Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘Sussex,’ I said.

His face looked stunned. ‘M’lady, you’re never running off,’ he said. ‘I’ll lose my place if they know I let you go, and you’ll be ruined. Go home, m’lady, I’ll say anything you want.’ He turned to Will. ‘You know she’s not for you,’ he said fiercely. ‘I could see how you looked at her, but you know she’s Lady Havering now. You’ll ruin her if you take her away.’

Will gave a snort of laughter. ‘I take her!’ he said. ‘I don’t want her. She can go home if she likes, I can no more control her than I can order the wind to blow. I’ve got what I came for. I want nothing more.’

I had my hand on the stable door but at that I turned and smiled at Will with all my heart in my eyes. It was the smile of a woman who knows herself to be utterly and faithfully beloved. There would never be anyone for Will but me, we both knew it. There would never be anyone but him for me.

‘I want Sea,’ I said. ‘And Mr Tyacke wants his horse. Put a man’s saddle on Sea, I’m riding astride.’

He gave an audible moan at that, but he went into the darkness of the stable and I heard him curse Sea as he blew out as the girth was being tightened. Then he led the two horses out into the street. Their hooves clattered loudly on the cobbles and he looked around nervously.

‘What am I to say?’ he demanded. ‘They’ll ask me where Sea is. What am I to say?’

‘Tell them her ladyship ordered it,’ Will said curtly. ‘How could you argue with her?’

‘They’ll ask what she was wearing! And that’s Lord Perry’s saddle…’ the man said despairingly.

‘Oh dammit, you come too,’ I said, suddenly impatient with the nonsense. ‘Take a horse and come with us. We’re going down to Wideacre. There’s work you can do there. We can send the horse back later, and it will be better if there’s no one here to gossip.’

Will looked at me. ‘We take a groom with us?’ he asked incredulously.

I grinned. ‘Why not?’ I demanded. ‘I thought it would appeal to your radical conscience. We release him from his servitude, we break his chains. We stop him bellyaching on about what they will say to him.’

Will nodded, his eyes dancing. ‘Get a horse,’ he said to the man. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Gerry,’ he said from inside the stables. ‘Could I have one of Lord Perry’s hunters?’

‘For God’s sake, no!’ Will exclaimed. ‘A working horse, what d’you think this is, a picnic?’

‘Seems a waste, if we’re stealing a horse, to take a cheap one,’ I muttered mutinously, but at Will’s sharp look I fell mum.

Gerry led a handsome black hack out of the stables and swung into the saddle. He was beaming.

‘Now we’d better move fast,’ Will said. ‘When will they notice you gone, Sarah?’

‘Not till eight,’ I said. ‘And no one will disturb her ladyship before ten.’

Will squinted at the sky. ‘Must be six now,’ he said uneasily. ‘I’d give a guinea to be safe home.’

He helped me up into the saddle and swung up into his own. Sea’s ears went forward and he side-stepped and danced on the spot, impatient to be off.

‘Knows he’s going home,’ Gerry said admiringly. ‘He’s a fine animal, I’ve never seen better.’

‘You lead the way,’ Will said to him. ‘Get us on the Portsmouth road, but use as many back streets as you can. I’d rather we weren’t seen.’

Gerry nodded importantly, and led the way down the mews street. The hooves echoed loudly and someone looked out from a high window. Will glanced at me.

‘Pull your hat down,’ he said, then he looked a little closer. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look awful pale.’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied promptly.

We paused at the corner of David Street and I looked down the road to where the Havering House stood on the corner. I could see smoke coming from the chimneys as Emily went around lighting fires, back to her usual back-breaking work now the dirty work of nursing me was done.

‘Emily,’ I said.

She had cared for me when no one else would do so. She had let me out to see Will and told no one about it. She had helped me get Perry up to bed and kept mum. And she had held me and bathed the sweat off my forehead and sat with me night after night with no thanks, and no tip, and no rest. She would go on lighting the fires and cleaning the grates and sweeping the stairs and sleeping in a cramped bare attic until she grew too old to work. Then Lady Havering would throw her out and if someone had said to her, ‘But the old woman will have to end her days in the poorhouse,’ her ladyship would widen her blue eyes and ask why Emily had never saved her wages since she had worked from childhood? and exclaim, ‘How improvident are the poor!’

‘Emily,’ I said.

‘What?’ Will asked. They were hesitating, ready to turn down the street, waiting for me. Sea champed at his bit, reined-in too tight.

‘I’m taking Emily,’ I said, deciding suddenly. ‘She shouldn’t be left there. She shouldn’t be left with Lady Havering, in that house. She should come with us to Wideacre.’

Will’s face was a picture of rising rage. ‘You are taking your maid?’ he demanded. ‘You, a jumped-up gypsy brat, need to take a maid with you?’

‘No, you idiot,’ I replied briskly. ‘She was the only one in that whole household who ever showed me a ha’penny of love. I’m not leaving her behind. She’d be happy on Wideacre. She can ride pillion behind Gerry.’

I slid down from Sea and tossed the reins to Will. He caught them, and before he could protest I had run up the street and tapped on the big front door. I heard Emily’s little feet pattering down the hall and her nervous: ‘I ain’t allowed to open the door…’ tail off as she opened the door and saw first a slim young man in grey, and then my face under the grey tricorne hat.

‘Sarah! I beg pardon m’m, I means your ladyship!’

‘Hush,’ I said peremptorily. Not all the escapes in the world could make me unstintingly pleasant. ‘Don’t chatter, Emily. Fetch your bonnet and all the money you have. You can come away with me if you want. I’m running away to my home in Sussex and you can come too. There’s work you can do there, farm work – but fairly paid and not too hard. You might like it. D’you want to come? I’m leaving now.’

She flushed scarlet. ‘I’ll come,’ she said defiantly. ‘Dammit! I will!’ and she turned on her heel and bounded up the main staircase where she was not allowed to go, and then scuttered along the passageway to the attic stairs.

I glanced back down the street. The daylight was getting brighter, the sun was up in a sky the colour of primroses, it would be a fine day. A cool clear day. A good day for travelling. Will made an impatient beckoning motion at me. I smiled and waved back.

I was not afraid of being seen, I was not afraid of being caught. Since I had lain beneath Will in the darkness of the park, I had lost every scrap of fear I had ever known. There was a warmth and a lightness about me as if I would never fail or fear anything ever again. I did not fear Lady Havering, nor poor Perry. I knew at last who I was and where I was going. A lifetime of travelling had not taught me half so much.

There was a rush along the hall and Emily came out, wrapped in a tatty shawl and with a bonnet on her head. She carried a shawl roughly knotted in one hand, and a little withy birdcage in the other with a starling in it.

‘Can I bring ‘im?’ she asked me anxiously. ‘I’ve ‘ad ‘im for a year, and ‘e sings marvellous.’

I glanced down the street to Will who was now rigid with anger. ‘Of course,’ I said and my voice shook with laughter. ‘Why not?’

Emily pulled the door gently to close and came down the steps. We walked back towards the horses.