Philippa Gregory - The Favoured Child

The hay scratched my cheek and grew hot and damp while I wept my heart out into its tickly dryness…and then I felt the sweetest touch in all the world – Richard’s hand upon my shaking shoulder.

He pulled me up, gently, oh, so gently, and he turned me around towards him. Oh, little Julia,’ he said in a voice of such tenderness and pity; then he cupped his hands either side of my cheeks and kissed every inch of my wet flushed face, so that my cheeks were dried with his kisses.

And I sobbed again and said, ‘Richard, you should not treat me so!’ I could hardly get the words out. ‘You should not, Richard! I will not love you if you bully me like that. You are wrong to treat me so, Richard.’

‘I know,’ he said remorsefully. ‘I know I should not do it. But, Julia, you must forgive me. You know I do not mean any harm. It is just an accident.’

‘An accident!’ I exclaimed. ‘Richard, that was no accident! You beat me as hard as you could! Three blows! Not even my own mama has ever beaten me like that! And you said you would kill me!’

‘I know,’ he said again, his voice warm with his charm. Richard’s easy charm. ‘I beg your pardon, Julia, and I swear I will never hurt you again.’ He knelt beside me on the straw. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘I am on my knees to you, begging you to forgive me.’

I hesitated. The pain was fading and Richard’s appealing, worried face was too much for me.

‘Say you forgive me!’ he entreated in a low whisper, his arms out to me.

‘I won’t,’ I said sullenly. ‘You are cruel, Richard, and I had done nothing but sit on her in the stable.’

He was silent at that for a moment, still kneeling at my feet. ‘A true lady accepts an apology,’ he observed. ‘I have said that I am sorry, Julia. And I am sorry. I am offering you an apology.’

My mama’s training, the lessons of my grandmama, the world we lived in and my own loving heart were too much for my sense of grievance. ‘Oh, Richard, all right!’ I said and I burst into tears afresh for no reason at all and he threw his arms around me and hugged me and kissed my wet cheeks and dried my eyes on his own white linen handkerchief.

We sat in silence then, in the shadowy hayloft, while the night air grew colder and the first pinpricks of stars came out like sparkles of frost in the autumn sky. And Richard said softly, reasonably, ‘I just don’t like people taking my things, Julia.’

And I had said – for in a way it was all my fault – ‘I know you do not, Richard. And I promise I will never sit on Scheherazade again.’

I would have promised more, but a slim new moon came out from behind a wisp of dark cloud and its light shone in my eyes, and I heard a sweet high singing which I always think of as the music of the very heart of Wideacre, which used to ring through Richard’s voice. This night it was not thin and peaceful, but somehow ominous. For some reason, I did not know why, it seemed like a warning, as if the moon were telling me that Richard’s expectations and Richard’s need to own things outright were not good qualities in a young boy, that I should not concede everything to him.

Then the moment passed, and I was just a tearful girl in a hayloft with a loving bullying playmate.

‘Master Richard don’t like you to even touch his horse, then?’ Dench said curiously.

‘No,’ I said, coming out of my reverie. I had not touched Scheherazade again, and Richard had forgotten his anger. He had taken to riding every day after that evening, and I had seen little of him.

‘Dog i’ the manger,’ said Dench briefly. ‘I reckon you’d ride well enough without teaching, Miss Julia. You’re the true-bred Lacey, after all.’

‘No,’ I said. I sat straighter on the seat beside Dench. ‘I do not wish to learn until I am grown-up, Dench.’

Oh, aye,’ he said, hearing the reproof in my voice and taking little heed. Then he clicked to the horse to lengthen its stride and we bowled under the great trees of the Wideacre woods.

‘Want to take the reins?’ Dench said casually.

‘Oh, yes!’ I said. Jem had let me drive our solitary ageing carriage horse, but this was the first time I had ever been in control of one of the smooth-paced Havering horses.

‘Here, y’are,’ Dench said generously, and handed the double reins into my small hands. ‘Hold them lightly.’ He watched as I clicked confidently to the horse as I had heard him do, and saw how my little hands held the fistfuls of leather as if they were precious ribbons.

‘Good hands,’ he said approvingly. ‘You have Miss Beatrice’s hands.’

I nodded, but I hardly heard him. The sunlight was dappled on my face as we drove under the branches of the woods. The wind, as sweet as birdsong, blew in my face. A great flock of starlings was chattering in a hundred tones in the hedge to our right, and over the derelict wheatfield the rooks were flapping like dusters and calling hoarsely.

‘No need to go straight home,’ Dench said, observing my rapt face. ‘We can take the gig around by the mill and home through the woods if you wish. The ground is hard enough for the wheels.’

I hesitated. We would have to drive through Acre and I was still afraid of the barely understood story of the ‘taking’ of the children. But Richard went to Acre for his lessons, and Mama had never specifically told me not to go there alone.

‘All right,’ I said and we went on down the lane past the Wideacre gates, which stood drunkenly open, rusting on their hinges, and whirled away towards Acre. The village street was deserted, the front doors closed against the wind. There were white faces at a few unglazed windows as we trotted by, and Dench raised a careless hand to the smith’s cottage and to the cobbler who sat idle before an empty last in his window. Then we turned left at the church down the smooth grassy lane towards the common land, past the idle mill with weed greening the water wheel, and deeper and deeper into the woods, into the very heart of Wideacre.

‘We can canter here if you like,’ Dench said, eyeing the smooth turf of the track, and without thinking I lightened my touch on the reins and felt the carriage leap forward as the rhythm of the hooves speeded up and the bars of sunlight on the grass came flickering over me.

‘Like it?’ Dench said, his voice raised over the rush of the wind and the jingle and creak of the carriage and tack.

Oh, yes!’ I yelled, and my voice was like a sweet call to the horse to go faster, and he pricked his ears, blew air out in a snort and plunged forward.

‘Woah!’ Dench yelled in sudden alarm and grabbed the reins from me. He nearly knocked me from my seat with his desperate lunge, and elbowed me hard to hold me in.

‘What…?’ I said as he hauled roughly and the horse and gig skidded to a slithering standstill. Dench abruptly backed the horse, and I saw what he had seen down one of the grassy rides to our left: Scheherazade, loose in the woods, her saddle askew, her reins broken. When she saw the carriage, she raised her head to whinny at the horse and came trotting towards us.

‘Damnation,’ said Dench levelly. ‘Where’s that cow-handed youngster?’

I tumbled from the gig and caught one trailing rein. Scheherazade whickered and snuffed at me. ‘Richard!’ I called into the woodland. ‘Richard! Where are you?’

There was no reply. A jay called harshly and a woodpecker whooped as it flew dipping up and down, away from us. The wood-pigeons cooed as if all were well. But there was no answering call from Richard.

I glanced back at the gig for guidance. Dench was scowling.

‘Cow-handed,’ he said, making it sound like an oath. I led Scheherazade back to the gig. He glanced briefly at her, a comprehensive raking survey. ‘Not hurt,’ he said. ‘So chances are he fell off all on his own.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Where does he usually ride?’