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Papa?”
    “If I had a shilling for all the failed schemes to drain Somersetshire, I’d have not needed to take out a mortgage with him, or even consider letting him act as my agent to embark on some risky scheme here. But I can’t deny that it’s tempting . . . even making a small fortune would be useful to us now.” He stroked my hair. “Don’t look so alarmed, my little one. We’re not facing ruin just yet.”
    I was about to ask him what a mortgage was but I didn’t get the chance.
    “It’s the war, of course,” he ran on. “We’re still suffering for maintaining a troop of horse rather than our land, and we’ve still not recouped the revenue that was forfeit to the new king for his pardon. But we will, given time, and at least our house is not a burned-out shell like so many others. At least our fields do not lie abandoned and overgrown with weeds, even if they are underwater for half the year.”
    “If we drained them, would we become very rich, then?”
    Rich to me meant satin and silk and ribbons aplenty. It meant diamonds and rubies. Although not for rich Puritans, of course.
    “If only it was as easy as that,” my father sighed. “What William Merrick conveniently omits to mention is the disorder and violence that erupted when attempts were made to drain the Fens, the mobs and riots led by Fenlanders who feared the destruction of their way of life. I would think long and hard before stirring up that kind of strife here. I have lived through enough years of war and discord to value being at peace with our neighbors.”
    I knew better than to remind him that some of them, Bess’s brother Thomas for one, were not so peaceful toward us even now; he still looked at me with disdain and contempt whenever I met him on the moor.
    My father smoothed an escaped little lock of hair off my brow, rested his big hand on the top of my head, and I looked up at his craggy, kindly face, dearer to me than any other. “Running this estate is the gravest responsibility,” he said. “It is your birthright, precious to us as the crown jewels to a royal heir. Tickenham Court has been in your mother’s family for generations. I want to do what is right in her memory, to safeguard it for you and for your children. I am only a custodian here, after all. This house is your future, your children’s future.”
    My mother gave birth to my sister and me late in her life, so I had grown up knowing that there would be no sons to follow, and that one day the manor of Tickenham Court would be mine. I used to dream of being a grand and gracious lady of a grand and gracious mansion. But now I fully understood that what had to happen for me to attain this position was the last thing I wanted. I moved closer to my father and slipped my hand into his as if to hold on to him. “Don’t speak of it, Papa,” I said quietly. “I don’t want you to die.”
    He gave my hand a little squeeze. “I’m afraid there’s no avoiding that, Eleanor. We may live in an age when physicians are constantly making new discoveries about the workings of the body, but not even they can shy away from the one inevitability of life: death. You must be mindful of that, living your life in such a way as to prepare yourself for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
    God help me and my rebellious heart, but I felt a sudden surge of defiance that was like anger, like desperation. I did not want to listen to him anymore, did not want to be dragged down into melancholy with him. I did not want to be mindful of death. I was eleven years old and I did not want to prepare myself for Heaven.
    My sister died of ague not a month after my mother, and to think of her now gave me such a dreadful sense of my own mortality, of death’s nearness and its inevitability. I thought of all the delights of this life that little Margaret would never have the chance to experience, some of which I was not even sure my mother had ever experienced. Music and dancing. Singing and