“Peg!” she said, her eyes straying to the bodice with the rent in it.
“Bring the sloe wine and two glasses. Bring the new seedcake too … And Peg’ she bent her head to whisper “see that the tray is clean.” Peg departed; Harriet returned to George, who smiled at her in a secret kind of way.
She said apologetically: “One has to watch those girls all the time. I never saw such a pair.”
“You’re a wonderful woman, Harriet,” he said, and he rocked backwards and forwards on his heels.
She was in a sudden panic. She thought he was going to ask her to marry him, and she could not shut out the thought of him and some of the stories she had heard about him. That nurse-housekeeper person who, it was said, shared his bed besides looking after his children … a small virago of a woman, with flashing black eyes and thin mouth which never seemed to close properly, a bad creature if Harriet knew anything about badness and, of course, being a parson’s daughter, she knew a great deal.
“Your house is a credit to you, Harriet, upon my word it is. Ah! Here comes the sloe wine. Your sloe wine beats any other sloe wine in the country. I always say.”
To Harriet’s practical mind such remarks were a direct approach to a proposal of marriage.
“It is good of you to say so, George.”
“Good? No I Only truthful, and you know it, Harriet.” Peg stood before him with the tray; he did not look at her, but he knew she was smiling slyly, the consciously impudent smile of the underling who knows herself to be desired. Desire levels all social barriers… momentarily. Momentarily, he would have her know; still, she would never understand however he tried to explain. There would be no need to explain. You could thrash her one moment, abuse her, treat her as the workhouse brat she was, and the next minute she would be smiling at you like that. Impudent slut! He preferred the other one, though still he preferred this one any hour of the day or night to poor, old Harriet.
He took the glass, ignored Peg, and lifted it.
“To you, Harriet! Long life and happiness; you deserve it.”
“Thank you, George. I wish the same good things to you.” He cleared his throat. He was enjoying this. Even Harriet, flat-chested, prim old Harriet, wanted him. This was how he liked it to be. He needed something like it. by God! That haughty girl in the inn had unnerved him. Not coquetry, either; not urging him on. Just flouting him as, years ago, her mother had flouted him.
He was not given to self-analysis, but he did know that Bess had done something to him years ago when she had teased him and tormented him and promised to marry him; and then gone off with a third-rate actor. He had never forgotten Bess. Always he was trying for that satisfaction which he was sure Bess alone could have given him, and it never came … not with any of them. That was why there were so many; that was why he was brutal with them sometimes, and sometimes incredibly soft. Always searching, and all because of Bess. He had often thought that if he had Bess alone with him at certain times he would have put his hand round that white neck of hers and strangled the life out of her. She deserved it. Mustn’t think of Bess; it made the blood rush into his face, made the veins stand out; too much of that and he’d have to be bled again. But there was something in him. a little sentimental something that held an ideal. Squire! It was a grand title. He was proud of it, proud of his lands and his horses, proud of the position he held there. He liked to see : them curtsy on the road as he passed, their eyes full of reverence for him; but there were saucy sluts like these two from the workhouse who would smile a different smile and toss their heads; then he would be angry with himself for the dignity he I had lost; for. though he could thrash them and take them when he wished, he could not drive out of their eyes that look which showed so clearly that they understood that he was a man who could not do without women. Whatever their station, they knew it; they held it over him … like Peg smirking there when her mistress wasn’t looking. And it was all due to Bess. Bess alone could have satisfied him. He could see her now, never could forget her in fact, laughing as he chased her round the tombstones: long blue eyes with golden lashes, luring, tormenting him with the knowledge of him and of all men which she must have been born with and which was a gift from the blacksmith’s! daughter. Married to Bess he would have sustained his dignity; there would have been no sly scuffling, no stolen moments with the kitchenmaids. no humiliations. What a family they would have been. They would have had children, plenty of them, for Bess was made to bear children and he was made to beget children. He would have had to keep a curbing hand on Bess, but he would have liked that, just as he liked his horses to have spirit; and by now she would be close on forty; he would be seeing some of the wildness go out of her, and he would be glad of it. They would be popular. The best squire and squire’s lady ever known in these parts! He was a good squire now … at times.; Often he was ready to take an interest in his people; a helping! hand here; a word of advice there. But if Bess had been with him; all these years it would have been different. He knew they said! of him: “Squire ain’t a bad squire, for all he can’t keep his lecher’s eyes off our daughters!” They would not have said that if Bess had been with him. But now regrets were tempered with! amusement. He drew himself up to his full height, which was: close on six feet. His clothes were those of a country squire,! sober in colour, useful rather than elegant, but today he was!
wearing fine lace at his throat and wrists. And Harriet, one of the few women who had never made him feel a spark of desire, was standing before him getting excited because he complimented her on her sloe wine.
Cruelty leaped up into his eyes. He was always most cruel when his pride was touched. Inwardly he laughed at Harriet, because Harriet’s niece had scorned him. He foresaw fun; he was a man of his age, and fun to him meant laughing at someone in a weaker position than the one he enjoyed himself.
Life had been unkind to him. First offering Bess, then snatching her away; and then he had married Amelia. Poor long-suffering Amelia, whose mild submission to his passionate onslaughts infuriated him. She thought him coarse and vulgar; she had never said so; she was too deeply aware of her wifely duty to criticize her husband, but unspoken criticism had been more difficult to bear for a man of his temperament. He had determined to put her out of countenance; perhaps that was why he had flaunted Jennifer before her.
He thought of Jennifer now, as he smiled at Harriet over the sloe wine. Jennifer’s fierce little body: Jennifer’s parted lips. Jennifer was a devil, but she amused him more than anyone had amused him since Bess; she gave him something of that satisfaction which he had always believed he would have got from Bess. Passionate and calculating, she was clever, methodically clever; she wanted to step up from children’s nurse and general housekeeper to mistress of the house. He knew it it made him laugh.
“What’s the point of marrying you, Jennifer? What do I get out of it, eh? I mean what more do I get out of it?” He could be decidedly cruel and blunt. He liked to watch her rage; he liked to see her stalk to the door, threaten to leave his house; he liked all that. He had said: “Be reasonable, Jennifer. Why should I marry you? You want children? All right have children!” What a rage she was in! But she wouldn’t go; she hoped she would beat him in the end. Never, Jennifer! Never, my dear!
He rocked backwards and forwards on his heels, and looked at Harriet.
“How you manage this house so well, with just those two sluts. I don’t know, Harry. I really do not. But soon you’ll be having your niece to help you.”
Harriet tossed her head.
“I’m not hoping for much from that quarter, I can tell you, George Haredon.”
He smiled; then he thought of her sitting in the window seat, looking so like Bess that he wanted to kill or make love to her, or perhaps both. When he half-closed his eyes he could almost see the red blood in them. He opened them and saw Harriet, very proud of her neat and orderly home, straight from her still-room. She’s got a body like a board! he thought, and tried to imagine himself married to her. Different from marriage to Amelia, of course, for however similar, no two women were alike. More spirit than Amelia, this one had. Would it be possible to raise the blacksmith’s daughter in her.