“Fine!” Phillip said in a mild tone. “Start calling your lawyers, and mobilizing your forces. But you won’t get anywhere. The power resides in me. Or have you forgotten that particular Sturgess tradition?”
Carolyn, who had said nothing throughout the exchange, preferring to remain as invisible as Abigail sometimes made her feel, suddenly spoke for the first time. “Tradition?” she asked. “Phillip, what are you talking about?”
Phillip turned to face her, a glint of triumph playing in his eyes. “Something I’m sure Mother’s never mentioned to you. In my family, while the women have always been strong—we Sturgesses seem to attract strong women—there has always been a carefully drawn line. And that line, as Mother knows perfectly well, is the line where personal affairs stop, and business affairs begin. There has never been a female Sturgess who has had anything to say about our business affairs. That is always left up to the men. So when Father died, sole control over the family’s assets passed to me. In short,” he finished, smiling grimly, “Mother can make my life as miserable as she wants, and scream to her lawyers as much as she wants. But in the end, there isn’t a thing she can do. When it comes to the mill, or anything else outside of this house, she is totally without power. Indeed, Mother,” he added, his voice taking on the same chill Carolyn had felt so often from the old woman, “if I chose to, I could throw you out of this house.”
Abigail was on her feet again, her eyes blazing. “How dare you?” she demanded of her son. “How dare you speak to me that way? And in front of her, of all people?” She wheeled around, and the full force of her anger was focused on Carolyn. “This is all your fault,” she went on. “Before Phillip met you, he never would have talked to me this way. He would have asked for my advice, and heeded my words. But not anymore. You’ve hypnotized him! You’ve come into our lives—you and your common little daughter—and done your best to take Phillip away from us. But you won’t succeed! Do you understand me? Somehow, I shall find a way to stop you!” She started toward the door, her anger making her stagger slightly, even though she leaned heavily on her cane. Carolyn took a step toward her, wanting to reach out to her, to steady her. But Phillip shook his head, and made a gesture that kept Carolyn where she was.
A moment later they were alone, with Abigail’s fury hanging between them like a cloud.
“I’m sorry,” Phillip said. “She shouldn’t have attacked you and Beth. But she knows there’s nothing she can do to stop me from finishing the mill project, so she had to turn elsewhere. And you were convenient.” He moved toward her, his arms spread wide, but instead of stepping forward to meet him, Carolyn turned away, and sank into the chair Abigail had vacated only seconds earlier.
“Maybe she’s right,” Carolyn replied. Conflicting emotions were battering at her now. All the control she’d developed so carefully in the months since she’d moved to Hilltop seemed to be deserting her at the moment she needed it most. “Maybe our marrying was a mistake, Phillip. Maybe you should never have met me. Maybe you should have stayed away from Westover for the rest of your life.”
“You don’t believe that,” Phillip said, his face ashen, his eyes pleading. “Darling, you can’t mean that!”
“Can’t I? I don’t know what I mean. But I can’t go on much longer living with a woman who hates me. And it isn’t just me. It’s Beth, too. Phillip, Beth knows how Abigail and Tracy feel about her. Even though she tries to pretend it isn’t happening, she feels every slight they inflict on her! I’d hoped we could be a family—all of us. But it’s not like that! As long as we’ve been married, it’s been like a war, with Beth and me on one side, and Abigail and Tracy on the other. And you’re caught in the middle.”
“Well, at least the sides are balanced,” Phillip said in a wry but futile attempt to defuse the situation. “At least you’re not ganging up on me!”
Suddenly Carolyn laughed, but it was a high-pitched, brittle parody of her normal laughter, and Phillip realized how close she was to slipping into hysteria. “Aren’t we?” she asked. “Abigail made a mistake just now, but I don’t think she