The Complete Wideacre Trilogy: Wideacre, The Favoured Child, Meridon. Philippa Gregory

like some sacred relic.

      ‘Better change her before her mama gets back,’ I said ruefully to her nurse, noting the lace trimming on her little gown was grey where it had been fingered by hands ingrained with years of dirt.

      ‘Indeed, yes,’ said Nurse stiffly. ‘Lady Lacey has never taken her to the village and would never have let those people touch her.’

      I glanced sharply at her, but I said nothing for a moment.

      ‘She’s taken no harm,’ I said eventually. ‘Have you, little girl? And these people will be your people, as they are mine. These are the people who make the money that keeps Wideacre prosperous and beautiful. They are dirty so that we can have daily baths and fine clean clothes. You must always be ready with a smile for them, little one. You belong to each other.’

      I drove in silence then, enjoying the wind in my face and keeping a careful eye on the road ahead to make sure we struck no stones which might jog her. I was driving so carefully I hardly heard the noise of a carriage and pair and I jumped like a criminal when I suddenly saw, in the road ahead of us, the family chaise. They were just ready to turn into the lodge gate; another second earlier and I might have been home before them. As it was, Celia, gazing out of the offside window, had a perfect view of my curricle trotting briskly down the lane from Acre, with her nurse and her child sitting up bold as brass in the passenger seat.

      Her eyes met mine and her face was blank. I knew she was angry and I felt no surprise. I had a sinking feeling in my gut, the like of which I had not felt since I was a child in disgrace with my papa. I had never thought Celia capable of rages. But to take her child out for a drive without permission was, I knew, something she would regard as wrong. And faced with that icy stare I felt extremely guilty.

      I did not hurry to follow them up the drive, but there was no enraged mother waiting for me in the stable yard. Nurse and Julia dismounted and went into the house by the west-wing door, to slink up to the nursery for a total change of clothes, I guessed. I handed Sorrel over to the groom and went round to the front door. Celia was waiting for me in the hall and she drew me into the parlour. Harry, discreetly, perhaps obediently, was nowhere to be seen.

      I turned to the mirror above the fireplace and took off my hat.

      ‘What a wonderful day,’ I said lightly. ‘Did you find the things you need in Chichester? Or will you have to send to London?’

      Celia said nothing. I had to turn from the mirror to face her. She was standing still in the middle of the room, dominating it with her slight presence and the force of her anger.

      ‘I must ask you never to take Julia out without my express personal permission,’ she said evenly, totally ignoring my questions.

      I met her eyes but said nothing.

      ‘I must also remind you that Harry and I decided that Julia should not be taken out in a curricle, or any open-topped carriage,’ said Celia. ‘We, her parents, decided we did not think it safe for her so to travel.’

      ‘Oh, come now, Celia,’ I said airily. ‘She took no harm. I had the safest horse in the stable between the shafts. I trained Sorrel myself. I just took her down the lane to Acre because she would not settle on the terrace.’

      Celia looked at me. She looked at me as if I were an obstacle on her road that somehow had to be crossed over or gone around.

      ‘Her father and I decided we do not wish her to travel in an open carriage and that includes your curricle, whatever horse you are driving,’ she said slowly, as if explaining something to a stupid child.

      ‘Further, I do not wish her to be taken out of her cradle, or out of the house, or out of the estate, without my express and personal permission.’

      I shrugged. ‘Oh, Celia, let’s not pull caps over this,’ I said easily. ‘I am sorry. I should not have done such a thing without first confirming you had no objection. I merely had to drive to Acre and it amused me to take Julia and show her the land, her home, like my papa used to do with me and with Harry.’

      Celia’s gaze never wavered and her expression did not warm to the casual tone of my apology. ‘Her situation is very different from either yours or Harry’s,’ she said steadily. ‘There is no reason why she should have a similar upbringing.’

      ‘She’s a Wideacre baby!’ I said in surprise. ‘Of course she must learn about the land and go out on the land. This is her home, just as it is mine. She belongs here, even as I do.’

      Celia’s head jerked and her cheeks suddenly flushed scarlet.

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘She does not belong here as you do. What your plans are, Beatrice, I do not know. I came into this house to live with my husband and with your mama and with you. But my Julia will not live here all her life. She will marry and leave. She will spend her girlhood here, but I dare say she will be away at school for much of the time. Then she will make visits to friends. Wideacre will not be the only house in the world for her. There will be very much more in her life than the land and the house. She will not have a childhood like yours, nor interests like yours, nor a life like yours.’

      I gaped at Celia, but there was nothing I could say.

      ‘As you wish,’ I said in a tone as cold as hers. ‘You are her mother, Celia.’

      And then I turned on my heel and left her, standing alone in the middle of the parlour. And I went to my office and shut the door and leaned back against the panels. And I stood still in the quiet of my office with my papers around me, for a long time.

      Julia was utterly Celia’s child. It was all done as Celia wished. Mama would have had the baby’s diet supplemented with a spoonful of molasses, or at least honey, at every mealtime. Celia refused and the baby drank only pure breast milk. Harry wanted to give her little sips from his glass of port when she sat on his knee after dinner. But Celia did not allow it. Mama wanted her swaddled, and Celia stood up to her with as much polite certainty as she had ever shown against a wish of my mama’s – and she carried the day.

      Mama had threatened that Julia’s limbs would grow crooked if she were not strapped tightly to boards, but Celia stood against her and even called in Dr MacAndrew for support. He was full of praise for the decision and promised she would be stronger and healthier for her freedom.

      Dr MacAndrew’s voice in our household carried a great deal of weight. In our absence he had become a friend and confidant to Mama, who told him, I suspected, much about herself and her married life and her ill health. She told him also, I imagined, something about the problems she had encountered in rearing me, for I did not like the gleam I sometimes saw in the doctor’s eyes when we met. He looked always as if he liked what he saw, but he looked always as if I might somehow amuse him, in some way I could not fathom. And Mama watched us closely.

      The first time we met after our return from France was awkward. I was pouring tea for Mama in the parlour when he came in for a routine call on Julia and made social conversation to me with the skill of a well-mannered man, which ignored my quick flush, that had risen when he first came into the room.

      ‘You look as if France agreed with you, Miss Lacey,’ he said. Mama’s eyes were sharply upon us and I withdrew my hand from his clasp and sat down again behind the urn.

      ‘Indeed it did,’ I said equably. ‘But I am glad to be home.’

      I poured him tea and handed him the cup and saucer with a hand that was rock-steady. It would take more than a gentle smile from Dr MacAndrew to make me tremble.

      ‘I have made a new acquisition while you were away,’ he said, conversationally. ‘I have bought a new horse from abroad, a full-bred Arab, as a saddle-horse. I shall be interested to know what you think of him.’

      ‘An Arab!’ I said. ‘I think we shall not agree on that. I still prefer the English breeds for our climate and our terrain. I have yet to see a pure-bred Arab with the staying power necessary for a long day’s hunting.’

      He laughed. ‘Well, I shall take a wager with you on