The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [132]
Belinda was young and not very wise. She had been foolish enough to accept the compliments of her beaux at their face value, and after a heady year as a reigning belle had come to expect adulation, approval and envy as her due. She had, in fact, become insufferably set up in her own esteem, and having flaunted the handsome George as one of her conquests, she could not endure the thought of what several jealous young ladies would have to say when they discovered how she had been hoodwinked. How dare George lie to her and make a fool of her? – that, in effect, was her instinctive reaction to Mrs Gidney's disclosures. The pathos of George's lies and posturing, the personal tragedy that underlay it and the humiliation that he must now be suffering were aspects of the affair that she had not even thought of, for in the shock of discovery she could only think of how it might affect Miss Belinda Harlowe.
Ash was the first person apart from her Mama and George himself to whom she had been able to unburden herself of all the pent-up forces of resentment and wounded vanity that had been accumulating within her ever since she learned of George's duplicity, and she found it a great relief. But to Ash, listening to the angry spate of words, it was the final betrayal: the collapse of all that he had believed her to be – sweet, kind, innocent and good. The owner of this shrewish voice was none of those things. She was a worldly and grasping woman who was prepared to marry an old, fat man for the sake of money and position. A heartless snob who could judge a man and condemn him for the sins of his grandparents, and an evil-tongued virago who was not above ruining a man's reputation in order to save a few scratches on her own.
He had not spoken or made any attempt to interrupt the tirade, but his disgust must have shown plainly on his face, for Belinda's voice rose suddenly and her hand darted out with the swiftness of a cat's paw to slap his cheek with a violence that jerked his head back and made her palm tingle.
The action took them both by surprise, and for a frozen moment they stared at each other in mutual horror, too startled to speak. Then Ash said grandly: ‘Thank you,’ and Belinda burst into tears and whirling round, ran to the door, which was, of course, locked.
It was at this juncture that the crunch of wheels on gravel announced the inopportune return of Major and Mrs Harlowe, and the next ten minutes had been, to say the least of it, confused. By the time Ash had been able to get the key out of his pocket and unlock the door, Belinda was in hysterics, and her startled parents were greeted by the sight of a sobbing, screaming daughter bursting out of the drawing-room to rush wildly across the hall and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her with a bang that reverberated through the bungalow.
Major Harlowe had been the first to recover himself, and what he had had to say on the subject of Ash's manners and general disposition had made unpleasant hearing. Mrs Harlowe had contributed nothing to the interview, having hurried away to comfort her afflicted daughter, and her husband's trenchant summing-up of Ash's character had been conducted against a background of muffled wails and agitated maternal appeals to know what that ‘horrid boy’ had been doing.
‘I intend to take this up with your Commanding Officer,’ announced Major Harlowe in conclusion, ‘and I am warning you that if I ever catch you so much as attempting to speak to my daughter again, I shall take great pleasure in giving you the thrashing you so richly deserve. Now get out.’
He had given Ash no opportunity to speak, and even if he had done so there was very little to be said that would not have exacerbated the situation still further; apart from an abject apology, which might possibly have been accepted, though it would not have changed anything. But Ash had no intention of apologizing. The boot, he considered, should be on the other foot, and he had confirmed the Major's opinion