find a tone of voice that was free from either the rage or the fear I felt at this deliberate baiting of me. He was sliding like a clever skater on the thin ice of the truth. He was daring me; he was frightening me. But I had some power too, and he had best remember it.
‘Yes, indeed,’ I said levelly. ‘Mama always said that she was so lucky in the choices that Harry and I made. Such a lovely daughter-in-law, and so fine a doctor for a son-in-law.’
That hit him, as I had known it would. One word from me and his university would scratch his name from their records. One word from me and it would be the hangman’s noose for him and not all his clever spite could save him. He had best remember that, if he drove me to it, I would face down the scandal and the gossip that an accusation of murder would cause, and I would publicly claim that he overdosed Mama while he was drunk. And no one could gainsay me.
He sat back in the carriage beside Harry, careful not to let any part of his coat touch him. And I saw how he bit his lips to keep them from trembling, and clasped his hands to keep them still. He needed a drink to keep his private world of horrors at bay.
All four of us gazed dumbly out of the windows as the tall trees of the drive slid past, and then the fields, and then the little cottages of Acre village. The funeral bell was tolling, one resounding stroke after another, and in the fields I saw the day labourers pulling off their hats and standing still as we drove by. As soon as the carriage was past they set to work again and I was sorry for the old days when every man on the estate would have had a day’s paid holiday to pay his respects to the passing of one of the gentry. But the tenants, even the very poorest of cottagers, had given up a morning’s work to crowd into the church to be present at Mama’s funeral.
She was all there was left of the old Squire, my papa, and with her sudden, unexpected death, the land and the house now belonged to the young generation. There were plenty in the church and in the graveyard to say that Mama’s death was the passing of the old days and old ways. But there were even more who said that my papa lived on while I ruled. That on Wideacre at least there was no need to fear change and an uncertain future, for the real power at Wideacre did not rest with the Squire who, gentry-like, was mad for change and profit, but was with the Squire’s sister, who knew the land like most ladies know their own parlour, and was more at ease in a meadow than a ballroom.
We followed the coffin into church for the heavy, ominous service, and then we followed it out again. They had opened the Wideacre vault and Mama was placed next to Papa, as if they had been a loving, inseparable couple. Later on, Harry and I would erect some sort of monument to her beside the marble monstrosity already in place on the north wall dedicated to Papa. The Vicar, Pearce, reached the end of the service and closed the book. For a moment I forgot where I was, and I threw up my head like a pointer scenting the wind, and said, with a landowner’s fear in my voice, ‘I can smell burning.’
Harry shook hands with the Vicar, and nodded to the sexton to close the vault. Then he turned to me.
‘I don’t think you can, Beatrice,’ he said. ‘No one would be burning stubble or heather at this time of year. And it is too early for accidental wood fires.’
‘I can,’ I insisted. ‘I can smell burning.’ I strained my eyes in the direction of the west wind. A glow on the horizon, little larger than a pin head, caught my eye.
‘There,’ I said pointing. ‘What’s that?’
Harry’s eyes followed the direction of my finger and said in doltish surprise, ‘Looks like you are right, Beatrice. It is a fire! I wonder what it can be? It looks like quite a wide area – too big for a barn or a house fire.’
Other people had heard me say, ‘There’ and had seen the ominous redness on the skyline – pale in the sunlight but bright enough to be seen all these miles away. I listened to the murmur and I was quick – perhaps too quick – to identify something more than the usual country curiosity. The cottagers behind me had a tone almost of satisfaction in the low gossiping voices. ‘It’s the Culler,’ they said. ‘The Culler promised he would come. He promised it would be this day. He said it would be seen from Acre churchyard. The Culler is here.’
I turned sharply, but the group of closed faces revealed nothing. Then there was a clatter of hoofs and a sweating shire-horse came thundering down Acre street, still harnessed for work, with a little lad bouncing like a cork on its broad bare back.
‘Papa! It’s the Culler!’ he called in ringing tones which brought the murmur to silence.
‘They’ve fired Mr Briggs’s new plantation, Papa! Where he enclosed the old common land and drove the cottagers off. Where he planted his five thousand trees. The Culler has fired the new wood, and there will be nothing left but blackened twigs. Mama told me to come and fetch you at once. But the fire will not touch us.’
His papa was Bill Cooper, indebted to us for a mortgage for his farm, but an independent man, not a tenant. He felt my eyes upon him and sketched a bow in farewell and strode towards the churchyard gate. I hurried after him.
‘Who is this Culler?’ I asked urgently.
‘He’s the leader of one of the worst gangs of bread rioters and corn rioters and arsonists the county has ever seen,’ Bill Cooper said, leading the horse to the lychgate for easy mounting. Forgetful of my new black silks I held the horse’s head while he climbed the gate and heaved himself up on to the broad back, behind his son. ‘The leader is nicknamed the Culler because he says gentry stock is rotten and should be culled.’
He looked down at me and saw my eyes darken and mistook my fear for anger. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Beatrice – Mrs MacAndrew, I should say. I am only telling you what my labourers told me.’
‘Why have I not heard of him?’ I asked, my hand still on the reins.
‘He is only lately come into Sussex from another county,’ said Bill Cooper. ‘I only heard of him myself yesterday. I heard Mr Briggs had a note nailed to one of his fine new trees. It warned him that landlords who put trees before men have no right to the land – that the cull of the landlords is starting.’
He tightened the reins and kicked the horse forward. I could feel Harry, Celia and John all staring at my back in astonishment, as I clung to the reins and barred the way. But I had no time for conventions. I was driven by a fear I needed to lay at rest then and there on that sunlit Saturday morning.
‘Wait, Cooper,’ I said peremptorily. ‘What sort of a man is he supposed to be?’ I asked. I kept the horse from moving on with a hard hand on the bit, and kept my satin shoes well away from its heavy, shifting feet.
‘They say he rides a great black horse,’ said Bill Cooper. ‘They say he used to be a keeper on an estate, that he learned the ways of the gentry then, and started to hate them. They say his gang would follow him to hell. They say he has two black dogs which go with him everywhere like shadows. They say he is a legless man; he sits oddly on his horse. They say he is Death himself. Miss Beatrice, I must go … he is near my land.’
I loosed him. My hand fell powerless from the bridle and the horse brushed past me so close I had the sting of its coarse tail in my face. I knew him, the Culler. I knew him. And the glow of his fire was on Wideacre’s horizon. I swayed, my eyes on the unnatural glow, and my lungs, hair and clothes full of the smell of his smoke.
Celia was at my side.
‘Beatrice are you unwell?’ she asked.
‘Get me to the carriage,’ I said, miserably. ‘I need to be
