Free Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor

she asked herself. ‘A pot of tea and no civility. They get their wages like anybody else.’
    She had taken her standards from lives of idleness and plenty and despised those who worked for their living, and could not pick up a duster now without a feeling of being lowered in her own eyes.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    ‘Two such idle young men as I have never met,’ Mrs Veal was saying.
    ‘Yes. You would not easily find our like nowadays,’ said Tom. ‘It is money does it.’
    ‘What money have
you
?’ she asked; pretending to tease.
    ‘I get my weekly penny from Marion. I am not too proud to take it. I am
so
proud I can take whatsoever is offered and remain myself.’
    ‘Why should he give you
anything?’
    ‘Because he is sorry for me,’ Tom said casually.
    Mrs Veal did not care for his saying that. She got up, blinking her painted lashes, and pouted.
    ‘Marion was a very busy little man once, when he married, and before,’ Tom went on. ‘Even after he came into the money, had the house – still trotting off to his office every morning, kiss wifie’s brow, wave good-bye at the gate.’ He finished the whisky and made a face.
    ‘Why did he pack up, then?’
    ‘He must keep an eye on … his house,’ he said drily.
    ‘Where were you?’ she asked.
    He gave her a little look and handed her the empty glass. ‘Oh, I was often here.’ She took the glass.
    It was after closing time and they were shut in among all the sticky, unrinsed tumblers and the cigarette smoke. Gilbert, her husband, had the day off for the races.
    She began to plunge the glasses into the tank of slimy, beery water, standing them on end to drain.
    ‘Another one?’
    He nodded. Between the tips of his fingers he handed a pound note. She flushed and shook her head, turning away from him and running a double from the measure.
    ‘Drink it in comfort, might as well,’ she said, leading the way into the sitting-room at the back. Standing before the mantelpiece mirror, she rolled up her hair freshly, while he sat on the sofa, eyes half-closed, and sipped.
    ‘The little governess,’ she said. ‘What is she turning out like?’
    He considered. ‘She is so young, so transparent, life seems to flush through her, to glow from her, like …’ he looked at the whisky … ‘like wine,’ he said softly. ‘And she is honest. It would be useless for her to try to be otherwise. Being so transparent, I mean. And she is brave,’ he added. ‘Three things I admire … candour and beauty and bravery.’
    ‘You said nothing about beauty,’ she cried, rearranging her fringe.
    ‘That was what I meant when I said about the wine.’
    She was crisp and annoyed. ‘Better get some food, I suppose,’ she said.
    ‘No. Come here.’
    Holding his whisky carefully, he put out his free hand and drew her down beside him. As she moved she unsettled a great drift of her best perfume, which she kept for Wednesdays – Gilbert’s day off
    Tom was quite at home in the room and did not even noticeall the things that would have made Marion wince – the china rabbits, the ruched taffeta cushions, the meaningless watercolours, the fringed table runner.
    She sat close to him, tapping her fingers on his thigh, a little message which he, for the moment, ignored. His surroundings were beginning to dwindle. He slipped his free hand inside her blouse, knowing he must sooner or later, even discovered a paltry, easy pleasure in doing so, but a pleasure incidental to the whisky, until suddenly he felt a violent desire to obliterate himself, to lose himself, to destroy himself and her. She was his hated one, his own lust made flesh, the bad side of his own nature. He vented his hatred on her, he punished her with lust.
    But she was a tawdry thing, not worthy of any tenderness. She thought it was pent-up passion he released upon her … She liked the word ‘passionate’, using it always in its sexual sense … She would not have understood that he wreaked vengeance on her, used her