Wideacre (Wideacre Trilogy) Read Free Page B

papa as her opposition to my riding. Mama was always in search of family life as it was depicted in her quarterly journals. That was the secret reason for her hatred of my father’s uncompromising loudness, his bawdiness, his untamed joy. That was why she gloried in the quiet prettiness of her fair-haired boy. And that was why she would have done anything to get me off horseback and into the parlour where young girls, all young girls, whatever their talents and dispositions, belonged.
    ‘Why don’t you stay at home today, Beatrice?’ she asked in her sweet plaintive voice one morning at breakfast. Papa had already eaten and gone, and my mama turned her eyes from his plate with the great knuckle bone of ham chewed clean and the scatter of crumbs from a crusty Wideacre loaf.
    ‘I am riding with Papa,’ I said, my words muffled by my own hearty portion of bread and ham.
    ‘I know that is what you planned,’ she corrected me sharply. ‘But I am asking you to stay at home today. To stay at home with me. This morning I should like to pick some flowers and you could help me to arrange them in the blue vases. This afternoon we could go for a drive. We could even visit the Haverings. You would like that. You could chatter with Celia.’
    ‘I am sorry, Mama,’ I said with all the finality of an indulged seven-year-old, ‘but I promised Papa I would check the sheep on the downs and I will need all day. I shall go to the west side this morning and then ride home for dinner. This afternoon I shall go to the east side and not be back till tea-time.’
    Mama compressed her lips and looked down at the table. I barely noticed her rising irritation and her tone of anger and pain was a surprise to me when she burst out: ‘Beatrice, I cannot think what is wrong with you! Time and time again I ask you to spend a day, or half a day with me, and every time you have something else you would rather do. It hurts me; it distresses me to be so rebuffed. You should not even be riding alone. It is outrageous, when I have specifically asked for your company indoors.’
    I gazed blankly at her, a fork of ham halfway to my mouth.
    ‘You look surprised, Beatrice,’ she said crossly, ‘but in any ordinary household you would not even have learned how to ride. It is only because your father is horse-mad and you are Wideacre-mad that you have such licence. But I will not tolerate it in my daughter. I will not permit it!’
    That made me afraid. Mama’s overt opposition to my daily rides could mean I was returned to the conventional pursuits of a young lady. A miserable enough fate for anyone, but if I was to be kept inside when the ploughing started, or when the reaping bands were out, or at harvest time, I should be in continual torment. Then I heard my papa’s clatter in the hall and the door banged open. Mama winced at the noise and my head jerked up like a gun dog at the sound of game, to see his bright eyes and merry smile.
    ‘Still feeding, little piglet?’ he bellowed. ‘Late to breakfast, late to leave and late in the fields. You have to be on the west slope and back in time for dinner, remember. You’ll have to hurry.’
    I hesitated and glanced at Mama. She said nothing and her eyes were downcast. I saw the game she was playing in one swift, acute second. She had put me in a position where my defiance of her would be absolute if I went now with my papa. On the other hand, my obedience and devotion could be transferred wholesale to her if I insisted on staying indoors. I was not going to be managed by such paltry parlour games. I swallowed my mouthful and cast Mama’s secrets before my father.
    ‘Mama says I must stay at home today,’ I said innocently. ‘What am I to do?’
    I glanced from one to the other, the picture of childish obedience. I looked as if I sought only guidance, but in my heart I had staked a large gamble on my papa.
    ‘Beatrice is needed out on the downs today,’ he said baldly. ‘She can stay at home