John Saul - Hellfire

“I’m sure that’s what you hope,” Phillip replied, sitting down opposite her. “But I’m telling you right now that it’s a hope I want never to hear expressed in this house again. You may think anything you like, but you will keep your thoughts to yourself from this moment on.”

His words hit Tracy like a physical blow. For a moment she was too stunned to say anything at all. Then she swallowed, and widened her eyes. “Daddy—”

“Put your feet on the floor, and sit up like the lady you think you are,” Phillip said.

Tracy’s leg came off the arm of the chair, and dropped to the floor. She stared at her father, trying to figure out what had happened. “You’re going to let her come back here, aren’t you?” she finally asked, her voice heavy with accusation. “Even after what she did to my horse.”

“Ah,” Phillip said, draining his glass and rising to his feet to fix himself another drink. “The horse.” As he passed Tracy he glanced down, and could see by her eyes that his suspicion was correct. “The Babcocks have some pretty good stock in their stable,” he commented. He said nothing more until he was once more facing her. “I wonder how safe they’d feel with you living in their house.”

Tracy’s heart was pounding now, and she had to grip the arms of the chair to keep her hands from shaking. “I didn’t do it—” she began, but when her father shook his head, she fell silent.

“I don’t believe you, Tracy,” she heard him say. “I don’t believe you, and I don’t know what to do.” His eyes flooded with tears once more, and this time he made no effort to hide them. “I guess I haven’t been much of a father, have I? I’ve always tried to give you everything you wanted, but it wasn’t enough.”

“But I love you, Daddy,” Tracy ventured.

“Do you?” Phillip asked. “I suppose you do, in your own way. But it’s the wrong way, Tracy. I can’t live my life for you. I can’t decide whom to fall in love with simply on the basis of what you want. And I can’t let you dictate who will live in my house and who won’t.”

In her own mind, Tracy mistcok the sadness in Phillip’s words for weakness. “But they don’t belong here, Daddy,” she protested once more. “I don’t see why you can’t see that. Carolyn and Beth don’t even like it here. All they want is our money!”

The tenseness in her father’s jaw told Tracy she had made a mistake, and she instinctively shrank back in her chair. Her father’s eyes were coldly furious now.

“I’m not going to hit you,” he told her. “Perhaps I should, but I won’t. I don’t believe in that sort of thing. But I will tell you this now, Tracy, and you had better listen and you had better understand, because I won’t tell you again. From this moment on, you will treat Carolyn with all the respect you would give your own mother, or any other adult woman. I don’t care anymore how you feel about her. The only thing I care about is how you treat her. From now on, you will be friendly and helpful and polite, whether I am in the house or not. As for Beth, yes, she will be coming back here to live. And it won’t be because she has no other place to go. It will be because both her mother and I love her very much. And you will treat her the same way you will treat Carolyn. You will go even further. You will make friends with Beth, unless she’s not interested in being friends with you. In that case, you will simply be polite to her, and stay out of her way. When she comes home tomorrow, you will tell her you are sorry about what happened to her father, and you will apologize for having poisoned her horse—”

“It was my horse,” Tracy exploded. Suddenly she was on her feet, glaring at her father with naked fury. “It was my horse, and I had the right to do anything I wanted to it! And it’s my house, and I can act any way I want to here, and you can’t stop me. I hate you!”

Phillip rose to his feet. “Very well,” he said softly. “If that’s the way you feel, there’s only one thing I can do. In the morning, I’ll make some calls and find a school for you.”

“Good!” Tracy shot back, her feet planted wide apart on the carpet, her face a mask of angry belligerence. “And I hope it’s as far away from here as you can get!”

“Oh, it will be,” Phillip replied. “But of course since you’ll be there year-round from now on, we’ll have to find one that has no vacations. Also, of course, one that has no horses.” He looked down, his eyes fixing on his daughter. “No privileges of any sort, I should think,” he said softly. “It appears that you’ve already had far too many of those.”

Tracy searched her father’s face, trying to see if he really meant what he was saying. “I … I’ll run away!”

Phillip shrugged. “If you do, then you do. But if I were you, I’d think about it pretty hard. I understand life can be pretty rough out there for a girl of your age.” Then he turned and left the library, closing the door quietly behind him. Tracy, frozen with rage and disbelief, stood perfectly still for a moment, then went to the bar and began throwing the glasses at the door, one by one.

Phillip and Hannah met at the bottom of the stairs as the first crash of breaking crystal emanated from the library. The old woman’s eyes widened, and she almost dropped the small overnight case she carried in her right hand. She said nothing, but her eyes questioned Phillip.

“It’s Tracy,” he said mildly. “She’s a little upset right now, but I imagine she’ll calm down when she runs out of glasses. If she asks you to clean up the mess for her, please do me the favor of playing deaf.” He thought he heard her gasp as her head bobbed dutifully. “Oh … and, Hannah,” he added as he started up the stairs. “From now on, there will be no need for you to do anything about Tracy’s room. Shell be cleaning it up herself, starting tomorrow.”

Hannah’s brows arched, and she eyed Phillip shrewdly. “Is that what this is all about?” she asked, tilting her head toward the library.

“I’m afraid not,” Phillip replied. “She doesn’t even know about having to clean her own room yet.”

“In that case, sir, I’ll lock up the rest of the crystal and the china as soon as I get back from the hospital.”

“Thank you,” Phillip said, and found himself grinning as he went up the stairs and turned toward his mother’s suite. He found Abigail sitting in her favorite chair, a book facedown in her lap. The moment he came into the room, her sharp old eyes fell on him suspiciously.

“What in the name of God is that racket, Phillip?” she demanded.

“It’s Tracy, Mother,” he replied. “I have finally put my foot down with her.” As briefly as possible, he explained to his mother what he had told his daughter, and why. When he was done, the old lady gazed at him from beneath hooded eyes.

“You’re making a terrible mistake, Phillip.”

Phillip shrugged, and dropped into the chair opposite her. “It seems to me I’ve been making a series of terrible mistakes with Tracy all her life.” His mother, though, didn’t seem to have heard him. She was staring at him now with the disapproval a mother reserves for a wayward child. What, he wondered, was she angry about now? And then he realized that the chair he had unconsciously sunk into had never been occupied by anyone but his father. “He’s dead, Mother,” he said quietly. “Is the chair in the mausoleum not enough? Is this supposed to be a shrine as well?”

He immediately regretted the words, but there was no recovering them.

“Sit where you wish,” Abigail replied, her voice cold. “Since you seem intent on taking over his place in this house, you might as well take his chair as well. But as for Tracy, you can’t simply change the rules on a child like her. She’s far too sensitive.”