The Man of Gold Read Online Free Page A

get. She was unable to decide whether the dark and stringy pieces on this solitary plate were mutton or beef. But soon she found the question was not one which would concern her. The plate was put fairly and squarely in front of the master of the house, and before Richard Partington, herself and the two girls, empty plates were banged down by Mrs Meggs, as if challengingly.
    It was a challenge which, to Miss Unwin’s considerable embarrassment, Richard Partington at once took up.
    ‘Mrs Meggs,’ he said, staring hard at a point on the ceiling above him, ‘is there no meat for Miss Unwin?’
    ‘There’s not,’ Mrs Meggs answered, plonking down the two dishes of vegetables for him to serve himself from.
    Richard Partington’s round open face went red with immediate anger.
    ‘Father,’ he said, looking along the table to the old man, ‘for myself I do not mind, but I feel that it is our duty towards one who has come to live under our roof that we provide her with the common necessities of life.’
    ‘Common necessities, sir? Potatoes and cabbage are those. She can eat them, or go. I did not want a governess for your children.’
    For a long moment Richard Partington held his peace. Miss Unwin, watching him covertly as she kept her eyes down to the empty plate in front of her, realised however that further words were not far from his lips. She wishedpassionately that he would keep silent. But she doubted whether he would remain so for long.
    Her doubts were soon resolved.
    ‘Father,’ Richard Partington said, grating the word out, ‘Father, how does it come about then that you have meat in front of you?’
    ‘That is my business, sir.’
    ‘No, Father, while a lady brought into this house to care for my daughters is without meat to eat and while you have it, it is my business as much as yours.’
    Now it was the turn of the old man to be silent.
    Miss Unwin sat still, looking unswervingly at her empty plate. Richard Partington sat glaring at his father, the two dishes of steaming vegetables growing cold in front of him. Louisa and Maria shifted to and fro on their chairs. Miss Unwin guessed that they were as hungry as herself and as eager for the dispute to end so that the food, little appetising as it was, could come to them.
    At last the old man at the head of the table made a grudging reply.
    ‘Mrs Meggs puts meat in front of me, as you well know, sir, because I am not at present in good health. She believes I need the nourishment so that I can work to keep you all in the idleness you prefer. And that is all that is to be said on this subject.’
    Miss Unwin wondered whether this was true. Would her knight errant, little though she wished it, spring again to her defence?
    But, evidently, the challenge he had issued before had been as far as he felt able to assert himself against the formidable character of his father.
    ‘I may speak of this again when the time is more appropriate,’ he said.
    But he spoke the words so quietly that Miss Unwin had more guessed what they were than heard them, and she doubted whether the old man at the other end of the table, for all the extraordinary size of the two ears that juttedfrom his bald white skull, had caught more than a rebellious murmur.
    And that he had felt able to ignore.
    So in the days that followed it was potatoes and other vegetables that Miss Unwin ate. Only very occasionally at times when Cousin Cornelia and her brother were not visitors did some meat get served, and when it did she half regretted it so nearly tainted did it taste.
    One day Richard Partington began an attempt, she realised, to explain matters.
    ‘I am afraid I do not see as much of my girls as I should like, Miss Unwin.’
    ‘No, sir. They would benefit from a father’s attention, when they have had no mother to care for them.’
    Richard Partington heaved a deep sigh.
    ‘I wish it could be otherwise. I wish –’
    He broke off.
    Then there flashed out that rueful, engaging sideways