soundly on both cheeks.

‘Mama!’ he said outrageously, and earned himself a tap from her fan.

‘Impertinent boy,’ she said lovingly, then she held her arms wide to me and I moved close to her for the first sincere, warmhearted hug I think we had ever exchanged.

‘Are you happy, Beatrice?’ she asked under the hubbub Harry was making with the bell, ringing for champagne, and slapping John on the back.

‘Yes, Mama,’ I said truthfully. ‘I really am.’

‘And at some sort of peace at last?’ Her eyes scanned my face, trying to understand the puzzle that was her daughter.

‘Yes, Mama,’ I said. ‘I feel as if something I have waited for has finally come to me.’

She nodded then, satisfied. She had seen the key to all sorts of puzzles in the dim awareness of her mind. The smell of milk on me when Celia and the baby and I returned from France, my nightmares after my father’s death, the disappearance of my childhood playmate, the gamekeeper. She had never dared to grasp the thread and let it lead her through the maze to the monstrous truth. So now she was well pleased to have thread, maze, monster and all safely buried as if they had never been.

‘He is a good man,’ she said, looking at John who had one arm around Celia’s waist, and was laughing with Harry.

‘I think so, indeed,’ I said, following her gaze. John, ever watchful of me, caught my look upon him and released Celia with exaggerated suddenness.

‘I must remember I am an affianced man!’ he said, teasing. ‘Celia, you must forgive me. I forgot my new state.’

‘But when will you be a married man?’ she asked gently. ‘Beatrice, do you plan a long engagement?’

‘Indeed not,’ I said without reflection. Then I paused and looked at John. ‘We have not discussed it, but I should certainly like to be married before Christmas and before lambing.’

‘Oh, well, if the sheep are to be the arbiters of my married life I suppose it should be whenever is convenient to them,’ John said, ironically.

‘You will call the banns and have a full Wideacre wedding,’ begged Mama, visualizing the dress and the attendants and the party and the feasting on the estate.

‘No,’ I said firmly and with an assured glance at John. ‘No, however it is done it should be quiet. I could not stand a full-blown affair. I should like it to be quiet and simple and soon.’

John nodded, a silent gesture of absolute agreement.

‘It should be as you wish, of course,’ said Celia diplomatically, glancing from Mama to me. ‘But perhaps a very small party, Beatrice? With just a few of your family, and John’s and your best friends.’

‘No,’ I said inexorably. ‘I know the fashion is changing but I stick to the old ways. I should like to wake up in the morning, put on a pretty gown, drive to church, marry John, come home for breakfast, and be out in the afternoon checking fences. I do not want one of these fashionable fusses made over what should be a private affair.’

‘And neither do I,’ said John, coming to my support when I needed it.

‘They’re right,’ said Harry with traditional loyalty. ‘Mama, Celia, you need say no more. Beatrice is famous for her love of the old ways; it would be an absolute blasphemy for her to have a modern wedding. Let it be as Beatrice says – a quiet, private affair – and we can have our party at Christmas as a joint celebration.’

‘Very well then,’ said Mama. ‘It shall be as you wish. I should have enjoyed a party, but as Harry says we can make it a special Wideacre Christmas instead.’

She earned a smile from me for that compromise. And her son-in-law-to-be kissed her hands with an elegant air.

‘Now,’ said Celia, turning to the most interesting question. ‘We shall have to redecorate the west wing for the two of you. How would you like it done?’

I surrendered then.

‘Any way, any way at all,’ I said, throwing my hands up. ‘Any way you and Mama think is the best. All I specify is that there shall be no pagodas and no dragons.’

‘Stuff,’ said Celia. ‘The Chinese fashion is quite démodé now. For you, Beatrice, I shall create a Turkish palace!’

So, between teasing and good decisions, John and I had our way of a private wedding and his removal, with the minimum of fuss, into a broad fine bedroom adjoining mine, a dressing room leading off it, a study downstairs facing over the kitchen garden for his books and his medicines, and an extra loosebox in the stables for his precious Sea Fern.

But we decided to have a wedding trip: just a few days. John had an aunt living at Pagham and she lent us her house. It was an easy afternoon’s drive – an elegant small manor house with a welcoming wide-open door.

‘There’s no land attached to it,’ said John, noting my raking glance out of the parlour windows. ‘She owns it merely as a house and garden. There is no farm land. So you need not plan your improvements here.’

‘No, it is Harry who is the one for the new methods,’ I said, returning without apology to the table where John sipped his port and I was toying with candied fruit. ‘I was thinking only that if the fields were planted longways instead of in patches as they are, it would make a better run for the plough.’

‘Does that make much difference?’ asked John, an ignorant town dweller, and a Scot.

‘Oh, heavens, yes!’ I said. ‘Hours in the day. The longest, worst part of ploughing is turning the horses. If I had my way we would farm only in strips. Lovely long reaches so the horses could go on and on without stopping. Straight, straight, straight.’

John laughed outright at my bright face.

‘All the way to London, I suppose,’ he said.

‘Ah, no,’ I disclaimed. ‘That is Harry again. It is he who wants lots more land. All I want is the Wideacre estate properly rounded off and enclosed, and properly yielding. Extra land is a pleasure to own, but it is new people to know and new fields to learn. Harry would buy it as if it were yards of homespun. But it is different to me.’

‘How is it?’ he prompted. ‘How is the land different from all other goods, Beatrice?’