To Will Tyacke,

Your behaviour and language in the park today were not what I expect of one of my farm workers. I would be grateful if you would terminate your work on Wideacre forthwith and leave my land.

Yours faithfully,

Sarah Lacey.

Then I wrote another:


Dear Mr Tyacke,

You have no right to speak to me as you did today, and you know it. I pledged my word months ago to marry Peregrine Havering and of course I intend to hold to that promise. Your own affairs are your own concern. I have no interest in them. If you wish to leave Wideacre I am sure I am very sorry to see you go. If you wish to stay I will accept your apology for speaking in an improper fashion.

Yours faithfully,

Sarah Lacey.

I slid that version to one side and went to look out of the window. Then I turned and went back to the little writing table. I was in an anger hotter than anything I had felt in years, perhaps ever. I could not let it go with formal words.


Dear Will,

How dare you talk to me like you did today!

You must be mad to even dream of speaking to me as you did!

Let me tell you two things. One is that I am your employer, the squire of Wideacre and shortly to be Lady Havering. One word from me, one word and you don’t work in Sussex any more. And don’t think that you could get work elsewhere. There isn’t an employer in the country who would take you on after I tell them that you abused me to my face, and in the coarsest of terms.

I have no interest whatsoever in your messy little intrigues with your woman, nor in your opinions. I want you gone from Wideacre at once, but before you leave I insist that you come to London and see me at once. At once, Will.

Sarah Lacey.

I sat with that version before me for a long time. Then I sighed and pulled forward another sheet of paper. The anger was seeping away from me.


Dear Will,

I am angry with you, and I am sad. You are right and I am a fool. I have lived my life here in London, and also with them at the Hall as if I were blind, as if I had forgotten where I was raised and what mattered most to me.

You don’t understand how it is with me and Peregrine, and I let you misunderstand me. He comes to my room because he is like my brother, like a little brother to me. I can’t withdraw from the marriage – he needs me, and I like how I am when I am with him. I like to give him the care and courage he needs. I have never given anyone anything, except one person once. And I failed her at the last. Now there is someone who needs the things I can do, who looks to me for help. I want to be good to him Will. That cannot be wrong. Forgive me, it is truly what I want. I am afraid it is all I am fit for.

Your friend,

Sarah.

The clocks chimed softly; it was eleven already. I should be changing for breakfast at noon, and then I should change again to go out to the princess’s luncheon. I swallowed experimentally. My throat was sore. It was not sore enough to let Lady Clara excuse me from lunching with the princess. I put my hand to my forehead. It was hot, but not hot enough. I would have to go. I would write a letter and put it in the post for Will before I went.

I thought of him riding back to Sussex, in a rage; alone. And I wanted to speak with him, to take back the things I had said which I had not meant. I thought of the weal of the riding whip which had come up on his cheek and though I had known blows and bruises a-plenty, I felt that this single blow was the worst I had ever known. And it had been from my hand.

I was too rough, I was too wild. I was wrong for Perry, I was a foul-mouthed little pauper, no match for Perry’s delicacy. But I was too hard for Will. It was all wrong. I belonged where I had been raised, down among the fighters and the swearers, where you lived by your wits and your fists, and you never loved anybody.


Dear Will,

You are right, they have trapped me. I thought I was so clever and I thought I was winning my way through to the life I wanted to lead. But I was wrong and they caught me while I thought I was catching them. They have caught me – all of them. The Haverings and the Quality and the lords and ladies and the life we live in London. I have been a fool Will and I have to pay for it.

Not Perry. I know you hate him because he is what he is – a drunkard and a gamester and a fool. But he is also like a child, he is not a cheat. He loves me Will, and he needs me. And his love for me and his trust in me will make me a better person, a kinder woman. If I stay with Perry I may learn to love him as a woman ought to be able to love a man. If I stay with Perry I think I can rescue him from his folly, and myself from my coldness. I think I can get him away, away to the country, and we will find some way of treating each other with tenderness and love. He will do as I wish. He will run Havering as I order, and I shall run Wideacre. And then we can do the things which you have wanted all along. I know I was wrong to suspect you, and James Fortescue. I have met Quality rogues now, and I understand how they work. I know you are not liars and cheats, not you, not James, not all the people at Acre. I shall come home to you, with Perry, and everything can be different. We can run the whole Havering-Wideacre estate as you would wish, as a corporation, and you will see that Perry is a good man. You will come to like him Will.

I am sorry that I have been so foolish about you, and about Becky. I will try to be glad about that, glad that you love her. I have been selfish I think. I did not know that there was that between you, I should have guessed – I lived in a wagon long enough! I just did not think. I am sorry. I feel foolish that I did not think, but I am glad that she loves you, and that you love her. I am sorry that I was selfish in asking you to come to London to see me as I did. I was lonely here, in this big city, and I wanted to hear your voice and see your face. But I should have realized that you loved her. I think I have never understood love like that. I warned you quick enough not to love me didn’t I? I was a fool not to know that you would find someone else. I am glad she loves you, and that you are happy. I hope she will let me come and see her children and you when I am married and come to Wideacre.

Your friend,

Sarah.

I paused then, and put my head in my hands for a long time. I was a slow writer and that muddle of thoughts had taken me an hour to spell out. I flushed with shame at the thought that Will might write very well for all I knew and he might think me ignorant and stupid not to be able to loop my letters and scrawl all over the page.

But then I heard noon strike and my maid tapped on the door and I called for her to go away, that I would be down for breakfast in the instant. And then I laid my head on the paper on the writing table and groaned as if I was injured, knifed to the heart. I felt as sick as a horse and I could not think why. When I thought of the red weal on his cheek and him telling me of his Becky I wanted to throw up my accounts.

I pulled a sheet of notepaper towards me and I knew I was down below the lies, well below the level of anger and pride. Below even the level of trying to be pleasant about his woman. I was down to where I belonged. Where I had always belonged. And down below that. For I was no longer Mamselle Meridon dancing on horseback who was cold as ice. Now I was no longer Meridon the slut horse-tamer who could make her da spit with rage. I was now someone whose name I did not know who was longing, longing, longing for someone to love. Longing for him.


Dear Will,

This is all wrong.

Please do not promise any more to her. Please come back to London. I do not want to marry Perry. I want to be with you. I have loved you and wanted you from the moment I first saw you, that night at Wideacre. Please come for me at once. I beg your pardon for having struck you. You were right, it is no good here. It is hopeless with Perry.

I am sure she is lovely, but I cannot believe you do not love me, and if you do not come for me now, I do not know what I will do. Please come to me. I love you with all my heart.

Sarah.

I took the six pages of notepaper and I screwed them up into a fat ball. I cast them in the fire and I held the poker and watched them burn. I mashed down the clot of embers so that there was nothing left. I turned my back on the fire, I turned my back on the writing desk.

I could not be betrothed to one man and write like that to another. I could not break faith with Perry, I could not abandon Lady Clara without a word. They had treated me well, by their lights, I could not walk away from them as easily as I had walked in.

I would have to wait, wait and plan. I would have to get free, honourably free, before I wrote to Will, before I thought of him again.

I leaned my forehead against the cold thick glass of my window and looked at the grey sky and thought of Will riding home with the scarlet weal from my whip on his cheek. I had no right to strike him, I had no right to make a claim on him. The letters were burned, I would not write another. I would never write to Will. Not in anger, not in love. Our ways lay by different roads. Perhaps one day he would forgive me for the blow. Perhaps one day he would understand.