Read Online Fortune is a Woman by Elizabeth Adler - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Adler
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no reply. Of course, she thought, it's too dark, she can't see it. She went quickly to the window and drew back the curtain. "Here, Mama, look, it's specially for you—" And then she saw the great red stain that covered the sheets. It covered her mother's white lace nightdress, it stained her face and matted her beautiful black hair. And though Francie did not know what death was, she knew this must be it.
"Oh, Mama," she cried despairingly, taking Dolores's icy hand in hers and pressing it to her face, her tears mingling with her mother's blood. "Oh, Mama. This isn't what I prayed to the baby Jesus for for Christmas."
CHAPTER 5
1895
The same snowy Christmas Day that Francie found her mother dead, six thousand miles away in Yorkshire, England, Annie Aysgarth, aged sixteen, placed the bouquet of tightly curled bronze chrysanthemums beneath the granite angel on her mother's grave. Her three young brothers stood beside her, buttoned into warm overcoats and wrapped in woolen mufflers, their noses red with cold and their eyes watering in the bitter wind.
Martha Aysgarth had been dead for nearly four years now, but Frank Aysgarth still brought his family to pay their respects every Christmas Day, snow or shine. And it was mostly snow, Annie thought, shivering mournfully, wishing her father would make his annual pilgrimage in the summer; she just knew her mother would not have wanted them standing about in the cold and likely catching their deaths too.
The boys stamped their numb feet, the nails in their heavy boots ringing on the icy path, while their father stood, his black bowler clasped in both hands, thinking of Martha. Annie thought worriedly of the goose cooking slowly in the oven at home, afraid that the fire she had banked with coal before they left might have gone out. It wasn't that she was disrespectful to her mother—she came every week to care for her grave—but if dinner was late then her father would be angry and Frank Aysgarth's displeasure would put a blight on the whole of Christmas Day.
Just when she thought she could bear the cold no longer her father stepped back, placed his bowler hat firmly on his head and said, "Right, we'll be off home, then. Dinner's at one o'clock." He strode briskly through the cemetery gate, his youngest son, Josh, walking beside him with Annie behind and Bertie and Ted bringing up the rear. Annie almost tripped over her feet in her eagerness to get back home to the two up, two down row house in Leeds with the attic room that was hers and the cold cellar where on rainy days the family wash hung to dry amid the jars of homemade preserves and sacks of flour and potatoes. But she dared not run until they had reached the Horse and Groom on the corner of Montgomery Lane and her father said, "I'll just stop in for a pint with the lads. I'll be home at five minutes to one, Annie."
She nodded, wondering as she always did what her mother had found to love in him. Frank Aysgarth was a burly, gray-haired man with a bristling gray moustache, wind-reddened cheeks, and a dour disposition. He was a man of habit who had risen at the same hour, eaten at the same hour and gone to bed at the same hour every day for as long as Annie could remember. He liked his house clean, his children quiet, and his meals properly prepared and served on time. He brooked no argument and his word was law.
Sometimes when she was alone in the house on Montgomery Terrace, Annie would look at the brass-framed wedding photograph and marvel at how her pretty, laughing, brown-eyed little mother had ever married such an old stick-in-the-mud, because even on his wedding day Frank Aysgarth looked unjoyful, full of the importance of the occasion and his new responsibilities.
Her mother had told her the story of how, when he met her, Frank already had several jobs. He had left school at the age of twelve to work at the rope factory in Burmantofts, then at the brewery in Wakefield and at a printing works in Eastgate, but
"Oh, Mama," she cried despairingly, taking Dolores's icy hand in hers and pressing it to her face, her tears mingling with her mother's blood. "Oh, Mama. This isn't what I prayed to the baby Jesus for for Christmas."
CHAPTER 5
1895
The same snowy Christmas Day that Francie found her mother dead, six thousand miles away in Yorkshire, England, Annie Aysgarth, aged sixteen, placed the bouquet of tightly curled bronze chrysanthemums beneath the granite angel on her mother's grave. Her three young brothers stood beside her, buttoned into warm overcoats and wrapped in woolen mufflers, their noses red with cold and their eyes watering in the bitter wind.
Martha Aysgarth had been dead for nearly four years now, but Frank Aysgarth still brought his family to pay their respects every Christmas Day, snow or shine. And it was mostly snow, Annie thought, shivering mournfully, wishing her father would make his annual pilgrimage in the summer; she just knew her mother would not have wanted them standing about in the cold and likely catching their deaths too.
The boys stamped their numb feet, the nails in their heavy boots ringing on the icy path, while their father stood, his black bowler clasped in both hands, thinking of Martha. Annie thought worriedly of the goose cooking slowly in the oven at home, afraid that the fire she had banked with coal before they left might have gone out. It wasn't that she was disrespectful to her mother—she came every week to care for her grave—but if dinner was late then her father would be angry and Frank Aysgarth's displeasure would put a blight on the whole of Christmas Day.
Just when she thought she could bear the cold no longer her father stepped back, placed his bowler hat firmly on his head and said, "Right, we'll be off home, then. Dinner's at one o'clock." He strode briskly through the cemetery gate, his youngest son, Josh, walking beside him with Annie behind and Bertie and Ted bringing up the rear. Annie almost tripped over her feet in her eagerness to get back home to the two up, two down row house in Leeds with the attic room that was hers and the cold cellar where on rainy days the family wash hung to dry amid the jars of homemade preserves and sacks of flour and potatoes. But she dared not run until they had reached the Horse and Groom on the corner of Montgomery Lane and her father said, "I'll just stop in for a pint with the lads. I'll be home at five minutes to one, Annie."
She nodded, wondering as she always did what her mother had found to love in him. Frank Aysgarth was a burly, gray-haired man with a bristling gray moustache, wind-reddened cheeks, and a dour disposition. He was a man of habit who had risen at the same hour, eaten at the same hour and gone to bed at the same hour every day for as long as Annie could remember. He liked his house clean, his children quiet, and his meals properly prepared and served on time. He brooked no argument and his word was law.
Sometimes when she was alone in the house on Montgomery Terrace, Annie would look at the brass-framed wedding photograph and marvel at how her pretty, laughing, brown-eyed little mother had ever married such an old stick-in-the-mud, because even on his wedding day Frank Aysgarth looked unjoyful, full of the importance of the occasion and his new responsibilities.
Her mother had told her the story of how, when he met her, Frank already had several jobs. He had left school at the age of twelve to work at the rope factory in Burmantofts, then at the brewery in Wakefield and at a printing works in Eastgate, but
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