Philippa Gregory - Meridon

I nodded. ‘What do you think she wants with me?’ I asked.

Mr Fortescue shrugged. ‘She has done well for gowns and hats while she has been dressing you,’ he said. ‘She enjoys moving in the best society and it would be no hardship for her to take you around with her next Season. I had thought that you may be a diversion for her – she must find it dull in the country.’ He hesitated. ‘She may well enjoy thinking that I do not like her influence.’

‘But you can do nothing,’ I confirmed bluntly.

He nodded. ‘I can do nothing,’ he said. ‘I am a trustee of the estate only; you are not my ward. I can control your finances until you are of age or until you are married. I can advise you, but I may not order you.’

‘You could refuse to let me have any money,’ I pointed out to him.

James Fortescue smiled. ‘I would not so coerce you,’ he said gently. ‘I may seem very dull compared with the Haverings but I am not a little shopman tyrant, Sarah. I loved your mother very much and for her sake I wish only for your happiness. If a society lady like Lady Clara pleases you, then I am glad you have her company. Certainly she can do a better job of introducing you into Quality society than anyone I would have known.’

I was suddenly impatient. ‘I want the best!’ I exclaimed. ‘The lady you spoke of, the one who would have come and lived with me, she was second-rate! I knew it as soon as I heard of her! She would have taught me how to live here, quietly in the country, and be grateful for a card party in Chichester! I don’t want that! There’s no point in me coming all this way from the gypsy wagon to here, if at the end of it I don’t get the best, the very best there is!’

James Fortescue looked steadily at me and his smile was very weary. ‘And do you think Lady Clara is the best?’ he asked. ‘And Lord Peregrine?’

I hesitated. One part of my mind knew full well that Lady Clara was an adventuress as tough and as wily as myself. That she was as hard and sharp and cunning as any old huckster selling short measure. And her son was a lovely child, nothing but a weak and lovely child, with nothing to recommend him but blond curls and blue eyes and a nature sweetened with drink.

But they made me laugh, and they had made me welcome, and they had promised to help me win my fortune back from the villagers and the land-shearers of Wideacre.

‘Yes I do,’ I said lying stubbornly. Lying to James Fortescue’s disappointed face. Lying to myself. ‘I think they are the best of the Quality, and I want to be part of their world.’

He nodded. ‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘I have written you and Lady Clara a note to tell you how much you can spend a quarter, and the bank you can draw on for funds, and my London and Bristol offices. I shall like to see you every month or so wherever you are, whether London or here. And if you should change your mind about the Haverings you must write to me at once and I shall come and take you away.’

I nodded, ignoring the feeling that I was making a rather serious mistake. ‘All right,’ I said tightly.

‘If you should change your mind, Sarah,’ he said kindly, ‘if you should change your mind after a little of that life and want to come back to Wideacre, your home is always here for you, remember. We can find someone you would enjoy living with here. You do not have to go to the Haverings.’

I shook my head. ‘I like them,’ I said defiantly. ‘I am not your sort of person, Mr Fortescue. You would not understand. Their life, their society life, will suit me very well.’

‘I am sorry for it,’ he said gently, then he gave a little bow. He did not offer to kiss my hand as he had done once before, and he left the room.

I sat in silence for a while. I supposed I should feel triumphant for I had taken on a powerful man, and the manager of my fortune, and come out best, come out with my own way. But it did not feel like a victory. It felt instead as if I had been offered a little gold but had preferred to take false coin. I felt around my neck where I still wore, out of habit, the string with the gold clasps. And I wondered what Celia would have made of me, a vagrant granddaughter. And what my long-dead mama Julia would think if she could see me rejecting the man she had loved and turning my back on the land she called home.

I was silent and blue-devilled for that night only. The very next day, Lady Clara swept down on to Wideacre Hall, exchanged documents and addresses with Mr Fortescue, ordered my bags packed, and took me away. I only saw James Fortescue once more, when he rode over to bid me farewell the day before he went back to Bristol. He did not even cross the threshold but held his horse and stood on the terrace till I went out to join him.

‘Will Tyacke will call on you tomorrow and take you out riding,’ he said as we stood on the terrace. ‘It is my wish, Sarah, that you ride with him and learn all you can about the estate. I know your heart is set on London and your Season but Lady Clara herself will tell you that you can be in the best of society and still know what is grown in your fields.’

I nodded. ‘I want to learn,’ I said. I did not say, ‘So when I am of age I can make changes,’ but that thought hung in the air between us.

‘Maybe when you have seen how things are run on Wideacre and how things are run here, you will come to see things my way,’ Mr Fortescue said gently.

‘Maybe,’ I said.

He put out his hand and I held out mine, in the way I had been taught. I had already learned not to pull away. Lady Clara had scolded me for being missish about another person’s touch, and had forced me to stand still while she circled me and patted my cheeks, my shoulders, my arms, and messed my hair. ‘There!’ she had said at the end of the circuit. ‘I don’t expect you to drape yourself over your friends but you are a girl, and girls must be available for petting.’

So it was no hardship to step close to Mr Fortescue and wait for his kiss on my forehead, or even on my hand. But he did neither. He shook hands with me as if I were a young gentleman, and his grip was very firm and friendly.

‘You have my address,’ he said turning his back and getting on his horse. ‘And whatever you think of my trusteeship you should remember that I am your friend and I have tried to do the best I can, for both you and the land. If you are in any need at all you should send for me and I will come at once.’

I smiled wryly at that, thinking of the years when I had gone hungry. Now I was being offered help when I lived in a house with twenty servants and had four meals a day.

‘I think I can care for myself,’ I said.

He settled his reins and looked down at me. ‘We differ on that, too,’ he said gently. ‘I think you have tried to care for yourself for too long. I think that you have tried so hard to care for yourself that you have shut up all your pain inside you, so that no one can ease it for you, or comfort you. I should dearly have loved to see you settled here where you were cared for, where you could have had something of the childhood you missed.’

He tipped his hat to me, and to Lady Clara who waved a lacetrimmed handkerchief to him from the parlour window, and then he clicked to his horse and rode away down the drive.

I watched him go, his square shoulders and slightly bowed head. I watched him go and knew that if my real mama Julia had been able to choose, he would have been her husband. If she had lived, he would have been my papa. I watched him ride away and leave me with the Haverings and I refused to hear what he said about shutting my pain inside myself. I would not acknowledge any loss. I would not feel the loss of him. I refused to feel bereft.