Philippa Gregory - Wideacre

Harry had turned his head into the stone mantelpiece and was weeping in silence. He was like a child left alone among a ruin.

Celia left the room without another word. I heard her run up the stairs to Julia’s nursery, and then come down slowly, carefully, carrying the sleeping child. Then I heard the door of the west wing bang as she went for Richard. I went into the hall like a sleepwalker.

Harry shambled after me, still weeping.

John came in from the stables; he took Richard from Celia and she turned to pick up Julia from the sofa. My son had not even stirred. He slept wrapped in a blanket, his dark lashes on his pink cheeks, one thumb firmly embedded in his sweet pursed mouth. Now and then he sucked noisily and settled into sleep again. I put my nose to his sweet-smelling forehead and felt the soft tickle of the baby hair. But I felt nothing, nothing, nothing, in my icy private well of fear.

John’s eyes on my face were curious.

‘No,’ he said, as if agreeing with something I had said. ‘There is nothing left for you, is there, Beatrice? It is all gone.’

I straightened and looked coldly at him. Nothing could touch me now. I was lost.

Celia walked past me without a word, without even a backward glance, and Harry followed her like a good foal his dam. He was blind and deaf and dumb with shock, all he could do was follow in Celia’s small determined footsteps until his own haze of horror lifted. Then my husband walked past me without a word. The door to the west wing clicked; I heard them go down the corridor to the stable door. Then the stable door banged in the keening wind. I was alone.

The hall was almost as black as nighttime in the gloom from the storm, but I feared no shadows. The terror I had hidden in my mind for year after year after year was here. It no longer threatened me as some horror for the future. It was here and I could face it. Half blind, half dazed with shock, I at least was free of a fear of ghosts, of shadows that moved, of dreams that could terrorize me. My worst fears, my utter terror, were all coming for me. I need fear the unknown no more.

And the house, my lovely Wideacre, was at last mine. Mine alone. Never before had I been utterly alone in the house like an insect in the heart of a deep sweet-smelling rose. Never before had there been silence from the kitchen quarters, silence from the bedrooms, silence from the parlour. Not a sound. Nothing. No one was here but me. I was the only person in the Hall, the only person on the land. And my ownership was undisputed.

I walked around the Hall like a woman in a trance. I touched the carved newel post of the staircase, fingered the intricate carvings, which showed corn, a bag of fleeces, a cow in calf, all the great easy fertile wealth of Wideacre. I crossed to smooth the polished top of a straddle-legged table with the flat of my hand. The wood was warm and gentle, good to stroke. A silver bowl of flowers stood on the table, the drooped heads of the roses gazing at their own pale reflection in the polished top. I touched them gently with one fingertip and the soft petals showered off the flower heads leaving the cluster of dusty stamens. I thought of what Celia had said: ‘You are a wrecker, Beatrice.’ And I smiled without humour, and turned away.

The parlour doorknob was a little miracle of round warmth under my cupped palm. The panels smooth and cool to my forehead. I ran my fingers along the stone mantelpiece and felt the sweet rough texture of Wideacre sandstone. I touched the delicate pretty china Celia had brought back from France, and the rose-pink pebble I had once found in the Fenny that I had insisted should be displayed on the mantelpiece. Some conscientious parlourmaid had put the little china owl on the mantelpiece with the other porcelain. I touched it now without fear. He was coming for me. He would be here soon. I need fear no more secret messages.

I rubbed the back of my hand along the smooth brocade of the winged chair, the one I like to sit in to watch the fire. And I tinkled the keys of the piano — a ghostly sound in the silent house. Then I left the parlour and went through the hall, trailing my fingers in the bowl of pot-pourri and catching up a handful of dried flower petals as I passed. I went to my office. To my own special safe room. The fire was laid but not lit and the room was dark. I walked in, as if it were an ordinary day, with a steady heart and a light step. I was just moving a little more slowly than normal. I was thinking a little more slowly. And I could see nothing clearly. There was a mist around the periphery of my vision that meant I could see nothing except what was immediately before me. I was in a long, long tunnel. And I did not know where it was taking me.

Before I lit the candles I went to the window. The storm had rolled along the head of the downs and was no longer close to the house. A fitful light showed through the breaks in the storm-clouds; the rose garden was empty. The Culler’s dogs had gone. He had been here to see the house, perhaps to see who was there and who had fled. He would know I was here alone. He would know I was awaiting him. He would know that I was aware of his nearness, as he was of mine. I sighed, as if that knowledge made me content, then I turned from the window and lit the candles and set a spill to the fire, for the room felt damp. I pulled down a cushion from one of the chairs and sat myself before it and watched the logs burning. I was in no hurry. My life no longer required planning. Tonight would go according to his plan, and I need, at long last, do nothing.

20

The dream started at once, I think. I know, I know it was but a dream. But some real days have seemed less real than those moments. Every day of this weary harvest has seemed less real than this dream. As I gazed blank-eyed into the fire I heard a noise unlike the thunder rolling. I heard a window creak. The light from the stormy cloud-chased sky was blocked and the room went utterly black for someone had blocked out the light as he climbed through the window. I turned my head languidly, but I did not call for help. I opened my mouth but I could not scream. I could only freeze, half sitting, half sprawled, and wait for what was coming to me.

He came silent to me and he pushed the chair from behind my shoulders so I lay flat on the floor. I trembled as if his very touch was an icy wind, but I did not move. Only my eyes blinked and gazed in a gleam of moonlight.

He kissed my collarbone in the hollow at the base of my neck. He opened my gown and kissed one breast, the nipple as hard as a blackberry, and then he kissed the other. I found my voice but I only made a soft moan of longing. I found I could move, but my hand did not reach for a weapon but went straight to him, and felt his familiar, his beloved hardness. Hard as bone.

He brushed my hand away like a troublesome fly, and slid his face down my body, over the curve of my smooth, well-fed belly, and then he took me in his mouth.

He was not gentle. He did not kiss. He did not lick. He sank his teeth into me as if he was starving for meat and he bit deep until his teeth ground on the core of my body and closed on my most private, most secret, flesh.

I screamed then, but there was no sound. And it was not a scream of pain, but of pain and pleasure, shock and delight, and a certain terrified acceptance of my fate. He sucked at me, his cheeks hollowed. He rubbed his face against me, his stubble scratching the inside of my gripping thighs. I tried, with all my will, to lie passive against this outrageous dream-like assault but when his teeth closed on me again and again in little biting thrusts, I moaned as if I were going mad and put both hands down to his head to force his face into me. His tongue slid inside me in a teasing thrust, and I cried out in lust. Then my hands closed on his head and clenched in his hair and I held his cheating, wicked curly head still and rubbed myself against him as hard as if he were the carved newel post on the stairs. He shook his head when he needed to breathe, and I pulled his hair to clamp him closer back to me. Then in one agonizing second after another he closed his jaw and his lower teeth scraped the soaked aching length of me and I shuddered on a deep hoarse cry of pain and said, ‘Ralph.’