In the morning we spoke to the housekeeper or the butler, and then we took our walk in the garden. The grounds were horribly dilapidated, as bad as the ruined garden of Wideacre, but Grandmama walked among them like a queen at Versailles. With one hand on my shoulder and the other holding a basket for the flowers she hoped to find among the weeds, she paced down the gravel paths, oblivious to the nettles blowing around us, the ungainly grass scattering seeds over the paths and the burrs catching the flounces of our walking dresses. The flowers which had managed to survive years of neglect in this enclosed wilderness were to be cut and taken indoors, where Grandmama taught me about the elegance of a single bloom or two in a vase against a sparse background of leaves.
‘The art of happiness is in being content with what you have,’ she would say, looking with apparent satisfaction out of the dusty windows at the garden, yellowing like an uncut hayfield in the October sunshine. ‘And good manners depend entirely on appearing content with what you have.’
And I, innately polite and content (for what child of my gentle mama’s could be other?), would nod sagely and split a chrysanthemum stem for Grandmama to place precisely in a crystal vase.
My grandmama taught me more than the outward show of ladylike behaviour that autumn. She taught me an inner quietness which comes from knowing your strengths and your weaknesses – and the job you have to do. She taught me – without possibility of contradiction – that I was no longer a wild child. I would be a young lady. And it was I, and no one else, who would have to learn the self-control I would need to fulfil that role. So I learned to discipline myself, while Richard learned to ride.
And I think I had the better bargain of the two of us.
For Richard was afraid. He had learned that now, learned what I had seen when his face had gone white in the stable yard and Scheherazade had sidled away at his approach. She was not an old hack to tease in the meadow with a handful of stones thrown at her back hooves. She was not a bow-backed carriage horse that would strain for a carrot hung out of reach. She was a high-bred hunter, and when Richard and she were out alone on the common or the downs, he feared her. He was afraid of falling, he was afraid of being kicked. But more than that, he was afraid of all of her – of her bright colour, her brown eyes, her wide nostrils.
I spent three weeks at Grandmama’s and came home only when Grandpapa was expected again. Neither Grandmama nor Mama wanted me at Havering Hall when Grandpapa and his cronies from the London clubs fell out of their chaises swearing at the roads and lugging their cases of port.
Grandmama helped me pack, and sent me home with a bolt of muslin for a brand new gown as a farewell present.
“You may be a Lacey,’ my grandmama said as she stood at the front door with me, watching Dench put my little box under the seat of the gig, ‘but you are also my granddaughter.’ She made it sound as though being a Lacey and a granddaughter of hers were positions of equal importance, of vast significance in an admiring world. ‘Lacey, or Havering, or married to someone with no name at all, I trust you will always remember you are first and foremost a lady.’
I nodded. I tried to concentrate, but I was only a twelve-year-old child and all I could think was that I was returning home to Richard and my mama, and maybe Richard would allow me to ride Scheherazade. I hardly heard my grandmama telling me that there was more to life than a name and an estate, more to life than the man one might marry. More to life, even, than love. More important than all these things was the retention of one’s pride, of a tenacious little scrap of dignity, whatever one’s name, whoever one’s relations.
‘You are anxious to go home to your mama,’ she said gently.
‘Yes, Grandmama,’ I said.
‘And Richard?’ she queried. Under her searching look, I coloured and my eyes fell.
‘That is quite suitable,’ she said equably. ‘You are joint heirs of Wideacre, and cousins. I can imagine no easier way of reconciling the problem of joint shares than to make the estate one again under Richard’s ownership. And he is a charming boy. Does he treat you kindly?’
I beamed, our childhood squabbles forgotten. Oh, yes!’ I said emphatically. ‘And he has said ever since we were little children that we should marry and rebuild Wideacre together.’
My grandmama nodded. ‘If John MacAndrew returns home wealthy, it would indeed be a most suitable match,’ she said. But then she looked at me more closely and her face softened. ‘He’s not going to grow into a man who will stomach petticoat rule,’ she said gently. ‘He has been indulged by your mama and he is used to ruling you. He will be the master in his house, and you will have to obey him, Julia.’
I nodded. I could have told her, but I did not, that I had already served a hard apprenticeship in giving way to Richard. It had been my choice to obey him since we had been small children. I could envisage no change. I did not even want a change.
‘It is not always easy, obeying one’s husband,’ my grandmama said, her words stilted. She gave a little sigh which should have told me of a lifetime of self-discipline, of temper bitten back and never expressed. Of complaints, and slights, and accidental cruelties. ‘They will tell you in church that marriage is a sacrament. But it is also a binding legal contract, Julia.’
Dench had stowed my box and was standing at the horse’s head, waiting out of earshot, patient.
Grandmama tutted under her breath. ‘You may marry for love, my dear; but I would want you to remember that marriage is a business contract, and after the love has gone you are still forced to keep your side of the bargain.’
I looked at her uncomprehendingly, my child’s eyes wide.
‘When love has gone, when liking has gone, you are still married,’ she said sternly. ‘There is no escaping that. And the services you performed out of love, you have still to do out of duty. That is when you are glad you can say, “I am a lady,” or “I am a Lacey,” or anything which reminds you in your heart that you are a person in your own right, even if you lead the life of a bondsman.’
I shivered although the sunlight was bright. It sounded ominous, a bleak prophecy. But I knew in my loving, trusting heart that she was wrong. She had married fifty years ago in obedience to her father and, when widowed, married again to win a home for herself and her child. Of course marriage seemed to her a contract – and one which carried severe penalties. But Richard and I were quite different. Our marriage would be a natural extension of our childhood love. When the dream of a rebuilt Wideacre became finally true, I knew I would never have to search my heart for a sense of my own individual pride to bear me up through shame and pain. All I ever needed to define myself was the knowledge that I loved Richard and that I was Richard’s love. I would never need anything more.
Something of this certainty must have shown in my face, for my grandmama gave a harsh laugh and bent and kissed me once more. ‘There’s no telling anyone,’ she said, resigned. ‘Everyone has to learn their own way. Goodbye, my darling, and don’t forget to give those receipts to your mama.’
I nodded, and hugged her, and jumped up the step to the seat of the gig while Dench swung himself in beside me. Then I waved to her and smiled at her with love. I knew that she was a fine woman, a brave woman. But I had no thought that I would ever wonder where her courage came from; that I would ever need that courage for myself.