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

‘And you will send for me if you feel in the least unwell, or even just worried?’ he asked.

‘I promise,’ I said easily. He turned my hand palm up, in the pretty gesture he had used in our courtship, and pressed a kiss into it, and closed my fingers over the kiss. I turned my face to him and smiled with all my heart in my eyes.

John stayed only for my nineteenth birthday on the fourth of May when Celia had the dining room cleared of furniture and invited half-a-dozen neighbours in for a supper dance to celebrate. More tired than I cared to show, I danced two gavottes with John and a slow waltz with Harry before sitting down to open my presents.

Harry and Celia gave me a pair of diamond ear-drops, Mama a diamond necklace to match. John’s present was a large heavy leather box, as big as a jewel case with brass corners and a lock.

‘A mineful of diamonds,’ I guessed, and John laughed.

‘Better than that,’ he said.

He took a little brass key from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to me. It fitted the lock and the lid opened easily. The box was lined with blue velvet, and nestling securely in its bed was a brass sextant.

‘Good heavens,’ said Mama. ‘What on earth is it?’

I beamed at John. ‘It is a sextant, Mama,’ I said. ‘A beautiful piece of work and a wonderful invention. With this I can draw my own maps of the estate. I won’t have to rely any more on the Chichester draughtsmen.’ I held out my hand to John. ‘Thank you, thank you, my love.’

‘What a present for a young wife!’ said Celia wonderingly. ‘Beatrice, you are well suited. John is as odd as you!’

John chuckled disarmingly. ‘Oh, she’s so spoiled I have to buy her the strangest things,’ he said. ‘She’s dripping with jewels and silks. Look at this pile of gifts!’

The little table in the corner of the dining room was heaped with brightly wrapped presents from the tenants, workers and servants. Posies of flowers from the village children were all around the room.

‘You’re very well loved,’ said John, smiling down at me.

‘She is indeed,’ said Harry. ‘I never get such a wealth of treats on my birthday. When she’s twenty-one I shall have to declare a day’s holiday.’

‘Oh, a week at least!’ I said, smiling at the hint of jealousy in Harry’s voice. Harry’s summer as the pet of the estate had come and gone too quickly for him. They had taken him to their hearts that first good harvest, but when he had come home from France they had found that the Squire without his sister was only half a Master, and a silly, irresponsible half at that.

My return from France had been a return into pride of place and the presents and the deep curtsies, bows, and loving smiles were the tribute I received.

I crossed to the table and started opening the gifts. They were small, home-made tokens. A knitted pin cushion with my name made out of china-headed pins. A riding whip with my name carved on the handle. A pair of knitted mittens to wear under my riding gloves. A scarf woven from lamb’s wool. And then a tiny package, no bigger than my fist, wrapped, oddly, in black paper. There was no message, no sign of the sender. I turned it over in my hands with an uneasy sense of disquiet. My baby stirred in my belly as if he felt some danger.

‘Open it,’ prompted Celia. ‘Perhaps it says inside who has sent it to you.’

I tore the black paper at the black seal, and out of the wrapping tumbled a little china brown owl.

‘How sweet,’ said Celia readily. I knew I was staring at it in utter horror and tried to smile, but I could feel my lips trembling.

‘What is the matter, Beatrice?’ asked John. His voice seemed to come from a long way off; when I looked at him I could hardly see his face. I blinked and shook my head to clear the fog and the buzzing sound in my ears.

‘Nothing,’ I said, my voice low. ‘Nothing. Excuse me one minute.’ Without a word of explanation I turned from the pile of unopened gifts, and left my birthday party. In the hall, I rang the bell for Stride. He came from the kitchen doors smiling.

‘Yes, Miss Beatrice?’ he said.

I showed him the black wrapping paper balled in my hand, I had the little china owl tight in the other hand. I could feel the coldness of the porcelain and it seemed to make me shiver all over.

‘One of my presents was wrapped in this paper,’ I said abruptly. ‘Do you know when it was delivered? How it came here?’

Stride took the crumpled paper from me and smoothed it out.

‘Was it a very little package?’ he asked.

I nodded. My throat was too dry to trust my voice.

‘We thought it must have been one of the village children,’ he said with a smile. ‘It was left under your bedroom window, Miss Beatrice, in a little withy basket.’

I gave a deep shuddering sigh.

‘I want to see the basket,’ I said. Stride nodded, and went back through the green baize door. The coldness of the little owl seemed to chill me through and through. I knew well enough who had sent it. The crippled outlaw who was all that was left of the lad who had given me a baby owl with such love four years ago. Ralph had sent me this ominous birthday gift as a signal. But I did not know what it meant. The dining room door opened, and John came out exclaiming at my white face.

‘You are overtired,’ he said. ‘What has upset you?’

‘Nothing,’ I said again, framing the word with numb lips.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said, drawing me into the parlour. ‘You can go back to the dancing in a minute. Would you like some smelling-salts?’

‘Yes,’ I said, to be rid of him for a moment. ‘They are in my bedroom.’

He scanned my face, and then left the room. I sat cold and still and waited for Stride to bring me the little withy basket.

He put it in my hands and I nodded him from the room. It was Ralph’s work, a tiny replica of the other basket I had pulled up to my window seat in the dawn light on my fifteenth birthday. The reeds were fresh and green, so it had been made in the last few days. Wideacre reeds perhaps, so he could be as close to the house as the Fenny. With his basket in one hand, and his horrid little present in the other, I gave a moan of terror. Then I bit the tip of my tongue and pinched my cheeks with hard fingers to fetch some colour to them, and when John came back into the room with my smelling-salts I had a hard laugh ready, and I waved them away. Smelling-salts, questions, grave looks of concern, I dismissed airily. John watched me, his eyes sharp and anxious, but he pressed no questions on me.

‘It is nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing. I just danced too much for your little son.’ And I would say no more.

I dared not give him reason to stay. With my baby due in three or four weeks, I had to have him away. So I hid my fear under a bright brave front, and I packed his bags for him with a light step and an easy smile. Then I stood on the steps and waved his chaise out of sight, and I did not let myself tremble for fear until I had heard the hoofbeats of the horses cantering away down the drive.

Then, and then only, I leaned back on the sun-warmed doorpost and moaned in fright at the thought of Ralph daring enough to ride or, even more hideous, to crawl right up to the walls of the Hall, and hating enough to remember what he had given me for a present four years before.

But there was no time for me to think, and I blessed the work and the planning that I had to do, and my tiredness during the days and my heavy sleep at nights. In my first pregnancy I had revelled in slothful inactivity in the last few weeks, but in this one I had to pretend to three pairs of watchful eyes that I was two months away from my time. So I walked with a light step and worked a full day, and never put my hands to my aching back and sighed until my bedroom door was safely shut and I could confess myself bone-tired.