The Favoured Child (73 page)

‘Yes, sir,’ Richard said. Something in his voice made me turn
to look at him. He was not blank with horror like the rest of us. His eyes were blazing blue. He looked utterly delighted. I could not think what was in his mind. He must be half mad, or perhaps he was rising to the challenge of this horror. Mama was bent industriously over her work, while I was where John had left me, backed against the wall, and John now clung to the mantelpiece. But Richard stood astride in the doorway, a smile on his face.

‘My God,’ said John. He made an odd little retching sound in his throat as though he were going to be sick.

‘And we are married!’ Richard said defiantly. ‘The child, the heir to Wideacre, will be born in wedlock. We were secretly married over a month ago, and you cannot break that. We
will
inherit Wideacre jointly, just as my mama planned!’

John’s head jerked up, his pale eyes blazing so brightly they looked almost white. ‘Not just
your
mama,’ he said, hissing through his teeth. ‘My God, you pair of fools! You do not know what you have done!’ he said, recapturing that precise monotone which told of a horror kept in check. ‘You do not know what you have done. She was not just
your
mama! She gave birth to you
both
. You have seduced and married your sister, Richard!’

No one said a word. It was as if we were a tableau in some theatre of horror. Then I gave a little sobbing scream and slumped on to one of the chairs at the parlour table.

Richard’s smile was wiped from his face. ‘You’re lying,’ he said uncertainly.

‘No,’ John said. ‘Beatrice conceived Julia with her lover, and she persuaded Celia to take the baby when they were in France on the wedding tour. Harry Lacey never knew the child was not his. Julia was born in France when he was absent. He came home early. The next time Beatrice conceived, she married me. After you were born, I discovered the truth, Richard, the foul truth that you are both Lacey bastards from the same whore.’

Mama’s scissors went snip, snip, snip in the silence. She had not looked up once. She had abandoned the little jagged holes and was slicing along the edge of the cloth in a delicate threadlike fringe.

‘Who is my father?’ Richard asked, utterly bemused.

I could not take my eyes from my mama’s downcast face. She was not my mama. She was
not
my mama.

‘Who is my father?’ Richard asked again.

John dropped into a chair by the empty fireplace; he seemed too weary to go on much longer. ‘Harry Lacey,’ he said indifferently. ‘Beatrice lay with her brother, Harry, and got you both. You are incestuous bastards, and now the two of you have conceived another.’

Mama’s head came up. ‘Harry’s child?’ she demanded. ‘Julia is Harry’s child? Beatrice’s lover was my Harry?’

‘Didn’t you know it?’ John demanded, his voice as hard as a costerman’s, of the woman he loved. ‘Didn’t you always know it in your secret heart? And you feared it and hid it from yourself, and I conspired with you in that lie.’

Mama dipped her head again to her work. ‘Yes,’ she said very softly. ‘I knew there was something evil between them. I tried not to wonder what it meant.’ She had dropped the scrap of lawn when she looked up, but she did not cease her work. Absent-mindedly she took a handful of the figured silk of her driving dress and started to cut perfectly symmetrical little holes in it. Snip, snip, snip went the scissors, and no ‘one thought to stop her.

Richard stared. ‘So I am Harry Lacey’s son,’ he said slowly. ‘I am the son of the squire.’

Nobody said anything. John’s eyes were on the empty grate. It looked like he was watching flames and glowing embers, but there was nothing there. Mama’s head was bent down over her dress. It was a cream silk with small yellow flowers. She was cutting the flowers out of the material with careful accuracy. The scraps fell around her feet as though she were sitting under a cherry tree shedding its petals.

‘I am the heir,’ Richard suddenly said, his voice strong. ‘I am the Son of the Laceys. Wideacre is my inheritance.’

‘Wideacre!’ John shouted. He jumped from his chair, explosive with rage. He crossed the room in two swift strides and took
Richard’s lapels and dragged him close. ???? have got your own sister with child, and all you can think of is Wideacre?’

His blazing pale eyes scanned Richard’s frightened face and then he pushed him away as if he did not want to touch him.

‘You are true Laceys,’ he said bitterly. He looked at us with loathing. ‘Both of you,’ he said. His mouth was twisted as though he had accidentally bitten into something dead and rotting. ‘Both of you bred very true. All you care for is this filthy estate, all you chase is your own lusts. You are both Beatrice’s true children.’

We said nothing. I did not dare look up from the polished surface of the table. I could see my reflection. I was as white as a ghost and my eyes in that darkened mirror were huge and appalled.

John leaned his arm along the mantelpiece. ‘It will have to be annulled,’ he said levelly. The passion had gone from his voice and he sounded tired and old. ‘It can be the last thing I do for the pair of you. I will go to London and get an annulment on the grounds that you are brother and sister, and I shall put the estate on the market while I am there. Wideacre will be sold, and you two will be separated.’

I did not protest. Indeed, I consented.

The nightmare of the Laceys on Wideacre should end, whatever it cost me, whatever it cost Richard. That morning in the summer-house had been even worse than rape. It had also been a perversion. I wanted the Lacey line to be over for ever. I wanted no Lacey on God’s earth again after Richard and me. Most of all, I wanted the fairest part of God’s earth to be free of us. I wanted to be punished. I wanted to be exiled. I wanted the pain of losing Wideacre and the pain of losing my name and my home and the father of my child to tear my heart out so I would never forget that there should be no future for the Laceys, so that I should never hope and plan again. I wanted to be gutted like a river trout and cleansed. ‘Yes,’ I said.

My mama spoke. Her dress was pock-marked with circular holes. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Richard’s blue eyes went from one face to another in the room.

I saw a flicker of hesitation pass across it and then he too nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I’ll start at once,’ John said. ‘Celia, you will have to come with me as Julia’s guardian.’

Mama nodded.

‘Julia, you will go to Havering Hall and stay with your Grandmama Havering,’ John said. ‘You two are not to see each other until we return. Is that clear?’

We nodded in silence.

‘Richard, you will stay here until we get back. We should not be gone more than one night.’

Richard nodded.

John went for the door and my mama followed him.

‘Mama!’ I said pitifully. She paused and looked at me. Her eyes were hard. I had never seen her face as it was then. She looked through me as if she saw a green-eyed whore and not the child she had raised.

I hesitated. There was no appeal I could make. I saw her clear gaze drop down from my face and she looked at my belly where my child was growing.

‘You should change your dress, Mama,’ I said gently.

She glanced down at the gown, speckled with holes. ‘Yes,’ she said, and she left the room.

She did not touch me. She did not say farewell. She was gone before I could say goodbye, or ask for her forgiveness, or ask for her love. And I did not tell her how much I loved her.

Richard brought the news to me at Havering Hall in the evening. He came riding over, and as soon as I saw him, I knew something was wrong, for John had ordered him to stay at home and not to see me.

But John was dead, and Richard could do just as he pleased; my mama was dead too.

Richard brought a letter. It was from a Justice of the Peace at Haslemere. The common outside the little town had been
troubled with highwaymen. It seemed that a highwayman had held up the travelling coach and ordered Jem to stand to. And then he had shot them dead.

Jem, Uncle John and my mama.

The next travellers along the road saw the coach pulled in at the roadside, the horses grazing on the verge. Jem was dead on the box and John was lying on the floor inside; it seemed he had been trying to shield my mama with his body. My mama had been shot dead.

The cash in John’s travelling box had gone. My mama’s rose-pearl ear-rings and her beautiful Indian rose-pearl necklace, which she had worn every day since John gave them to her, were missing.

The magistrate, Mr Pearson, said he was very sorry. He said he had posted notices for information about the killer, and that if we wished to offer a reward, we should contact him. He said he was making arrangements for the bodies to be sent home. He said he commiserated with us in our grief.

‘What should we do, sir?’ Richard asked Lord Havering, his blue eyes wide. ‘What should Julia and I do?’

‘You’ll stay here, of course,’ my grandmama interrupted. ‘You will stay here with me until we can sort things out. I shall take care of Julia; she is my granddaughter. And there will always be a home for you here, Richard.’

I said nothing. I could think of nothing. In the distant back of my mind was a great gash of pain and longing for my mama and, increasingly, as I sat in silence, a great need of her help. I could not think how I would manage without her. I could not think where I would live or what would become of me, or of my unborn child.

‘Lady Havering,’ Richard said firmly. ‘I have to tell you and his lordship some news which will be a surprise to both of you.’

I did not know what Richard was about to say. I could hardly hear his words. All I could hear was a little cry of pain, as thin as a thread, in the back of my mind, which said, ‘Mama.’

So I sat in silence, and I was passive when Richard walked
over to me and drew me to my feet. He held my hand in one hand, the letter announcing my mama’s murder in his other. He tucked my icy right hand under his arm and faced my grandparents.

‘Julia and I are married,’ he said. ‘We will be making our lives together,’

‘Good God!’ said Lord Havering. He looked at his wife for prompting and then he looked back at the pair of us. Richard seemed assured and somehow prepared for this scene. I was nothing more than a wan shadow at his side, deprived of speech, deprived of thought. I was calling for Mama inside my head, calling for her in silence.

‘Good God!’ said Lord Havering again.

‘Did your father know of this, Richard?’ Lady Havering demanded.

‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘Lady Havering, it is useless for us to pretend to you. My papa gave his permission, and Julia’s mama gave her permission, because Julia is with child. I am the father.’

‘Good God!’ said Lord Havering once more, and dropped into a chair like a stone.

Lady Havering’s face was as pale as crumpled vellum, but her first thought was not for the conventions but for the daughter she had lost.

‘Oh! My poor Celia!’ she exclaimed. ‘That would have been the last straw for her. That must have broken her heart.’

I dropped my head. I felt I had killed Mama myself. She had left the house without a word of love between us and she had gone to her death. I was ready to believe that when her killer shot her, he was completing the injury I had started when she learned I was unchaste. I was so ashamed I could not speak.

‘I suppose this alters things,’ Richard said with careful courtesy.

‘It does!’ Lord Havering said. ‘It does, by God!’

Lady Havering made a slight gesture and his lordship fell silent. ‘I’ll recognize you,’ she said grimly. ‘Whatever else Julia is, she is my granddaughter, and I’ll do it for Celia’s sake. I’ll
acknowledge you, and we’ll announce the marriage in the papers. No one will expect any sort of reception with your parents’ funeral taking place in the same week. We can make it appear that you have been married for some time.’ She hesitated. I did not look up. ‘When’s the baby due?’ she asked.

‘At the end of January,’ Richard said.

‘We’ll say you were married privately in the spring, then,’ she said. Her voice was as hard and dispassionate as a general planning a campaign. ‘In these circumstances, there is no reason why the two of you should not go home at once.’

‘No!’ I exclaimed suddenly. ‘I don’t want to go home!’

Richard’s eyes met mine with unmistakable menace in their blue hardness.

‘Why not?’ demanded my grandmama sharply.

I hesitated. Richard’s eyes were on me, but I trusted my grand-mama’s love for me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said weakly. ‘I just don’t want to, Grandmama. Please let me stay here with you. I don’t want to go home.’

She hesitated, and I knew her long affection was weighing more heavily than her shock and dismay at what I had done. I knew she would keep me with her until I felt strong enough to go home and face Richard and decide what we should do in the wreckage of our lives. I felt I had suddenly found some safe ground under my feet. I knew my grandmama saw the appeal in my eyes, and I knew that I had an ally who was very strong.

‘You may stay if you wish,’ she said slowly. But then she looked away from me. She looked to Richard. ‘But you are a married woman now, Julia. You must do as your husband wishes.’

I gaped at her. I could barely understand her. ‘Richard?’ I queried. I could not believe that she was referring a decision to my childhood playmate. I could not believe that she would permit him to take a decision about me, in her house.

‘You are a married woman, Julia,’ she said. It was as if there were a cell door closing. ‘You are a married woman. It must be as your husband wishes.’

I looked around.

Lord Havering was nodding. My grandmama’s face was strained, but her eyes were steady. Last of all I looked at Richard. His eyes were gleaming in secret triumph.

‘I think we should go home, Julia,’ he said gently. ‘This has been a dreadful shock for us both. I think we should go home and you should have some hartshorn and water and go to bed early. There will be much to arrange tomorrow, and this has been an unbearably distressing day. I think you should come home and rest in your own house.’