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

would buy it as if it were yards of homespun. But it is different to me.’

      ‘How is it?’ he prompted. ‘How is the land different from all other goods, Beatrice?’

      I twisted the slender stem of my wine glass and looked down at the tawny liquid in the bowl.

      ‘I cannot really explain,’ I said slowly. ‘It is like some sort of magic. As if everyone secretly belonged somewhere. As if everyone had a horizon, a view, that perhaps they may never see, but if they did, they would recognize it as if they had waited all their lives for it. They would see it, and they would say, “Here I am at last.” It’s like that for me with Wideacre,’ I said, conscious that I felt far more than I could say. ‘As soon as I fully saw it – one day, years ago, when my papa took me up on his horse and showed me the land – in that second I recognized my home. For Harry it would be any land, anywhere. But for me it is Wideacre, Wideacre, Wideacre. The only place in the world where I can put my head to the earth and hear a heart beating.’

      I fell silent. I had said more than I had meant to. I felt at once foolish, and perilously exposed. My fingers still twirled the glass and I kept my eyes down on them. Then they were stilled, as John put his pale-skinned hand over them.

      ‘I will never take you away, Beatrice,’ he said tenderly. ‘I do indeed understand how your life is here. It is a tragedy for you, I think, not to have been born the heir to the land. But I do see how you are indispensable on the estate. I hear on all sides how well you manage it, how you change Harry’s plans so that they work in practice as well as in theory. How you never give charity, but always give help. How the land and the people who work the land benefit over and over again from your passion. And so I pity you.’ My head jerked up in instinctive contradiction, but my protest was stilled by his gentle smile. ‘Because you can never possess your beloved Wideacre. I will never come between you and your control of the land, but I am unable, no one is able, to make the land you love absolutely yours.’

      I nodded. A few pieces of the puzzle of my new husband had fallen into place. His understanding of what Wideacre meant to me had prompted his agreement to our living in the west wing. His understanding of my obsession had led him to disregard my first refusal. He knew we could be lovers. He knew we could be married. He knew that one of the greatest things in his favour was that he owned no land, no house of his own where I would have had to go. He knew also, for he was so good, this serious, quizzical, desirable husband of mine, that his smile set my pulse thudding, and when he touched me, I melted.

      I had never slept all night with a lover in one bed without fear of morning, and that was good for me. But best was his desire, which drew him to me for more times than I could remember in a hazy night of pleasure and wine and talk and laughter.

      ‘Ah, Beatrice,’ said John MacAndrew, pulling my head on to his shoulder with tender roughness. ‘It’s a long while I’ve been waiting for you.’

      And so we slept.

      And in the morning, over the fresh-baked rolls and the strong coffee, he said, ‘Beatrice, I think I may like being married to you.’ I found then that my smile was as warm and spontaneous as his own, and that the warmth on my face was a blush.

      So the first days of married life passed as easily, as tenderly, and as full of delight, as the first months, aided by our mutual desire. John had had other lovers (and, God knows, so had I), but together we found something special. A mixture of tenderness and sensuality made our nights sweet. But our days were special because of his quick wits and his utter refusal to cease laughing: at me, with me, because of me. He could set me laughing at the most inappropriate moments: when faced with a rambling complaint from old Tyacke, or when listening to some mad scheme of Harry’s. Then I would glance past Tyacke to see John pulling his forelock to me in burlesque imitation of respect, or see him nodding enthusiastically behind Harry’s back while Harry outlined an insane plan to build massive glass-houses to grow pineapples for London.

      At times like that, and they came every sweet cold wintry day, I would feel that we had been married and happy for years, and that the future stretched before us like easy stepping stones across a slow river.

      Christmas came round and the tenants were bidden to the traditional party. The biggest houses in the land let the tenants and labourers watch the Quality feasting and dancing, but the Wideacre tradition is that of a manor farm. We set up great trestle tables and benches in the stable yard, and we build a great bonfire and roast whole oxen. After everyone has eaten well, and drunk deep of Wideacre-brewed ale, we push the tables back, throw off the winter wraps and dance in the pale winter sunshine.

      This party, the first since Papa’s death, was held under the clear blue sky of a good winter’s day, and we danced all afternoon with sunshine warm on our cheeks. As the bride, it fell to me to lead the set and with a half-apologetic smile at John I claimed Harry’s hand for the dance. Behind us the set formed, mimicking our handclasp. Behind us, as well, formed the traditions I had meant to set: that the Squire and his beautiful sister always led the Christmas dance in the stable yard. The next couple was Celia, looking breathtakingly pretty in royal blue velvet trimmed with white swan’s down, and my darling John, ready with a gentle word for Celia and a private smile for my eyes alone.

      They started the music. Nothing special: a fiddle and a bass viol, but it was a fast merry tune and my crimson skirts swirled and swayed as I twirled one way, then another, and then clasped Harry’s two firm hands and romped down the avenue of faces. Harry and I stood at the bottom making an archway with our arms and the rest of the set danced through. Then we became part of the smiling, clapping corridor for Celia and John.

      ‘Are you happy, Beatrice? You look it,’ called Harry to me, watching my smiling face.

      ‘Yes, Harry, I am,’ I said emphatically. ‘Wideacre is doing well, and we are both well married. Mama is content. I have nothing left to wish for.’

      When Harry’s smile widened, his face, increasingly plump from the offerings of Celia’s cook, became even more complacent.

      ‘Good,’ he said. ‘How well everything has turned out for us all.’

      I smiled, but did not reply. I knew he was reminding me of my early opposition to the idea of marriage with John. Harry had never understood why my utter refusal had turned into smiling consent. But I knew he was also thinking of my promise and threat that I would be on Wideacre, at his side, for ever. Harry both dreaded and longed for time alone with me in the locked room at the top of the west-wing stairs. However loving he found Celia, however full his life, he would always long for that secret perverse pleasure waiting for him beyond the light of the chandeliers, beyond the usual halls and corridors of the house. Since my marriage I had met Harry in secret there perhaps two or three times. John accepted easily my excuse of late work, and he himself sometimes stayed overnight with patients if he anticipated a painful birth or a difficult death. During those times, while he waited and watched with the birthing and the dying, I strapped my brother to the wall and ill-treated him in every way I could imagine.

      ‘Yes, it is good,’ I agreed.

      It was our turn to gallop down the set. We had risen to the head again while we were talking, and again we clasped hands and danced down the line. As we reached the end the musicians rippled a chord signifying the end of that dance and Harry spun me round and around so that my crimson brocade skirts flew out in a blaze of colour. I was unlucky – the dizziness tipped me from elation to nausea, and I broke from him white-faced.

      John was at my side in an instant. Celia, attentive, beside him.

      ‘It is nothing, nothing,’ I gasped. ‘I should like a glass of water.’

      John snapped his fingers peremptorily to a footman and the icy water in a green wine glass washed down the taste of rising bile, and I cooled my forehead on the glass. I managed a cheeky smile at John.

      ‘Another miracle cure for the brilliant young doctor,’ I said.

      ‘It’s as well I have the cure, since I think I provided the cause,’ he said in a low warm voice. ‘There’s been enough dancing for you for one day. Come and sit with me in the