would ever tell me quite how, it all went bad. When my Aunt Beatrice died and my papa died in the same night, the night of the fire, the Laceys were already ruined.
After that day nothing went right on Wideacre: not in the village, where they were as dirty as gypsies and as poor, and not for the Laceys. Mama and I were the only survivors of the great Lacey family, and we went in darned gowns and had no carriage. Worse than that, for Mama, we had no power. Oh, not in the way that many landowners have power. I don’t think she would ever have missed the power to order men as if they were all servants. But when things were wrong in the village, she had no power to intervene. No one could help Acre now it was in the hands of the Poor Law authorities. Not even Dr Pearce, who came riding up the drive with his fat bay cob actually sweating at the neck and withers one hot day in summer when I was ten. He asked to see Mama urgently and came into the parlour on Stride’s heels. I was seated by the open window, trying to get some air while I transposed a score Richard wanted to sing. Richard was idly fingering chords on the pianoforte. Mama was darning.
‘Forgive this intrusion, Lady Lacey,’ Dr Pearce said, his breath coming in pants from his hurried ride. ‘There are dreadful doings in Acre. They are taking the children.’
‘What?’ Mama said. She cast one fearful glance towards the window, and I shrank too, afraid – like a child – of being ‘taken’, whatever that meant.
Dr Pearce stripped off his riding gloves, and then, uselessly, put them back on again. ‘It’s the parish overseer from Chichester,’ he said, half stammering in his haste. ‘He has an order from some manufacturing gentlemen in the north. They want able-bodied pauper children for apprenticeships.’
Mama nodded.
Dr Pearce pulled his glove off one hand. ‘It is a slavery!’ he exclaimed. ‘Lady Lacey! They are taking them without consent! Any child whose parents cannot support them can be taken. That is all of Acre, for none of them are in regular work. They have a great carriage and they are going through Acre and taking the pick of the healthiest largest children. They had chosen three when I came here to you.’
I looked up at my mama’s face. She had risen to stand by the empty hearth. Her face was so white she looked sallow in the bright summer light. ‘Why did you come to me?’ she asked, her voice low.
Dr Pearce pulled off his other glove and slapped them in his hand. ‘I thought you would know what to do!’ he said. ‘I thought you would stop them!’
Mama made a slow gesture with one stiff hand, which took in the bare parlour, the chipped table, the old pianoforte and the single rug before the fire. ‘I am a woman of neither means nor influence,’ she said slowly.
‘You are the squire’s widow!’ Dr Pearce exclaimed.
Mama grimaced. ‘And you are the parson,’ she said bitterly. ‘But neither of us is able to stop what is happening down there.’
‘Your father? Lord Havering?’ Dr Pearce suggested.
Mama sat down in her chair again. ‘He says it is a village of outlaws,’ she said. ‘He would not lift a hand if the whole village were to be moved. Besides, he believes in these new factories. He has invested in them.’
Dr Pearce slumped down into a chair without invitation and rolled his gloves into a tight ball. ‘We do nothing?’ he asked helplessly.
My mama lifted her work to the light and started again to sew. ‘I can do nothing to stop this,’ she said. ‘Is it being done legally?’
‘Legally, yes!’ Dr Pearce said. ‘But morally?’
‘Then I can do nothing,’ Mama said again. ‘Perhaps you could ensure that the parents have the addresses of where the children are sent? So that they can bring them home when times improve.’
‘When times improve,’ Dr Pearce repeated. He got to his feet.
Mama looked up at him. Her face was stony, but her eyes were filled with tears. ‘When times