Philippa Gregory - Meridon

I blinked. ‘It is mine?’ I asked.

Mr Fortescue nodded. ‘You are the heir to the whole of the Wideacre estate,’ he said. ‘All the debts on the land are paid, you own it entire. Your mother wanted it gifted to the village, I have a letter she wrote to me in which she makes clear that is her intention. She died before she could write it into her will. She wanted you to have the Hall as your home. The Hall, the gardens and parkland. We have set up a trust so that you could sign your rights to the land over to the village as soon as you wish. But while you are a minor,’ he looked at my confused face, ‘until you are twenty-one or married, then you may draw an allowance from me, and I shall act as your guardian and run the estate as I think fit. When you are twenty-one or married it is yours.’

I rose slowly from the table and went to look out over the cobbled yard. There was a man there mucking out a stable, I watched him fork over the soiled straw.

‘That man works for me,’ I said slowly.

Mr Fortescue, in the room behind me cleared his throat and said, ‘Yes.’

‘And Becky Miles,’ I said.

‘And Mistress Miles,’ he repeated. ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘if the village were run in the usual way with the workers hired by the quarter and paid wages instead of our profit-sharing scheme you would have something like a hundred people working for you.’

I leaned my head against the coldness of the thick glass and thought what this sudden wealth, what this sudden power meant. I need never go hungry, I need never go cold, I need never work in the wind or the rain or the cold. I need never work again at all. I would have a meal on the table, set before me by someone else, a servant, my servant, more than once a day, four times a day! I had won through to what I had always wanted, to what I had always thought was impossible. I had not had to whore, I had not had to trap someone into marriage as Robert Gower had foretold. I had inherited as easily and as naturally as if I were one of the Quality.

I stopped myself there. I was one of the Quality. I was born Sarah Lacey with a silver spoon in my mouth and I was now where I belonged. Where I had an absolute right to be. And this house, this huge beautiful house was all mine, staffed with servants who were mine to command. No one would ever make me do their bidding again. I held that thought in my mind for a long moment. And I thought what it meant for me now.

‘It’s too late,’ I said desolately.

‘What?’

‘It’s too late,’ I said again.

I turned back to the room; they were both watching me, puzzled, uneasy. I looked at Mr Fortescue.

‘It’s too late for me, damn you for a fool!’ I exploded. ‘I wanted it for me, oh! yes, of course I did! I was hungry, I was beaten! I was tired all the time from working too hard and not enough food! But I wanted it for her! I wanted to give it to her! I wanted to bring her here and make her safe!’

I could hear my voice rising into a scream. ‘And all the time you have been sitting here, you fat merchant, sitting here on my land while I was out there, beaten and cold, and she was out there too and I could not keep her safe!’

‘Sarah…’ The man who hated gin traps was up from the table, coming towards me, his hand held out, like you would try to calm a frightened horse.

‘No!’ I screamed as loud as I could and dodged past him towards the door.

‘Where were you three nights ago?’ I shouted at James Fortescue. ‘I was a day’s ride down the road! You weren’t looking for me then! You weren’t doing all you could then! I was there alone, not knowing what to do to keep her safe! And she…and she…and she…’

I turned to the door and scrabbled at the panels in an agony of haste to get out of the room. I found the door handle and tore it open and ran up the stairs to the room they had given me, my own room in my own house, while she lay cold and still in the ground and all her little things burned and scattered.

I flung myself into a corner of the bedroom and sobbed, deep aching hopeless dry sobs which seemed to tear me apart.

And when my throat was so sore that I was hoarse with sobbing, so that no more sound would come, the pain had not eased at all. It was still there, unslaked, as hot and hard and heartbroken as ever.

There was a knock at the door and James Fortescue opened it softly and came into the room.

He squatted down on the floor beside me, careless of creasing his fine breeches and coat, and he did not offer to touch me, nor did he say easy foolish words of comfort. He looked quickly at my red eyes which were still dry after nigh on an hour of weeping, and then he looked down at the carpet underneath his fine shoes.

‘You are right to blame me,’ he said softly. ‘I have failed you, and I have failed the woman I love. I know the grief you are feeling because I also loved a woman and I did not keep her safe.’

I looked up a little.

‘It was your mother,’ he said. ‘Her name was Julia Lacey and she was the bravest, funniest, most beautiful girl I ever met.’ He paused for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Those were the things that I loved most about her. She was very brave, and she used to tease me all the time and make me laugh, and she was very very lovely.’

He took a little breath. ‘You are very like her,’ he said. ‘Though she was fair and your hair is copper. Her eyes were set aslant like yours, and her face was shaped like a flower, like yours is; and her hair curled like yours does.’

He paused for a moment. ‘She was forced into marrying her cousin, your father, and he destroyed the plans she had made with the village,’ he said. ‘She wanted to send you away, off the land, so that you would be safe. And she wanted to end the line of the squires here so that people could make their own lives in their own ways.’

‘I’ve dreamed it,’ I offered. He turned quickly to look at me, as we squatted side by side on my bedroom floor, a foolish sight if there had been anyone there to see.

‘Dreamed?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I used to dream of Wide, of here. And often I dreamed I was a woman going out in the rain to drown her baby. Then she saw the gypsies and gave them the baby instead. She called after the wagon as it went away,’ I said. ‘She called after the baby. She said, “Her name is Sarah”.’

James Fortescue rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘I posted advertisements in all the local papers, I employed men to search for you,’ he said. ‘And I have gone on doing that, Sarah. Every year I changed the advertisements to show your right age and appealed for anyone who knew you to contact me. I offered a reward as well.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s too late now,’ I said bitterly.

He got to his feet slowly, as if he were very weary.

‘It is not too late,’ he said. ‘You are young and you are the heir to a fine estate. There is a fine future ahead of you and I will find ways to make up to you for the pains and sadnesses of your childhood, I promise it.’

I nodded, too sick at heart to argue with him.

‘You are home now,’ he said warmly. ‘Home on Wideacre; and I will love you like the father you never had, and you will be happy here in time.’

I looked at him and my face was as hard as every street-fighting hungry little wretch which has ever had to beg for food and duck a blow.

‘You’re not my father,’ I said. ‘He sounds like a real bad ‘un. You’re not my mother either. I had a woman I called Ma; and now you tell me I don’t have her either. I had a sister too…’ My voice was going, I swallowed hard on a dry throat. ‘I had a sister and now you tell me I never even had her. You’re no kin to me, and I don’t want your love. It’s too late for me.’