Philippa Gregory - Wideacre

‘Marry me, Beatrice,’ he said, low-voiced at the first touch of my mouth on his skin. He turned his face down and caught the secret little kiss on his lips. ‘I love you, and you know you love me. Say we can be married and I shall find some way to make you secure here, on the land you love.’

He kissed me gently on my sad mouth, and then, as the corners of my mouth curved up in a smile of pleasure, he kissed me harder. Then my arms were around his neck and I held his face to mine as he kissed every inch of my face: my sweet-smelling hair, my wet eyelids, my flushed cheeks, my ears, and then he pressed his mouth hard on mine and I tasted him with delight.

Then his mouth was on my face and my hair and the lobes of my ears, and I could not have told what I was doing or what I wanted. I was hardly an inexperienced girl, but somehow that clever man with the lazy veiled eyes had me off his knees and on the floor before the fire before I had decided, before I had even had time to think about what I was doing. And his hands were inside my gown, touching my breasts till I cried out for the feel of his weight coming down hard upon me. And his skilful doctor’s hands were ruffling up my skirt and my petticoats before I had time to protest, or words to protest or, God knows, the least idea in my head of protest.

The door was not locked; the curtains were not drawn. Anyone could have driven past the window and glanced in, or any servant could have come to the door with candles. I did not think. I could not think. All there was in my head was a ripple of laughter at the outrageous way John MacAndrew was behaving, and a more serious longing like a cry, a sweet clear cry from my heart to his that said, ‘Do not listen to all the refusals I have made to you. Let there be nothing more said between us. But love me, love me, love me.’

And then the one sane corner of my mind that was left noted that I was on the floor underneath him, and that my arms were around his neck, and my eyes were shut, and my lips smiling, and that a voice, my voice, was whispering his name and saying, ‘Love me.’ And he did.

And after I had cried out in pleasure — too loudly, too clearly, for safety — he said, very quietly but with great easiness and relief, ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes.’

And then we lay still for a very long time.

Then the logs on the fire shifted and I jumped out of my trance, and struggled to be up with a guilt-stricken wriggle. And he took his weight from me, and helped me to my feet and pulled my creased skirts down for me with as much courtesy as if we were in a ballroom, and with a little secret smile to acknowledge the incongruity of it too. Then he sat himself back in the master chair and drew me to him again, and I laid my face against his cheek and smiled with secret delight, and nearly laughed aloud for my happiness.

When I opened my eyes we smiled at each other like conspirators.

‘Beatrice, you strumpet, you have to be betrothed after that!’ he said, and his voice was husky.

‘I suppose I am then,’ I said.

We stayed in my office as the sun set over the western fields and the evening star came out low on the horizon. The fire burned down to red embers and neither of us troubled to toss another log on. We kissed gently, lightly, and we also kissed hard and with passion. We talked a little, of nothing. Of the run we had out hunting that day, of Harry’s incompetence as Master. He did not ask me why I had been crying, and we made no plans. Then I saw the candles lit in Mama’s parlour, and the silhouette of the maid drawing the curtains.

‘I thought it would hurt,’ I said lazily, with one passing thought for my reputation as a virgin.

‘After the horses you ride?’ he asked with a smile in his voice. ‘I am surprised you noticed it at all!’

I chuckled aloud at that, unladylike; but I felt too easy to pretend to be anything other than my sated, smiling self.

‘I must go,’ I said, scarcely stirring. As idle as a stroked cat on his knee. ‘They will wonder where I am.’

‘Shall I come, and shall we tell them?’ asked John. He helped me stand and smoothed the back panel of my dress where the silk was creased and crushed from our long courting.

‘Not today,’ I said. ‘Let it be just for you and me, today. Come for dinner tomorrow, and we can tell them then.’

He bowed in mock obedience, and let himself out of the west-wing door, with one final gentle kiss. His visit had passed unnoticed by Mama, by Harry and by Celia, but I knew that all the servants in the house and all the stable lads would know that he had been with me, and how long he had stayed. That was why no candles had been brought to my office as the light had faded. They had all conspired to leave John and me to court, like any village girl with her lover, in the gloaming by the fire. So, as is always the case, Wideacre people knew far more than Harry or Mama would ever have guessed.

Next day, when John came to take me for a drive before dinner, Harry, Mama and Celia paid little attention, but every servant in the house was smiling and peeping from the windows or hovering in the hall. Stride announced to me with elaborate ceremony that John was waiting in his curricle in the drive, and when he handed me up I felt as if I were being led to the altar. And I did not mind.

‘I trust you are not abducting me today,’ I said, and twirled my parasol, sunshine yellow, over my yellow bonnet and yellow woollen dress.

‘No, I’ll content myself with the sight of the sea from the top of your downs today,’ he said easily. ‘Do you think we can get the curricle up the bridle-way?’

‘It’ll be a squeeze,’ I said, measuring the shafts and the pair of glossy bays with my eyes. ‘But if you can drive a straight line it should be possible.’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, I’m a poor whipster, I know. Utterly incompetent. But you can always put a hand on the reins to keep me straight.’

I laughed outright. One of the things I liked about John MacAndrew the most was his immunity to my experimental slights. He had a hard core of resilience that meant he never winced at my attacks. He never even seemed challenged by them. He took them as part of a game we played — and he confessed incompetence or inadequacy without a blush, to bluff and double-bluff me into laughter and confession.

‘I beg your pardon,’ I said gaily. ‘I dare say you could drive your curricle and pair up the staircase without blowing the horses or scraping the varnish.’

‘I could indeed,’ he said modestly. ‘But I would never do it, Beatrice. I would never show you up. I know how ashamed you are of being cow-handed.’

I gave an irrepressible chuckle and gazed into his disconcertingly bright eyes. When he teased me in this way his eyes were as bright as if he were kissing me. Then he pulled the horses to a standstill before the fence and footstile up to the downs, and he climbed down from the driving seat and hitched the reins to the post.

‘They’ll keep,’ he said, dismissing hundreds of guineas of bloodstock as he held an arm to me as I dismounted. He held my hand as I climbed over the stile; walking up to the crest of the downs he still kept it. I should choose no other place for courtship. But I believe I should have been happier on that day if I had not been mere yards from where Ralph and I used to lie, hidden in bracken, or if I had not seen, a dozen yards to the right, the little hollow where I had slapped Harry’s face and ridden him to utter pleasure.

‘Beatrice,’ said John MacAndrew, and I turned my face up to his.

‘Beatrice …’ he said again.

It is as Ralph said. There are those who love and those who are loved. John MacAndrew was a great giver of love and all his wit and all his wisdom could not prevent him loving and loving and loving me, whatever the price. All I had to do was to say yes.