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‘Is there something more troubling you, Celia?’
‘It is wrong of me, I know,’ she said. ‘But it is the thought of the … bridal night. The plans are that we drive from the wedding breakfast to the Golden Fleece at Portsmouth, you know, and take a boat to France the following morning. I cannot bear the thought …’ She paused and I could see the play of anxiety on her young face. ‘If I should be hurt,’ she said softly, ‘or very much afraid, I should prefer it not to be in a small hotel, especially in England and especially so near home.’
I nodded. This might be meaningless to me. To me it was nonsense, of course, and all to my good. But I can recognize delicacy when I see it.
‘You are thinking that if someone gossiped then people might say things about you,’ I said understandingly.
‘Oh, no!’ she said surprisingly. ‘Not about me, but Harry. I should not like him to be distressed by gossip, especially if it was because of my foolish inability to …’ – she gasped – ‘… behave as I must.’
She really was a little darling! To be in such fear and yet think first of us. And it was good to know that the future Lady of Wideacre had a keen appreciation of our good name.
‘I am sure Harry would excuse you the first night,’ I said, and thought gleefully that his first night as a married man should be spent where most of his married life would be spent – with me. ‘With the journey to Portsmouth and then France, perhaps we should agree to travel as friends until we are comfortably installed in Paris.’
Her eyes looked down and she nodded. In that assent she gave me another foothold in Harry’s life. I smiled encouragingly at her and hugged her. Her waist was slim and pliant and I felt the warmth of her body through the gown. She turned her sad face to me and leaned her cheek against mine.
I felt the soft smooth skin just damp with the trace of a tear and could not avoid the thought that if she ever turned to Harry like this then all my passion and power would not hold him. Her lovely virginal body would be a potent attraction to a man like Harry, and her youth, her trust and her sensitivity would create in him the birth of a gentle and tender love. I gave her a little kiss on the lips and – coming as I did from Harry’s hungry bites – she was soft and sweet. Then I got to my feet and slipped out of my bridesmaid gown and into my grey riding habit.
Lady Havering tapped at the door and came in as I was arranging my curls before Celia’s mirror.
‘Good gracious, Celia, get out of that gown immediately,’ she said in her firm oice. ‘You will crush it and spoil it sitting around like that.’ Celia dived for her closet. ‘I suppose you girls have been dreaming of your trip,’ said Lady Havering to me.
I smiled and bobbed her a decorous curtsy.
‘It is so kind of Celia to invite me, and I’m so happy that Mama can spare me.’
Lady Havering nodded. She was an imposing woman, well fitted to her leading position in our county. Large-boned, well-made, she had a presence that totally overwhelmed her pretty daughter and everyone else, too. She settled into a chair and inspected me with the frank appraisal of a woman of the Quality in her own house. How she had fitted into the little Bath town house with her invalid first husband I could not imagine. Lord Havering had recognized in the rich widow someone who would overlook the poverty of his position for the pride, and who would never let down appearances however badly she was treated. He had chosen well; Lady Havering had done her duty, cared for the children of his first marriage and added to the nursery on her own account. She ran the Hall as well as she could for a woman who now had no money and no love for the land, and made no complaint either of her lord’s frequent absences in London, nor at his frequent arrivals with a bunch of drunken friends who would roam about shooting pheasants, and riding down the corn.
‘I see your mama lets you ride alone,’ Lady Havering said abruptly. I glanced at my grey habit. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose I should have stayed inside the estate but I wanted to see Celia and I didn’t think anyone would see me.’
‘Lax,’ said her ladyship, without meaning offence. ‘But then you’ve always been allowed a lot of freedom for a young girl. In my young days no young lady would have ridden any distance, not even with her groom or her brother.’
So they knew at Havering Hall of my rides with Harry. I smiled neutrally and made no reply.
‘You’ll have to mend your ways when you come out,’ she said. ‘If you go to London you won’t be able to range around town on one of Harry’s hunters.’
‘No,’ I smiled. ‘But I believe Mama has no plans to take me to London.’
‘We might take you,’ she said generously. ‘If we open Havering House next season for Celia and Harry you could come along and be presented at Court. I will speak to your mama.’
I smiled and thanked her. It would take more than the promise of an opportunity to curtsy to the King to get me off Wideacre, but next season was far away. I might have my moments of vanity but I never lost my senses so totally as to prefer the larger audience of London when I could stay at home. The ripple of admiration when I entered one of the Chichester Assembly Rooms was the most extreme flattery I had ever had, and I was not such a fool as to want more.
‘Shocking news of those bread riots in Kent,’ said Lady Havering, conversationally.
‘I haven’t heard any news,’ I said, suddenly alert. ‘What has been happening?’
‘I had a letter from a friend at Tunbridge Wells,’ said her ladyship. ‘There has been a riot and even some rick-burning. There was even talk of calling out the militia, but the Justices of the Peace arrested a few of the worst offenders.’
‘Surely it’s just the same as always,’ I said. ‘The harvest will not be a very good one this year. The price is going up already. The poor go hungry and a few bad ’uns get up a crowd and riot until some landlord comes to his senses and sells them cheap corn. It happens nearly every bad year.’
‘No, this sounds worse than usual,’ she said. ‘I know one must expect insolence from the workers every time they have to do without, but this seems almost to have been a planned insurrection! Most dreadful! Let me see if I can find her letter.’
She felt in her pocket and I prepared myself for the twitterings of an old lady, scared half to death at the fanciful report of distant events. But as she started reading I listened more intently, with a seed of cold fear growing inside me.
‘“Dear …’ hmm, hmm, hmm, yes, here we are. “I hope your county is quiet for we have heard of the most dreadful events not twenty miles from Tunbridge Wells itself. I blame the Justices who have been so slack in punishing the disaffected in the past that the rabble think they have a licence to take whatever they want.
‘“A certain Mr Wooler, a good honest tradesman, had secured a contract to send all his neighbour’s corn to the London merchants, instead of having it ground locally, as is the custom. To further secure a return for his investment, he arranged that many other gentlemen in the neighbourhood should send their corn too in his wagons to London; a sensible and businesslike arrangement.”’
I nodded. I understood perfectly. Mr Wooler had created a selling ring with his neighbours and they had secured a usurious price for their corn and were sending the harvest of the entire area out of the county, away from the local market to London. Mr Wooler would show a handsome profit. So would his neighbours. But his tenants and the poorer workers would have no locally grown, locally ground corn to buy. They would have to travel to the nearest market to get their corn and their demand would push the price sky high to the further advantage and profit of the landlords, the Mr Woolers of this unjust world. Those people who could not afford the inflated prices would have to do without. And those who could not fall back on a diet of potatoes, or on the charity of neighbours, would starve.
Lady Havering went on, ‘“Mr Wooler anticipated some problems with the rowdy element in the village, and took the precaution of protecting his wagons during their trip to London with five strong men riding alongside equipped with both firearms and cudgels.”’
Mr Wooler seemed to me over-anxious. But only he would know how many families would be likely to die of hunger as a result of his profiteering, and how angry the parents of crying children would be in his part of the world.
‘“He was prepared for trouble, but not for what took place,”’ Lady Havering continued, and Celia slipped into the room and took a seat to listen.
‘“As they entered an especially shady stretch of the track to the London road, where the thick wood makes the way twisting and narrow, Mr Wooler heard a long, low whistle. To his horror he saw some thirty men rise out of the ground, some armed with scythes and bill-hooks, some holding cudgels. Blocking the road ahead was a felled tree, and as he looked behind him he heard the crash of a tree falling across the road to cut off his retreat. In a dreadful bellow of a voice, which seemed to come from nowhere, the men with Mr Wooler were ordered to lay down their firearms, dismount from their horses and walk back to the village.”’
I listened intently. It could have no application to us, nor to our land, for I would never, never make such a contract with London merchants – a practice my father had despised. Wideacre wheat was never sold while it was standing in the field. It always went to the local market where the poor could buy their pennyworths and the merchants could bid for it in a fair auction. Yet I felt a hint of unease, for any attack on property frightens its owners and this pitched assault was unlike anything I had ever heard. I never forgot, I think no member of the Quality ever forgets, that we live off the fat of the land and dress in silks and clean linen and live in warm, beautiful mansions – while all around us the majority of the people are in hunger and dirt. Within a two hundred mile radius there were perhaps only three wealthy families such as ourselves. And there were hundreds and thousands of poor people who worked at our beck and call.
So I felt an entirely reasonable fear at the thought of poor people organizing themselves into a pitched attack on property. But at the same time I felt a sneaking feeling of admiration for the men who stood up against this clever Mr Wooler to keep the corn they had grown in their own county, that they might buy at a fair price. They were against the law, and if they were caught they would be hanged. But they would be secret local heroes if they saved the village from a hungry winter, and if there was such a thing as natural justice, then no one could call them wrong. Celia’s reaction was, predictably, more conventional.
‘Dreadful,’ she said.
Lady Havering read on, ‘“As the men hesitated and looked to Mr Wooler for guidance a voice shouted, ‘Are you Wooler? If you move, you are a dead man!’ And then a shot rang out and it knocked Mr Wooler’s hat from his head!”’ Lady Havering stopped reading to see if I was properly aghast and was satisfied at my suddenly appalled expression. Shooting with such accuracy takes years of training. I had only ever known one man, just one man, who could shoot so. Lady Havering turned a page.
‘“Mr Wooler turned in the direction of the shot, seeking the leader of this dreadful assault, and saw a horse, a great black horse with two black dogs and a rider who called out, ‘I have reloaded, Wooler, and the next is for you!’ Mr Wooler could do nothing but obey the order and leave his horse and his whole fortune in the carts and walk back to the village. By the time the Squires had been alerted and the Justices called out the wagons had gone and were only found again four days later, empty.”’
‘Good gracious, how terrible,’ said Celia calmly.
I said nothing. I had a picture very clear in my mind of the darkened wood and the ring of silent men, armed but quite still under orders. The leader on a great horse who could fire with such accuracy and reload so fast, on horseback. If I had not known Ralph I would not have believed such skill was possible. But it could be done; I had seen Ralph do it. Not even Harry with years of practice and the best pistols could do such a thing, but I had seen Ralph shoot and reload with one hand while his horse stood steady, in less time than it takes to count twenty. I found it hard to believe anyone else could have learned the skill, but my mind shied from the logical conclusion.
‘“A few men were questioned by Mr Wooler and despite the most rigorous inquiries they said nothing. They will be hanged, of course, but they utterly refused to identify their evil band or their leader. Mr Wooler himself says he could not see the man clearly. He had a confused impression of a scarf around the man’s face as a disguise.”’ Lady Havering glanced over the top of the page and broke off.
‘Are you unwell, my dear?’ she asked.
‘No, no,’ I said. I realized my hands were clamped on the window seat like a vice. I released my grip and tried to speak normally.
‘What a terrible tale,’ I said. ‘Like a nightmare. Was there …’ I searched my mind for some way to frame the question. ‘Was there nothing odd about the rider, nothing that would make him easy to identify?’
‘No. Apparently not,’ said Lady Havering. ‘Mr Wooler has offered a huge reward but no one has betrayed this man. It seems he may get off scot-free. I am glad he is in Kent. It would be too dreadful if he were near Havering … or Wideacre,’ she said as an afterthought.
I tried to smile and nod but I could not. I had lost control over the expression of my face and my teeth were chattering as if I had an ague. My hands, which had been gripping the edge of the seat, were clamped on it as if I were holding on to a spar while I was drowning. The legless man on the black horse in Portsmouth and the man on the black horse who could fire and reload with such accuracy in Kent could not be the same. It was foolish of me to feel such terror. It was dangerous to be out of control before Lady Havering and in front of Celia’s concerned eyes. I tried to speak normally but I could only croak, my throat muscles rigidly holding the scream that was struggling to rip out. The Ralph of my nightmares seemed to be taking human shapes – many human faces. In Portsmouth, in Kent, everywhere. Leading men against property, always on a black horse, always coming closer and closer to me. Even as I fell into a faint I could feel myself struggling to keep my eyes open in case the darkness of the swoon let Ralph come for me. Ralph on a great black horse with thirty hungry, angry men at his back and his legs hacked off at the knees.
I don’t remember how I got home. I’m told they sent me back in the Havering carriage with Lady Havering herself supporting me, but I remember nothing. I was not unconscious all the time, but I dropped into a faint twice, and the rest of the time I was in a daze of such fear that I could not speak or move. Whenever I closed my eyes I saw in my panicking imagination Ralph drooping like a broken doll over the sharp jaws of the mantrap and heard again the snap of his knee bones and his hoarse scream. When I opened my eyes in terror to escape this picture, I would catch a glimpse of a horseman from the carriage window and think in my fear that it was Ralph on his great black horse.
They called the new doctor from Chichester as soon as I was home, the clever young Dr MacAndrew whose reputation had survived my jest with old Mrs Hodgett. I barely saw him, I scarcely heard him ask some brief, pointed questions, and then I felt his arm around my shoulder and a glass to my lips, and the laudanum slid down my throat like an elixir of peace.
Dreams – thank God and laudanum – I had none. I slept like a child and no black shadow pursued me. I did not wake until the following day and then found Dr MacAndrew by my bedside. I did not smile or look at him. I spoke to him in a low voice, and said only, ‘Please let me sleep again.’
He said, ‘You’d best take my advice and face whatever it is that’s frightening you. You’ve had your fill of sleep.’
I looked at him then, and at my maid standing by the bed and at my mama at the foot. I wondered if I had said anything in my drugged sleep that would ruin me later, and found that I hardly cared. His eyes met mine with a look of compassion and interest, but not like those of a man who has just heard a hanging secret. I believed he knew nothing.
‘I expect you are right,’ I said. ‘But I know what is best for me. I beg you to give me that medicine again and let me sleep.’
His light blue-grey eyes looked into mine, gently appraising me.
‘Well,’ he said tolerantly, ‘perhaps you know your own business best. You may take this to sleep now, and if you sleep through till tomorrow morning I shall call on you then.’
I drank the draught in silence and made no reply to my mama or my maid. I waited with my eyes shut for the merciful oblivion. Just as my terror started returning and my nervous frantic senses believed they could feel Ralph riding closer and closer to Wideacre, to me, I could feel the deep warm glow of the medicine and the sweet peaceful sleep steal over me. I relaxed, and smiled at the wavering image of the doctor in childlike gratitude. He was not especially handsome, but there was something in his square face, his pale blue eyes and his sandy hair that made me feel safe. Even the sound of his question to Mama – ‘What do you think can have set off this nervous attack?’ – failed to frighten me as I slid into sleep.
By the time I awoke the question had been answered and I had no need to frame some lie about nerves. My mama believed she saw in me her own severe reaction to cats and I had been sitting – bless the animal – on a cushion where Celia’s spoiled Persian usually slept. The explanation was too persuasive to be resisted. Dr MacAndrew could look dubious but Mama and Lady Havering settled it between them and by the time I came downstairs on the third day I had no awkward questions. Harry, Mama and Celia, who was visiting for the day, were all quick to rush around and cosset me but no one thought to look beyond the explanation of the cat. The fateful letter from the gossipy friend of Tunbridge Wells had been forgotten by everyone but me.
Of course I could not forget it, and over the next few days it haunted me. I could remember every word of the description. The shady road in the overgrown wood, the brilliant ambush with the tree crashing down behind the wagons. The men coming slowly to their feet out of the bracken at the signal of the whistle – and most of all the leader’s big black horse and his two circling dogs.
I did not need to hear one word of the story again; it was in my ears as I slept every night, and it was my first thought on waking. As the days went by no detail faded but I grew more and more hopeful that the gang would be caught and the public hangman would finish the job with Ralph that I had botched.
An attack of that size would provoke a huge reaction. The magistrates would search until the leader was found. Great rewards would bribe the loyalty of his followers, lengthy questionings and secret tortures would break the will of those who were captured. It would not be long before the leader was brought to trial, sentenced and hanged. So the gruelling game of waiting started again as I scanned the weekly papers for the news.
Nothing. Once there was a paragraph to say that Mr Wooler had increased the reward and that inquiries were proceeding. Once there was the story that half-a-dozen poor men, suspected of being in the gang, had been transported and three others hanged. The preparations for the wedding day went on, and I remained outwardly calm, but my old fears of the dark, of the noise of horses’ hoofbeats, of the rattle of a chain or the clank of iron were back with me. I had a weapon against my night terrors thanks to that meticulous and careful young Dr MacAndrew. In a dark shelf, pushed well to the back near my bed, I had hidden a little bottle of laudanum and every night before I lay down to sleep, two or three pretty little drops slid down my throat and I lay in a golden haze of contentment.
Clever, keen, sandy-haired, sandy-eyelashed Dr MacAndrew gave me my first bottle – but my need quickly outstripped his meagre allowance. When I asked him for a second he made an anxious and disapproving face.
‘I cannot agree to it, Miss Lacey,’ he said in his soft accent. ‘It may be the fashion for young ladies like yourself to take laudanum every night, but you forget, the young ladies forget, that this is not a bedtime drink of milk, but a medicine, a medicine based on opium. We know it is strong; it may be, for some people, addictive. You would not dream of drinking a bottle of brandy a week, Miss Lacey, and yet you are prepared to drink a bottle of laudanum in the same time.
‘I gave it to you when you were overwrought, as a temporary measure to calm you. You are a strong-minded and upright young lady, Miss Lacey. Now your nerves are restored you must seek the solution to your anxieties and solve them – not escape them with laudanum.’
This was too uncomfortably perceptive of the young doctor and I closed the conversation. But his view of laudanum made no difference to me. It would take a stronger man than John MacAndrew to turn me from a course when my mind was set on it. In my life I had known only two such men and one they brought home on a stretcher with his horse limping behind, and the other I had left for dead in the dark. It was better that no one tried to cross or control me.
But Dr MacAndrew was not one to follow a polite shift in a conversation if he had something to say. He looked at me hard but his eyes were gentle.
‘Miss Lacey,’ he said. ‘I attended you in your illness and you may think me too young or too newly qualified to be an expert but I do beg you to trust in my direction.’
I shot him a hard look. His pale northern complexion was flushed, even his ears were pink with embarrassment but his pale blue, honest eyes were steady.
‘You are suffering under some anxiety,’ he said steadily. ‘Something you have imagined, or something real. I urge you to face it and overcome it. Whatever is threatening you, you have a loving family and, I am sure, many friends. You need not be afraid alone. Tell me if I am wrong, and rebuke me if I am impertinent, but I believe I am right in both diagnosis and cure. I think you are afraid of something and you will never escape this fear until you face it.’
Although the day was warm and the sun streamed into the parlour I shivered and drew my shawl around my shoulders. To face the fear would be to face the picture of Ralph sitting on his great black horse. To face the fear would be to imagine the changes in his expression from the smiling sensual confident face of my young, upstart lover, to the twisted grimace of a beggar, an outcast, a cripple unfit for any work. My imagination shied away from the idea, as it always would.
‘You are mistaken,’ I said, my voice low and my slanty eyelids down so he could not see my eyes dark with fear. ‘I thank you for your kindness but I fear nothing. I am not yet fully out of mourning for my papa and I suppose I am still recovering from that shock.’
The young doctor’s flush rose up again. He pulled his case towards him and opened it.
‘I give you this against my better judgement,’ he said, and placed in my hands a small phial of laudanum. ‘It will help you to sleep but you must take it in moderation. Two drops only at night and never during the day. It will help you through this period of change while your brother is married and you prepare for your trip. Once you leave England you should give it up.’
‘I shan’t need to use it when I’m away from here,’ I said.
‘Oh?’ he said, catching at the point too cleverly for my comfort. ‘So your anxieties, like ghosts, cannot cross water –?’
I dropped my eyes again. This young man had been trained to observe and he saw too much. ‘I shall be seeing new sights and meeting new people. I shall forget my worries,’ I said steadily.
‘Well, I’ll not question you further,’ he said and rose to take his leave. I held out my hand and to my surprise he did not shake it but bent and kissed it, a gentle lingering kiss that left a warmth on my fingers after he had straightened up. He still held my hand in his.
‘I would be your friend, Miss Lacey,’ he said gently. ‘I would keep your confidence since I am your medical adviser. But more than that I should like to feel that you can talk to me as a friend.’ Then he gave a little bow, turned and walked from the room.
I plumped back down into my chair in genuine surprise. My spirits rose at the warmth in his voice, and I turned to the mirror over the fireplace to see my reflection. His kiss had brought the colour to my cheeks and the dark shadows under my eyes made me look fragile. Bright, reflected eyes met mine in dancing delight. I did not desire him, of course – he did not have Wideacre, nor could he help me hold it. But whoever disliked a man’s eyes on her? I smiled at myself in simple vanity and joy at having been born with such looks. As my mother came into the room, I turned and smiled at her and she beamed back, pleased to see me well again.
‘Was that Dr MacAndrew’s curricle?’ she asked, shaking out her petticoats and opening her sewing box.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You should have called for me, Beatrice,’ she said, gently reproving. ‘You really should not see him alone.’
‘He only came to inquire how I was,’ I said casually. ‘I never thought to send for you. He was only passing the house on the way to the Springhams; one of the little boys is ill.’
My mother pursed her mouth to thread her needle and nodded, unconvinced. ‘I can’t like the idea of a doctor who calls socially, anyway,’ she said. ‘In my younger days apothecaries only came when they were sent for, and then came in by the kitchen entrance.’
‘Oh, Mama!’ I said. ‘Dr MacAndrew is hardly an apothecary! He is a doctor, qualified at the University of Edinburgh. We are indeed very lucky that he has chosen to stay in the neighbourhood. Now we shan’t have to send to London every time someone is unwell. It can be nothing but an advantage. And besides, he is a gentleman and that makes it much easier to talk to him.’
‘Oh, well,’ my mother said equably. ‘I suppose it’s the new thing. It just seems so odd, that’s all. But I’m glad he was here to look after you, dearest.’ She paused and made a few stitches. ‘But I shall not hear a word of his attending Celia when her time comes.’
‘Good heavens!’ I said, irritated. ‘They’re a fortnight from marriage and you are already looking for an accoucheuse!’
‘Beatrice, really!’ My mother sounded shocked but there was a smile in her eyes. ‘If you talk so freely I shall have to start planning a marriage for you.’
‘Oh, I’ve no taste for it, Mama,’ I laughed. ‘I couldn’t bear to leave Wideacre and I couldn’t be bothered with a husband. I’ve a fancy to stay here and be a sister to Celia and an aunt to all the dear little Celias and baby Harrys.’
‘All girls say that before their marriage is arranged,’ my mother said calmly. ‘You will be glad enough to leave when you see your future before you.’
I smiled. It was a conversation that could have no conclusion. I sat down beside her and pulled the workbox towards me. We were engaged in the respectable task of hemming Harry’s cravats. My sewing had improved and as I placed the neat, regular stitches I imagined this would be the very cravat he would wear on his wedding day and I would be the one – not shy little Celia – who would pull it from his throat on his wedding night.
‘Harry is planning a surprise for you on your return from the wedding tour,’ Mama said, interrupting my daydream. ‘I mention it only because it would be such a waste to do all the work he is planning when it is not suitable.’
I raised my head and waited in silence.
‘Harry is not just renovating some of the rooms in the west wing; he is converting them for your exclusive use,’ she said. Her voice was unruffled but I thought I could detect a note of anxiety. ‘I am sure that you will tell him it is not what you would like?’
She waited for my assent but I said nothing.
‘Did you know of this scheme, Beatrice?’
‘Harry suggested it some while ago,’ I said. ‘I thought it a good idea. I had no idea he had got so far forward as to have the work set in hand.’
‘You both planned this, and neither of you consulted me?’ Mama was becoming agitated. It was important to keep the whole discussion as calm as possible.
‘Mama, it had gone wholly out of my head,’ I said calmly. ‘Harry thought it a good idea that while I am here I should have a suite of private rooms. Much as I love Celia it would be good for all of us to have our own drawing rooms for privacy. After all, Mama, you have your parlour and dressing room and bedroom upstairs, but I have only a bedroom.’
My mother’s concern as usual was for appearances only.
