Night Over Water - Ken Follett [172]
“Thousands of girls have joined the A.T.S.,” Margaret said, but her voice was a feeble whisper.
“Not girls like you,” he said. “Tough girls, perhaps, who are used to getting up early in the morning and scrubbing floors, but not pampered debutantes. And God forbid that you should find yourself in any kind of danger—you’d turn to jelly!”
She remembered how incapable she had been in the blackout—scared and helpless and panicky—and she burned with shame. He was right—she had turned to jelly. But she would not always be frightened and defenseless. He had done his utmost to make her powerless and dependent, but she was fiercely determined to be her own person, and she kept that flame of hope flickering even as she cringed under his onslaught.
He pointed his finger at her and his eyes bulged so much they looked as if they would burst. “You won’t last a week in an office, and you wouldn’t last a day in the A.T.S.,” he said malevolently. “You’re just too soft.” He sat back, looking self-satisfied.
Harry came and sat beside Margaret. Taking out a crisp linen handkerchief, he dabbed her wet cheeks gently.
Father said: “And as for you, young fellow-me-lad—”
Harry got up out of his seat in a flash and rounded on Father. Margaret gasped, thinking there was going to be a fight. Harry said: “Don’t dare to speak to me that way. I’m not a girl. I’m a grown man, and if you insult me I’ll punch your fat head.”
Father subsided into silence.
Harry turned his back on Father and sat down beside Margaret again.
Margaret was upset, but in her heart she felt a sense of triumph. She had told him that she was leaving. He had raged and jeered, and he had reduced her to tears, but he had not changed her mind: she was still going to leave.
Nonetheless, he had succeeded in fostering a doubt. She had already been worried that she might not have the courage to go through with her plans, might be paralyzed with anxiety at the last minute. He had inflamed that doubt with his mockery and derision. She had never done anything courageous in her entire life: could she manage it now? Yes, I will, she thought. I’m not too soft, and I’ll prove it.
He had discouraged her, but he had failed to make her change course. However, he might not have given up yet. She looked over Harry’s shoulder. Father was staring out of the window with a malevolent face. Elizabeth had defied him, but he had banished her, and she might never see her family again.
What awful revenge was he planning for Margaret?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Diana Lovesey was thinking mournfully that true love did not last long.
When Mervyn first fell for her, he had delighted in catering to her every desire, the more capricious the better. At a moment’s notice he was ready to drive to Blackpool for a stick of rock candy, take an afternoon off and go to the cinema, or drop everything and fly to Paris. He was happy to visit every shop in Manchester looking for a cashmere scarf in just the right shade of blue-green, leave a concert halfway through because she was bored, or get up at five in the morning and go for breakfast at a workingmen’s café. But this attitude had not lasted long after the wedding. He rarely denied her anything, but he soon ceased to take pleasure in gratifying her whims. Delight turned to tolerance and then impatience and sometimes, toward the end, contempt.
Now she was wondering whether her relationship with Mark would follow the same pattern.
All summer he had been her slave, but now, within days of their running away together, they had had a row. On the second night of their elopement they had been so mad at each other that they had slept apart! In the middle of the night, when the storm broke and the plane bucked and tossed like a wild horse, Diana had been so frightened that she almost swallowed her pride and went to Mark’s bunk; but that would have been too humiliating, so she had just lain still, thinking she was going to die. She had hoped he would come to her, but he had been just as proud as she, and that had made her madder