Read Online Songs from the Violet Cafe by Fiona Kidman - Free Book Online

and wavy round her shoulders. As soon as they went into the house, she went to the kitchen and began helping her mother lay out a supper of sausage rolls and custard squares.
    â€˜Sir,’ he stammered, unable to find the words to express how delighted he was by Belle’s appearance, without giving offence. He saw how young she was.
    Hal looked him in the eye, as if seeing right inside him. Wallace blushed, aware that what the pastor saw might be interpreted as carnaldesire, a terrible shaming lust for the child, and that the recognition of this stain on his soul could be his undoing. ‘She’ll make a good wife for someone,’ he said.
    Belle’s mother, whose name was Lorraine, paused from her work for an instant, tight-lipped. ‘She’s too young to make a promise,’ she said, in a low quick voice.
    â€˜I beg your pardon,’ Hal said, a blaze in his eyes. When she didn’t answer, he said, ‘I think you should go to your room, wife.’
    Immediately, and without another word, Belle’s mother laid down the last of the food and walked out of the room. Wallace glanced at Belle to see if this had upset her, but she seemed undisturbed. She knelt by the fire and poked at a log of wood. Wallace felt excited and stirred by what he had just seen. He could tell that Hal was a man who knew what he wanted, what was best for everyone.
    â€˜She’s a very good girl,’ Hal said. ‘You like this man, Belle?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said the girl, keeping her eyes downcast, but Wallace saw a smile hovering at the corner of her mouth.
    â€˜You’ll have to teach her to be a good wife,’ said Hal.
    â€˜Yes sir,’ Wallace said. He wondered how much he would be allowed to teach her before his marriage and how soon her education would begin.
    â€˜You got any money?
    â€˜Not much, sir.’
    â€˜I thought as much. You need money for a ring when she leaves school. A girl needs a good diamond, tells the world she’s worth it to a man. Like a down payment,’ he added, grinning. ‘You have to be able to support her.’
    â€˜Oh, I can save up,’ said Wallace. ‘I’ve got a trade. I only preach weekends and evenings as a rule.’
    â€˜Good man. Don’t take any nonsense from her. I take too much from that woman down the passage there. She had too much freedom before we found the Lord.’
    Wallace just nodded. Now that the washing up was finished, Belle picked up a piece of needlework and sat down beside the fire. Wallace felt helpless, already so in love with his child bride.
    â€˜And you keep pure for the wedding, you hear me. No messing around. A goodnight kiss is quite far enough.’
    â€˜Yes sir.’ Wallace couldn’t believe God was being so good to him. Later in the night when the house should have been settled in sleep, he heard a thud and a scream inside the house, a voice muffled. He understood that the man was the head of the house and Belle’s mother needed discipline. Belle, swaddled in a long winceyette nightgown, had come to him and demurely offered her cheek for the first of his kisses. He wanted to kiss her and kiss her until she fainted in his arms.
    Out on the street or even in the house helping her mother bottle preserves and cook and clean, she was so quiet you couldn’t hear her move from one place to the next. Her mother had bruised and brooding silences of her own, but Belle’s silence seemed to reflect a happiness he hoped he had inspired. She let him kiss her a great deal, on her lips and on her neck and on the tops of her sweet white breasts. The day before she turned fifteen he gave her the ring, because she was finishing school the next day and she wanted the girls there to know that she had her future mapped out and waiting; it was the first and last triumph of her school days. By this time, Wallace had given up his trade and only did jobs for friends of Hal’s. The rest of