Philippa Gregory - Wideacre

‘And above them is my pa and ma,’ said George. ‘And above that is their pa and ma, and the names of my family go back as far as anyone remembers until you cannot read the names but see only a chip in the old bark where a name was.’

‘So?’ I said coldly.

‘Where are my grandchildren going to carve their names when they are courting?’ Gaffer said simply. ‘If you fell this tree, Miss Beatrice, it will not be like courting at all for the Acre bairns.’

There was a murmur of support from the crowd. The main issues were those of food and fuel, but even the poor have their sentiments.

‘No,’ I said uncompromisingly. It had been on my lips to offer to leave the tree and to run the fence around it so that the couples of Acre could still walk the dark lane on summer nights and carve their names together, then stop in dark undergrowth to make love on the way home. But it was folly and sentiment. And it was nonsense to put a kink in a straight fence for the happiness of children as yet unborn.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I know you are set in certain ways at Acre and you all know that I have stood your friend in the past. But Wideacre is changing and the way we have to farm is changing. There are still acres of common left that will not be enclosed this season. You may go on grazing your beasts and snaring rabbits, and gathering firewood there. But this area is to be sown for wheat.’

‘It will be a bad day when there are wheatfields all around Acre and no one with the price of a loaf inside the village,’ called a voice from the back of the crowd, and there was a murmur like a groan of support.

‘I know you, Mabel Henty,’ I said certainly. ‘You owed me three months’ rent last quarter day and I let the tally run. Don’t you raise your voice against me now!’

There was a ripple of laughter from some of the other villagers and Mabel Henty flushed scarlet and was silenced. No one else took up the cry. I let my gaze roam around the circle of faces until all the eyes had dropped under my hard green glare. They were all looking at their boots. Only Gaffer’s head was still up; only Gaffer Tyacke’s eyes still met mine.

‘I am an old man, Miss Beatrice,’ he said. ‘And I have seen many changes in my life. I was a young man when your pa was a boy. I saw him wed and I saw him buried. I saw your brother married and I was at the church gate to see you go in a bride. I was at the back of the church when they buried your ma. I have seen as much here as anyone. But I have never seen a Squire at Wideacre who went against Acre village. Nor heard tell of one. If you go on with this when we have asked you, begged you, not to, then you are not the Master as your pa was, nor as his pa was. There’s been a Lacey at Wideacre for hundreds of years. But they’ve never given the poor cause to groan. If you go on with this plan, Miss Beatrice, you will break the heart of Wideacre.’

I nodded quickly to clear my head. A dark mist seemed to swell up from the ground and I could only dimly hear the murmurs of support from the crowd. To fail the land, to fail the people, seemed more than I could bear. In that second as I shook my head like a weary deer surrounded by hounds, I felt afraid. I felt afraid that I had, somehow, lost my way, had mislaid the whole thread and purpose of my life. That the steady constant heart of Wideacre would no longer beat when I listened. I put my hand to my head, the anxious faces around me had blurred into a circle.

John Brien’s face stood out. Bright, curious, uncaring.

‘You have your orders, Brien,’ I said, and my voice seemed to be someone else’s, a distant clear tone. ‘Put the fences up.’

I took half-a-dozen unsteady steps to the gig and clambered up into it. I could see little for my eyes were filled with hot tears and my hands were shaking. Someone, Brien, untied the reins and handed them to me. My hands, as automatically skilful as ever, backed Sorrel and turned the gig.

‘Don’t let him do it!’ called a desperate voice from the crowd. ‘Miss Beatrice, don’t do this to us!’

‘Oh, get on with your work!’ I said in sudden desperate impatience. ‘Enclosures are taking place up and down the country. Why should Wideacre be different? Get on with your work!’ And I flicked the reins on Sorrel’s back in one irritable gesture and he jumped forward and we swirled away down the lane, away from the circle of shocked faces, away from the old lovely wood, which would be felled, and away from the sweet rolling heather and bracken common, which would be burned and levelled and drained dry.

All the way home I had tears on my cheeks and when I brushed them away with the back of my gauntlet I found my face was wet again. But I could not have said what had made me weep. Indeed, there was nothing. The common would be enclosed as I had ordered, the half-spoken protest of Acre village would be the talk of the ale-houses for half a year and then forgotten. The new fence would soon blend in, greened with moss and greyed with lichen. And the new courting couples of Acre would find another tree for their carvings. And their children would never know that once, through the woods, there had been hundreds of acres of land where little children could hide, and play at war, and picnic and roam all day long. All they would know would be field after flat field of yellow wheat where they would not be allowed to play. And knowing no different, why should they grieve?

It was those of us who had known the common who would grieve. And the next day when I put on my black silk dress I felt I was in mourning indeed. For by now the fences would be up and the men would be cutting down the great lovely trees and hacking out the roots. I would not drive out and see the work done. I did not want to see it until it was so far advanced that no sudden softness of mine could halt the relentless progress of the mindless beast that Harry exultantly called ‘The Future’. Neither would I be driving to Acre village for a while. The voices in the crowd had been grieved, not angry, and no crowd led by Gaffer Tyacke would ever be other than courteous. But when they saw the fences going across the ancient footpaths they would be angry. And there was no reason why I should see that anger. I did not choose to.

But after a long breakfast, during which I planned my day, which seemed very empty if I was not to drive out on Wideacre, I went to my office and found John Brien waiting in the lobby by the stable door.

‘Why are you not at the common? Has something happened?’ I asked him sharply, opening the door and beckoning him in.

‘Nothing has happened,’ he said, ironically. I sat at my desk and let him stand.

‘What do you mean?’ I said. He heard the tone in my voice and he heard the warning note.

‘I mean nothing has happened because the men won’t work,’ he said. ‘After you left yesterday morning they went into a little huddle with old Tyacke …”

‘George Tyacke,’ I prompted.

‘Yes, Gaffer Tyacke,’ he repeated. ‘And then they said that they wanted to take an early dinner break. So they all trooped home and when I waited for them to come back an hour later no one came.’

‘And then?’ I said sharply.

‘Then I went to look for them,’ he said, his voice almost petulant. ‘But I could get no answer at any of the cottages. They must all have left the village for the day, or else locked their doors and kept silent. Acre was like a ghost town.’

I nodded. This was a petty rebellion; it could not last. The people of Acre were in a hard vice of needing work, and Wideacre was the only employer. They needed access to the land, and we owned all the land. They needed roofs over their heads, and they were all our tenants. No rebellion could last long under those circumstances. Because we had been good, even generous, landlords they had forgotten the total power the Squire of Wideacre has for the using. I would not want to use the power. But I would certainly do whatever was needed to get those fences up and that common land growing wheat.