Read Online With Love From Ma Maguire by Ruth Hamilton - Free Book Online

being gentry, I suppose. They’d no money, your lot, but they had class, you see. As for me – well, I dare say we’ll never make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear . . .’
    ‘Richard!’ She jumped to her feet, embroidery frame and cottons tumbling on to the carpet. ‘This is Christmas—’
    ‘I know. I just want the air cleared and I reckon Christmas is as good a time as any. We’re coming to the end of a year, starting another . . . I think it’s time we swept a few cobwebs out. I’m grateful for the two lads, glad you gave this house a future. But we don’t love one another, do we? Be honest, Beatrice.’
    ‘Honest? What would you know about honesty? How many . . . ?’ She bit back the rest of this sentence before she went too far.
    ‘How many women?’ His voice was almost a whisper. ‘One or two, that’s about the size of it. But I never expected much passion from a wife, so it’s not your fault. However, I thought I should let you know that there’ll be no further need for you to make excuses, because I’ll not be visiting your bedroom again.’
    Her eyes narrowed into thin grey slits. ‘I see. So this is my Christmas gift?’
    ‘No. I gave you a pearl necklace, did I not?’
    ‘Indeed. One you had sent up from London. You didn’t take care to choose it, did you?’
    ‘I haven’t the time! The mills don’t run themselves, my dear. Managers are all very well, but they need watching. If I weren’t on their backs all the time they’d slacken off and let the workforce have a party every day. It’s a delicate business, is cotton, with a fine line between profit and loss. I can’t afford to take my finger off the pulse, or they’d all be spending their days leaning on walls. Can’t trust any of them – they want paying for nothing, that’s the top and bottom of it. There’s no room for charity in my game . . .’
    ‘And charity begins at home, doesn’t it, Richard? Or does it begin with your mistresses?’ She made for the door, her back rigidly straight. Part way across the carpet, she turned to look at him. ‘I shall not make your life easy, Richard Swainbank, because you have ruined mine. Yes, I know I’m just a woman, a creature of no importance. You can cast me from your bed, but not from your house. No, you’d never live with the disgrace, would you? But let me inform you here and now that I am not terribly interested in you or in your sons. Yes, they are my boys too and if they had a different father, another surname, then I should probably love them. But whatever you do from now on will be no concern of mine.’ She spoke quietly, evenly, not a trace of malice colouring her voice. In fact, she might just as well have been reading from a shopping list – or the Bible, come to that.
    ‘Beatrice?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Have you no spirit, no temper?’
    She moved her eyes slowly down to his feet, an expression of disdain covering her face. ‘I think I had spirit once. You killed it. Why should I waste time and energy on temper when I really don’t care what you do or say? At least I tried, Richard. Perhaps my efforts have not been good enough, perhaps my unhappiness has shown through too easily. But for you to do this thing at Christmas, a time that has always meant much to me.’ She shook her head. ‘In future, I shall spend the season with my parents. They are civilized.’
    He jumped to his feet and brought a heavy hand on to the mantel shelf. ‘Can’t you fight me, for God’s sake? Have you no pride, no anger at all?’ He stared at the woman he’d married, still thin in the face where she’d wanted flesh, yet wide around the hips where she could well have done without it. And a vivid picture of Philly Maguire flashed across his brain, obliterating all else in the room. Tall and grand of posture, black hair coiled about her head . . . if ever a woman had been born to the wrong class, then that was the one, because any man would be glad of such a fine item