house of women (27 page)

What's come over her lately? She's changing. She's different. And she answered herself:

She would be; she's growing up. But then she's only fifteen . well, just on sixteen.

She went into the dining-room, where the tea was set, and she looked over the table as if there she would find something missing. Then, turning from it, she heard her own voice speaking aloud: "The quicker I get her away from here the better. And no, no, I wouldn't want her to end up the same way as I did."

It was half past seven and she was practising Mozart's Rondo alia Turca. She was fond of this lively piece but, on this occasion, her mind wasn't on it because her father was in the house. He stayed in most evenings now, spending some time in his study and some time chatting to his benefactress.

Her hands stiffened on the keys as she heard the door open. She had no need to turn her head to see who it was, for she knew his step.

The piano was situated at the far end of the drawing-room. She

continued to play until his hands came on her shoulders, and somehow she kept on playing until his hand lifted her loose hair behind the ear and his mouth came down and touched it. At this, her hands crashed down on the keys and she jerked forward, saying, "Don't do that.

Daddy, please. " She was sitting on the edge of the seat, the front of her body pressed against the piano.

"I'm trying to practise this difficult piece."

"All right, all right, practise. Go on playing." His voice sounded calm, even playful.

"But play something else." He now stood against the end of the piano, his forearms resting on the top of it.

"Play the Skater's Waltz. You know I like that." He now straightened up, took up the pose of holding a partner and went into a waltz, singing, "One, two, three ... '

"Don't be silly. Father."

As if he had been struck by some unseen force into stillness, he stopped, his right arm still embracing an imaginary figure, his left arm extended. Then slowly he turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder, saying, "What did you say?"

She bowed her head.

"Well, it is silly."

He was standing close to her now; his breath seemed to be wafting her hair.

"Since when have you thought dancing with me silly? Eh? You love dancing with me."

"I never have." Her head had swung round but it was now bowed again.

Then she was being dragged up from the music stool and she was being shaken by the shoulders as he demanded, "What's this? What's the matter with you? You were never like this to me. She's been getting at you, hasn't she?"

"No. No. Nobody's been getting ... " Then why have you changed? "

She struggled in his hold, pressing herself from him; but he maintained his forceful hold on her and, looking into his face, she said, "I'm growing up. I'm not a little girl any more. I ... I want to do the things other girls do."

"You do, do you? You want to do the things other girls do, like making yourself cheap, going to discos, letting those louts paw you? Well, you're not going to. You're growing up, yes, but you're not grown-up and you won't be for some time, and in the meantime you're still my girl. Aye." His voice changed and dropped to a quivering whisper as he said, "My baby. Don't you understand?" He now stepped backwards, pulling her away from the piano and into the middle of the room towards the couch, and he had almost to force her to get her stiff body to sit down on it. His arms were about her now and there was an actual whine in his voice as he said, "Emma ... Emma, you're not grown-up but you're not a baby, except in my mind, so you must know how I feel about you, always have. You are mine, do you understand? mine. You're all I've got, all I've ever wanted. You'll never know the torture I've gone through because I've loved you so.

Oh! Emma. My Emma. "

As she was pressed back on to the couch her mind raced madly in

protest, but all she managed to bring out in a kind of croak was, "No, Daddy, no." Then, when her legs were lifted on to the couch, the croak turned into a stilted scream as she cried, "No! Don't! Stop it! I'll Her words were cut off when his mouth covered hers, but when she clawed at him, one of his hands caught her wrists and held them and in a voice such as he had never used before, a deep moaning voice, he said, "

It'll be all right. It'll be all right. I love you. You're mine.

Try to understand, I made you and I need you. You're mine. "

"Richard. Richard."

The name seemed to halt him for a moment, but when his hands were again moving over her, the scream she let out crying, "Mother!

Mother! " almost lifted them both from the couch. It certainly brought the door banging open; and she was still screaming when his body was lifted from her and she saw the poker coming down towards his head.

Only the fact that he rolled on to his side saved him from being brained. However, the end of the poker ripped the knuckles of the hand he had thrust up to shield himself and blood was spattered on to his face, As if from nowhere Henry, too, appeared and, crouching in the corner of the couch, Emma now watched him struggling with her mother, and when he wrenched the poker from her hand and flung it across the room, there was the sound of splintering wood, which brought about an inevitable silence, punctuated only by gasps. But only for a moment.

"You filthy beast!" Peggy yelled at her husband.

"You're rotten, unnatural ... This is the finish!" She was stabbing her finger at him now.

"You'll go, not me!"

Andrew had struggled to his feet. With one hand he was gripping the knuckles of the other and the look he was bestowing on his wife was one of concentrated hatred. He now stumbled round the head of the couch and from there, leaning against it for support, he growled at her, "If I go she comes with me."

"I won't! I won't!" Emma had sprung round from her crouching position now; her whole body was trembling, yet at the same time she looked taut. And now she yelled, "I'll not go with you! Never! Never! I'm I'm going to be married."

Her statement startled not only him, but also Peggy, and it showed as surprise on Henry's face, and she looked from one to the other, saying,

"Yes, yes, I am. I'm ... I'm going to be engaged at Christmas and married next year. And that's for all of you. Do you hear? For all of you."

Andrew was the first to speak: his mouth in a wide sneer, he said, That'll be over my dead body. "

"And it could be. Yes, it could be."

To the surprise of them all, she was on her feet now. Her body was still shaking but there was no tremor in her voice as she cried, "I'm marrying Richard ... Doctor Langton. We arranged it just today." She turned now and looked at her mother, adding, "He ... he was coming to see you at Christmas."

Into yet another silence her father's voice growled out, "If he lives that long." Then they watched him pull himself up from the support of the couch and, keeping his eyes on Emma until he had passed her, he strode from the room.

Emma dropped down on to the couch again and Peggy beside her, and the first question Peggy asked was, "Is this true?" and Emma nodded, saying, "Yes, yes, it's true, every word." Then in a louder voice she cried, "You took me to see him, do you remember? And from that day it was done for both of us."

"You're not sixteen yet."

"Huh!" On the word, Emma turned her head away, the exclamation saying it all.

Peggy could find no reply, no words with which to confront her

daughter, such as: He's much too old. You don't know your own mind.

You're at a romantic stage. I'll have to see him and talk to him.

And as if Emma had heard her thoughts she turned to her and said, "You can't do anything, Mam, so don't try. If you do I'll just go off ...

and with him."

"Have you thought what he might do, your father?"

"Yes, I have; but when he confronts Richard he will be told that he could be taken to court; he's been at me for years. I've had to fight him off. Did you know that? fight him off. Why didn't you do

something years ago, Mam? Leave him. You knew what he was like. You blamed Gran-gran for being selfish, but what about you? You didn't want to leave this house, because you would be leaving Uncle Charlie.

Isn't that it?"

"Girl! what are you saying?"

"The truth for once, bringing it into the open; the truth. Do you think I'm blind or stupid? Everybody knows, at least in the family."

Peggy's head drooped, and Henry, looking at Emma, said, "Well, that's your mother's business, after all. And who's to blame her, having to put up with those two for years?" He jerked his head towards the ceiling, then went on.

"But from where I stand there's going to be a separation in that quarter and soon ... Peggy' he put his hand out towards her'I've got him where I want him, where we all want him.

There's just one more bit of proof and that'll be in the locked drawer of his desk, because I remember you saying he was like your father in that way: he always kept part of his desk locked up. " He leant towards her.

"Do you think we can get the key?"

She looked at him as though in understanding, but she couldn't answer him for a moment for there were so many things whirling around in her mind:

that doctor and her Emma . Good lord! and but for his hand going up she would really have brained him this time, and then where would she have been? And they all knew about Charlie. Well, she had guessed they would, so why was it upsetting her? It was the fact that Emma had accused her of not doing anything to prevent her being molested. And she had been . yes, she had been: she had been molested, if only on the surface. Tonight, though, it had gone further than the surface.

Oh, yes, yes. What was Henry saying? Andrew had been making money on the side for years? She blinked hard, then said, "What did you say, Henry?"

"I said, it all came about through the bangers in the backyard. I had given him the usual price list, you know, and we had discussed roughly what we should let them go for. And I remembered one for which we had suggested four hundred. It wasn't at all a bad little car; a bit of rust on the bottom, but nothing that couldn't be covered up. It's usual, of course, to ask a little more to start things off. They're more often than not bought by people passing through, the Sunday buyers, and they like to haggle and feel satisfied when we come down.

Well, it should happen that I called in at Gibson's to pick up a suit I was having the trousers altered and as I was leaving the shop one of the assistants held the door for me and said, "It's going like a bomb.

I'm very pleased with it, Mr. Brooker." I stopped for a moment and said, "oh yes? Which one was that?"

"A Ford," he said.

"Oh, the Ford," I said, nodding at him; then said, "So it was you who bought the Ford?" as if I was talking about a Rolls, because I could see he was very pleased with himself and his buy. And that's what I said: "Well, I hope you felt you got a good buy."

' "Oh yes, I did, Mr. Brooker, for four hundred and seventy-five it was a bargain."

"We nodded at each other and I went out thinking, four hundred and seventy-five. The only other Ford we'd sold that day was a nearly new one from the front. Four hundred and seventy-five. I kept repeating that to myself. Well, I went back to the office and looked up the books, and there it was, four hundred pounds. And there was his

signature and the price, four hundred pounds. He had cleared

seventy-five pounds at one go. As I said, Peggy, most of that back stuff goes to passers-by, so you never see them again, unless the car turns out to have been stolen, as has happened.

"My God!" He put his hand to his head now.

"When I think of what he's been raking off all these years. Sometimes there's as many as a dozen cars out on the back. No wonder he wanted to work on a Sunday, demanded to work on a Sunday, to please the old girl. Well, I wonder how she will take this? But first I want to get into that drawer, the one in the study he keeps locked. Have you a duplicate key?"

"No."

"Well, I know a way to get in. Where do you think he's gone now?"

32Z

"Oh, likely up to the sanctum to tell her that I nearly brained him and to put his case first, and she'll believe him."

"Yes, she likely will; she'll believe anything except the fact that he's been doing her for years. Oh, I'm going to be there, and so are you, Peggy, when I present her with the proof ... Have you got a screwdriver?"

"Yes; two or three of them in the tool box in the boot-room."

"Let me have them."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, there's more ways of opening a drawer than from the front, if you get my meaning. And you, Emma, stay in the hall, and if you hear him coming across the landing, stall him."

"What do you mean. Uncle Henry, stall him?" There was a tremor in her voice.

"Well, let him talk to you."

"I can't. I can't."

"All right, all right, don't get agitated. Well, run to the study and give us the tip." Five minutes later Henry had taken off the back covering the three side drawers of the desk and had taken out the papers from the only drawer that was still locked. And as he laid them on the table he said, "Two bank books, look; one in the name of Milburn in a South Shields branch. Two hundred and twenty in that, look. But oh, oh, see here!" He had pulled some documents out of an envelope.

"These are the acknowledgements of Special Deposit, one for a monthly, and two for three-monthly accounts. The bank gives good interest on those. Just look at them, Peggy. My! My! One for three thousand, one for one thousand, five hundred. God in heaven! One for two

thousand, three hundred. These are in his own name. And here--' He opened a black-backed book, then muttered, " Accounts. Oh, I'm going to say it: the clever bugger that he thinks he is, is a bloody fool.

Keeping accounts! Look, right back to nineteen seventy;

what he's made each week. And what's more, he's done it under my bloody nose. " He straightened up, the book gripped in his hand.

"You know," he stared at Peggy, "I could throttle him; on my own account, I could throttle him." He paused for a moment and looked first to one side then to the other, then bit on his lip before he said, "But he couldn't have made all that' he pointed to the Special Deposit accounts 'just out of his Sunday pickings. Or could he?" He now picked up another book, saying, "That's one of the shop's receipt books. He's been clever." He flicked the stubs of the book over, saying, "He gives them a receipt for what he's charging. All above board. But then he must have another book that he keeps there or somewhere else that he hands to me, and also,