Philippa Gregory - Meridon

The path led me down to the back of the house and there was a little drystone wall which Sea popped over, hardly breaking his stride. A track led me to the back of the stables and I put him in his loose-box myself, he still did not like Sam. I was surprised that he let Will touch him.

I was rubbing him down, hissing at him between my teeth, and he was turning his head and nibbling the top of my curls as I worked when I heard the noise of wheels on the gravel of the drive and peeped over the door to see a carriage turning in the gate.

‘Damme, it’s her la’ship,’ I said to Sea. ‘I hoped to be in a dress before she came.’

I came out of the stables and watched the carriage draw up. I noticed the horses first. A pair of matching bays, very fine animals, well fed and with glossy coats. Their harness could have been better cleaned but the brass bits were shiny and bright. I nodded. I thought they had been made ready for a woman who liked the look of things to be right. The straps would wear out quicker for not being properly oiled but maybe she didn’t care for that.

On the box was a driver in a bright ornate uniform, and behind the open carriage, looking like a pair of pouter pigeons, were a couple of footmen in the same livery. The carriage stopped at the terrace steps and they flung themselves off the box, opened the door – showing the linings of the carriage of pale blue silk – let down the steps and put out a respectful hand for Lady Clara.

She took her time. I came out into the yard to watch her. It was as good as a play. First she snapped her blue parasol shut, the footmen waiting like statues all the time. Then she loosened the veil which had gone over her hat to protect her from dust and pushed it back a little, then she stood up in the carriage, gave her skirts a little shake, and put out her hand to the footman who had been standing waiting, as if he could be there all day if she had a mind to it.

At her first gesture towards him he leaped closer to the carriage and took her gloved hand on his arm as if he were honoured at the touch. Lady Clara took two tiny steps down the steps of the carriage and then paused at the foot of the terrace.

Both footmen fell in behind her as she walked, slowly, slowly, like a mountebank preparing some trickery, up to the front door. Then she stood before the door in absolute stillness.

The footmen waited. I waited. Sam, who had come out from the tack room, waited beside me. Then she slightly nodded her head and one of the footmen stepped forward and hammered at the front door as if he were going to beat it down for her ladyship to step over the ruins.

It swung open at once and Mr Fortescue stepped out.

‘Lady Clara!’ he said pleasantly. ‘What a time it took you to manage the steps. Don’t tell me you are troubled with rheumatism? Come in out of the draught, do!’

I gave a muffled shriek and ducked back into the loose-box to yell with laughter against Sea’s side. I thought James was no match for her ladyship, but as an opening attack it couldn’t be faulted.

Sam looked at me dourly over the half-door as I snorted for breath.

‘Quality,’ he said, and spat on the cobbles of the yard.

I made haste then and got indoors and up the back stairs and into the purple riding habit, then I went half-way down the stairs, thinking to join them. The parlour door was shut. I hovered, uneasy, on the stairs and then I heard Lady Clara’s tinkling empty laugh. I did not think I could interrupt them, and I didn’t know if they wished me there. In the end I waited in my room until I should be sent for.

Becky came up after a while and asked would I go down and take a dish of tea with Lady Clara and James.

I glanced at myself in the mirror. I had spent some time tying my hair back. The purple ribbon was twisted and looked like string, but at least my hair was not tumbling around my shoulders. I straightened my back and went down the stairs.

Lady Clara was sitting at her ease in one of the parlour chairs with her tea cup and a little cake on the table beside her. She smiled at me as I came in, the smile of a woman who has everything she wants. I looked across at James. He looked irritable.

‘Ah Sarah!’ she said. ‘Your guardian and I have been discussing your education and prospects. Come and give me a kiss.’

I went carefully over and pressed my warm cheek against her cool powdery one.

She gestured to the chair beside her.

‘Your guardian fears I am about to kidnap you!’ she said smiling. ‘I have assured him we just want your company.’

James nodded. ‘Miss Lacey has a lot to learn on her estate,’ he said. ‘She has been riding with her manager and she needs to learn to read the estate books.’

‘Certainly, certainly!’ Lady Clara said easily. ‘But she also needs dresses, hats, gloves, a hairdresser, a number of teachers, all manner of things so that she can be a Miss Lacey of Wideacre!’

James stirred his tea and made a little clatter with the teaspoon in his cup. Becky passed me a cup and went out, closing the door softly behind her. I wondered if she was listening in the hall. I knew I would have.

‘Wideacre is not an ordinary estate,’ he said gently. ‘And Miss Lacey is not an ordinary young lady. She needs to learn and approve the plans for the land before anything else. There will be plenty of time for fashionable trifles later on.’

Lady Clara raised her arched eyebrows in surprise. ‘Plenty of time?’ she exclaimed. ‘But the child is sixteen! When do you propose she should be presented at Court?’

James blinked. ‘Court?’ he asked, and his surprise was real. ‘What should she want to go to Court for?’

Lady Clara put her cup down and flirted her fan open. ‘For her London season, of course,’ she said reasonably. ‘She must have a London Season, and who is to present her?’

James ran his hand through his hair. ‘I had not thought of a Season,’ he said. ‘It is hardly something which matters. The most important thing is to teach Sarah how to go along in the country, to learn her way around, to understand what is being done here on her land, and to prepare her for when she is twenty-one and comes into her own fortune.’

Lady Clara laughed a delicious tinkling laugh.

‘The most important thing!’ she exclaimed. ‘Mucking about on a little farm!’ She broke off. ‘Oh! forgive me! I did not mean to be rude! But who spends all their life in the country except working people? You would hardly condemn Sarah to being stuck down here with some dreary little companion, I daresay, when she could be living the life of a young lady in London.’

‘It is hardly incarceration!’ James said heatedly. ‘She will come to love living here.’

‘You don’t live here,’ I observed. ‘You live in London!’

Lady Clara flirted her fan to hide her face for a second and behind the shelter of it shot me a wink.

James got to his feet and took a turn about the room. ‘Sarah!’ he appealed to me. ‘Surely you don’t want a life with the Quality in London. It’s not what you were bred to, you cannot wish it?’

I looked at him thoughtfully. He had run my estate to favour the workers and to profit them. He had not claimed my rents as he should have done. He had not sought for me, and he had not found me. By the time I came here she was gone; and all the benefits of the life here could not help her.

‘I want the best,’ I said, and there was no softness in my voice at all. ‘I have not travelled this far and worked this hard to live a life which is second-best. I want the best there is. If that is London then that is what I want.’

There was silence in the pink elegant parlour. James was looking at me as if I had taken some long-beloved dream away from him.