Philippa Gregory - The Favoured Child

Dear James ,

You will be surprised to hear from me, but I know you will understand that I am writing to you because I need your friendship. Not for myself, but for a friend of mine who finds himself in some trouble .

You may remember Ralph Megson, our family’s farm manager? He was taken up for an old alleged offence of rioting and transferred to London before I could aid him. I believe he may have a lawyer, but I am anxious for him .

You will relieve my mind very much if you could see him and ascertain that he has adequate advice and adequate funds to secure his acquittal .

Any monies he needs I would repay you, as soon as I can, if you were to be kind enough to help him now while the case is urgent .

I beg your pardon for calling on your aid, but there is no one else who will help me .

Your friend ,

Julia MacAndreiv (née Lacey)

I could do no better than that in a hurry, in my worry for Ralph. I sealed the letter with the Lacey seal, and I called Jenny to the parlour.

‘It’s about Mr Megson,’ I said to her. I knew Richard was out, but I still kept my voice low. She glanced to see that the door was shut tight. ‘Take this letter down to the village,’ I said. ‘Take it to Jimmy Dart, and tell him to make sure that Mr James Fortescue receives it. He’d best take it to their home in Bristol. I hope that Mr Fortescue will help Ralph Megson.’

Jenny nodded. ‘Your young man,’ she said wistfully.

‘Yes,’ I said. Then I drew a deep breath. ‘My husband would not wish me to write to him,’ I said. I flushed scarlet with the shame of what I was saying. ‘Keep it hid, Jenny. It’s for Ralph’s defence.’

She nodded, her eyes sharp. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it down now. Mrs Gough won’t notice I’m gone if you don’t ring for an hour.’

‘I won’t,’ I said. I went to my writing-desk. ‘Give Jimmy this guinea,’ I said, ‘for his journey. And tell him to be as quick as he can.’

She nodded, a little smile behind her grave eyes. ‘We’ll get him free, Miss Julia!’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it!’

I nodded and let her go. A few minutes later I saw her trotting down the lane, her skirts held in one hand, the other one holding her shawl, and the letter hidden, if I guessed right, under her pinny.

Then I set myself to wait for the reply.

I thought James Fortescue might wait until he had seen Ralph before he wrote back to me, so I warned myself that I must be patient for at least a week. But I could look forward to the return of Jimmy. I thought he would come to the Dower House at once to tell me what James had said. I waited three days patiently. I waited for the fourth with concern. The fifth day I ordered out the carriage and went down to Acre.

Ralph Megson’s cottage, where Jimmy now lived alone, was shuttered, the door barred. Jimmy was not yet back, then. With my hood pulled up against the cold drizzle I crossed the road, walking carefully in the greasy mud, to Rosie’s little cottage.

Her door was open, and Nat stood helplessly by a doused fireplace. Rosie was tying a knot in a shawl which was lumpy with what I guessed were all her clothes and perhaps a little food.

‘What is happening?’ I asked.

They had turned as they heard my foot on the doorstep. Neither of them smiled nor said a word of greeting. Rosie looked through me as if I were not there.

Nat struggled to answer my question.

‘It’s Jimmy,’ he said. His voice was still hoarse from the years of soot, and harsher now with bad news. ‘He’s been taken up by the Winchester magistrates for vagrancy. They’re holding him in the poor house. Rosie’s going to get him out.’

I looked blankly from one hard face to the other.

‘At Winchester?’ I asked. ‘When?’

‘We don’t know,’ Nat said. ‘He said he had a message to take to Bristol, that he wouldn’t tell no one about. He could have been taken on his way home.’

I nodded. ‘This is my fault,’ I said sorrowfully. ‘I sent him with a message. But I gave him a guinea for his fare. They can’t arrest a man with a guinea for his fare.’

‘He could have refused to be press-ganged,’ Nat suggested. ‘Or not taken his hat off when bid. They can arrest you for nigh on anything, Miss Julia, if they want to.’

‘What will you do, Rosie?’ I asked.

She spoke to me for the first time. ‘Dr Pearce has given me a letter to show them,’ she said. ‘And three guineas, which must be enough to get him off whatever charge it is against him.’

‘And then you’ll bring him back here,’ I said. I looked around the room. Rosie’s few goods were packed, the hearth was empty of her pan.

‘I’ve been given notice to quit,’ she said. ‘Jimmy too. I had a letter today, from your husband, the squire. I’ve to leave at once, and Jimmy’s tenancy is cancelled too.’

‘Richard is turning you out?’ I asked, disbelieving.

She looked at me and her face was hard. I had never seen her look at me like that before. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘It seems like only yesterday that you brought us here. I was glad of it then, but now it seems almost worse to have been here, to have planned for the future, and now to have to lose it all.’

‘I’ll speak to him ..,’ I said quickly.

Her shrug seemed to suggest my promises were worthless. ‘We all know you can do nothing, Miss Julia,’ she said. ‘You married the wrong man to give your baby a name. We all understand that. I don’t expect any good from you now.’

‘Rosie!’ I said. It was a cry for her forgiveness.

She smiled her weary smile at me and said, ‘It’s no good, Miss Julia.’ And she picked up her kerchief bundle and handed it to Nat, who hefted it over his shoulder and went out before her into the grey dampness.

‘Where will you go?’ I asked.

She turned in the doorway to answer me. Outside the drizzle had turned to sleet, lancing sheets of wet ice.

‘Back to Bath,’ she said. ‘We can get free passage there, and I can embroider gloves again. I know I can sell them in Bath and we know the city.’

I said nothing. There was nothing I could say.

She nodded at me in silence. Then she pulled her shawl over her bowed head and went out over the threshold into the cold.

I called the carriage over and rode home dryshod.

The weather worsened. We had a long week of fog when not even Richard got out often, and then we had three days of rain. Every day Richard’s new groom, George, came trudging through the mire, or rode on his skidding horse, with the post; but he brought no message for me from James.

I thought of everything.

My worst fear was that Jimmy had been arrested on his way to Bristol, that he had been stopped on his way. But I had faith in Jimmy. He would have walked across the Avon for Ralph, and he trusted James as a worker of miracles. He would have gone to great lengths to get the message through. And he had wit enough to get it into the post – even from prison.

But I also feared that the message had come too late. Maybe Ralph was already hanged, and James could not bear to tell me. I hoped desperately that Ralph had escaped, and James was looking for him and not writing until he had clear news. Possibly James and Ralph had met and Ralph had forbidden James to send me news until the case was heard. I even wondered if James would simply ignore my letter. But I put that fear aside. I knew he would not. He had liked and admired Ralph. And he was always generous to me.

I thought I had thought of everything.

I thought of every option except the obvious one. As silly as a child, I did not think of that at all.

I took to rising early in the morning and putting on my wrapper, which enfolded me less and less as I grew broader, and going quietly downstairs to drink my morning chocolate in the parlour so I could watch the drive for George coming from the London stage with the mail.