“Abigail! Would you leave me, Abigail? I am your husband. You belong here. What of your vows? You owe me a duty, Abigail.”
At that, all the pent-up emotion in Verena erupted. “You vile monster!” she threw at him. “She owes you nothing. You have destroyed her life!”
Nathaniel barely glanced her way. “You are not leaving me, Abigail.”
Then, wasting no more words, he moved, striding towards his wife. Mrs Peverill cried out in fear, and Betsey screamed. Verena, knowing that she could not afford to fail now, tried to shift Mama away that she might avoid him. But Mrs Peverill,terrified, was rooted to the floor. In seconds, Nathaniel was upon them. Hardly glancing where he struck, he flung the back of one hand at Verena’s face, beating her aside.
Then he seized his wife.
Half-falling, Verena caught at the maid, who steadied her, clucking in fright and anger, and then grabbing at Verena’s beaver hat that dropped from its place and rolled. But Verena had no ears for this, no eyes for anything but Mama, held between two iron fists of a man insane with fury.
“Adam!” she screamed. “Help us!”
Her brother had seemed to stand transfixed, hardly able to take in the scene. But as his father struck out at Verena, something snapped in his head. Filial duty was forgotten. By the time his sister called for his aid, he had flung off his beaver, tossed aside his whip and gloves, and was already halfway across the hall.
At nineteen, Adam had not the half of his father’s physical strength. But a flying leap threw him onto the man’s back, the sheer weight of the impact driving Nathaniel to the floor. Verena shrieked in unison with Betsey, for his hold was so strong that he took his wife with him.
But Adam, scrambling free, wrenched his mother out of the now slackened grasp, and shoved her to one side with some violence.
Verena was on her haunches, dragging Mama to bring her to her feet, the maid at her side in an instant.
She saw, with a sense of shock, her brother fling himself on top of Nathaniel, holding him down only by virtue of the fact that the breath had been knocked from his father’s body by his fall.
Hardly had Verena and Betsey drawn the shocked and bewildered Mrs Peverill back onto her unsteady feet, her bonnet awry and her dress disarranged, than Nathaniel was seen to berecovering, letting out a roar more frightening than the earlier menace of his angry tongue.
Adam drew back a fist and slammed it into his father’s face.
“Adam!” Verena shrieked in shock.
“Go!” he yelled, as Nathaniel’s head recoiled under the blow, hitting at the hard tiling of the floor. “Go, Verena! Take her, for the love of God!”
Gathering her wits, Verena caught at her mother’s shoulders.
“Come on, Mama! Betsey, quick! There is no saying how long Adam can hold him. Hurry, we must hurry!”
Betsey was quick to follow her lead, catching at her mistress on the other side, still clutching Verena’s beaver in one hand, as Squire Peverill’s fist rose up against his own son, the two of them writhing on the tiled floor.
“God bless you, Adam!” Verena shouted as, with Betsey’s help, she half-carried Mama, the grunts and thuds of the continuing fight ringing in her ears, and ran her out of the wide hall, and into the blaze of sunshine where the coach awaited to take them into a new life.
But it was a life, she thought, coming back to the present, which was not having the effect she had envisaged. Mama had not bloomed — far from it.
They had left, in the end, like animals fleeing a forest fire, the coach rattling down the drive at breakneck speed. How Mama had wept, even as Betsey had tidied her with frantic haste — as if it had mattered how they looked at such a moment. How she herself had sat, shuddering in the aftermath of that horrid scene, barely aware of the pulsing throb in her cheek, beset by visions of Nathaniel, riding like the devil in pursuit, afraid every moment that all would have been in vain.
Verena could only suppose that Adam must have got the better of his father, for there had never been any sign of his comingafter them, and since no one knew where they were, there was no finding out the truth of what might have happened at home.
Home,she thought bleakly. In that, Mama had spoken truth. They had no home. Was it that? Was it the loss of all she had possessed, all the familiarity of the world she had known, that precluded her recovery? It could not be the loss of Nathaniel. It could not be that.No, no, Mama.That she would never be brought to believe. But if not that, then why could Mama not rest easy? It was almost as if she had abandoned any idea of life, had lost the will to live. Or was her spirit so broken that she wanted to die?
The thought was so painful that Verena drew on a sobbing breath, putting up a hand ready to dash at the threatening tears. The movement of her own fingers threw her eyes into present focus, and she gasped out loud.
She had halted stock-still in the middle of the common, and standing directly before her was Mr Denzell Hawkeridge, his figure exaggerated in size by a greatcoat with several capes, and a curly-brimmed beaver atop his tied-back fair hair. He was staring in blank astonishment at her unguarded face.
For an instant or two, Verena stared back, still so enmeshed in her own dismal thoughts that she did not even remember that she must drag herself back into that habitual iron control. But as the expressive face before her began to react to the fact that she was aware of him, a look of concern replacing the amazement, and his lips forming as if they might speak, Verena struggled to master her own countenance.
She felt inside as much turmoil as ever, but the habitual blankness to which she had assiduously trained herself reasserted its stamp upon her face.
“How do you do, Miss Chaceley?” Denzell said, doffing his hat, and watching with close attention as the ravaged features regained their former serenity.
He could scarcely believe the evidence of his own eyes. Had he not seen it for himself, he would never have imagined that a face could alter so radically. But a moment ago, there was a world of distress reflected there. Now one would have sworn that there could be not a ripple of emotion that would disturb these placid features.
