pale face.
John summoned a smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am tired, and I don’t mind admitting it. I had dose after dose of fever in India, and it has left me weaker than I should be. But there are things I want us to decide as a family, and I want us to decide quickly. Let’s go into the parlour and have a council of war.’
‘Who are we making war on, Uncle John?’ I asked him with a smile as we crossed the hall to the parlour. The fire had burned down in the grate and Mama rang for fresh logs as we settled ourselves around the parlour table.
‘I think we are making war on the past,’ Uncle John said seriously. ‘The old bad ways of thinking, and the old bad ways of doing things. I want us to remake Wideacre, and that would be a victory indeed.’
‘I have been a lucky man in India,’ Uncle John said by way of introduction. ‘I was able to do a service to one of the independent Indian princes.’ He paused and smiled wryly. ‘The villages under my supervision escaped an epidemic which was very serious for the rest of the country. The combination of luck and cleanliness was credited to me and he has awarded me a very large grant of land. It is good land for growing tea and spices. In addition to that there is a small mine, which is profitable now and could be expanded.’
Richard raised his head. ‘A mine?’ he asked. ‘Mining what?’
‘Opals,’ said Uncle John. He smiled, but his tone was ironic. ‘It seems I am to have another chance at being a wealthy man,’ he said. ‘I lost my last fortune on Wideacre. I shall take better care of this one!’
‘Opals,’ said Richard softly. He licked his lips as if they were something sweet to eat.
‘I have come home to help,’ Uncle John said firmly. ‘I have come home to set the land right, and the people right. Wideacre is notorious. Acre men are blacklisted locally and cannot find work. The local farmers will not have fire-raisers on their land. That is a heavy legacy for a village to carry. It is Beatrice’s legacy,’ John said quietly. ‘Poverty in Acre, hatred between village and gentry, a village notorious for violence. And a wicked inheritance for the children.’
‘Uncle John,’ I interrupted, but when he turned his severe face towards me, I could say little except, ‘I don’t understand.’
He glanced at my mama. ‘You have told them nothing?’ he asked.
‘As we agreed,’ she said steadily. ‘We agreed they should not be burdened with such a past while they were young. I have told them nothing but that there was a fire and the Laceys and Acre were ruined, even though at times they pressed me for more information. I think they are ready to know the outlines of the story now.’ I fancied she emphasized the word ‘outlines’.
John nodded. ‘Very well, then. You will have heard that the estate was farmed well by Julia’s papa, the squire, and his sister, Beatrice. But that was not so. They wrung the land dry to meet mortgages to pay to change the entail so that the two of you could inherit jointly. Both Celia and I opposed them. We opposed both the changing of the entail and the planting of nothing but wheat.
‘The countryside was very poor, and there were starving mobs. One night a mob came to Wideacre Hall. We had received advance warning, and Celia and I took you children away to Havering Hall. But Beatrice decided to stay. She died in the fire. Julia’s papa died of an attack of apoplexy. He always had a weak heart. It is a family weakness.’
Richard and I exchanged one long bemused look.
‘Oh,’ Richard said blankly. ‘My mama was left all alone at the hall with the mob coming?’
‘Yes,’ Uncle John replied levelly. ‘It was her choice, and we had not lived as husband and wife for some time. It was not my duty to make her leave, nor to stay and protect her. I considered my duty to be to protect the two of you. Beatrice elected to stay behind. She could have come in the carriage if she wished.’
There was a bowl of pale primroses on the table, and I was staring at them. Staring at them but hardly seeing them. They were wilting over the rim of the silver bowl and they reminded me of another silver bowl and the heavy heads of cream roses looking down at their reflections and my mama’s voice saying so bitterly, ‘You are a wrecker, Beatrice.’
They had left her in hatred. I knew it. I did not know why. But I remembered the silence of the dream and the sense of peace I had felt to know that at last they had all gone and the house was empty. That all the work and the lying and the cheating were over. And I remembered Beatrice looking down the drive, waiting for the mob.
‘Did they have a leader?’ I asked suddenly, thinking of the old god who was half-man, half-horse.
‘No one was ever taken,’ John said steadily.
‘Where did they all come from?’ Richard asked.
‘No one ever knew,’ John said again in the same level tone.
I looked up from the flowers and saw his pale-blue eyes upon me. I knew he was keeping back the truth from us. Beatrice knew the mob. I thought she even knew the man they now called a god in Acre. But I had a strong sense of grown-up secrets and long-ago fears, and I knew nothing for certain.
‘What does this mean?’ I asked. ‘What does this all mean for us?’
‘It means I want to set the estate to rights,’ John said. ‘It is time for a new chance for the estate. A new life for all of us. I have some detailed ideas about new crops – fruit and vegetables which we might sell in Chichester or London. And I want us to try to share the profits with the village. That will bring them back to work, and draw them into the new century which is coming.
‘I have been following the events in France,’ John said, and his eyes were bright with enthusiasm. ‘I truly believe that there is a new age coming, a time when people will work together and share the wealth. A time of science and progress and a brushing away of old restrictions and superstitions. The new age is truly coming, and I want Wideacre to be part of it!’
We were all silent, a little overwhelmed by Uncle John’s fervour, and also by the prospect of a changed Wideacre.
‘Julia will have a proper season,’ my mama said slowly. John nodded.
‘And the hall can be rebuilt,’ Richard said.
‘Rebuilt, and the parkland refenced, and the estate growing and fertile again,’ John confirmed.
‘And no more poverty in the village,’ I said, thinking of the children and the parish overseer due for another visit to take paupers away to the mills in the north.
‘That is my first priority,’ Uncle John said.
There was a silence while we absorbed the fact that all our dreams might be a reality.
‘I am counting on all of you,’ Uncle John said. ‘I shall find a manager to run the farmland. But I shall need all your advice and support. This is your inheritance we are setting to rights, Richard, Julia.’ He nodded gravely to each of us in turn. ‘I shall need your help.’
‘Shall I not go to university, sir?’ Richard asked eagerly.
John smiled, his eyes suddenly warm. ‘You most certainly shall,’ he said firmly. ‘The time for squires who know nothing but their crops is long gone.
