Mingled With Venom

‘Oh, yes, Miss Ruby. You takes after your ma in that as in other matters, I reckon. She was never more than Miss, neither, as my understanding of it goes.’

Ruby stepped forward and smacked Mattie hard across the face. It caught the bridge of her nose as well, and blood appeared.

‘—you, you bloody little jumped-up snotty little—!’ said Mattie. With the edge of a man-hard hand she caught Ruby across the throat. Ruby gave a strangled yelp and fell sobbing upon the downland turf.

‘Oh, Mattie!’ said Fiona, stooping over the choking, sobbing girl. ‘Her throat! You shouldn’t have done that! You might ruin her voice.’

‘Take away her living, same as that old woman have tooken away mine?’ muttered Mattie, going towards the stables. By the time she returned, leading Brutus, Ruby was heading towards the house. Mattie, without a word, saw Fiona mounted and then went into her brother’s cottage. Fiona loosed Brutus into a canter towards where the formidable headland, brown and grey and purple-shadowed, reared up its menacing tip like the blunt-headed crest of some prehistoric monster about to fall upon and devour the tiny rocky island just beyond it.

Fiona dismounted, leaving the quiet gelding to graze. From the ledges below, a climbing figure in an impeding tweed skirt came up slowly by way of a track more suitable for goats than for human beings, reached the short grass at the top, heaved itself over and sat down to pant and rest.

‘Well, madre, you’re out early,’ said Fiona. ‘Ought you really to scramble about on the cliffs like that? It can’t be good for you, and you might easily tumble again.’

‘I didn’t tumble, and of course it’s good for me,’ said Romula, ‘and it’s perfectly safe so near the house. Besides, I don’t feel old while I can still do it. A grand view from here, I always think.’

‘Yes, better than the view from Smugglers.’

‘Didn’t Ruby go riding with you this morning?’

‘No. She and Mattie fell out.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘I don’t really know. I think Ruby thought Mattie wasn’t respectful enough to her.’

‘Why should she be? They were at school together.’

‘Perhaps you have given Ruby an inflated idea of her own importance.’

‘She wants a flat in town. I’ve told her it’s out of the question. If a student’s hostel isn’t good enough for her she had better come home and study locally. What happened between the two of them?’

‘Nothing really. It was just a girlish set-to.’

‘Physical violence, you mean?’

‘Oh, nothing to signify. Unfortunately Ruby began it and Mattie retaliated. Ruby will give you her version when you get back, I expect.’

‘I’m leaving Mattie the horses if I don’t outlive them.’

‘I hope you will, madre.’

‘Give her the horses, or outlive them?’

‘Come, now, you know perfectly well what I meant.’

‘You walked yourself out of my house.’

‘And now I’ve walked myself in again.’

‘You will be dependent upon Maria for a home when I go.’

‘Have you left her anything with which to maintain me?’

‘ “Twere good she do so much for charity” ’ said Romula, with a sardonic chuckle.

‘I don’t want charity. I want my rights.’

‘And what do you suppose those are?’

‘You took me in and have cared for me. If Maria had not been widowed and so had not come back to you, would your provision for her have been different?’

‘You mean to ask whether, in such a case, Headlands would have been left to you?’

‘I have served you well.’

‘A paid employee would have been less expensive.’

‘I need to know where I stand. Are you really going to leave me nothing?’

‘Is that what you gathered at last night’s meeting?’

‘I was left with little alternative.’

‘Were you not? If you left me once, you may leave me again. Why should I continue to provide for you after my death?’

‘Because you have given me no chance to train for any kind of profession which would allow me to provide for myself.’

‘I needed your companionship. I shall no longer need it when I am in my grave.’

‘Would it have made any difference if I had not gone to live at Seawards?’