Flora hugged her tightly, alarmed to see the tears springing from Gilda’s eyes once more, but to her consternation, the woman pushed her away. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘I see you haven’t,’ Ben observed.
‘Leave us alone!’ she sobbed again. ‘Why do you want to taunt Flora too?’
‘Our mother wasn’t quite the upright woman she should have been, you know,’ he said relentlessly.
‘Few can reach your heights, I suppose,’ Flora said witheringly.
‘I use the whores when I can, but I’m not married,’ he said simply.
Flora opened her mouth, but then a horrible doubt assailed her and she looked at Gilda. Her mother was sitting quite still now, eyes firmly closed against the horror of her own son’s insults. ‘Mother?’
‘Why do you think Father has disappeared?’ Ben went on relentlessly. ‘Because he learned the truth about our mother – that she has been fucking Sir Ralph all the time she was married to him. I say “Father”, but perhaps “fool and cuckold” is fairer. Don’t you think so, Mother? “Cuckold” is so much more accurate than a silly term like “Father”, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t be so stupid, Ben,’ Flora said scathingly. ‘You don’t know what you’re on about, does he, Mother? It’s nonsense, isn’t it? Mother? Please, tell me it’s not true!’ Seeing the woman sitting with eyes still firmly closed as though in denial that this conversation was going on around her, she thought Gilda looked more like a carven figure than her real, flesh and blood parent.
She only turned away when she heard her father’s voice in the doorway. ‘Yes, deny it, woman, if you can!’
Huward was a different man from he who had left this home the day before. Since leaving, he had found that the whole foundation of his life was a lie. The love he thought he possessed from his wife was nothing. She had all the while been slaking her lubricious appetites with another man – and not just any man, but the man who owned Huward, the mill, everything! It was the most hurtful betrayal he could conceive.
‘Deny it, you bitch!’ His voice was slurred. He had more words he wanted to use – angry, bitter words that would lash at her like whips – but he couldn’t get them out. They stuck in his throat as though the barbs he intended for Gilda were choking him.
Ben walked to him wearing a sly grin. ‘So, Father, and how are you today? Drunk, I see. Perhaps I should buy you a pot of ale now, to recompense you for all your efforts over the years!’
Huward looked at him wildly. This lad, this monster, was taunting him, and suddenly Huward saw the remainder of his life clearly. All men must scorn him: the fool, the butt of jokes, while this boy, the fellow he had thought was his own flesh and blood, laughed at him and lived at Sir Ralph’s expense, deriding the peasant who had thought he was his parent. Gilda would live with him, no doubt, in luxury, while he, Huward, shivered in the cold of a loveless old age.
It was impossible to live like that, dishonoured for ever. He couldn’t do it; he wouldn’t do it.
He clenched his fist before Ben could see the quick change in his eyes, and swung it upwards. There was a crack as his knuckles slammed into the point of Ben’s chin and the slight figure lifted from the ground before hurtling back to crash down on the floor.
‘Father!’ Flora screamed, and ran to Ben’s side.
Huward paid her no attention. He walked over to his wife and stared down at her with eyes filled with despair. Unbunching his fist, he swung his hand at her and heard, rather than felt, the impact. Gilda’s head snapped back as though her neck was broken, and she was flung to the ground where she lay, a trickle of blood leaking from her mouth, her eyes now wide with shock and pain. A faint mewling sound came from her.
Ignoring Flora’s squeals of panic and horror, Huward stalked across the room to the lamps and oil. He filled a lamp, walked to the hearth, lit it, and threw it at the doorway. Instantly the cheap pottery smashed and blue flames chased across the floor.
‘Father! Please don’t kill us. Don’t kill me!’ Flora begged. She watched the flames licking at a length of material dangling from a table, then smoking and flickering as they continued the dance upwards. Smoke was already coiling about the room as Huward flung a pot of oil at the machinery that had been his life and preoccupation for so many years. He moved like a man in a nightmare, his eyes wild.
‘Father!’
The tide of oil was almost at Ben’s legs. She grabbed at his tunic, weeping with the effort, dragging him along, only to find her retreat blocked by more flames. There was a slight crackling sound, a flare of noise, and then a foul stench, and Flora turned to see that her mother’s head had been engulfed by flames. Gilda was standing, beating at her head, trying to scream, but all that came from her mouth were hoarse, masculine roars as she inhaled the fires that tormented her. Huward was near her, the pot of oil in his hands. He had tipped it over her, and now he stood as though compelled to witness his wife’s death.
Flora screamed high and mad. She felt as though her jaw must break from her face, her mouth opened so wide in mortal horror. Giving dry, wracking sobs, she tore her skirts from her legs and ran to her mother. She raised the cloth to beat at the flames that were consuming her mother’s face and shoulders, but then felt the dreadful grip of her father. He pulled her away, turned her and peered into her face, and she saw that he was quite mad. It was as though he was looking into her soul to see if there was any part of her that was in truth his.
She wanted to tell him that she was entirely his, she had never been another man’s. Sir Ralph was nothing to her, even if his seed had given her life; the only father she had known was Huward. And then there was another deep roar of pain from Gilda, and Flora shuddered and shrieked, high and desperate, and in that moment she saw her father’s eyes die, as if he had seen that even Flora, his little Flora, had deserted him.
Flora felt her shoulder released and knew what was to happen. She closed her eyes, waiting for the punch that would finish this hideous scene and give her peace, but nothing happened. When she opened her eyes, he was gone.
Fire was leaping up at the inner walls, washing over the wooden machinery like fingers of liquid death, and all about her was a whistling and bubbling as the conflagration took hold. She went to her mother and tried to pull her dead weight to the door, ignoring the flames that seared her legs.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Huward stood in the cover of the trees and stared back at the destruction of all that he had loved and considered most important in the world. His mill had been his pride, his family had been his joy. Now the building was smoking like a charcoal-burner’s stack, thick coils of smoke seeping out of gaps in the thatch and from windows like poisonous grey snakes seeking the daylight.
He was still there when Sir Ralph galloped back to the burning building leaping from his horse and running towards the doorway. Other men appeared, but Huward paid them no attention. He was watching the knight, the man who had caused this destruction.
Sir Ralph shouted something; Huward couldn’t hear him over the din of the fire. It sounded almost as though the flames were mocking the knight and him together, laughing at them. Men went to Sir Ralph’s side, staring inside, but then Sir Ralph gave a loud cry and pointed. The others grabbed at him, but he slipped away, ducked beneath the flaming timber of the doorway, and was inside. As others scooped water from the river and threw it over the flames, in at the door, over the roof, everywhere, Huward saw one man turn and see him. It was the Bailiff.
Huward moved away. He had done enough. Now he had just one more task to fulfil before he could find peace.