Lynda La Plante - The Legacy

He put his arm around David’s shoulders, trying to smooth his jacket, but David pushed him away.

‘Don’t touch me, get away from me, all of you, you rabble, you common bastards!’

Shaking he arranged his handkerchief in his breast pocket and smoothed his hair with the palm of his hand. ‘I shall be a gentleman and forget this ever happened.’

He gave Evelyne a strange, disdainful look, turned, his head held high, and made a sad, foolish exit, still trying desperately to hold on to his dignity.

One of the stableboys looked at Ed, ‘You need us, Mr Meadows?’

All eyes turned to Freedom and Evelyne. As if they were animals in a circus ring, they waited for the roar. The pair of them faced each other and the atmosphere was so highly-charged that no one dared speak. Then Evelyne walked away. She heard scuffling behind her and raised voices, but she hurried on, almost afraid to turn back and see what was happening.

Ed was trying to persuade Freedom not to ride, not at this hour of the night — it was dark and the horse could fall. The head stableboy stuttered that Sir Charles would hit the roof, and received the snarling reply, ‘Bugger Sir Charles.’ No one had the nerve to try to stop Freedom as he galloped off without a saddle, leaving Ed thinking, ‘There’s Freedom’s best suit ruined,’ and silently praying his champion wouldn’t fall. He was doubly concerned because Freedom had taken Sir Charles’ prize stallion. God help them all if anything happened to the horse, never mind Freedom.

If Ed had watched for another second he would have had a heart attack as Freedom and the horse jumped a five-foot wall and headed for the forest.

The baby was sleeping, his thumb stuck in his mouth, and his warmth and peacefulness touched Evelyne. She lifted him gently out of the bizarre cradle they had brought from London and sat by the fire, rocking him in her arms. She closed her eyes, vowing to herself that he would never have to endure the humiliation she had known. She hated being poor, being subjected to ridicule. Growing steadily inside her were seeds of loathing for the so-called aristocracy.

If only Freedom would educate himself, beat them at their own game, learn to use them as they were using him. She was even more determined that she would teach him to read and write, make him learn. She shuddered when David came into her thoughts. He’d called her a slut. Well, she would not waste her time on him any more, he was out of her life. She looked down into her son’s face, touched his head.

‘You see, Edward, David’s trouble is that he got given all the opportunities a man could have, but he frittered them away. You know why? Because he won’t face up to being who he is. It doesn’t matter, Edward, where you come from. Titles? Half of them don’t have two pennies to rub together … You’re going to be somebody, be successful, be powerful and not need anyone. You have to want it and fight for it — not with your fists, like your dad, that isn’t good enough. No, you’re going to have to fight for an education and I’ll be right alongside you. I’ll kill for you to have it, so help me God I will — you’ll never be any man’s servant.’

Hours later Freedom came home to find the curtain drawn across the window and Evelyne already in bed. She heard him kicking off his shoes and knew he would be scattering his clothes all over the room. She got up and pulled her cardigan round her shoulders, checked that the baby was asleep, and opened the curtain quietly so Freedom did not hear her.

He was sitting by the fire, staring into the coals, his bare chest gleaming in the firelight. Evelyne curled up at his feet, squeezing her body between his knees. He didn’t speak and made no effort to hold her, but at the same time he did not push her away. For a few minutes they sat in silence, and then Evelyne began to tell him, softly, everything there was to know about her and David — how much she had loved him in a childish, romantic fantasy way, and how he had humiliated and hurt her … how even tonight he had made her feel like a second-class citizen, because of his background, his money. When Freedom had found them David was crying like a baby because he couldn’t have what he wanted, she had refused his advances. Not that he really wanted her — he never had — she was poor, something that could be bought, and thrown away when he had tired of her.

‘We may be poor, but our son will have everything, and you know what everything is, Freedom? Us, you and me beside him always. He’s going to have what we never had, proper schooling, education. We can have that for free, but love costs a lot more, you know that?’

He didn’t really understand what she was saying, but the fact that she had told him everything about David without his asking made him reach to hold her. He was so proud of her, the fight in her. He built up the fire until it blazed and brought the mattress from their bed, put it in front of the fire. Then he took off her long cotton nightdress and laid her down on the mattress, naked in the firelight. She loved him all the more. David’s weakness emphasized his strength, and she lifted her arms to him. He knelt beside her and kissed her, and they made love as they had in the enchanted summer months out in the fields. Since the child’s birth he had been gentle and caring, but now he loved her roughly, taking her time and time again until they lay sweating, their bodies close, so close, their love deepening, bonding them together.

‘Don’t ever betray me, manushi, not ever. It would set a demon loose inside me, and I wouldn’t care what happened to me, do ye understand what I am saying, gel?’

Evelyne did, she too had felt that surge of jealousy when she had seen him dancing with Lady Primrose, and it was a new emotion. She felt she would kill if anyone ever tried to take him from her. She turned in his arms and stroked his long hair, placed her hand to his heart, ‘And we must always talk, Freedom, be honest with each other, never pretend or lie.’

He lay back and thought about what she had said, about them being there for their son. It had never occurred to Freedom that he had never had a father, but then the elders of the camp acted in that role. Evelyne told him the difference, what it had been like with her Da, the closeness, the strong bond between them. She sat up and prodded the fire, snuggled down in his arms and asked him what he knew of the man who had fathered him. He could remember little, just that his mother had been very young, she was a Tachey Romany chat, of high blood, her father a prince and her mother the dukkerin of the camp. Her family had visited a village in the Rhondda and she had seen with her ‘eye’ the boy, tall as a tree, she said, and so rinkeney he had made her heart stop. She had known immediately that she wanted him. Freedom reverted to his Romany tongue as he described his mother, and the tall, wild man the village had nicknamed ‘The Lion’.

During the telling Freedom sat up, slightly apart from Evelyne, and she suddenly clutched him, hugged him, desperately. She clamped her hand over his mouth to prevent him going any further, ‘No, no, don’t say any more. Dear God, don’t say any more.’

He had to prise her away from him, she was that strong. He lifted her bodily, and from her face he knew something was terribly wrong, it frightened him. ‘Oh, God, Freedom, what have we done?’ She wanted to scream, she covered her own mouth with her hands, afraid she would cry out and wake the child … she bit her hand so hard he could see her teeth sinking into the flesh, her whole body trembling. When he pulled her hand away her sobs shook her, and she tried to push him away from her.

Holding him at arm’s length she finished his story for him; her voice harsh, each word bringing her pain. She told him of his mother, how she had stood at the pithead and waited for her ‘lion’, how the man had laughed and she had cursed him. It was Freedom’s turn to freeze, how did she know — how was she able to tell something he had never told another soul?