The Pearl of Penang by Clare Flynn (best books to read for students txt) 📗

the thought from her head as being preposterous and surely a product of her inebriation, Evie curled into a tight ball and fell immediately asleep.

It was just over three weeks before Evie saw Douglas again. She was glad of the long time, as it had dulled the pain a little.

Instead of arriving at the weekend he turned up mid-week and told her that the following evening they would be entertaining guests for dinner.

Evie’s heart sank at the prospect. Would the party include any of those awful people she’d met at the club on her wedding day? She didn’t think she could survive a whole evening with the likes of them. ‘Who have you invited?’ she asked, curtly.

‘One of the inspectors for Guthrie’s and Reggie Hyde-Underwood – his wife is in the hospital over in Butterworth. They’ve just had a boy.’ His mouth twitched.

‘That’s wonderful news. What have they called him?’

Douglas looked away. ‘You’ll have to ask him that.’

This reminder of what had happened between them made Evie nervous. She didn’t know how to behave around Douglas any more. Not that she ever had.

‘Oh and the Leightons.’

She’d expected as much. ‘The man from Guthrie’s what’s his name? And what is Guthrie’s?’

‘Rogers. Clifford Rogers. His wife will be with him. Don’t know her name.’

‘And Guthrie’s?’

‘One of the big rubber companies.’

‘But I thought you said you own your estates directly.’

Douglas sighed pointedly. ‘Don’t ask so many damned questions, Evie. Everyone knows everyone here. As the chief inspector for all Guthries’ estates throughout the Straits, Rogers knows the lie of the land. I want to talk to him. It’s called doing business. I expect you to keep his wife happy while we do that.’

Evie swallowed, feeling battered. ‘And the Leightons? Why will they be here?’

Douglas’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because Arthur is my friend.’ The sub-text was that it was not her place to ask why. But as an evident afterthought, he added, ‘And because I suspect Clifford Rogers will want to pick Arthur’s brains about the political situation. As I said, it’s called “Doing Business”. Your part in that is merely to keep his wife entertained. Surely that’s something even you can manage?’

It was like a slap in the face. She burned with suppressed rage. What right did he have to treat her this way? As if he resented her for his own bad behaviour.

That night, after a silent supper, during which Evie felt too intimidated and angry to attempt conversation, she told Douglas she was going to bed early and went straight up to her bedroom. She sat in bed reading, finding it hard to concentrate on the words on the page as her head whirled with all the things she wished she’d said to him but had been too afraid to utter.

About five minutes after she’d turned off the light and turned over onto her side to sleep, she heard the bedroom door open and Douglas’s footsteps crossing the wooden floor. Furious, Evie pulled the sheet up over her ears and called out. ‘Go away! I don’t want to be with you.’

She heard the sharp intake of breath. ‘Damn it, Evie. You’re my wife. We talked about all this. I ask little enough of you.’

He reached a hand out to pull back the sheet on his side of her bed.

‘I meant what I said. I won’t be treated this way.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The way you behaved to me on the way back from Bellavista. The way you talked to me this evening. I won’t have it.’ She could feel herself shaking.

‘I told you I was sorry. I shouldn’t have done what I did.’

‘And I told you it wasn’t what you did, but what you said afterwards. How do you imagine it made me feel? To be told that it was the sight of another woman’s pregnancy that made you want to have relations with me. You made me feel like… I’m just a … just … a brood mare on a farm. I am not an animal. I am a human being.’ Tears of rage ran down her cheeks and she hauled herself up into a sitting position.

Douglas said nothing. He turned away from her and walked out of the room closing the door quietly behind him.

When he was gone, Evie hugged her arms around her. She couldn’t believe she’d just said all that. But it had to be said. If he decided to call a stop to their joke of a marriage, so be it. He could send her back to England. She’d be glad if he did. Anything would be better than feeling the way he made her feel. She thumped the pillow with her fist. How had she ever harboured the delusion that they could make this marriage work?

12

The following morning, Evie went to speak to Aunty Mimi about the menu for the dinner. It was immediately apparent that the Chinese woman already knew of Douglas’s plans and had decided with the cook what the menu would be. Evie left the house, feeling superfluous.

As tonight could well prove to be her swan song in Penang and in her brief marriage, she was determined to look her best. There wasn’t time to follow Veronica’s advice about using her local Indian tailor, so she decided to go to a dress shop that Mary Helston had mentioned, which sold ready-made garments.

She took the road along the coast to get there – about a fifteen-minute walk. Evie loved seeing the marine traffic on the busy strait that divided the island from Butterworth. Sampans with strange pleated sails were dotted about on the azure blue water, interspersed with the curved straw roofs of junks. Beyond, plumes of smoke rose from steamer funnels – the ferry to Butterworth and an array of small tramp steamers carrying goods around the Straits Settlements and Sumatra and on towards Java, Ceylon and India.

Lines of palm trees alternated with telegraph poles and bright bursts of orange from the flame-of-the-forest trees along Marine Drive. Bicycles, rickshaws, motorcars and small