‘What have you done with the money?’ she cried. ‘What have you done with it?’ Abner laid his hand on her shoulder, for she looked dangerous.
‘Take your hands off me!’ she screamed. ‘The money. . . . I want my money!’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Mary said.
‘My money, you brazen madam!’ she cried. ‘The money out of the box in father’s bedroom. More than fifty pound . . .’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ repeated Mary, bewildered.
‘It’s gone . . . gone! Don’t tell me you don’t know where it’s gone, when I know you’ve a’ had it! He can’t have spent it all. Give me what’s left . . . to pay the lawyers. George would never have gone and took it without you to put him up to it . . . you with your lady’s ways and your fine speech! Ah, that’s where the bad blood comes out. Your father was a thief, and you’re no better! Bad blood . . . bad blood!’
‘Don’t you dare . . .’ Mary cried. ‘Don’t you dare speak of my father!’
She stood tall and flushed above her mother-in-law.
‘Give me the money . . . what’s left of it,’ Mrs Malpas pleaded. ‘Give it me, and I won’t say no more.’
Her violence had spent itself. Now she was only small, pathetic, withered. Mary controlled herself. She would not answer.