Philippa Gregory - Meridon

It had been comforting, in some way, to know that though I had defied him and left him for the Haverings, James Fortescue was still there if I had wanted to go back. But now the furniture in the parlour and the dining rooms, and all the front part of the house was under dust sheets and James was gone.

It made me glad to see Will. Only he knew about Wideacre, only he loved the place as my mother had done. And he came to ride with me every day – as James had asked him to do – and he took me over every field, explaining what was being ploughed and planted and what was being left fallow.

Lady Clara raised no objection at all. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You have to know every inch of it if you are ever to argue against your trustee and his manager. You will have some difficult battles ahead of you over the next five years. Your only chance of winning some of them is if you know the land as well as Will Tyacke.’

So, included in my schooling as a conventional young lady was an afternoon ride every day with Will. I never wore my breeches now. Instead I had a choice of two new riding habits – a pale green one to show off the colour of my eyes, and a slate-coloured grey one. I always waited to be called, as a young lady should, in the parlour. So it was he who waited in the stable yard while I pinned on my hat and took up my gloves and whip.

‘No need to rush, Sarah,’ Lady Clara said looking at me over the top of a journal she was reading. ‘Move more slowly and you will move more smoothly.’

I nodded and went as smoothly as I could over to the mirror and adjusted my hat a careful half-inch.

‘Better,’ she said approvingly.

I looked at myself. I could not see a fraction of difference. But it was not my trade. She no doubt thought she saw an improvement.

‘It’s a hot day,’ she said languidly. ‘Do try and keep your face shaded, Sarah, you are already far too brown.’

‘Yes, Lady Clara,’ I said.

‘When you come back from your ride you can offer Will Tyacke a glass of small beer in the kitchen,’ she said.

I hesitated. ‘I don’t think he’d like that,’ I said.

She raised her arched eyebrows. ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me he’s a water drinker as well! That would be too too ridiculous!’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen him drink beer and wine. But he’s a proud man. I don’t think he’d like being offered beer in the kitchen when I go into the parlour.’

Lady Clara put the journal face down on the little table beside her and took up her fan. I knew her well enough now to note the little signs which showed that she was thinking carefully about what I was saying. I was on my guard at once.

‘Would you regard him as someone suitable for my parlour?’ she asked carefully.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He does not even like the parlour at Wideacre. We always talked in the dining room.’

She nodded. ‘Are you suitable for my parlour?’ she asked.

I hesitated.

‘Are you?’ she asked me again.

‘No,’ I said blankly. ‘I know you have taught me how to walk across the floor and how to sit on a chair without flinging myself into it. But in my heart I am still not Sarah Lacey a young lady. Inside me I am still…’ I broke off. I had been about to say ‘Meridon the bareback rider’ but I never wanted that name spoken in this house. I never wanted Lady Clara to know how low my life had been before I found my way here.

She gave me a cool little smile. ‘Sometimes in my heart I am a naughty little girl who would not wash her face until her father beat her, who liked to play with the peasant children outside the castle in Ireland,’ she said. ‘We are all other people in secret, Sarah. There is nothing unusual in that. But I learned to be a lady of the first Quality in London. You will learn that too. It is what you want, is it not?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It was. I wanted to leave the old life, and the old loves, far behind me. It was too great a pain in my heart even to think of them. I had to be far far away from them, and never go back again.

‘Then you come into my parlour and Will does not,’ she said. ‘I instruct you to offer him a small beer in the kitchen at the end of your ride. It is correct to be thoughtful towards one’s servants, Sarah. You should offer him a cool drink after he has escorted you in this heat.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, Lady Clara,’ I said, and then I left the room opening the door with my right hand and closing it carefully behind my back with my left.

Will was sitting, patient as a tree stump, in the afternoon sunlight in the stable yard. He was holding Sea’s reins. Sea turned his head and whickered when he saw me, Will smiled too.

‘Quite sure you’re ready now?’ he asked with his warm easy smile.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I was delayed on my way out. I’m sorry I kept you.’

‘I’m in no hurry,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Shall I get you up?’

There was no need. I could have vaulted up as easily as ever but there were two grooms and a stable lad who all appeared out of the shade to lift me up.

‘He’s fresh,’ one of the older grooms warned me, pulling his forelock. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Lacey.’

‘She’ll handle him,’ Will said with quiet confidence, and we turned away down the woodland track which led out to Wideacre land.

‘Where today, Sarah? Up to the Downs to gallop the fidgets out first? You’ve not seen the sheep for a few days, we’re about ready to start shearing.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘And I’d like to come out when shearing starts. Is it a lot of extra work?’

‘We use travelling shearers, or extra men from Midhurst,’ Will said, his long-legged cob falling into stride beside Sea’s dancing steps. ‘We usually get it over and done within a week. We set up shearing pens beside the barns on the Downs, and send the fleeces to London to be sold. This year we have a contract with some woollen mills in Hampshire so we’re selling direct at an agreed price. Once the shearing is over there’s a bit of a party for the shepherds and their families and the shearers in the barns.’

I nodded. We were trotting down the woodland track, the way I had come the first time I had brought Perry to Havering Hall. The sunlight was dappled on the track, the sound of the River Fenny low and musical. The birds were singing in the upper branches of the trees and the air smelled sweet and warm and summery.

‘Oh,’ I said in longing. ‘I’d love to sleep outdoors again.’

‘Tired of Quality living already?’ Will said with a wry little smile. ‘There’s always a bed for you in Acre.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t go backwards. But this summer is so fine, and I seem to spend all my days indoors.’

‘Aye,’ he said gently. ‘You don’t get out and about much, do you? It’d irk me badly. We’ve not been bred to the indoors life, you and me. I’d go half mad cooped up all day in a parlour like that.’

‘I am learning things,’ I said defensively. ‘Things I need to know.’

Will nodded, tolerant. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘If you are sure you need them.’

‘I do,’ I said firmly, and he nodded and said no more.

We rode together as old friends, talking when we wanted, silent most of the time. He rode well. His horse Beau could never match the speed and stamina of Sea who was a full-bred hunter. But he could give us a good race and if we gave them a ten- or twenty-yard start we were sometimes hard-pressed to catch them before the winning post.

Will said little, but we never passed working people or a newly planted field without him ensuring that I knew exactly what they were doing. Whenever we passed anyone in the lane, or working on a hedgerow or digging a ditch, we would pull up and Will would introduce them by name, or remind me when I had met them before. Watching him with these people I could tell he was well liked and, despite his youth, respected. The older men deferred to his judgement and reported to him, the younger men were pleasant and easy with him. I guessed that they teased him about his rides with me; but when I was there they were respectful and easy. The young women stared at me, taking in every detail of my clothes and boots and gloves. I did not mind. I had stood in the centre of a show ring when coins and flowers were thrown in at my feet. I was hardly likely to blush because half a dozen girls could not take their eyes from the golden fringe on my jacket. I saw more than one of them glance at Will with an intimate special smile and I guessed he was popular with the young women too.