CHAPTER NINE #2
She shook her head, moving towards the centre of the room, so that Denzell, still holding her hand, came with her willy-nilly. Betsey’s face appeared at the door.
“It’s him, Miss Verena,” she hissed. “I saw him from the window.”
“Yes, I know. Go, Betsey. Bring him up.”
The maid disappeared and Verena turned on Denzell, unaware that her fingers clung to his even as she pushed at his chest as if she would dislodge him from her presence.
“Denzell, pray go! I must see him alone, for I have much that must be said to him — and I don’t know how long I have before Mama gets back.”
“But, Verena —”
“You need have no fear at leaving me with him,” she interrupted. “He is my stepfather.”
Denzell only just prevented himself from blurting out that he already knew it.
Nor could he say he feared for Verena’s safety at the hands of a man who was a known wife-beater.
Adam had stated that Verena never gave her stepfather cause for attacking her, but she looked at this moment as if she might well do so.
Frustrated at being unable to speak his real fears, he could say nothing.
Verena was listening for the voices downstairs, and then the footsteps coming up. She dragged her hand out of Denzell’s.
“Too late! Promise me you will go the moment he arrives in here.”
What could he do? He had offered his friendship, and his support. If she refused the latter, what more was there to be said? Friendship dictated that he respect her wishes.
“Very well,” he sighed.
Verena nodded. She could hear the footsteps coming up now, and she had no attention to spare for Denzell. It occurred to her that his presence had been of help, for she was no longer in a state of fear. Her control was back, and she faced the door in the sure knowledge of her own capable strength.
Betsey pushed the door open, saying as she entered, “It’s the master, Miss Verena.”
Nathaniel Peverill came in behind her, and paused on the threshold, his hooded eyes passing from Verena to Denzell and back again. His lean features were drawn, etched with deeper carven lines from nose to mouth, and the sunken hollows under his eyes were dark with shadow.
Verena noted these signs of suffering, and could not but rejoice in her heart.
The very sight of him filled her with a renewal of the hatred she had nurtured through the years, and she was conscious of an intense satisfaction that he had experienced even a tithe of the torture with which he had broken Mama’s spirit.
She could not speak, for fear she might express these thoughts in words.
Nathaniel broke the silence, in a voice heavy with suspicion.
“Are you not going to present me, Verena?”
Instinctively, Denzell’s glance went to Verena and he almost gasped out.
Did she hate the man that much? Her eyes pierced like twin daggers and there was tension in the air.
It must be long since these two had met, but there was evidently to be no exchange of greetings.
And Verena, it was clear, had no intention of introducing him.
He bowed. “My name is Hawkeridge, sir.”
The other eyed him appraisingly, looking again at Verena. He nodded, and began to remove his greatcoat.
“I am Peverill. You will excuse us, I trust. I wish to speak with my daughter alone.”
Verena found her tongue. She almost spat the words. “I am not your daughter!”
Denzell saw the man’s eyes flash, and his jaw tighten.
A glimpse of possibilities that filled him with instant comprehension.
There was a black temper here, a temper unused to be crossed — particularly by this slip of a girl.
Yet he was in a delicate position. Everything in him urged him to champion Verena, refuse to leave.
But on what grounds? The man had not offered her violence, and Verena had already asked him several times to go.
It was Betsey who settled the matter. Having received the greatcoat Squire Peverill handed to her, she made frantic signals behind the man’s back indicative of her urgent desire that Denzell should absent himself from the scene. He took one more look at Verena’s set face, and capitulated.
He turned to Verena. “I will leave you, Miss Chaceley — unless you feel you would wish me to remain.”
Verena, her sight and mind filled only with the loathed figure before her, scarcely heard him. The concept reached her only as a faint wisp of interruption in the intensity of her concentration. Her eyes never left the man’s face, and she uttered the one word, “Go.”
Denzell gave an inward sigh, but he bowed and nodded to Peverill as he passed him, noting the careful neatness of his dress, despite a carriage journey. No doubt but the man had come a-courting.
Betsey seized his arm and drew him from the room, closing the door behind them both. When Denzell would have spoken, she put a finger to her lips and set her ear to the woodwork. Perforce, Denzell listened also. Peverill it was who spoke first.
“You have practised a fine deceit upon me all this time, Verena,” he said in a voice that spoke his sense of outrage.
“Through how many years have you shown that modest and docile exterior, when all the while you were planning to practise this shameful trick upon me? Was that done as I deserved? Have I not ever taken care of you, used you as if you were truly my own flesh and blood?”
Verena’s voice came then, vibrant with scorn.
“I thank heaven you have not. I pity Adam, that he is obliged to carry your blood in his veins. But I, sir, am a Chaceley born, and though I blame my father’s family for their treatment of Mama, I say only, God forgive them.
But if I am to endure to hear you speak of your deserts, Nathaniel Peverill, then I answer you this: may you burn in hell! ”
There was a silence. Denzell saw Betsey stand up straight again, throwing a hand to her capacious bosom and rolling her eyes.
He was not surprised. He was shocked to hear Verena dare so far.
Deuce take it, was she mad? Although it seemed as if Peverill knew not how to reply to her words. To his relief, he heard the man laugh.
“You amaze me, Verena,” he said. “I did not think you had it in you.”
Betsey visibly relaxed. “All’s well,” she whispered, and shooed at Denzell to move him along the corridor towards the stair head, collecting his hat along the way from the stand in the hallway.
“But can we safely leave her there?” he asked in a low tone, receiving the beaver from her. “Is she not in danger from him if she speaks in such a provocative way?”
It did not seem as if the maid was surprised to hear him talk of Verena thus. She shook her head, ushering him down the stairs.
“Never you fret, sir. It ain’t defiance as angers him. He won’t touch her.”
“How can you be so sure?” Denzell demanded out of his own deep concern.
“I know him too well. He won’t do nothing ’til the mistress has shown her face. It’s her as he’s come to see. Besides, Mr Adam will be here. Believe me, sir, if I feared for her, I wouldn’t be letting you go.”
This was a touch comforting, although Denzell would have preferred to remain within call. But he did not see how he could. He had no rights here, and Verena had made it clear she did not wish him to intervene.
A thought struck him and he paused at the front door, eyeing the maid in a speculative way. “You would not care to explain what she meant by her words about her mother’s family, the Chaceleys?”
Betsey pursed her lips. “No, I wouldn’t. If you win the right to it, Mr Hawkeridge, she’ll tell you herself.”
He grimaced. “If I win the right.”
“Go now, if you please, sir,” the maid said, opening the door. “Family business, this is.” Then she shut him out of the house.
Denzell remained on the doorstep for a moment or two, glancing up at the window above.
There was nothing to be heard, and the maid was right.
It was family business. Cheered by her words about his possible rights, he moved off, albeit reluctantly, in the direction of the Ruishton home.
The travelling carriage had gone, presumably so that the servants might refresh themselves at some inn.
Evidently Squire Peverill expected to be here for some time.
He crossed the garden and passed into the open space of ground where Verena had once helped the children to build a snowman.
Then he paused and looked back. It was with some measure of relief that he saw Adam and Mrs Peverill turning into the drive of the lodging house.
He wondered what might be the outcome once they discovered the new arrival above stairs.
In the parlour Verena was listening to her stepfather with a slight cooling of her rage, now that she had discharged some of it.
She had need of her composure, for the last thing she wished to do was provoke him into some precipitate action that might lead to disaster.
Besides, she had to state her unalterable intentions against his own.
But it was very difficult to maintain even a vestige of calm in his presence, now he knew her mask for what it was. Long habit reasserted itself, however, and although she could not abate one jot of her defiant hatred, she did manage to bring her face under control.
“Whatever your personal feelings, Verena,” he was saying, in a voice of persuasive calm, “you must surely see that you have no right to encourage a man’s wife to run away from him.”
“We are not talking of a man’s wife,” she responded, her voice cold. “We are talking of my mother.”
“There is no tie more binding than the marriage contract. Not even the blood tie. It is sacred, you see, and you, Verena, have come between us. You do not seem to realise the extreme seriousness of what you have done.”
“Do I not?” Verena asked, and a contemptuous smile curled her lips. “You mistake me, sir. You should be glad of this misdemeanour of mine. For if I had been obliged to remain at home and watch my Mama suffer, I would have taken a pistol to your head.”