The Favoured Child

Oh, get along, do!’ she said with the tolerance in her voice which was always there for Richard. ‘Can’t you see that I’m rushed off my feet! Go and get dressed, Master Richard! And you, Miss Julia, be a good girl and go into the yard and see if Jem is back yet. He’s fetching some fruit and vegetables and some game for me from Midhurst, and I cannot get on without it!’

I nodded and went obediently to the back door, but Richard stood his ground and went on guessing. Jem still had not come, and the rising flush on Mrs Gough’s pink cheeks warned even Richard that her temper was about to boil over. We made ourselves scarce, creeping through the green baize door into the hall. A gentleman’s hat was on the hall table with tan gloves beside it, good-quality leather. We could hear the murmur of voices in the parlour and suddenly Mama’s laugh rang out as clear as a flute. I had never heard her laugh so joyously in all my life before.

Richard would have listened at the door, but Stride came out of the dining-room and shooed us upstairs.

‘Who is it, Stride?’ I asked in a whisper as I hovered on the stairs.

‘The sooner you are dressed for dinner, the sooner you will know,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘Now, go, Miss Julia!’

I dropped my muddy things on my bedroom floor and drew my new cream silk gown out of the chest. ‘New to you,’ Mama had said ruefully. It was cut down from an old gown from Mama’s half-sister, and the seams showed pale where the colour had faded. But the main silk of the gown was shiny and yellow, bright as the heart of a primrose, and I felt taller and older as soon as the ripple of sweet-smelling silk eased in a flurry over my head. I stood on tiptoe to see as much of it as I could in my little mirror and saw how the colour made my face glow warm and my eyes show hazy and grey. Then Richard banged on my door and I spun around to slip into my best shoes and we went downstairs to see who was the guest for dinner so important that his identity was an exciting secret and Mrs Gough was allowed to buy fruit and game for his meal.

It was John MacAndrew.

I knew it the second the door opened. Not because he was standing, tall but slightly stooping, at the fireplace as close to the hot fire as he could get, needing the heat, but because I saw Mama’s face, pink and rosy like a girl’s, glowing with a happiness I had never seen before.

‘Julia! This is …’

‘My Uncle John!’ I interrupted, and ran into the room with both hands held out to him. He beamed at my welcome and caught both hands in his and drew me to him for a hug. Then he set me back and kissed my forehead like a blessing, and stepped back to see me.

Suddenly the easy smile went cold on his lips and his pale blue eyes lost their warmth. He looked at me as if he were seeing an enemy, not his own niece. He looked over my head to Mama, who had risen from her chair and was watching his face with something like fear in her face.

‘What is it, John?’ she asked, her voice urgent.

‘She reminded me so…she reminds me so …’ he said, searching for words, his eyes fixed on my face. He looked afraid. I stepped awkwardly away from him, towards my mama, and looked to her for prompting.

‘No!’ she said abruptly, and I jumped at the sharpness in her voice. ‘She is nothing like Beatrice!’

At the mention of her name Uncle John breathed out.

‘She is not like Beatrice at all,’ Mama said again, like some brave rider going for a difficult fence. ‘She has quite different hair colour, quite different eyes. Quite different altogether. You have been away too long, John. You have had the picture of Beatrice in your mind for too long. Julia is not in the least like her. She is very much my daughter. She is very like me. She is naughty sometimes, and Wideacre-mad! But all children are naughty at times and it means nothing. Julia is my little girl. If you had seen her yesterday – before she put up her hair – you would not have thought her a young lady at all!’

Uncle John shuddered and shook his head to clear his mind. ‘Of course,’ he said, and he smiled at me, drawing strength from Mama’s common sense. Of course. It was the way she ran into the parlour, and her voice, her smile, and the set of her head…but she will have learned that grace from you, Celia, I know.’

‘I am glad you think so,’ Mama said. ‘For I think her a most mannerless hoyden!’

He smiled at that and I saw the warmth in his eyes which made me glad for Mama. I could see at once that he loved her. And the first picture I had – of a man stooped and tired, yellow-faced and ill – faded before the sparkle in his eyes and the way his mouth made a little secret smile as though he could not help laughing but was trying to stay serious.

‘Uncle John,’ I said shyly. ‘Here is Richard too.’

John turned swiftly towards his son, and I saw his shoulders suddenly straighten, taking on a burden that he had long promised himself. He put out a hand as Richard came into the room, and his voice and his smile were practised. ‘Richard,’ he said, ‘I am very glad to see you’, and he put his arm around Richard’s shoulders and hugged him hard, and then, still holding him, turned to Mama and laughed. ‘Celia, all this while I have been picturing you with little children, and here is Richard nearly as tall as me and Julia up to my shoulder.’

Mama laughed too, and I knew that she had expected that hesitation from Uncle John and was skilfully glossing over it before it could be noticed. ‘And the clothes they need! And the shoes!’ she exclaimed.

‘I see I shall need all my rubies and diamonds,’ Uncle John beamed.

‘Do you have rubies and diamonds, sir?’ Richard asked quickly.

‘Minefuls of ’em!’ Uncle John replied promptly.

Mama beamed at him. ‘We shall spend them all,’ she promised. ‘But do sit down now, John, and rest before Stride serves dinner. And tell us your news. You can unpack your elephants later!’

The dinner was the best that Mrs Gough could rush together and was served on the Havering china with the crest; and we used the best crystal glasses. Lady Havering had spared no trouble when Jem had been sent out again after his return from Midhurst to tell her that Dr MacAndrew was home. She had even packed a cold bottle of champagne, and we drank it with the pudding and toasted all our futures.

‘We must talk, Celia,’ said Uncle John when Mama rang for Stride to come and clear the plates.

‘We can talk later,’ she offered with a loving concerned glance at his pale face.

John summoned a smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am tired, and I don’t mind admitting it. I had dose after dose of fever in India, and it has left me weaker than I should be. But there are things I want us to decide as a family, and I want us to decide quickly. Let’s go into the parlour and have a council of war.’

‘Who are we making war on, Uncle John?’ I asked him with a smile as we crossed the hall to the parlour. The fire had burned down in the grate and Mama rang for fresh logs as we settled ourselves around the parlour table.

‘I think we are making war on the past,’ Uncle John said seriously. ‘The old bad ways of thinking, and the old bad ways of doing things. I want us to remake Wideacre, and that would be a victory indeed.’

‘I have been a lucky man in India,’ Uncle John said by way of introduction. ‘I was able to do a service to one of the independent Indian princes.’ He paused and smiled wryly. ‘The villages under my supervision escaped an epidemic which was very serious for the rest of the country. The combination of luck and cleanliness was credited to me and he has awarded me a very large grant of land. It is good land for growing tea and spices. In addition to that there is a small mine, which is profitable now and could be expanded.’

Richard raised his head. ‘A mine?’ he asked. ‘Mining what?’

‘Opals,’ said Uncle John. He smiled, but his tone was ironic. ‘It seems I am to have another chance at being a wealthy man,’ he said. ‘I lost my last fortune on Wideacre. I shall take better care of this one!’

‘Opals,’ said Richard softly. He licked his lips as if they were something sweet to eat.

‘I have come home to help,’ Uncle John said firmly. ‘I have come home to set the land right, and the people right. Wideacre is notorious. Acre men are blacklisted locally and cannot find work. The local farmers will not have fire-raisers on their land. That is a heavy legacy for a village to carry. It is Beatrice’s legacy,’ John said quietly. ‘Poverty in Acre, hatred between village and gentry, a village notorious for violence. And a wicked inheritance for the children.’

‘Uncle John,’ I interrupted, but when he turned his severe face towards me, I could say little except, ‘I don’t understand.’

He glanced at my mama. ‘You have told them nothing?’ he asked.

‘As we agreed,’ she said steadily. ‘We agreed they should not be burdened with such a past while they were young. I have told them nothing but that there was a fire and the Laceys and Acre were ruined, even though at times they pressed me for more information. I think they are ready to know the outlines of the story now.’ I fancied she emphasized the word ‘outlines’.

John nodded. ‘Very well, then. You will have heard that the estate was farmed well by Julia’s papa, the squire, and his sister, Beatrice. But that was not so. They wrung the land dry to meet mortgages to pay to change the entail so that the two of you could inherit jointly. Both Celia and I opposed them. We opposed both the changing of the entail and the planting of nothing but wheat.

‘The countryside was very poor, and there were starving mobs. One night a mob came to Wideacre Hall. We had received advance warning, and Celia and I took you children away to Havering Hall. But Beatrice decided to stay. She died in the fire. Julia’s papa died of an attack of apoplexy. He always had a weak heart. It is a family weakness.’

Richard and I exchanged one long bemused look.

‘Oh,’ Richard said blankly. ‘My mama was left all alone at the hall with the mob coming?’

‘Yes,’ Uncle John replied levelly. ‘It was her choice, and we had not lived as husband and wife for some time. It was not my duty to make her leave, nor to stay and protect her. I considered my duty to be to protect the two of you. Beatrice elected to stay behind. She could have come in the carriage if she wished.’

There was a bowl of pale primroses on the table, and I was staring at them. Staring at them but hardly seeing them. They were wilting over the rim of the silver bowl and they reminded me of another silver bowl and the heavy heads of cream roses looking down at their reflections and my mama’s voice saying so bitterly, ‘You are a wrecker, Beatrice.’

They had left her in hatred. I knew it. I did not know why. But I remembered the silence of the dream and the sense of peace I had felt to know that at last they had all gone and the house was empty. That all the work and the lying and the cheating were over. And I remembered Beatrice looking down the drive, waiting for the mob.

‘Did they have a leader?’ I asked suddenly, thinking of the old god who was half-man, half-horse.

‘No one was ever taken,’ John said steadily.

‘Where did they all come from?’ Richard asked.

‘No one ever knew,’ John said again in the same level tone.

I looked up from the flowers and saw his pale-blue eyes upon me. I knew he was keeping back the truth from us. Beatrice knew the mob. I thought she even knew the man they now called a god in Acre. But I had a strong sense of grown-up secrets and long-ago fears, and I knew nothing for certain.

‘What does this mean?’ I asked. ‘What does this all mean for us?’

‘It means I want to set the estate to rights,’ John said. ‘It is time for a new chance for the estate. A new life for all of us. I have some detailed ideas about new crops – fruit and vegetables which we might sell in Chichester or London. And I want us to try to share the profits with the village. That will bring them back to work, and draw them into the new century which is coming.

‘I have been following the events in France,’ John said, and his eyes were bright with enthusiasm. ‘I truly believe that there is a new age coming, a time when people will work together and share the wealth. A time of science and progress and a brushing away of old restrictions and superstitions. The new age is truly coming, and I want Wideacre to be part of it!’

We were all silent, a little overwhelmed by Uncle John’s fervour, and also by the prospect of a changed Wideacre.

‘Julia will have a proper season,’ my mama said slowly. John nodded.

‘And the hall can be rebuilt,’ Richard said.

‘Rebuilt, and the parkland refenced, and the estate growing and fertile again,’ John confirmed.

‘And no more poverty in the village,’ I said, thinking of the children and the parish overseer due for another visit to take paupers away to the mills in the north.

‘That is my first priority,’ Uncle John said.

There was a silence while we absorbed the fact that all our dreams might be a reality.

‘I am counting on all of you,’ Uncle John said. ‘I shall find a manager to run the farmland. But I shall need all your advice and support. This is your inheritance we are setting to rights, Richard, Julia.’ He nodded gravely to each of us in turn. ‘I shall need your help.’

‘Shall I not go to university, sir?’ Richard asked eagerly.

John smiled, his eyes suddenly warm. ‘You most certainly shall,’ he said firmly. ‘The time for squires who know nothing but their crops is long gone. You shall go to Oxford, and Julia shall go to Bath for the season and to London also. There will be time enough during the summer months for you to work on the land.’

‘Good,’ said Richard.

Uncle John looked at me. ‘Does that suit you, Miss Julia?’ he said with an affectionate, jesting tone.

I beamed at him. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, indeed. Ever since I first made friends in the village I have been longing for the day when it would be possible to put it right. I am very, very happy.’

Uncle John exchanged a long look with my mama. ‘Then we are all content,’ he said. ‘And now I shall unpack my bags and see if I have remembered to bring you all anything from my travels!’

Uncle John set himself out to please us at supper. We were all still strange with him. Mama was anxious and loving, and I was shy, showing my country-bred awkwardness; but Richard was as relaxed and as charming as only he knew how to be. Uncle John sat at the head of the table in Richard’s seat and smiled on us like the father of a fine family. He had unpacked his presents and had some wonderful yards of silk and muslin for Mama and me, as well as a slim velveteen box for Mama.

He pushed it towards her when Stride had cleared the plates, and he smiled mysteriously when she asked, ‘What is it, John?’

She opened the catch and drew out a necklace. It was exquisite. They were matched pearls, hatched from oysters in the warm waters of oceans thousands of miles from Wideacre, each one a perfect, smooth sphere.

‘But they’re pink!’ exclaimed Mama as she held them up to the candlelight.

‘Pink pearls,’ Uncle John said with satisfaction. ‘I know pearls are your favourites, Celia, and I could not resist them. There are matching ear-rings too.’

‘Wherever did you find them?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh! India, I suppose.’

‘And the devil’s own job I had getting them!’ John said, his face quite serious. ‘Pearl-diving every Sunday after church in a shark-infested sea is no joke, Celia, I can tell you.’

Mama gave a gurgle of laughter, sounding as delighted as a courted girl at his nonsense, and put the necklace around her neck. I waited as she fumbled with the catch in case Uncle John would put them on her. But he was deliberately holding back from playing the part of her lover before our bright curious gazes.

‘They’re wonderful,’ she said with pleasure. ‘Must I save them for best?’

‘No!’ John said. ‘You shall have finer things for “best,” Celia, I promise you. This is just a home-coming present, for everyday wear.’

She smiled down the table at him, her eyes very warm. ‘I shall wear them every day then,’ she said. ‘And when they do not match my gown, I shall still keep them on. And nothing you buy me in future could be finer for me than the present you brought home when you were safe home at last.’

John was silent as their eyes met and held.

‘I believe that pearl-fishing is very cruel to the natives,’ Richard observed.

Uncle John glanced at him. ‘In general it is,’ he said. ‘It happens that these pearls grow in relatively shallow waters and the divers work for a man who trains them well and cares for their health. I would not have bought them otherwise.’

There was a little silence. Richard, ousted from his old place at the head of the table, looked at the tablecloth as if the pattern were new to him.

‘Uncle John,’ I said tentatively, ‘what is that package?’

‘What is that package indeed!’ Uncle John said, recalled to business with a start. ‘As if you did not know, little Miss Lacey, that it has your name on the front!’ He pushed it across to me and I unwrapped it. It was a fine box of watercolours, and Uncle John smiled at my thanks and then gave a rueful chuckle when Mama said he might have saved his money, for all I could ever be prevailed upon to draw was field plans and landscapes.

‘Richard is the artist of the household,’ Mama said gently. ‘He has a great interest in fine buildings and classic sculpture.’

‘Is he?’ John said, smiling approvingly at his son.

‘But perhaps such a lovely box of colours and a palette will encourage you, Julia,’ Mama said, prompting me.

‘It shall,’ I promised. ‘And you are a very dear uncle to bring me such a lovely gift.’ I rose from my chair and went to him and gave him a kiss on his tired, lined forehead, which was both a kiss of thanks and a half-apology for not being the indoors pretty-miss niece he had imagined.

‘What has Uncle John given you, Richard?’ I asked, for Richard’s parcel stood in the corner of the room, a pole as high as his chest with a fascinating knobby bit at the foot. Richard tore at the wrapping and out came some sort of mallets – a pair of them – and half a dozen hard heavy balls. He glanced at his father in bewilderment and hefted the mallet in his hands.

‘Polo sticks and balls,’ said Uncle John. ‘Ever seen it played, Richard?’

Richard shook his head.

‘It’s a wonderful game for a good horseman, and an exciting game for a poor one! We can hire a couple of horses until we find a decent hunter for you, and I will have a knock with you.’

I think no one but I would have noticed Richard’s sudden pallor. John’s eyes were bright as he explained to Richard how the game was played, and the speed and the danger, while Stride brought in the fruit and sweetmeats and port. Uncle John and Richard passed the decanter civilly, one to another, and Mama smiled to see the two of them learning to be friends.

We left them still talking horses and withdrew to the parlour. Mama went straight to the mirror over the fireplace and smoothed her hair with a little smile at her own reflection. I watched her in silence. It was the first trace of vanity I had ever seen in her, and I smiled. In the reflected image, lit by the best beeswax candles sent from the Havering store, the picture was a kind one. Her delight in Uncle John’s return had smoothed the lines off her forehead and around her eyes like a warm iron on cream silk. Her brown eyes were velvety with happiness, the grey in her fair hair was all that betrayed her age. And her widow’s cap was pinned so far back on her head that it was just a scrap of lace on her chignon. She saw my eyes on her and coloured up, and turned from the mirror with a smile.

‘I am so glad they can at least talk horses,’ she said. ‘I was afraid that they would have nothing in common. It matters so much that they should be friends.’

I nodded and tucked myself up on the window-seat, drawing the curtains to one side so I could see the drive, eerie in the silver light of the moon, bordered by the shadowy woods. A wind was moving in the upper branches like a sigh for a life which had all gone wrong.

Inside the house the candlelight was warm, yellow. Mama moved a candelabra closer to light her sewing. But outside in the darkness and the moonlight, the land remembered. And it called to me.

I fell into a dreamy reverie, sitting there, my face to the cool glass and my eyes staring out into the shadows. I knew that Uncle John had told us only half of the story. I felt certain that the woman in the dream was Beatrice at the hall. And she had known – I had dreamed her certainty – that the mob was led by a man she knew. They were coming from Acre, and she had earned their anger.

I knew also that they hated her in Acre no more. They had forgotten the frozen seasons when her shadow had meant death and the young men had feared her. They remembered now the smiling girl who had brought them hayfields and wheatfields thicker and taller than had ever grown before. And staring out into the cold moonlit garden I longed to be a girl like that. With my back to the little parlour and Mama bending over her stitch-ery, I longed with all my heart to be someone who could make the land grow and could bring Acre back to life. I suppose for the first time that evening I faced the fact that I wanted to be the favoured child.

I sat so still, and in such a dream, that I jumped when the parlour door opened and the two of them came in. Richard saw the night and the moonlight in my face and he raised an eyebrow at me as if he were listening for the wind. But he could hear nothing. It was a night for talking about horses and for travellers’ tales from Uncle John, and for reminiscences of the time when the land was easy and good. It was very late before we went to bed. But when I was in bed, I did not dream of the hall and the rioters coming through the darkness. I dreamed of new gowns and ballrooms, like any young girl who has just become a young lady.

5

Living with Uncle John was not all delight, as Richard and I discovered over the next few days. He ordered us each into the parlour and took us through a galloping examination to test our abilities and our learning to date. I was foolish enough to boast that I had learned Latin and Greek over Richard’s shoulder, and had two pages to translate for my pains. I had been confident about my French accent, but John rattled away at me and I could catch only one word in twenty and only managed to stammer a reply. Poor Richard fared even worse and came out of the parlour red-faced and seething. He muttered something about people coming back from India and throwing their weight around like nabobs – and flung himself out. I took myself into the dining-room with Richard’s school-books and my pride much humbled.

That evening Uncle John announced that he had to go to London to see his papa, the senior director of the MacAndrew Shipping Company. ‘I am to serve as the company consultant on our Indian affairs,’ he explained. ‘But while I am there – consulting away – I shall make a final choice of the best man to be our manager here on Wideacre.’ He nodded to my mama. ‘Can I bring you anything back from London, Celia? Some patterns for gowns perhaps?’

Mama glanced down at her well-worn dark dress. ‘I badly need some new gowns,’ she admitted. ‘And Julia has never had a new dress in her life, poor child! But I do not trust you to choose our fashions, John!’

‘I should bring you back scarlet saris,’ John said at once. ‘They’re what the Indian ladies wear. Quite ravishing the two of you would look, I assure you.’

‘Possibly,’ Mama said, laughing, ‘but I would rather Julia made her Bath debut in something a little more conventional. I have written to my old sempstress at Chichester to run us both up a couple of gowns to keep us going until I can consult her properly. Bring nothing back but your dear self. And don’t work too hard.’