Free The Bridal Veil by Alexis Harrington Page A

we’ve been having.
You’re likely to ruin your shoes. The mud will suck them right off
your feet.”
    Emily stood and said, “I have a pair
of overshoes upstairs that I’ll put on. I’ll be fine.”
    Cora tried again. “Rose can’t wait for
you. Luke’s lunch will get cold.”
    “ No, it won’t. I’ll just be
a minute.” Emily turned and dashed up the stairs in a most
unladylike manner, worried that if she took too long, Cora would
send Rose off at a gallop to get the child away from her. She was
fully aware that Cora wanted to keep her separated from Rose, but
she wasn’t sure why.
    Throwing open her trunk, she tossed
things out right and left until she found a pair of fleece-lined
arctics that she’d worn through the snows of Chicago. She yanked
them on over her shoes, grabbed her shawl, and bounded back
downstairs just in time to see Rose going out the door, the basket
in hand.
    “ Here I am,” she called.
Rose cast a last, uncertain look at her grandmother, whose jaw
appeared to be so tight, Emily expected to hear her teeth crack.
“It’ll be good to go for a walk.”
    The two set off down the path to the
fields. The sun had braved its way through the overcast and the
afternoon was warming up. Emily pushed her shawl from her
shoulders.
    Rose slogged alongside her, relapsed
into her silence. Determined to draw her out, Emily asked, “Do you
bring your father his lunch very often?”
    “ Only when he’s real busy
during planting and at harvest time.”
    Cora had overstated the mud. It was
good to be outside and away from the oppression of that house. “It
was nice of your grandmother to fix him this basket,” Emily
exaggerated. “She takes good care of you both.” She knew she was
leading the girl and felt a twinge of guilt. But since no one had
volunteered any information about the family, this seemed to be the
only way to learn about them.
    “ Sort of. But Grammy doesn’t
like Daddy much.”
    Emily had already gotten that
impression. “Really? Why not?”
    “ She says Daddy was a
hell—hellion when he was younger. I don’t know what that is
exactly, but it sounds bad. Him and his friends were always in
trouble for something. Grammy says Daddy was from the wrong side of
the tracks, but I don’t know what she’s talking about. The train
doesn’t even come to Fairdale. Besides, he told me he grew up by
the river. Grammy says she didn’t want him to marry Mama because
she had a nice man
courting her, but Daddy chased him away.”
    Emily lifted her brows. She countered,
“Well, your father seems like a nice man, too.”
    “ Yeah, I guess. He used to
be more fun. He’s a lot different now since Mama died. For a long
time afterwards he didn’t talk much, and sometimes he’d sit at the
kitchen table at night for hours and drink whiskey. Grammy would
get mad at him about it, so he’d go upstairs to his bedroom and
slam the door. Or he’d go out to the barn.”
    Suddenly, Emily felt that she was
learning more than she should know. “Does he still do those
things?”
    “ Once in a while.” Rose
shrugged and repeated, “He’s not the same anymore. He used to make
jokes and laugh more.”
    Emily heard a thread of wistfulness in
Rose’s usual sullenness. What kind of life was that for a girl or
for Luke himself, she wondered, and what could she do to change it?
A wife’s job, she knew, was to create a comfortable, peaceful home
where her husband could shed the cares of his day. She was expected
to rein in a man’s coarser character, and to rear children who were
well-behaved, quiet, and respectful. She had taught these values to
scores of young women to prepare them to lead proper lives and keep
proper homes. But she had no real practical experience. Although
this was not a typical marriage, surely if she bore Luke Becker’s
name she would do more than act as a governess to Rose. How she’d
go about it, though, with Cora holding court in the kitchen, she
wasn’t sure. No advice