A Bugle For The New Day

                                                     Chapter two, part three

The door opened and Flora caught him with a hand clutching his stomach, her grey shot silk gown edged in black velvet with white guipure lace at the throat giving her, even at that early time of day, the appearance of having just stepped out of a portrait.

He quickly took his hand from rubbing his waistcoat and she noticed but ignored it.  “Pardon the intrusion,” she said in a tight voice. “I am about to go into town and thought you would wish to know.”

“Oh,” he replied with an audible sigh, “what is it this time?”

“I am only going into Dolgelly, not Bond Street,” she stabbed back at him, blue eyes cutting glass. “The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, you must have heard of it.”

“Been invited have we?” he said with ill humour.

Flora gave him a pained look. “Since you are so occupied in other directions, it falls on me to sit on the committee. Not that I particularly enjoy it, but we do have a duty to uphold, even here.”

“I thought the matter already settled. A cottage Hospital, in Towyn or somewhere. The illustrious John Corbett, our renowned philanthropist, is he not footing the bill, throwing his money about, as he usually does?” He spoke with heavy sarcasm and she flushed.

Good man that he is,” she replied, noticing with pleasure the curl to his lip at her defence of Corbett, “he should not be expected to provide on every occasion. Particularly this.”

He flopped into the chair behind his desk with sudden indifference, looked up at her with an amused expression. “Maybe, my dear,” he said, “it is his way of easing his conscience.”

“In that case, your name should be first on the list,” she snapped, and she instantly regretted it. His face had darkened, his eyes turned to steel, but his voice when it came was steady, controlled. “I am growing tired of your little game, Flora. Three years we have been here now and still you act out this- melodrama. If it is your way of protesting, and it seems to be, do you not realise after all this time that it is getting you nowhere? This constant friction between us does you no credit and is grossly unfair to me. I should not have to put up with this sort of thing in my position. And no longer am I going to….”

“I have been patient and tolerant. I know you will think differently; I am an ogre of some sort to you, but goddamnit, woman, you are my wife and I expect you to act as such! What does the good book say? Whither thou gouest there shall also go. Any why are you any different? Countless women would count themselves lucky to be in your shoes. When I think-”

His voice failed him. He had noticed tears beginning to swim in her eyes, not yet brimming over, but causing the azure depths to quiver, and not because he had quoted the Bible to suit his own ends. He never knew how to deal with tears, especially women’s tears. They could be turned on at a strategic moment to obtain an advantage, but there was always the possibility of them being genuine. Whichever way you looked at tears they were still sings of weakness, and there was no glory in conquering weakness…

© Mark Pearson 2007

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