Justice Is a Woman (7 page)

Swinging round to face her now and his voice loud, almost on the verge of a shout, he cried at her, “For

your information, Clan Egan doesn’t drink. This might seem strange to you, but he’s a man of high

morals. He’s got a big mouth and he uses it, but he uses it for a cause. Everything Clan Egan gets from

my garden is taken to the club house and shared out.”

“You should have been a miner.”

“Yes, perhaps I should.”

“That gentleman in the railway carriage was right: you’re in one class but you belong to another.”

“Be careful, Elly; I don’t want to fight with you.”

“It appears to me we have done little else for weeks. You thwart me at every turn. You should allow

me my place in this house. Your father respects my wishes more than you do: you would never have

allowed me to change that girl’s name, but he did; he understood the situation.

He doesn’t kowtow to the kitchen; you, I am sorry to say, have no sense of the fitness of things and

your place in society, nor do you understand people. You have never given me credit for having a brain.

You saw me at Polly Rawlston’s dance as a gay, bobbed-haired, Charleston-swinger with just enough

brains to enable me to chatter entertainingly, to tinkle on the 63 piano, to dribble French in restaurants

and .. “

“I’ve told you to be quiet, Elly; you’re going too far.”

“There, you see, when I bring up something of importance, such as my ability to think, you tell me to be

quiet, that I am going too far. I understand that the men in the village and town down there still treat their

wives like serfs; they don’t seem to know that women have the vote.

There’s one life for the master of the house, which includes his freedom to do as he

wishes and go where

he likes without question, and another for his wife, whose duty appears to be to rear children by the

dozen, such as happens in Egan’s house, and to cook and slave for her lord and master. “

She stopped abruptly and her face stretched in surprise as Joe turned from her and threw his head back

and laughed loudly. When he put his hands on the head of the couch and leant over it, she cried at him,

“I’m glad to see that I amuse you, although myself I see no humour in what I have said.”

“No?” He rubbed each eye with his finger; then approached her again and, taking her

gently by the

shoulders, shook her, saying, “It’s wonderful, marvelous: you’re for them, at least the women; you’re on

their side.”

She stared back at him coldly for a moment before she replied, “You have misinterpreted my words;

you see things as you want to see them.

I was merely stating a social fact. And for your information, I despise them because they haven’t got the

gumption to alter their way of living. The women must know what they’re in for before they marry such

men. “ His hands slid slowly from her shoulders, all traces of laughter and amusement drained from his

face, although his voice sounded level and ordinary as he asked her a question: “ You would never have

married a poor man, would you, Elly? “

The question brought the colour sliding up over her pale skin. For the moment she

seemed lost for an

answer, and she swallowed deeply before she said, “I ... I didn’t marry you for your

money. And

anyway, you’re not rich as rich men go.”

“No, as rich men go, I’m not a rich man, but I’m what you call comfortably off,

comfortable enough to

give away the fruit and, vegetables from the garden. And in future I’ll thank you, Elly, not to interfere

with David’s work; outside is beyond your province.” Her face had shown her keen

displeasure before,

but now it expressed raw anger as she cried at him.

“David! David! I’m sick of that man’s name; he has caused nothing but dissension

between us. Why

don’t you get rid of him? Yes, any other man would. If a servant, particularly a half-caste, was annoying

his wife he would get rid of him, but what do you do ? You take his part at every turn.

Who is he

anyway that you should consider him so much? I know what I’ll do.” She half turned and gripped at the

handle of the door before ending, “I’ll go upstairs and see your father. As you said, he’s still master of

this house and he’ll understand my side of it as he did about the girl downstairs. We’ll see if Mr. David

Brooks is to be put before me!”

She was too shocked even to cry out when she felt herself being carried, half dragged across the room

and flung down onto the couch.

And then he was standing over her, glaring down into her face, and his lips were

trembling as he said,

“Don’t you ever dare go up there and ask for David to be dismissed; in fact, don’t you dare mention his

name. Do you hear me ?” When he gripped the front of her dress her hands clutched at

his wrists and

she gazed at him in fear for a moment, her eyes stretched wide, her lips apart, her tongue moving up and

down between her teeth; and her face seemed to stretch even longer in her shock and

amazement as he

went on, “My father suffered hell for years through one woman, my mother. And at this stage of his life

and condition of his health I’ll not allow you or anybody else to disturb him. He’s ... he’s fond of David,

as ... as we all are.

You go up there and talk about having him dismissed and it’ll—’ He gulped in his throat as he

swallowed a mouthful of spittle, then closed his eyes for a moment, after which he

released his hold on

her, straightened his back, and then, after a long pause while they stared at each other, he said softly,

“I’m sorry.” And on this he turned from her and walked hastily out of the room while she lay still, staring

towards the door..

He had been to the bathroom and sluiced his face in cold water, and now, as he stood on the second

landing, he passed both hands over his damp hair, after which he inserted his finger

around the inside of

his shirt collar before opening the door and entering his father’s room.

Mike was just emerging from the workroom. His back was slightly bent and he walked

slowly and with

a shambling gait. He reached his chair by the window before he spoke; then, turning his head to the side,

he asked quietly, “What was all that about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Aw, lad’ his tone was gruff “ I’m not deaf. Remember your rooms are just below. “ He pointed a

misshapen finger down towards the floor.

“We had a disagreement.”

“That’s a bloody understatement, if ever I heard one. What’s up at ween you?” The

question was

asked quietly and with concern. Joe now walked to the window, then lowering himself

slowly onto the

broad sill, he leaned forward and gazed out over the gardens before he replied, “I could say it was the

heat.”

“But you won’t.”

“No, no, I won’t.”

“Things going wrong Joe now turned and looked at his father.

“We don’t seem to be speaking the same language,” he said.

“Huh! Well, damn it all! you didn’t really expect to, did you? You know what I said to you a while

ago: don’t make the same mistake as me. That should have told you to start the way you mean to go on.”

“That’s what I thought I had done.”

“And she’s not having it?”

“It would appear not.”

“What was it about this time?”

“Oh, everything and nothing.”

Mike slowly edged himself forward in the leather chair; then twisting his body to the right, he pressed

himself upwards until he was standing as straight as he was able to, then turned from the window and

walked slowly towards the cabinet at the far end of the room. He took out a bottle and two glasses, and

as he poured out the drinks, in a tone that was scarcely above a mutter, he asked, “Have you put her in

the picture?”

“No, of course I haven’t; nor have I any intention of doing so.”

“What if somebody else should?”

“That’s impossible. Who could, anyway? It would only be hearsay.”

“Aye. Aye, hearsay.” Mike turned now and said, “Come and get this; I think you need it.”

When Joe reached his side, Mike handed him the glass of neat whisky and, lifting up the other one, he

gazed at it before putting it to his lips, and in one gulp he threw it off and shuddered.

Then he put the

glass down and turned away, saying, “It was a damn silly thing to ask.”

“Then you shouldn’t have asked it.”

He reached his chair and sat down before he spoke again.

“You know what she told me the other day?” he said.

“What did she tell you?”

“Well, I asked her what she thought about startin’ a family and she told me you had both agreed that

such annoying trivialities and those are the very words she used, although she laughed when she said them

weren’t going to interrupt your life for the next two or three years. So what do you have to say about

that?

Is it true? “

“No.”

Mike looked at Joe, who was draining his glass, and he repeated, “No?”

“That’s what I said, no.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I think that what she needs is some responsibility; she wants to run something, rule someone.

She’s finding me difficult, so I thought the best thing’ he paused now, thrust out his lips, nodded his head

slowly and ended ‘was to start a small army for her and as soon as possible.”

The laughter that erupted from Mike sounded as if it was coming from a great robust

healthy body. His

head was back and hanging to the side, one hand was pressing against his ribs. And Joe, looking at him,

laughed too, but his laughter was more in the nature of a deep chuckle and the essence of it was not

caused by the admission of his own deviousness but by the sight of his father’s

enjoyment. Mike now sat

rubbing his face with a large mottled silk handkerchief and the laughter was still bubbling in him as he

said, “Aye well, I’ve got to hand it to you. Talk about a cunning young bugger. Has it taken?”

“I don’t know yet; time’s young.”

“Well, well, there’s one thing sure, you’ve got 69 your head screwed on the right way, lad.”

As Joe looked at his father he knew that his admission of tricking his wife into

conceiving, if such should

happen, had pleased him more than if he had come up in a straightforward way and said that Elly was

going to have a baby; and it proved one thing conclusively to him: his father didn’t like her any more than

those in the kitchen did, or those in the cottage.

“Well, I’ve got to go,” he said.

“Oh, and by the way, I’d almost forgotten to tell you, the London visit has borne fruit at last: we got an

order this morning for a thousand cases, a third of them with fancy beading.”

“Good! Good!”

“Be seeing you.”

“Be seeing you, lad.”

As Joe reached the door, Mike twisted around in his chair and said softly, “I think I’d better have a

thicker carpet put in here’ he motioned towards the floor ‘against the day when she finds out you’ve

done it on her.”

Joe’s only answer to this was a jerk of the chin, and as he went down the stairs and made for his wife’s

sitting-room again, he was thinking it would take more than a carpet to smother her

reactions if his

trickery were to work out as he hoped it would.

But Elaine did not even raise her voice when she discovered she was pregnant; she was too shocked

and dumbfounded, and at first she would not accept the evidence her body was presenting to her. Her

monthly cycle had always been irregular but it had never caused her distress, being

merely an

inconvenience.

Her first bout of morning sickness took place on a Sunday, and she put it down to the roast duck she’d

eaten at the dinner-dance in Newcastle the previous evening. This, together with a

number of cocktails,

must, she thought, be the cause of the upset. She lay in bed until noon, and Joe sat by her side for quite

some time holding her hand and stroking her damp forehead while she talked

intermittently about the

future, the near future, the autumn.

Couldn’t they go up to town and spend a few weeks with her Uncle Turnbull? He’d be so glad to have

them because they would be like paying guests. It was very embarrassing for her uncle to be reduced to

that state, but there it was, he couldn’t afford to entertain any other way now. There was so much on in

town in the autumn and if they could get Cousin Kathryn up out of the depths of the

country, her name

was a key that fitted so 7i many doors they would be invited to all kinds of functions. She placed her

fingers around his bony wrist as she ended this statement:

“You could be gay, you know, Joe, if you’d only let yourself go. Why, last night at the table you had

everyone rocking. You were very witty. Do you know that? Not just humorous, but really witty.”

“Was I?” His reply sounded inane.

“I didn’t know there was any difference.”

She slapped his arm.

“Don’t be silly,” she said.

“But what about it, going up to town, I mean?”

“We’ll see.” When he rose from the bed she pulled herself upwards against the pillows and coaxed

further: “Joe! Joe, I want an answer.”

“And you want it to be yes?”

“Please.”

“I’m ... I’m sorry, Elly; it’s no good making a promise that I might have to break. I’ve got a business to

see to, and things are precarious; you know they are. Our men are being subjected to all kinds of insults,