Twenty-Two
Several hours later a man-servant came to the women’s quarters to announce:
“The Lord Purceville,” (his exact words), “requests a private interview with his daughter.”
Whatever their desired affect, upon hearing these words something shook in Mary’s heart, as she felt again the sudden pang of the orphan. Because she realized in that moment that this simple phrase, ‘his daughter’, had never once been applied to her. For an instant the tears started in her eyes; and for all her fear of him, her one desire was to run and fall weeping in his arms.
But then she remembered all that her mother had told her. She remembered, too, the life of empty hatred to which he had driven her, at the cost of all that was gentle and giving inside her. And the way he had burned her very corpse.
The tears stopped. A look of such implacable will came into her eyes that the widow Scott, who had been plaiting her hair in preparation, took a step back in dismay. All the brooding anger that she had once seen in Stephen, the forerunner of violence, now showed itself in the girl, with a keener edge, and yet whiter fire.
“Mary, listen to me,” she whispered closely. “You must not do or say anything to upset him. Our lives, all of them, are in his hands.”
But her words were without effect. Mary stood like a fierce, enchanted statue, waiting only for the sculptor to finish, to come to life and fulfill its vengeful purpose. And when the last lock of hair was in place and bound she stalked silently from the room, following the startled servant.
After two long hallways she hardly noticed, she passed by several doors in a third, then was ushered in to the great man’s den. Her eyes took in nothing but his seated form, which stamped itself forever in her mind as the living embodiment of evil, and sole object of revenge.....
If Henry Purceville had harbored any notions of winning the girl over, or of displaying even the most distant paternal affection, he soon forgot them. Her iron gaze quickly despatched the small stirrings of tenderness (and guilt) which he had felt the night before.