The Virtuous Woman (9 page)

Ruby shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t believe in any of that religion stuff.”

“I didn’t think you did, but you asked me.”

A silence rose between them. The last thing Ruby wanted to talk about was God. She watched the waiter clear dishes from the other empty tables.

“You married?” she asked.

“No.”

“I knew you weren’t,” she said with a grin. “I can always tell when men are married.”

“Because they wear rings?”

“No, a lot of them take them off. But they always look guilty. Why aren’t you married?”

“Haven’t found anyone I want to share my life with, I guess.”

“What about girlfriends?”

“What about them?”

“Are you dense? I’m askin’ you about your love life!”

Francis’s face reddened and she laughed loudly. “I don’t believe it! I didn’t think there was a man left in America that could blush. You oughta do something about that.”

“Not that much to tell in that area,” he said, looking uncomfortable or maybe even angry.

“Why not? How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight and no girlfriend! What’s the matter? Don’t you like women?”

“Which women?”

“You’ve got a mind like a butterfly,” she said. “What do you mean ‘which women’?”

“I mean, I like some women, and I don’t like others.”

She laughed and leaned across the table. “What about me?”

He looked daunted by her aggressiveness. “It wouldn’t matter if I did. I’m not your type.”

Now she was the one who was angry. “You think Hack was my type?” She waited for him to answer, and when he did not, she said, “I’m goin’ to bed.”

“I’m tired too. We’ll be in New York tomorrow.”

Ruby left the dining car, leaving Francis to pay the check. She wasn’t sure why the conversation had angered her. Perhaps because he seemed so innocent and she was not. She was a woman of sudden impulses, and as she reached their compartment, she had an idea. “We’ll just see how innocent he is and what a big Christian he can be with a real woman.” She went into the compartment and waited. When he came in, she said nothing but went into the tiny bathroom and brushed her teeth. When she came out, he was lying in the bed looking up at the underside of the bunk above. She opened her suitcase and pulled out a sheer black gown, remembering what she’d thought when she had first seen it,
You can read a newspaper through this thing!

She started to take off her skirt and immediately Key rolled over to face the wall, groaning slightly with the effort. She stripped down and put on the sheer nightgown. Instead of climbing up into the bunk, she sat down on the bed beside him and touched his shoulder. “Key,” she whispered.

He rolled over. “What is it?” When he saw the sheer gown,
he stiffened and turned his head away. “What is it, Ruby? Something wrong?”

A sense of disappointment swept through her. Any other man she had ever met would have interpreted what she had done as an open invitation. She had been hoping he would too. Not that she would have let him follow through, but she thought she could expose his hypocrisy. Ruby leaned forward and pressed her figure against his arm. “Don’t you ever get lonely, Key?”

He did not answer, and she reached out and touched his face. “Turn over,” she said. “Look at me.”

But instead of turning toward her, he shifted his body away from her and said in a strained voice, “Good night, Miss Winslow.”

Rage boiled up in Ruby. Such rejection was a new experience for her and an unpleasant one. The mirror told her she was attractive, and enough men had made that evident. Now this little runt was turning her down. She stared at the back of his head and wanted to hit him, but she got to her feet, clambered up into bed, and jerked the cover over her. As the train ran on through the night, she clenched her fist tightly and thought of ways to torment Francis Key. He couldn’t treat her like this!

Her hard life had taught her to be on her guard, but she had not always been cautious, and more than one man had taken advantage of her. She thought she had built up enough defenses to withstand anything, but now, besides the outrage at being rejected, she was surprised to feel a sense of shame. Something about the small man who lay quietly in the bunk below had disturbed her. She could not identify it, but she didn’t like the feel of it.

He’s like all the rest of them, and I’ll prove it someday.
She closed her eyes and lay stiffly until the rhythm of the train wheels put her to sleep. She slept fitfully, however, awakening several times and thinking about what had happened. She was
determined to prove that Mr. Francis Key wasn’t as holy as he thought he was.

CHAPTER NINE

An Unwelcome Announcement

Brian Winslow pulled his Studebaker up in front of his parents’ house, stopping with a vicious jolt, the wheels locking. He jumped out of the car, slammed the door hard, and took the steps up to the long porch three at a time. He jerked the door open and was met by his sister. “What’s this all about, Paige?” he demanded, snapping his fingers nervously and shifting his feet. “Dad wouldn’t tell me anything. Just that he wanted the whole family to come together for an important announcement.”

“I don’t know what it’s about,” she said with exasperation. “Dad didn’t tell me any more than he told you—and I can’t get a thing out of Mother.”

“Where are they?”

“In the drawing room.”

“Come on, then,” he said impatiently. “Let’s find out what this is all about. I canceled an important meeting at work because Dad said it was urgent.”

The two made their way down the spacious hallway, turned down a corridor, then went in through a set of double doors. Brian practically burst into the room, where his father sat beside one of the mullioned windows. “What’s going on, Dad?”

Phil glanced at Cara, who was sitting in one of the antique chairs. “Something has come up that the whole family needs to know about.”

“Well, what is it?” Brian demanded.

Cara got to her feet. “We’ll have to get Kevin here first.”

“Oh, Mother,” Paige said, “if it’s business, you know Kev. He won’t care. He never does.” Paige was fond of her brother but had little respect for his abilities.

“That’s right, Mom,” Brian said. “He doesn’t know what’s going on—and he doesn’t much care either.”

Cara’s ordinarily gentle voice became surprisingly firm. “Your brother
must
be at this meeting. I’ll go get him.” She left the room, closing the double doors behind her. She walked down the long hall, passed through the spacious kitchen, and went out the back door. She followed a brick pathway around to the east side of the house, where she found her younger son digging industriously in a flower bed in the early April sunshine. He did not see her approach, and for a moment Cara paused, examining him. The left side of his face was toward her, and, as always when she saw the terrible scars that marked her son, Cara felt a pang of remorse. She could not help thinking back to what a handsome young man he had been before the accident. When he was fourteen years old, a worker on the estate had lit a cigarette and thoughtlessly tossed the match, accidentally igniting the can of gasoline Kevin was carrying.

Kevin’s clothing had helped protect his body, but his face had received the full impact of the explosion. Cara thought of the long weeks of waiting at the hospital to see if he would live, and she knew she would never forget the sorrow and regret in Dr. Olson’s eyes when he said,
“He’ll live, but he’s going to be terribly scarred, Cara. We’ll do the best we can, but there’s a great deal of damage.”

Kevin turned and the right side of his face came into view, still handsome and unscarred. He was much like his father, tall and strong, with the handsome features of the Winslow men. From the right side he was as attractive as any matinee idol, but his left side was a disaster. The flesh had been burned away, and despite several operations, the eye was drawn down into a permanent squint and the left side of his mouth was twisted.

Cara had grieved for years over her son, not only for his physical disfigurement but for what it had done to him emotionally. She would never forget what a happy, outgoing, joyous spirit Kevin had had before the accident. Always laughing, involved in everything, loving to be with people. He had worked hard and earned his rank of Eagle Scout at the earliest age of anyone in the history of scouting, was active in his Sunday school, and was popular with everyone he met.

But that had changed with the terrible blinding explosion. She had hoped that after he recuperated and was strong enough, he would pick up his life—but he never had. He absolutely refused to go back to school and would not even attend church. For years now he had stayed on the estate, working expertly with the flowers and plants. His other interest was engines, and he kept all the vehicles running like fine watches. But the rest of the time he kept to his room and refused to see anyone other than his family.

“Oh, hello, Mother, I didn’t see you.” He instinctively kept the scarred side of his face turned away, even from her.

“We’re waiting for you, Kevin. Did you forget the meeting?”

“I wanted to finish preparing this bed.”

“You can finish that later. Come along now.”

“I’m too dirty,” Kevin protested. He was wearing a pair of faded khaki trousers and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His arms were lean and muscular, and he had strong hands from years of working in the soil and with engines.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He gave her a cautious look. “Will there be anybody else there?”

“No,” she assured him at once. “It’s just the family. Come along now.”

He drove the shovel into the ground and reluctantly joined her. She took his arm, thinking how much he looked like his father. The same cornflower blue eyes, wedge-shaped face, and thick auburn hair.
So fine looking and yet so ruined!

“What’s this all about, Mom?”

“Let’s just wait until we get there, and your father will tell you all about it.”

****

“I’ll tell you, Dad, you can’t afford to miss out on these stocks. I’ve looked into it from every angle, and it’s a sure thing.”

Phil stood looking out the window, only half listening to Brian. “I don’t understand the stock market,” he said. “Wasn’t it amateurs dabbling in stock that brought this depression on?”

“This is different, Dad,” Brian said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. He was shorter than his father by two inches but well built and knit together like the athlete he had been. “It’s a sure thing! There’s no way to lose.”

“I wonder how many people said that who lost their shirts in the crash. There are men selling apples now who gambled everything on some stock.”

“Dad, you’ve got to listen to me—”

“Brian, be quiet,” Paige interrupted. “You know Dad’s not going to get involved in any of your stocks!” She turned petulantly toward her father. “Daddy, you’ve got to promise me we’ll have the party we talked about.”

“Another party?” Phil groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “The last one took just about all my savings.”

“But it’s important, Dad. We have social obligations.”

Phil sighed. He loved his beautiful daughter deeply, but some of her desires seemed a little extravagant to him. “It seems like such a waste to spend thousands of dollars just to have a bunch of people come eat and drink and talk and then go home.”

“Oh, Daddy, it’s more than that, and you know it! John’s parents gave a party, and we owe them one in return.”

John Asquith, Paige’s fiancé, was the son and heir of Helen and Roger Asquith. They were prominent in society, and like the founder of the Winslow family, their ancestors arrived on
the
Mayflower.
It delighted Phil to bring up that similarity in conversation. The Asquiths, of course, were fabulously wealthy—and fabulously stuck up, in Phil’s opinion. “We can have the Asquiths over anytime, but I can’t stand those monstrous parties.”

Their argument was silenced when the door opened, and Cara came in holding Kevin’s arm.

“You look like you’ve been wallowing in the dirt, Kev,” Brian said with displeasure. He loved his younger brother but felt that Kevin should make more of an effort to get back into the world. He had often told him,
“You’ve had a tough break, but you can come back. You’ve just got to face up to it.”
Now he shook his head. “Why don’t you hire somebody to do the gardening?”

“Leave him alone, Brian,” Cara said. “He’s made this place the most beautifully landscaped spot on Long Island, I believe.” She patted Kevin’s arm. “I never go outside without thinking how beautiful it is.”

Impatiently Paige spoke up. “All right, Dad, we’re all here. What’s the big mystery?”

“Everybody sit down—I think you’re going to need it.”

“That sounds ominous,” Brian said as he threw himself into a chair. “Have you gone broke or are you moving to Europe? Which is it?”

Phil looked over at Cara, and she came to his side. He put his arm around her and took a deep breath. “I’ve got some news that’s going to change things for the family.” He saw alarm come into Brian’s eyes and noted that Paige stiffened. Kevin leaned back against the walnut paneling, his arms across his broad chest. He kept the left side of his face averted, as always, but he was watching with mild expectation. He assumed this change would not affect him, for his world consisted of the estate, the landscaping and vehicles, and his thousands of books in the large library.