Read Online i a72d981dc0406879 by Unknown - Free Book Online

sleep in the bed with me, he has his own
room, but sometimes he falls asleep right after, you know ..."
    Her voice trailed off and she looked very distressed indeed. She
seemed to shrink within her own skin, and her eyes lost their
verve.
    I knew, of course, that many men beat their wives. Even the most
respectable men. They can get away with it because who is there to
stop them? It was none of my business. Michael was right, of
course-I should stay out of these husband-and-wife things.
"Frances," I asked nevertheless, "why was it that you were unable
to get dressed before coming here this morning? And whose slicker
did you wear to cover your dressing gown?"
    She blushed, something I'd never seen her do before. "The
slicker is so old, I don't know to whom it belongs. It hangs on a
peg in the room where I arrange flowers, and anyone who has to go
out in bad weather can wear it. The gardener wears it rather
routinely, I believe, but then he always leaves it on the peg for
the next person." Her eyes beseeched me; she did not want to have
to answer my other question.
    "You must tell someone," I urged, just above a whisper.
    Frances bowed her head. Her words came out hard, and broken, as
if torn from her in chunks: "When I do something that displeases
Jeremy, he hurts me. In the beginning-I mean when we were first
married-I didn't think he really meant to do it, I thought he just
lost control momentarily, and because he's so big . . . and I do
bruise easily ..." She raised her head, and I was glad to see some
defiant spirit in her eyes. "But now I know he means to have me
utterly at his bidding. If I do anything at all, the least tiny
thing, that he doesn't wholeheartedly approve, he hurts me. Not on
the face and neck, not where Cora and the other servants can see,
but on my body.
    "What is almost worse, lately he has taken to locking up all my
clothes so that I cannot go out anywhere without his approval.
There are new locks on the wardrobes and on the chests of drawers,
and only Jeremy has the keys. In the morning and again in the
evening, he unlocks them and stands over me while I choose what to
wear. Sometimes he will not even let me choose, but insists on
making the choice himself. Yesterday and today he said I did not
need any clothes at all because I was not to go out. You see,
Fremont, he knew I'd lied to him that night I was with you."
    "How could he?" My voice quivered a bit with more outrage than I
could conceal.
    Frances shrugged, and sipped her coffee before replying. "He
suspected. And then he made me tell him."
    I didn't have to ask how he'd made her; I'd seen the
evidence on her arm, and I didn't doubt there was more still on
other hidden parts of her body. "So you told him we were out-did
you also say where we went?"
    Frances's golden-hazel eyes seemed unusually large and forlorn
as she admitted, "Yes, I told him about the seance. I told him
everything. I really believe, if I had not, he would have killed
me."
    "And yet, in spite of all that, you want to accept this
invitation." I gave the note back to her. Suddenly there was a
dangerous feel to that rich paper. "You want to go to Octavia
Street to see Mrs. Locke."
    Frances leaned toward me and her eyes glowed again. With hope, I
thought. She said, "Yes, oh yes, I do! Fremont, what if I do have
some sort of natural talent for talking to the spirits? What if
that's what's really happening to me? Can't you see-I'd so much
prefer that to worrying that I might be losing my mind!"
    "Frances," I said in my most no-nonsense tone, "of course you're
not losing your mind. What, precisely, are you talking about?"
    She shivered, pulled the shawl up closer around her neck, bit
her lip, and darted her eyes nervously around the room, as if to
satisfy herself that we were alone. "Well, I'm not sure, and that's
the worst of it. I feel-not all the time, but just sometimes-I feel
as if I'm not alone. There's a sort of, I don't know, a presence with me. Like when you're in a room and