Read Online Chapel Noir by Carole Nelson Douglas - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carole Nelson Douglas
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returned, mild again, to Irene.
“Within three years of my father’s death we had been forced to sell the horse and carriage and cow, and had acquired a stepfather, a Civil War veteran.”
“Wonderful,” I interjected, eager for a happy—and quick—end to this story. “A soldier is just the sort of upright model for fatherless children. One of my charge’s uncles—I was a governess for a brief time—fought in Afghanistan. Quite the dashing hero when he returned.”
Pink’s utterly emotionless eyes turned on me. “Jack Ford was a mean, drunken lout we suffered for five years. He berated my mother for money, but never brought any home himself, called her names I suppose no Englishwoman wishes to admit exist, and one New Year’s Eve when mother and us children went to church against his wishes, he threatened mother with a pistol and instant death.”
“Military life does not agree with all men,” I put in lamely.
“So,” said Irene, “how soon after that did it end?”
“How did you know it would end soon?”
“Because it could not go on without bloody murder otherwise. And if your father had killed your mother or your brother, that is where your story would have begun.”
Pink shrugged. “Nine months after that New Years’ Eve he went berserk again, at dinner. He flung his coffee to the floor—”
(In that I could not condemn the man, but I refrained from saying so.)
“—threw the meat bone at my mother, then drew a loaded pistol from his pocket. My brother Albert and I jumped between them to allow our mother to escape out the front door. The other children followed.”
“And you were not even living in the Wild West,” I murmured in distress.
Another flat look. “There is nothing wild about Pennsylvania except the turkeys, Miss Huxleigh.”
I could not seem to speak without irritating this artlessly immoral young lady, so I subsided.
“It was obviously the end of the marriage,” Irene said.
“Right.” Pink’s cheeks were flushing to match her gown. “Jack Ford nailed the doors and windows shut and went in and out by way of a ladder. When Mother finally got in a week later to get the furniture, the house was a wreck. There was nothing to do but the unthinkable. She sued for divorce.”
I gasped. Yes, I had resolved to comment no more, but divorce was a scandal of such proportions that I imagine it even shook this backwater town in Pennsylvania.
Pink looked straight ahead, as if my gasp echoed a legion of them years ago.
“I testified, and so did Alfred.”
“How old were you?” Irene asked.
“Old enough. Fourteen. Mother’s was one of only fifteen divorce actions in the county that year, and one of only five brought by the wife. The neighbors testified that Jack Ford was usually drunk, never provided for her, swore at and cursed her, threatened her with a loaded gun, had kicked and broken the household furniture, had ‘done violence to her person,’ as they put his beating her. They also testified that she had always washed and ironed his shirts (though I had seen him throw them on the floor when she was done and dirty and throw water on them so she’d have to do them all over again), bought and paid for his underwear out of her own money and was never cross or ugly to him, no matter how he treated her.”
Her tone had become positively corrosive.
“She got the divorce, but the shame of it forced her to leave the town.”
“And you, Pink?” Irene inquired softly.
“I determined to make my own way in the world, and that did not include marrying any man.”
I opened my mouth to point out that she had “married” many men, thanks to her immoral profession, but Irene was giving me such a stern look urging silence that I converted my gesture into a yawn, which Young Pink’s recent lurid testimony of married life in America, guns and all, hardly merited.
No one was paying me the slightest attention after that, anyway.
“A truly sad history,” Irene said
“Within three years of my father’s death we had been forced to sell the horse and carriage and cow, and had acquired a stepfather, a Civil War veteran.”
“Wonderful,” I interjected, eager for a happy—and quick—end to this story. “A soldier is just the sort of upright model for fatherless children. One of my charge’s uncles—I was a governess for a brief time—fought in Afghanistan. Quite the dashing hero when he returned.”
Pink’s utterly emotionless eyes turned on me. “Jack Ford was a mean, drunken lout we suffered for five years. He berated my mother for money, but never brought any home himself, called her names I suppose no Englishwoman wishes to admit exist, and one New Year’s Eve when mother and us children went to church against his wishes, he threatened mother with a pistol and instant death.”
“Military life does not agree with all men,” I put in lamely.
“So,” said Irene, “how soon after that did it end?”
“How did you know it would end soon?”
“Because it could not go on without bloody murder otherwise. And if your father had killed your mother or your brother, that is where your story would have begun.”
Pink shrugged. “Nine months after that New Years’ Eve he went berserk again, at dinner. He flung his coffee to the floor—”
(In that I could not condemn the man, but I refrained from saying so.)
“—threw the meat bone at my mother, then drew a loaded pistol from his pocket. My brother Albert and I jumped between them to allow our mother to escape out the front door. The other children followed.”
“And you were not even living in the Wild West,” I murmured in distress.
Another flat look. “There is nothing wild about Pennsylvania except the turkeys, Miss Huxleigh.”
I could not seem to speak without irritating this artlessly immoral young lady, so I subsided.
“It was obviously the end of the marriage,” Irene said.
“Right.” Pink’s cheeks were flushing to match her gown. “Jack Ford nailed the doors and windows shut and went in and out by way of a ladder. When Mother finally got in a week later to get the furniture, the house was a wreck. There was nothing to do but the unthinkable. She sued for divorce.”
I gasped. Yes, I had resolved to comment no more, but divorce was a scandal of such proportions that I imagine it even shook this backwater town in Pennsylvania.
Pink looked straight ahead, as if my gasp echoed a legion of them years ago.
“I testified, and so did Alfred.”
“How old were you?” Irene asked.
“Old enough. Fourteen. Mother’s was one of only fifteen divorce actions in the county that year, and one of only five brought by the wife. The neighbors testified that Jack Ford was usually drunk, never provided for her, swore at and cursed her, threatened her with a loaded gun, had kicked and broken the household furniture, had ‘done violence to her person,’ as they put his beating her. They also testified that she had always washed and ironed his shirts (though I had seen him throw them on the floor when she was done and dirty and throw water on them so she’d have to do them all over again), bought and paid for his underwear out of her own money and was never cross or ugly to him, no matter how he treated her.”
Her tone had become positively corrosive.
“She got the divorce, but the shame of it forced her to leave the town.”
“And you, Pink?” Irene inquired softly.
“I determined to make my own way in the world, and that did not include marrying any man.”
I opened my mouth to point out that she had “married” many men, thanks to her immoral profession, but Irene was giving me such a stern look urging silence that I converted my gesture into a yawn, which Young Pink’s recent lurid testimony of married life in America, guns and all, hardly merited.
No one was paying me the slightest attention after that, anyway.
“A truly sad history,” Irene said
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