Glorious Angel Read Free

he climbed back in the carriage, his mouth set in a tight line. “You’re dealin’ with a man now, not a boy!”
    She laughed. “I ain’t never shot no man, but I reckon there’s a first time for everythin’. Don’t come back, Billy, or you’ll be the first.”
    “I’ll be back,” he promised. “And I’ll be the first, only not the way you mean. I will have you, Angela Sherrington, I promise you that.”
    Billy Anderson drove away recklessly, taking his fury out on the two hapless gray mares.

Three
    Angela slammed the door with a bang and threw the bolt, then collapsed against it, her heart pounding painfully. Icy rage gripped her, as it did every time she was confronted by boys like Billy. What did they think she was, a whore? Of course they did. Why else were they forever grabbing her?
    Angela sighed impatiently. She realized she had no one to blame but herself. She used to enjoy whipping any boy who dared to tease her. And that was all they used to do—just tease. It had been a show of strength then. But now it was getting harder and harder to win those fights. The same boys she used to send away with bloodied noses were now almost men.
    Angela had always felt awkward around girls, having been raised without a woman. She had run with boys instead, until their constant teasingbecame unbearable. Soon, girls her own age would have nothing to do with her. And colored girls shied away from her because she was white. The only friend she had was Hannah, kindhearted Hannah.
    A knock made Angela start and she clutched the rifle tightly. Had Billy come back already?
    “It’s me, child. That boy done gone.”
    Hearing Hannah’s voice, Angela threw the door open eagerly and stomped out on the porch.
    “That sorry son ov a pig had the nerve to—”
    “I knows, Missy. I knows.” Hannah soothed, startled by Angela’s fury. “That boy passed me on the road and I seen him turnin’ to come here, so’s I snuck ’round the trees and was hidin’ behind the house, waitin’ to see iffen you’d need help. O Lordy, Master Maitland sure ain’t gonna like this, he sure ain’t,” Hannah mumbled to herself.
    “What?”
    “Nothin’, Missy, nothin’,” Hannah said quickly. She put her arm around Angela and urged her to sit on the porch steps. “I guess you’s just growin’ up. Yessum, you sure is.”
    Angela wondered briefly why Hannah would mention Jacob Maitland, but Angela wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly, so she let it pass.
    Angela had first met Hannah on the day, five years before, when the older woman had emerged from the forest of cedars between Golden Oaks and the Sherringtons’ little farm, saying she was lost and close to fainting from theheat. Angela insisted she come inside and rest. Later, Angela showed Hannah the way back to Golden Oaks.
    Angela just couldn’t understand how a servant from Golden Oaks could have gotten lost. All she had to do was go down to the river and follow it. The plantation was only a little ways back from the rolling Mobile River, and clearly visible from the river’s edge. Or else she could have gone along the river road until she came to the long lane of giant live oaks that led to the mansion where the Maitlands lived.
    To Angela’s surprise, Hannah returned a week after that with a sack of flour and a basket of eggs. She said they were payment for Angela’s having saved her life. And no matter how Angela protested, Hannah insisted she had a debt to repay. William Sherrington thought the whole thing was funny, and he saw no reason not to accept the goods. Food was food, and the Sherringtons never had too much of it.
    “The gal thinks she has a debt to repay, so who are we to say no?” William had laughed. “It ain’t as if we was takin’ charity.”
    Hannah came once a month after that, always bringing something with her. First it was food, but since the war had started, she brought pins, salt, matches, and fabric. Most poor people were now doing without