Philippa Gregory - Wideacre

Celia’s gaze came up to me again in an unspoken challenge, but I was looking at Harry and asking him about the newly appointed Master of the Hunt.

‘We’ll still keep the dogs here, of course,’ Harry confirmed. ‘And Mr Haller can come over and see them often. I would rather, in any case, see a good deal of him during this year of mourning because although he knows the runs he does not know the Wideacre woods as we do, Beatrice. And I want to make sure the foxes are kept down this year.’

‘Good,’ I said. Mr Haller was leasing the Dower House, a handsome square-built sandstone house like a half-size Wideacre, which was standing empty, halfway down the drive. He had rented the house for the sport and was delighted to find that the Wideacre Hunt was without a Master while Harry was in mourning.

‘How much I shall miss hunting,’ I said with longing in my voice. The tone made John’s shoulders tense. His wine glass was filled and ruby red before him; he could smell the bouquet.

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘And of all people Mama would have wished us to enjoy ourselves.’

I gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Not me, Harry,’ I said ruefully. ‘She would have broken every convention in the book to please you, but she always wanted to keep me off horses, and indoors.’

Harry smiled and nodded. ‘That’s true,’ he said comfortably. ‘And I would not wish to be disrespectful to her memory. But it seems very hard to miss another season.’

He turned his attention to his plate and nodded at Celia.

‘This is excellent, my dear,’ he said.

She smiled and glowed a little at his praise.

‘It is a recipe Papa brought back from one of his London clubs,’ she said. ‘I thought you would like it.’

John’s shoulders had relaxed slightly and he was eating.

‘I am so glad to see you eating, John,’ I said sweetly to him. ‘I was so distressed when you were unable to eat.’

John’s fork fell back on his plate, untasted. Harry’s eyes on me were tender and sympathetic, but Celia looked slightly puzzled, and was watching my face. I smiled warmly at her and reached for my wine glass. John’s eyes were on the claret and I licked my lips in anticipation.

‘What shall you do tomorrow, Harry?’ I asked lightly, to turn the attention away from me again. ‘I had thought of going to Chichester to order a trap or some sort of curricle for me to drive while I may not ride in public’

‘I shall come too then,’ said Harry. ‘I don’t want you thundering home in a high-perch phaeton!’

I laughed, a confident, seductive ripple. John’s fork clattered in his plate and he pushed his food away.

‘Oh, yes!’ I said. ‘Something sporty and racy and a pair of matched greys to pull it!’

‘I should like to come too, if I may,’ said Celia softly. ‘Julia needs some new shoes and I don’t want to take her to the Acre cobbler; he does not have soft enough kid.’

The servants cleared the plates and Harry stood to carve a brace of pheasants. Celia and I had breast meat and John a couple of legs with rich savoury gravy to pour over the large chunks of meat. He was looking down at his plate, and I guessed he was feeling nauseous, and probably longing for a drink. I waited until he had been served with vegetables, and had a bread roll on his plate beside him, and then I leaned forward.

‘Do try and eat,’ I said tenderly. ‘Don’t leave the table and go to your study, John.’

It tipped the scales. He pushed his chair back as if the seat was burning him and took two hasty steps towards the door. He turned and bobbed a bow at Celia.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said briefly, and the footman sprang to open the door and closed it with a click behind him. I nodded; John’s plate and cutlery vanished smoothly, and Harry and Celia and I were alone.

‘It is a shame,’ Harry said compassionately. ‘You do your best, Beatrice. But, my God, it is a shame.’

I dipped my head as if I were hiding tears.

‘I am sure it will get better,’ I said in half a whisper. ‘I am sure he will learn to conquer it.’

I had thought I might escape a little talk with Celia by sitting with Harry over his port and then going straight to bed. But before breakfast the following day she tapped on my office door and asked if she might come in. In her morning gown of black she looked weary and far older than her twenty-six years. There were shadows under her eyes — she had clearly not slept — and her forehead was creased in a permanent frown of worry. Fresh-faced, smooth-skinned, and as sunny as the crisp blue-skied winter morning, I smiled at her and invited her to take a seat.

‘It is about John,’ she began. I smiled. Celia diving into a conversation, Celia seeking me out, Celia anxious about my husband, was a novelty indeed.

‘Yes?’ I said. I had remained seated at my desk and I let my eyes drift to the papers before me.

‘Beatrice, he went to his study last night, and he started drinking again, although he promised me he would try to stop,’ Celia said in an earnest rush.

‘Yes,’ I said sorrowfully. The papers were a comparison of yields on Wideacre since I had started keeping records. I thought that they might show the sort of profits we could expect if we followed Harry’s idea of farming Wideacre as a business and not as a home.

‘Beatrice, I am sorry to intrude,’ said Celia. But she did not sound sorry. I was reminded suddenly of her barging into my bedroom in France with words of apology on her lips, but with a hungry baby in her arms and an absolute determination that I should feed the child. There was not one ounce of selfish strength in Celia, but give her someone to mother and she became in an instant a heroine. I should have been wary, but I was only amused.

‘You are not intruding, Celia,’ I said politely, and let her see that she was. ‘Please go on.’

‘When John went to his study last night there were two open bottles of whisky on the table. He drank them both,’ she said. I showed her a shocked face.

‘How did they get there?’ asked Celia baldly.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘John probably ordered his valet to bring him some. He has been drinking like this for four months, remember, Celia. The servants have just got into the routine of bringing him what he wants.’

‘Then we must tell them not to,’ Celia said energetically. She leaned forward on the table, her brown eyes bright and her tiredness gone. ‘You must tell Stride that on no account is John to be supplied with drink, and we must not have wine on the table, or drink in the house, until he is cured.’

I nodded. ‘You may be right, Celia,’ I said. ‘And John’s health must come first. We must find some way to help cure him. Perhaps we should send him away. There are some wonderful doctors who specialize in cases such as this.’

‘Are there?’ asked Celia. ‘I didn’t know. But would he agree?’

‘We could insist that he goes. We could legally bind him to take treatment,’ I said, deliberately vague.

Celia sighed. ‘It may come to that, I suppose. But it sounds dreadful. We could start to help him by not having drink here.’

I nodded. ‘If you’re sure that’s the way, Celia,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I only ordered wine served last night because I thought John should get used to drinking lemonade while other people around him drink wine. When he dines out, there will always be wine at table, and port, you know.’

‘Yes,’ Celia said. ‘I had not thought of that. But I feel sure we should keep drink completely away from him for the first few days. Will you order that, Beatrice?’

I smiled at her. ‘Of course I will, Celia. Anything. Anything, to make my husband well again.’

She looked carefully at me, scanning my face. The little, loving Celia, who thought the world as gentle as herself, was learning fast. And the silly child who thought everyone was like herself, spoke like her, thought like her, loved like her, had the pit of otherness opening beneath her feet. She was coming to learn that I was different from her. But she could not begin to understand me.