The Favoured Child. Philippa Gregory
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a furious whisper. Few people could have heard him, but no one could have missed the tension on the cart. All the activity up and down the lane stopped at once and all the faces turned to look. Richard had moved too fast for me to stop him and I could not call him back.
‘See here,’ he said furiously. ‘This is my land, and my village, and if you try and come between me and the land you’ll be sorry. I’m the heir to Wideacre and I shall be the squire here when I’m of age. When I ask a question from one of my workers, I expect an answer. I expect an answer and I expect a handle to my name. Is that clear, Megson?’
Ralph had not stopped working, and he swung around with a sack of oatmeal in his arms. He buffeted into Richard and the blow pushed Richard backwards off the cart to sprawl on the ground. I started forward, but Sonny Green stayed me with an arm barring my way. Ralph swung himself down off the cart and grabbed Richard’s elbow and pulled him to his feet like a child. Richard’s face was scarlet with rage, and he stammered with temper and could get no words out.
‘Eh, I’m sorry, lad,’ Ralph said carelessly. ‘I didn’t know you were up on the cart behind me.’ He kept Richard’s hand and pulled him a little closer so that he spoke for his ears alone. ‘You may be the heir,’ he said softly, ‘but you’ll never be squire until you can be loved in Acre. And you’ll make no way here until you show respect.’
Richard was blank with an expression I could not read. I ducked under Sonny Green’s arm to get to him.
‘Richard, let’s go,’ I said urgently, but he did not hear me. His inky-blue eyes were fixed on Ralph Megson’s face with a hot intensity.
‘You insulted me!’ he exclaimed.
Ralph’s face was dark for an instant, but then it cleared. ‘Nay, lad,’ he said kindly. ‘You got what was coming to you. You’re fratched now, but think it over, you’ll see you were in the wrong.’ He turned his back on Richard as if the heir to Wideacre were nothing more than an impertinent schoolboy, and he reached his hands up to the men on the cart for them to haul him up again.
Richard started forward and I grabbed his arm and held him back. He was incoherent with anger. ‘I will kill him …’ he started.
‘Richard, everyone is looking at you!’ I hissed.
It worked.
Richard shook me off, but he did not rush at the cart. He looked around at the bright curious faces and he took a deep breath, then he took my arm in a protective gesture and nodded dismissively at Ralph’s back, and at the crowd around the cart. We swept through them like a play-acting king and queen in a travelling theatre; and they parted to let us through. Richard looked straight before him, blinded by his rage, but I glanced to left and to right with a half-smile of apology.
I saw Clary Dench openly grin at me, and I realized how ridiculous we seemed. If I had been less wary of Richard and his anger, I should have laughed out loud. We proceeded like dukes in ermine until the bend in the road hid us and Richard dropped my hand at once.
I expected him to rage, but he was quiet. ‘Richard, I am sure he meant no harm …’ I started.
Richard’s look at me was icy. ‘He threw me in the road!’ he said softly. ‘I’ll never forget that.’
‘He just bumped you by accident,’ I said. ‘And he got down at once to help you up.’
Richard looked at me blackly, and he turned for home at a fast pace. I followed in his wake at a trot.
‘He did say sorry,’ I offered. Richard hardly heard me.
‘He insulted me,’ I heard him say in an undertone. ‘He’ll be sorry.’
‘He is Uncle John’s new manager,’ I said warningly. ‘Uncle John needs him to run Wideacre. If he is the right man for the job, then we all need him to run Wideacre for us. We saw today that he can make Acre work as one, and he might be the only man who can save Wideacre.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Richard. ‘This is more important than any manager for the estate. He insulted me before all of Acre. He should be punished.’
I pulled up short at that. ‘Nothing is more important than Wideacre,’ I said. ‘There is nothing more important than getting Acre working.’
Richard paused in his long strides to stand still and look at me. The mist swirled around us so that we were as ghostly as the trees leaning over our heads. I shivered from the cold and the damp. Richard’s eyes had a radiance about them.
‘He insulted me,’ Richard said. ‘He insulted me before all Acre. I won’t stand for that. He must apologize to me for that. He has challenged me, and I must win.’
‘Richard,’ I said uneasily, ‘it was not as bad as that! It was not as serious as that!’
‘It is a matter of honour. You would not understand that, for you are a girl. But my papa and I know that it is vital that the gentry retain their control over the mob. I shall tell him at once.’
While I hesitated, thinking about whether Acre was a ‘mob’, thinking about whether Mr Megson was part of a ‘mob’, Richard turned for the lights of home, banged open the front gate and bounded up the four steps to the garden path. The door was open and he pushed it and was gone. I followed more slowly. I had done all I could to prevent him telling Uncle John, and had earned a scolding for my pains. I gritted my teeth on a spurt of temper. I trusted my judgement with the people of Acre. I trusted my judgement with Mr Megson. I did not think Richard had been insulted. I thought he was behaving like a fool. I thought he had acted like a fool. And I did not see that his precious honour was concerned in the least.
But then I checked myself. My grandmama had warned me, my mama had shown me: the duty of a proper woman is to keep her own counsel. And there are many things which men understand and women do not. If Richard thought his honour was involved, it was not my part to challenge him and argue with him. I paused for a few moments in the chill mist and breathed the damp air deeply until my own temper was still again. If I wanted to be a proper lady of Quality – and I did – then I would have to curb my independent judgement. If I wanted to be a true wife to Richard – and I wanted that more than anything in the world – then I would have to learn to support his thoughts and actions whatever my private opinions.
While I stood hesitating at the garden gate, I realized my hand was cold. I had dropped my left glove in Acre. My hand had been tucked under Richard’s arm and warmed by his grip and I had not noticed when I had lost it. They were my only pair of gloves – tan leather – once belonging to one of Mama’s stepsisters and scarcely worn. Lady Havering had found them and given them to me, and I dared not lose one. I turned on my heel and started the weary walk back to Acre.
I had trudged less than a few yards when I heard a call behind me and my heart leaped, for I thought it might be Richard. But instead, there was Uncle John. He had thrown a riding coat over his shoulders and the great capes swung as he strode down the drive after me. I stopped to wait for him.
‘I have to go back to Acre. I dropped my glove,’ I explained.
‘I’m going to Acre too,’ he said. ‘Richard tells me he had some words with Mr Megson.’
I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said shortly.
‘Were you there?’ Uncle John asked, surprised. ‘It sounded like some sort of brawl. What were you doing amid it all, Julia?’
‘It was nothing,’ I said. Uncle John seemed to have quite misunderstood Richard. Richard could not have said that there was a brawl, when all there had been was a few sharp words from him and an accident which hurt no one. ‘Richard asked Mr Megson a question, and Mr Megson didn’t answer. Richard jumped up on the cart and then Mr Megson bumped into him with a sack of meal. Richard fell off the cart and Mr Megson helped him up. That was all.’
John paused and looked at me. ‘Is this right, Julia?’ he asked. ‘Was that really all there was to it?’
‘Yes,’