I heard the clatter of the stage from the yard; the ten o’clock coach had arrived from Chichester. I knew at once it could not be James. The noise of the stage with the passengers bawling for drinks and food was unmistakable. I checked the clock and my watch. The stage was a little early, for it was not ten o’clock yet. James could come within the next three or four minutes and still be on time.

I wished I had brought a book, or something to distract me from the slow movements of the hands of the clock. It seemed to time my thoughts as they went around to its rhythm. Tick…I shall tell him I am dishonoured. Tock…I shall tell him I was unwilling. Tick…I shall refuse to name the man. Tock . . . that will make him very angry. Tick…if he is angry, he may not believe I was unwilling. Tock…I was not completely unwilling, not at first. Tick . . . no! I was unwilling as soon as I knew it was Richard. Tock…I must remember not to say Richard’s name. Tick . . . whatever happens, I must not say Richard’s name.

There were footsteps outside the door and ‘I leaped to my feet, the colour rushing into my face. It was Mr Jeffries, the landlord. Not James. Not James at all.

‘Just come for the coffee-tray, Miss Lacey,’ he said. ‘Coming post, your friend, is she?’

I stammered a reply.

‘Late anyway,’ Mr Jeffries said cheerfully. ‘I expect you are sorry to be indoors on a day like this, and it’s a busy time on Wideacre, I hear.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Mr Jeffries, would you bring another pot of coffee, please? And two cups this time. My friend will be here at any moment, I am sure.’

I waited for the coffee. I waited for James. There was a creeper growing up outside the window and it tapped on the glass softly, as soft as a kitten patting a ball of wool; but in the silence of each moment I could hear it. The sunshine was streaming through the window and little motes of dust danced in the beam. The carpet was faded around the window, where the sunshine of countless summers had bleached it. It was worn thin in a little track from the door to the table where landlord and serving wench had walked. I felt I had been in the little room all my life. I felt I would have to stay there for ever.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed a quarter chime. James was late.

In all our time in Bath he had never been late to see me. He was always there whenever I arrived. He told me once that he often waited for as long as an hour for me. I thought he must have found the roads harder going than he had expected. Or perhaps a horse had gone lame. But then I heard the door from the stable yard bang and my heart leaped. Footsteps came down the corridor and I stood unsteadily and walked towards the table waiting.

The footsteps walked past the room. It was not James.

The coffee came, and I sat beside the cooling pot and watched a blackbird on the patch of grass, making little runs and then freezing in silence, head cocked, listening to sounds which no one but he could hear.

The chime of the half-hour sounded very loud. The coffee was luke-warm. I drank a cup. I would order a fresh pot when James came.

When James came.

I knew he would come. I knew it was not possible that he should not come, just as in my deepest heart I knew that if he came and I told him frankly and truly what had happened to me, he would forgive me. I trusted him, I trusted my love for him, and his for me.

The clock ticked. The blackbird sprang forward, tugged a worm out and carried it triumphantly away in his beak.

The clock chimed the full three-quarters of the tune. It was quarter to eleven. I bet with myself that he would be with me in five minutes. But at ten minutes to eleven he still had not come. I bet myself a hundred guineas that he would dash into the parlour at five minutes to eleven, covered with dust and full of apologies. But he did not.

The clock struck the full chimes, jangly, tedious, loud. Mr Jeffries put his head around the door.

‘There’s a gentleman here…’ he began.

‘James!’ I said certainly and got to my feet.

‘Says that the road from London is clear, and he has passed no post-chaise in the last twenty miles,’ Mr Jeffries went on. ‘Maybe your friend is not coming, Miss Lacey.’

‘I’ll wait another half-hour,’ I said. I could feel the blood draining from my face so fast that I thought I might faint. I sat down on the seat again and leaned my head against the window-pane. The glass was cold. In one pane someone had tried to cut their name with a diamond. It looked like Stephen something, and last year’s date.

It was twenty minutes past eleven.

At half past eleven Mr Jeffries came in to ask me if I would like to leave a message with him, and he would promise to deliver it, to save me the further inconvenience of waiting. I said I would wait until noon.

The clock ticked. The blackbird came back.

I said to myself that it was not possible, that James would not just not come. He would never simply fail to meet me. I had asked him to meet me here and he had agreed. He must have had an accident on the road and, instead of sitting here doubting him, I should be sending out people to search the road for him and bring him home safe to Wideacre. But in my heart I knew he had not had an accident. He was not coming.


It was half past twelve before I knew with certainty. Even then I might have seen his post-chaise with delight, not surprise. But at half past twelve, two and a half hours late for our appointment, I told myself he was not coming and I might as well go home.

I rose from the window-seat like an old woman, stiff and tired. He was not coming. He had known I was waiting for him and yet he had not come to me. What I should say to him now was a problem for the future. He was not coming today, though I had asked him to come and see me.

My arm was aching and I did not know if I would manage Misty on the ride home. I was as weary as if I had been riding around on the downs all the day. Misty would be fresh from her rest in the stables, and I would have trouble mounting her with only one hand.

I pinned on my hat and went out into the yard.

Richard was there.

He was sitting in Uncle John’s gig with the steadiest of the driving horses between the shafts, and Misty hitched with a halter to the back. He was stretched out in the driver’s seat with his smart boots crossed before him on the splashboard. The smoke from his cigar circled in the still air above his head. He turned when he heard the door shut behind me and got down, slowly taking his tricorne hat off and smiling his secretive smile.

‘What a long time you have been, my dear,’ he said kindly. ‘As I had some business to do myself in the inn, I thought I would wait for you. Your mama was concerned at you riding. She will be glad that we met and I could drive you home. Where shall we tell her we met?’

He took me by the waist and lifted me up into the gig before I could say a word, and then he flapped the reins on the horse’s back, tossed a coin to the ostler and drove us out of the yard.

I said nothing for a moment. Just seeing Richard there was a shock. But then I found my voice. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘Business,’ Richard said as if he had business in a Midhurst inn every day of the week. ‘I had to see a man.’ He gave one of his sly giggles. ‘I had to deliver some letters to a gentleman,’ he said, ‘so I thought I would wait and drive you home. I thought you might be tired, coming out so early and with your hand still sore.’

‘I am,’ I said briefly. Indeed I was. I was so tired and disappointed I could have wept. All night, all week I had been readying myself to beg James to love me despite everything, and trying to prepare myself for his refusal. But nothing could have been worse than not seeing him.

Richard threw me a sideways glance which was as warm and as sympathetic as if he had known and cared for my despair. ‘Why don’t you take your hat off and let the wind blow in your face?’ he suggested kindly. ‘You’re looking so pale, little Julia.’

I did as he bid me and held the hat in my lap as we climbed the short hill out of Midhurst. Misty shied at a blowing piece of paper and her hooves clattered on the stones.

‘Better have a rest when you get home,’ Richard said sweetly. ‘You have shadows under your eyes, my darling. You look tired out.’

I tipped my head back so the sun fell on my face and made rosy patterns on my closed eyelids. ‘I am tired, for I could not sleep last night,’ I said.

‘You should have woken me,’ he said, making it seem the most reasonable thing in the world. ‘You know I would not want you to be wakeful on your own. It is horrible being the only person awake in a house, isn’t it? Poor Julia. Did you feel very lonely?’

I did not answer him. I looked down at my wrist and at Uncle John’s meticulous strapping, and at the blue bruise which showed above the bandage. I thought of the man he was and the playmate he had been. I thought of his warm friendly tones now, and of his demented hiss of a voice in the summer-house. And I felt so much that I wanted to be safe from his anger, safe from his hatred. No one could keep me safe from Richard, not Mama, not Uncle John, not even Ralph. And now James was gone. I had loved and feared Richard for all my childhood and girlhood.


Now that James was gone, the brief period when I hardly noticed Richard at all seemed an interruption of the normal feelings: my base, cowardly, fearful affection.

‘You should not have hurt me,’ I said.

It was the only protest I ever made.

Richard chuckled and made no reply at all.