They said his horse must have thrown him. He was found dead beside the little wall separating the park from the farmland on the northern boundary. The horse, unhurt, was grazing near by and the saddle was pulled round as if the girth had been too loose. He had set the horse at the wall and then tumbled off on the Wideacre side. The unwanted, inescapable picture of Ralph hiding in the lee of the wall and then reaching up to grab the horse’s reins and to club my father with one of the stones from the wall came to my mind unbidden. The only comfort I could find was the idea that my father had died on the park side of the wall, under the trees he loved, on the land he loved. But there was no other comfort for me.
Ralph had done this. Ralph had committed this assault. This filthy attack. This dark wicked sin. While my mama wept and wept easy tears that cost her little, and Harry wandered round the house in a haze of shock, I found my mind clearing and sharpening to a point of utter hatred. Ralph had done this thing. He alone was responsible.
Aye, I had been there, on the tree trunk spanning the river. My lips had met his. I had said, ‘Accident’, and ‘It would work’, but I had not known it would be like this. I had agreed. But I had not known what I was setting in train. Ralph had known. Ralph had knifed deer, skinned hares, hand-chopped rabbits. Ralph knew all about death and he invited my consent to his dark plots while I was a mere child. I had not known. I had not understood. And when I did, it was too late. It was not my fault.
I did not wish my father dead! I wanted him to turn to me again with his blue eyes bright with love. I wanted him to insist once more on my company when he was rounding up sheep. I wanted him to call for me as easily and naturally as whistling his dogs. I wanted him to forget Harry and Harry’s claims to the land. I wanted Harry to slip from his mind again, as Harry had gone once before. I wanted to be first in his heart again and first on Wideacre, and safe in his love and safe in the land.
Now Ralph had killed him and my papa would never love me again.
But Ralph had done worse. He had forgotten the divide. There was a gulf between Ralph and me he had forgotten. I never took him to my papa’s bed; I never took him inside the Hall. He was not Quality; he was not fit to wear linen. Homespun, Ralph was, and his mother wore rags. And this lad had dared, he had dared to lie in wait for my bright-brave Squire papa and leap on him like a thief and bring him down. And my papa had died in pain and terror at the hands of his false servant.
Ralph should pay.
While Harry’s grief and sense of loss grew, and he daily came to me for instructions and advice, and while Mama’s slight tears dried and she busied herself with ordering gloves, mourning favours, mourning clothes, and funeral plans, I stayed dry-eyed and burning with hatred.
Ralph should pay.
No man touches a Lacey of Wideacre and escapes. No Lacey of Wideacre ever fell without a sword to defend him. If I could have had Ralph arrested and hanged I would have done so. But he might have accused me and I could not bear to have such horrors spoken aloud. The death of my papa was not my plan. The murder was not my act. I did not order it. Ralph carried me along towards it because I did not know what it meant. Now every day the memory of my father’s silently screaming face would come before my eyes and the only way I could blot out that horror was to say silently, reassuringly, to myself, ‘Ralph will pay.’
At the funeral service my eyes behind my dark veil were black with hatred for the murderer and I said not one prayer. No Christian God could play any part in this blood that called for revenge. The Furies were after Ralph, and I was coming for him as deadly as any vengeful, thirsty goddess, hot with hatred, riding a wave of dark will.
My hatred made me sharp and cunning and nothing of my thoughts showed in my face. When the earth thudded on the lid of the coffin I drooped against Harry as if I were not rigid with anger and strong with hatred. We held hands in the coach on the way home and my grip was gentle and tender. I would be saving Harry too when I wiped out this killer, this deadly parasite on our land.
Mama was weeping again and I took her hand in mine. She was cold and she did not return the squeeze I gave her. She had been withdrawn ever since the slow shuffle of feet of four men bringing Papa home, and now and then I would feel her eyes fixed on me as if she did not see me, or as if she was looking through me to some speculation of her own. Now, through the black mesh of her veil, her eyes met mine with an unusual sharpness.
‘You know your papa’s hunter, Beatrice,’ she said suddenly in a clear voice, quite unlike her usual tentative murmur. ‘How could it have thrown him so? He never fell in year after year of riding. How could he have fallen, and fallen so badly, at such a little jump?’
My hatred of Ralph kept my own conscience clear, and I met her eyes directly.
‘I do not know, Mama,’ I said. ‘I suppose it may have been his saddle slipping. I have thought of nothing else, and of the pain he suffered. If it were the horse at fault I should order it to be shot. I would not suffer an animal to live which had injured my papa. But it was just a tragic accident.’
She nodded, her eyes still on my face.
‘There will be many changes now,’ she said. The carriage rocked as we turned right up the drive. ‘The estate is entailed on Harry, of course. He will have to get a bailiff to run it for a while. Or do you propose to help Harry?’
‘Of course I will help all I can,’ I said delicately. ‘We never have had a bailiff and Papa thought they were not a good idea. I would prefer if we could manage without. But that is a decision for you, Mama … and Harry.’
She nodded. There was a pause. The horses’ hoofs were muffled where the drive was carpeted with autumn leaves.
‘The only thing Beatrice loved more than her father was his land,’ said Mama, musingly, gazing out of the window. Harry and I exchanged a startled glance. This vague, seer-like voice was so unlike Mama. ‘There never was a girl who loved her father as much as Beatrice, but she loved the land, Wideacre, even more. If she had been forced to choose between them I think she would have chosen the land. It will be a great consolation to Beatrice to think that although she has lost her papa she still has Wideacre.’
Harry’s shocked blue eyes met mine.
‘There, there,’ he said feebly, patting Mama’s black-gloved hand. ‘You are upset, Mama. We all loved Papa and we all love Wideacre.’
Mama turned her gaze from the tall trunks of the trees and the fields and stared at me as if she would read the very depths of my soul. I met her eyes look for look. It was not my crime. I need take no blame for it.
‘I shall help Harry as much as I can,’ I repeated steadily. ‘My papa will not seem so very far away. I shall do what he would wish. I shall be the daughter he deserved.’
‘There, there,’ said Harry, deaf to all meaning, but catching the tone of my voice. He reached out his hand to me and his other to Mama. Handfast we arrived outside the Hall and sat for a moment in silence. I swore once more, before I let their hands go, that Ralph would pay for the injury he had done us all. He would pay at once. He would pay that night.
My papa’s will was read that afternoon. It was the straightforward work of an honest man. My mama had the dower house and a fair income from the estate for her life. I had a substantial dowry in money invested in the City, a home on Wideacre until my brother married, and then with my mother wherever she might choose to live. I kept my eyes on the table at this easy disposition of me and my love for the land, but my colour rose.
Harry inherited, by unquestioned right, all the fertile fields, the rich woodland and rolling downs. And if he died before providing an heir, the whole lovely land would go intact to the nearest male relation, as if I had never been born. My entire family, Papa, Mama and Harry, could all die in pain and horror and still I would be no nearer to the ownership of the land. There was a barrier against me no skill of mine could overleap. Generations of men had built defences against women like me, against all women. They had ensured