And of course he won. The little girls loved him
and adored him. 'Daddy! Daddy!' They could do as they liked with him.
Their mother would have ruled them. She would have ruled them
passionately, with indulgence, with the old dark magic of parental
authority, something looming and unquestioned and, after all, divine: if
we believe in divine authority. The Marshalls did, being Catholic.
And Egbert, he turned her old dark, Catholic blood-authority into a sort
of tyranny. He would not leave her her children. He stole them from her,
and yet without assuming responsibility for them. He stole them from her,
in emotion and spirit, and left her only to command their behaviour. A
thankless lot for a mother. And her children adored him, adored him,
little knowing the empty bitterness they were preparing for themselves
when they too grew up to have husbands: husbands such as Egbert, adorable
and null.
Joyce, the eldest, was still his favourite. She was now a quicksilver
little thing of six years old. Barbara, the youngest, was a toddler of
two years. They spent most of their time down at Crockham, because he
wanted to be there. And even Winifred loved the place really. But now, in
her frustrated and blinded state, it was full of menace for her children.
The adders, the poison-berries, the brook, the marsh, the water that
might not be pure--one thing and another. From mother and nurse it was a
guerilla gunfire of commands, and blithe, quicksilver disobedience from
the three blonde, never-still little girls.
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