Settling the Account by Shayne Parkinson

marry her, then, if he didn’t
have a gun at his head? What makes this Charlotte good enough for
your precious brother when my daughter wasn’t?’
    ‘Because her father’s rich.’ Susannah spat
the words. ‘That’s why. He certainly didn’t marry her for her sweet
nature.’
    The old hurt and anger was like bile in
Jack’s throat. ‘I didn’t know I was meant to buy a husband for my
girl.’
    ‘He just sat there and let her say those
things to me,’ Susannah said, her face a mixture of pain and
bitterness. ‘He never once said anything to stop her.’
    ‘I’ve heard about enough talk of him,
Susannah.’
    She went on as if to herself. ‘He didn’t
seem to care. He didn’t even want to talk to me.’ There was no
trace of anger now, just the confused pain of a child unable to
comprehend why it was being punished. ‘We used to be so close. He
used to love me, I know he did. Now he doesn’t care.’
    ‘That’s enough,’ Jack said, but he might as
well not have spoken.
    ‘I used to give him my allowance when he’d
spent all his. I used to buy him things he wanted when he couldn’t
talk Father into it. He’d dance with me at balls when no one else
wanted to. There were always plenty of men wanting to dance with
Constance, but hardly any of them ever asked me. But James always
would. We’d dance and dance, and he’d make me feel so proud.’ She
managed a crooked little smile. ‘He was so tall and handsome. I
always felt proud to be dancing with him, even if he was my
brother. He said he liked dancing with me better than with other
girls. I was the best dancer he knew. He’d tell me I was pretty. He
made me feel like I was. No one else wanted me, but he did.’ Her
face crumpled. ‘Now he doesn’t want me either. He doesn’t
care.’
    ‘He should have married Amy,’ Jack
muttered.
    ‘I wish he had!’ Susannah’s voice rose to a
shriek. She turned away from him and stared at the wall. ‘I wish he
had,’ she echoed in a whisper.
    She seemed to be muddling up things that had
happened twenty or thirty years ago with what had upset her over
the previous few weeks, and getting herself in a dreadful state in
the process. Her anguish spoke for itself, but Jack had no idea how
to cope with it. Especially when he was fighting hard to keep his
own anger silent. It was time she pulled herself together.
    ‘Settle down, Susannah. You’re a grown woman
with two young ones of your own, there’s no need for you to be
going on with a lot of nonsense. You’ll make yourself ill if you
keep running things over in your mind. You’ve had a bit of a rough
spin up there, I can see that, but you want to just forget all that
and get yourself back to normal. Auckland’s a wearying sort of
place, especially when you’ve got family troubles.’
    ‘I’m not going up there again. They don’t
want me.’ She turned a defiant face to Jack. ‘I’m never going there
again.’
    ‘Please yourself. Hop under the covers so I
can put the lamp out.’ He did not wait to see if she would obey
before he plunged the room into darkness.
    He felt the bed move as Susannah lay down
and pulled the blankets over herself. ‘You don’t want me either,’
she said quietly.
    Was she going to keep him awake all night?
‘Wouldn’t do me much good if I did.’ He had not meant to sound so
bitter, but the words could not be called back.
    ‘No one does.’
    He heard the small sounds of Susannah
weeping and trying to hide it. He could picture tears pooling in
her eyes and running down into her pillow, and he felt the bed move
from the tremor that ran through her body. For a moment the urge to
roll over, put an arm around her and draw her close was almost
overpowering, but he resisted it. The time when he and Susannah
could have given each other comfort was long past.
     
     

5
     
    November 1897
    By the spring of 1897 the new co-operative
had had two successful seasons, and all the effort Frank had put
into persuading the farmers