Wideacre (Wideacre Trilogy) Read Online Free

tomorrow. I want her to look at the flocks today before we separate them for market and there is no one else free who can ride up there and whose judgement I can rely on.’
    ‘Young ladies do not generally spend all day in the saddle. I am afraid for Beatrice’s health,’ Mama said.
    Papa grinned. ‘Oh stuff, ma’am,’ he said rousingly. ‘She’s as lean and as fit as a racehorse. She’s never had a day’s illness in her life. Why don’t you say what you mean?’
    Mama bridled. Plain speaking is not the natural voice of ladies.
    ‘It’s not the proper upbringing for a girl,’ she said. ‘Spending all her time talking with such rough men. Knowing all the tenants and cottagers and galloping around the countryside without a chaperone.’
    Papa’s blue eyes sparkled with temper. ‘Those rough men earn our bread and butter,’ he said. ‘Those tenants and cottagers pay for Beatrice’s horse, aye and even the dress on her back and the boots on her feet. A fine little city-miss you would have on your hands if she did not know where the wealth is made and where the work is done.’
    Mama, a city-miss in her girlhood, looked up from the table and came perilously close to defying the convention that Ladies Never Raise Their Voices, Never Disagree with Their Husbands, and Keep Their Tempers Under the Tightest of Wraps.
    ‘Beatrice should be brought up in a manner befitting a young lady,’ she said tremulously. ‘She will not be a farm manager in later life; she will be a lady. She should be learning how a lady behaves.’
    Papa was red to the ears — a sure sign of his temper. ‘She is a Lacey of Wideacre,’ he said, his voice firm and unnecessarily loud for the little breakfast parlour. The cups jumped and chinked as he bumped the table.
    ‘She is a Lacey of Wideacre, and whatever she does, however she behaves, will
always
be fitting. Whether she checks the sheep or even digs ditches, she will always be a Lacey of Wideacre. On this land her behaviour is the pattern of Quality. And no damned mincing, citified, pretty-pretty gentility could change that. And nothing could improve that.’
    Mama was white with fright and temper.
    ‘Very well,’ she said through her narrowed lips. ‘It shall be as you order.’
    She rose from the table and picked up her reticule, her shawl and the letters that lay by her plate. I could see her fingers tremble and her mouth working to hold back resentful, bitter tears. Papa detained her with a hand on her arm at the door and she looked up in his face with an expression of icy dislike.
    ‘She is a Lacey of Wideacre,’ he said again, trying to convey to this outsider what that meant on this, our land. ‘Bearing that name, on this land she can do no wrong. You need have no fears for her, ma’am.’
    Mama tipped her head in cold acquiescence and stood like a statue till he released her. Then she glided, in the short dainty steps of the perfect lady, from the room. Papa turned his attention to me, silent at my breakfast plate.
    ‘You didn’t want to stay at home, did you, Beatrice?’ he asked, concerned. I beamed at him.
    ‘I am a Lacey of Wideacre, and my place is on the land!’ I said. He scooped me from my place in a great bear-hug and we went arm in arm to the stables, victors of a righteous battle. Mama watched me go from the parlour window, and when I was on my pony and safe from her detaining hand, I reined in by the terrace to see if she would come out. She opened the glass door and came out languidly, her perfumed skirts brushing the stonesof the terrace, her eyes blinking in the bright sunshine. I stretched an apologetic hand out to her.
    ‘I am sorry to grieve you, Mama,’ I offered. ‘I shall stay at home tomorrow.’
    She did not move close to take my hand. She was always afraid of horses and perhaps she disliked being too close to the pony who was pulling against the bit and pawing at the gravel, keen to be off. Mama’s pale eyes looked coldly up at me,