sunlight. And she was riding not in the woods where I had been that day but up along the little bridle-track to the slopes of the downs. She was me, and when she urged her pony fast up the pale muddy track, it was my laugh I heard, and when they broke out of the trees at the top of the downs, it was my sigh of delight. I looked to my right and there was a flock of sheep which I knew were my sheep, with a shepherd raising a hand in a lazy greeting, and I rode over to him and told him that the sheep were to be washed in the Fenny this afternoon and he smiled and pulled his cap to me as though I were the squire himself and able to order things on the land as I pleased.
I squinted up at the bright cold sky and looked at the horizon as if I owned it and I said to him, ‘It will rain later’, and he nodded as if there could be no doubt that I was right. He smiled and said, ‘Yes, Miss Beatrice’, and waved to me as I rode away.
I turned over in my bed in my sleep, and I heard a voice in my sleep saying, ‘The favoured child. The favoured child. She always was the favoured child.’
I opened my eyes then and blinked, as confused as a barn owl wakened at midday. I looked around the bare sunny bedroom. The blank walls reassured me that it was nothing but a meaningless dream. The shadows on the pale plaster showed me that I had only been asleep for a few minutes. I put out a hand and touched the empty soup bowl. It was still warm. I thought of Richard and made to rise from the bed to see if he was safe home, but my head was so swimmy I lay back on the pillow again until the room should steady. And while I waited for my head to clear, I dropped off to sleep again like an exhausted child.
I slept until mid-afternoon, and so I missed all the excitement of Richard’s return home. Dench had found him and brought him into Acre, slumped across the carriage horse, with Dench leading. He had broken a collar-bone and his left arm, and Dench had torn up his own shirt to make a temporary sling. Mama had sent the Havering carriage to Acre, and Ned the Smith and one of the Green lads had lifted Richard into it, tucked him up under one of the carriage rugs and sent him home. He was not in pain on the jolting journey, because Dench had given him some laudanum. Mrs Green had run out with the tiny precious phial as they walked past the mill. She had saved it from the bailiffs, resisted the temptation to sell it for food; and then given it away.
They put Richard to bed and called the surgeon from Midhurst, who praised Dench’s rough strapping, set the arm and the collar-bone and ordered Richard to stay abed for at least a week.
We had a peaceful few days then, Richard and I. He had a fever at first, and I sat with him and sponged his head with vinegar and water to cool him, and read him stories to divert him. By the fourth day he was well enough to talk and he asked me what had happened. I told him about Mrs Green, about Ned Smith, about Dench’s sudden decision in the sunlit wood to take the carriage horse and leave me to alert the village.
‘How did you get to Acre?’ Richard asked. He was lying back on a bank of white pillows and his face was still pale. His freckles stood out, dark as flecks of chocolate, on his creamy skin, and his gaze was down, his eyes veiled by his long eyelashes.
‘I rode,’ I said, and as I spoke the two words, my heart suddenly thudded in foreboding. I was sitting by the window to catch the wintry morning light, a book open on my knees. As I said the words ‘I rode’, it struck me for the first time that Richard might object to my having ridden – even in that emergency.
I could tell nothing of Richard’s mood from the untroubled curve of his mouth, from the dark lashes on his cheek. ‘Dench told me to take Scheherazade while he searched the wood for you. It seemed the only way to do it, Richard.’
Richard’s gaze stayed on the counterpane. ‘Dench told you to ride my horse,’ he said softly. ‘But, Julia,’ he said and then paused. ‘You do not know how to ride.’
‘I know!’ I said with a nervous laugh. ‘I know I do not!’ I said again. ‘But Dench threw me up into the saddle, and Scheherazade was so good! It must have been all that schooling you have given her, Richard!’ I shot a look at him, but his face was still impassive. ‘She knew her way home, of course,’ I said. ‘I just sat on her. It was not proper riding, Richard. Not proper riding like you do.’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Did you just walk?’
‘Not all the way,’ I said hesitantly.
‘Not all the way,’ he repeated as slowly as if he were writing down my answer in a copy-book. ‘She did not walk all the way. So, Julia, did you trot?’
‘Yes,’ I said quickly. Too quickly. ‘I trotted her a little.’
‘You trotted,’ he repeated again. ‘Your first time on horseback and you trotted? A rising trot, Julia? Or did you just bump about, clinging on and hoping for the best?’
‘I trotted properly!’ I said, stung. ‘And I cantered too!’
Richard’s head snapped up. His eyes were as black as the centre of a thundercloud.
‘You took my horse without my permission and you cantered her?’
‘Richard!’ I said desperately. ‘I had to! I had to! Dench told me to! He had to look for you and I had to call out Acre and come home and tell Mama. I could not refuse to go. Dench knew what to do and he ordered me!’
There was an utter silence.
‘Dench, was it?’ Richard asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You should have refused,’ Richard said, a little frown on his face.
‘I didn’t know what to do!’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Richard. Dench seemed to know what had to be done, so I did as he told me.’
‘He never liked me,’ Richard said, gazing at the blank wall at the foot of the bed, seeming to see Dench’s impassive face on the pale lime-wash. He was seeing again in his mind Dench’s stony face as he watched Richard struggling to learn to ride, and Grandpapa’s impatience. ‘Not from the first riding lesson. Not before. He never liked me. He wanted you to have Scheherazade from the start,’ he said reflectively, reviewing the scene in the stable yard and remembering Dench’s smile as I walked towards the mare. ‘Then he used the excuse of my accident to get you on her.’
I said nothing. I knew it was none of it true. But the threat of Richard’s rage seemed to be passing away from me. I felt icy cold inside, and the thudding in my head, behind my eyes, warned me that I would have a dizzy nauseous headache unless I could get away at once from this stuffy room. I sat in silence on the window-seat, the cold pane of glass chilling my back, fearful to make a move in case Richard’s rage should come back towards me.
‘It’s Dench’s fault,’ he said.
‘Yes. Yes,’ I said, thinking only of my need to get away. Richard said nothing more, and I sat frozen.
He turned and looked at me and I saw with relief that his eyes were a hazy blue, as if he were daydreaming, as if he were happy. He smiled at me, smiled as sweetly as the dearest of friends. ‘Don’t look so terrified, Julia,’ he said as if it were rather funny. ‘I’m not angry with you any more. I thought it was your fault. But I see now that it was Dench’s.’
I smiled back, still wary.
‘You’re sure he ordered you?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure it was he who made you ride my horse? You didn’t think you would seize the chance selfishly for
