They put Richard to bed and called the surgeon from Midhurst, who praised Dench’s rough strapping, set the arm and the collar-bone and ordered Richard to stay abed for at least a week.
We had a peaceful few days then, Richard and I. He had a fever at first, and I sat with him and sponged his head with vinegar and water to cool him, and read him stories to divert him. By the fourth day he was well enough to talk and he asked me what had happened. I told him about Mrs Green, about Ned Smith, about Dench’s sudden decision in the sunlit wood to take the carriage horse and leave me to alert the village.
‘How did you get to Acre?’ Richard asked. He was lying back on a bank of white pillows and his face was still pale. His freckles stood out, dark as flecks of chocolate, on his creamy skin, and his gaze was down, his eyes veiled by his long eyelashes.
‘I rode,’ I said, and as I spoke the two words, my heart suddenly thudded in foreboding. I was sitting by the window to catch the wintry morning light, a book open on my knees. As I said the words ‘I rode’, it struck me for the first time that Richard might object to my having ridden – even in that emergency.
I could tell nothing of Richard’s mood from the untroubled curve of his mouth, from the dark lashes on his cheek. ‘Dench told me to take Scheherazade while he searched the wood for you. It seemed the only way to do it, Richard.’
Richard’s gaze stayed on the counterpane. ‘Dench told you to ride my horse,’ he said softly. ‘But, Julia,’ he said and then paused. ‘You do not know how to ride.’
‘I know!’ I said with a nervous laugh. ‘I know I do not!’ I said again. ‘But Dench threw me up into the saddle, and Scheherazade was so good! It must have been all that schooling you have given her, Richard!’ I shot a look at him, but his face was still impassive. ‘She knew her way home, of course,’ I said. ‘I just sat on her. It was not proper riding, Richard. Not proper riding like you do.’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Did you just walk?’
‘Not all the way,’ I said hesitantly.
‘Not all the way,’ he repeated as slowly as if he were writing down my answer in a copy-book. ‘She did not walk all the way. So, Julia, did you trot?’
‘Yes,’ I said quickly. Too quickly. ‘I trotted her a little.’
‘You trotted,’ he repeated again. ‘Your first time on horseback and you trotted? A rising trot, Julia? Or did you just bump about, clinging on and hoping for the best?’
‘I trotted properly!’ I said, stung. ‘And I cantered too!’
Richard’s head snapped up. His eyes were as black as the centre of a thundercloud.
‘You took my horse without my permission and you cantered her?’
‘Richard!’ I said desperately. ‘I had to! I had to! Dench told me to! He had to look for you and I had to call out Acre and come home and tell Mama. I could not refuse to go. Dench knew what to do and he ordered me!’
There was an utter silence.
‘Dench, was it?’ Richard asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You should have refused,’ Richard said, a little frown on his face.
‘I didn’t know what to do!’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Richard. Dench seemed to know what had to be done, so I did as he told me.’
‘He never liked me,’ Richard said, gazing at the blank wall at the foot of the bed, seeming to see Dench’s impassive face on the pale lime-wash. He was seeing again in his mind Dench’s stony face as he watched Richard struggling to learn to ride, and Grandpapa’s impatience. ‘Not from the first riding lesson. Not before. He never liked me. He wanted you to have Scheherazade from the start,’ he said reflectively, reviewing the scene in the stable yard and remembering Dench’s smile as I walked towards the mare. ‘Then he used the excuse of my accident to get you on her.’
I said nothing. I knew it was none of it true. But the threat of Richard’s rage seemed to be passing away from me. I felt icy cold inside, and the thudding in my head, behind my eyes, warned me that I would have a dizzy nauseous headache unless I could get away at once from this stuffy room. I sat in silence on the window-seat, the cold pane of glass chilling my back, fearful to make a move in case Richard’s rage should come back towards me.
‘It’s Dench’s fault,’ he said.
‘Yes. Yes,’ I said, thinking only of my need to get away. Richard said nothing more, and I sat frozen.
He turned and looked at me and I saw with relief that his eyes were a hazy blue, as if he were daydreaming, as if he were happy. He smiled at me, smiled as sweetly as the dearest of friends. ‘Don’t look so terrified, Julia,’ he said as if it were rather funny. ‘I’m not angry with you any more. I thought it was your fault. But I see now that it was Dench’s.’
I smiled back, still wary.
‘You’re sure he ordered you?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure it was he who made you ride my horse? You didn’t think you would seize the chance selfishly for yourself?’
‘No! No!’ I said hastily. ‘It was all his idea.’
‘Good,’ Richard said, and smiled his seraphic smile at me. He put his right hand out to me and I reached forward and took it in my icy fingers. Obedient to his tug, I slid forward to kneel at his bedside and he put his hand to my face and stroked my cheek as gentle as a lover. Then he kissed my forehead, just where the headache was starting to thud, and at his touch I could feel my fear and strain melting away, and the beat of the pulse behind my eyes grow quiet again.
‘That’s better now, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said softly.
‘I hate it when we quarrel,’ he said, his voice low. ‘There is nothing worse in the world for me than when I think you have been selfish and ugly. You must love me like a true lady, Julia. You must be pure and unselfish.’
I blinked back the tears in my eyes. ‘I do try,’ I said humbly. ‘I try all the time, Richard.’
Richard smiled, his eyes warm. ‘I know,’ he said sweetly. ‘That is how it should be.’
Then I laid my head on his pillow and smelled the sweet nutty smell of his warm body and his dark curly hair and felt such a peace between us.
Richard was angry with me no more.
Richard’s convalescence from the fever and the mending of his collar-bone and arm progressed without any problems. The surgeon came from Midhurst again to make sure the break was healing and he told Mama he would not need to call again. Richard was irritable during the days when he was cooped up in his tiny low-ceilinged bedroom, but once he could come downstairs for his meals – looking very grand in Grandpapa’s old jacket for a dressing-gown – he became his old sweet-tempered self. I thought that his short temper over Scheherazade had come from the fever and the pain and the very great blow it had been to his pride that I should be seen riding a horse which had just thrown him.
Bearing