Philippa Gregory - Meridon

I hesitated. ‘I don’t think I should, Perry,’ I said. ‘If you have overspent your allowance on gambling, I suppose you should settle your debts before you have more.’

He chuckled at once, and his grin was rueful. ‘Dammit Sarah, don’t talk like Mama!’ he begged. ‘I’ve never pretended for a moment that I could stay inside my allowance. Just because you’re a little goody with your money, doesn’t mean I can save mine.’

I laughed outright. ‘I’m not a goody,’ I said. ‘I just don’t think I’ll ever see it again once it gets inside your pocket.’

Perry smiled. ‘So what?’ he said carelessly. ‘When we are married we’ll have all the money we need, I’ll repay you then.’

I turned to face him and laid my gloves aside. ‘Easy talking,’ I said shrewdly. ‘If you’re a gamester you’ll get through your fortune and mine. There’s never enough money for a gambler.’

He was instantly penitent. ‘I know,’ he said gravely. ‘Don’t preach, Sarah. It’s the life we lead in London. I gamble and I drink. I owe so much money I can’t even add up how much it is. One of my friends has sold my vowels to a money-changer and so he is charging me interest on my debts. I’m in a mess, Sarah. I wish we were well out of it.’

‘D’you like gambling?’ I asked. I had seen enough men half-ruined when all they had to bet were pennies, it made me sick with nerves when I was in the great houses of London and saw people staking hundreds of pounds.

‘No,’ he said frankly. ‘I like winning well enough, but I hate losing. And I hate losing when it goes badly. Trust me this once, Sarah and I’ll clear as many of my debts as I can, and I won’t gamble any more.’

‘It’s exciting though, isn’t it?’ I asked him. I was wondering if Will was right, and Perry had gaming in his blood.

‘Not when I lose,’ he said ruefully. ‘I only really do it to pass the time, and everyone gambles, you know that, Sarah!’

I nodded. It was true. People bet on the turn of a card, on the fall of a die. I had been in a group which had a thousand pounds on the table as to whether Lady Fanshawe would wear her awful green dress in public again. My belief was that Perry played because it was part of his London life. He was not a gambler at heart. And I could take him away from London, I could take him away from gambling and drink.

Besides; I had promised I would not leave him. He had asked me to stay with him for ever. We were betrothed. I did not want to sour it by haggling over a handful of guineas.

I opened the right-hand drawer in my dressing-table. ‘Here,’ I said.

I had my quarter’s allowance of gold coins in a purse, locked in the little jewel-box. It opened with a key. The purse clinked, it was heavy with the coins. There were fifty gold sovereigns in it; Mr Fortescue had been generous in his estimates of my needs.

‘You can have forty,’ I said. ‘I must pay the dressmakers something on account or they will be charging me for loans too.’

Perry caught at my hand and went to kiss it before he took the purse. I pulled my hand away and he did not try to hold me.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That will clear the worst of it, and I’ve another quarter’s allowance due next month and I know my luck will change soon. I can feel it. Anyway, soon we will be married and I shall be able to get at my money without waiting for an allowance.’

‘Why don’t you ask your mama to give you more?’ I suggested.

Perry was heading for the door but he turned back towards me with a little half-smile. ‘She likes me in debt,’ he said as if it were obvious. ‘She can make me do whatever she likes when I am in debt to her.’

I nodded. It was all of a piece.

‘Well, keep it safe then,’ I said. ‘Or I shall make you do what I like when you are in debt to me.’

He hesitated, with the door half open. ‘But all you want me to do is to go home with you, and away from London, isn’t it?’ he said. He gave me one of his endearing half-smiles. ‘You can order me, Sarah,’ he said.

I was going to reply but there was a clatter at the front door.

‘There’s the carriage!’ I said, grabbing at my gloves. ‘I must go, Perry, I am driving in the park with Lady Jane Whitley.’

Perry swept an ironic bow in a jest at my enviable company, and I pulled on my gloves and ran down the stairs past him and out to the wintry sunshine.

Lady Jane and I had the nearest thing to a friendship which I had found in London, and it was not very like a friendship at all. She had pale brown hair and light hazel eyes and she believed that beside my unruly ripple of red curls she looked pale and beguiling.

She was given over to invalidism and she had fainting fits and vapours and she had to keep out of draughts and not dance after midnight and not touch food and drink which was either too hot or too cold. I think her mama thought that suitors who found me too boisterous for their taste might turn to her with relief. Lady Jane herself was frank to me about her absolute urgency to find a man and marry before her bedridden and mean papa worked out how much her Season was costing him and ordered her home.

She was an only child so she had no sister to go about with, and I was convenient as a companion. I liked her as well as any other young lady because she had no curiosity about me and did not trouble me with questions about my family and childhood. The only thing about her I could not stomach was the way she leaned on me as we walked, or took my hand when we rode in the carriage together. I had schooled myself not to shake her off but when I stepped into her carriage and sat beside her I had to grit my teeth not to pull away as she slid her hand under my elbow. I could even feel the back of her hand against my body. The intimacy of that touch set my teeth on edge.

We were riding in her papa’s landau and we both unfurled our parasols to protect our complexions. Lady Jane was as pale as a skinned mushroom, beside her I knew I looked wind-burnt, sunburnt. It could not be helped. Lady Clara had loaded me with one cream and lotion after another, but nothing could bleach the warm colours of my skin. I had slept in the open air with my face up to a midday sky too often. However, I kept my parasol over my bonnet as I had been taught and I listened to Lady Jane’s prattle in my right ear as we set off down the road towards the park.

She was telling me about some gloves she had bought, and I could hear my voice saying ‘No!’ and ‘Fancy!’ when she paused for breath. I was watching the coachman guide the horses through the traffic and watching the streets slide past us. It seemed a long time since I had driven a wagon myself. These long weary weeks in London had come to seem like a lifetime. I felt I knew this way to the park and back as if I had ridden or walked it every single day of my life. I knew it better than I had known any other street, any other landscape. I thought with sudden regret that if I had stayed anywhere, and learned anywhere so very very well, it would have been better for me if that place had been Wideacre.

My throat was suddenly tight thinking of my home. Winter was making London cold and damp, the street vendors had set up braziers at street corners to sell baked potatoes, hot gingerbread, and roasted chestnuts. They were the lucky ones with hot wares – the girls carrying pails of milk were pinched and wan with the chill; the flower sellers and the watercress sellers shivered in the damp winds.

I knew it would be cold at Wideacre – I was not one of Jane’s poets sighing for pretty landscapes and forgetting the hard ache of bare feet on frozen earth. But I thought that the trees would grow stark and lovely as they shed their leaves. I thought the woods would smell nutty and strong if I had been there to kick my way through the piles of leaves. I thought the chestnut tree at the curve of the drive would show its shape, as rounded as a humming top now the great fans of yellow leaves were carpeting the drive beneath it. I wanted to be at Wideacre while autumn turned into winter. I felt as if the land needed me there.