The Abandoned Bride Read Free Page A

at her preference. For hadn’t they roses here in the North? And wasn’t the hard-won spring this year filled with laburnum, lilac, and daffodil? And if a person fancied wild flowers, why poets had always sung the merits of the gillyflowers and marsh cups and violets. But mustard fields? One might as well admire a turnip over a tulip. Mrs. Bryce’s gove rn ess-companion might be a very nice sort of young female, but what sort of person could prefer a working field in spring to a carefully tended garden?
    Mrs. Bryce’s governess -companion could, and did. She stood at the fence rail and saw the radiant yellow of the fields shouting back at the sunlight and thought that she had never seen such beauty. Most of the susceptible gentlemen in the district would have disagreed if they had seen her there, for the light hues of her hair made the mustard blossoms seem garish by comparison. Miss Hastings’ tresses were, the smithy vowed, the color of the palest ale, and he knew no finer compliment, while Mr. Fisher, grocer and secret poet, thought that they more nearly resembled moonlight upon gold.
    But her hair alone would not cause such rhapsodizing from those usually taciturn fellows. No, it was Miss Hastings in her entirety that did. Everything about her enticed her admirers—the contrast between her light, almost ice-blue eyes with their darker lashes and brows set beneath her high clear white brow, her straight little nose, her plump and generous pink mouth, her slender but surprisingly generous form, her grace, her modulated voice. Indeed, Mrs. Ames for all her kindness, often complained that a person could become ill listening to the local lads discussing Miss Hastings’ charms.
    Still, for all their admiration, the fellows never discussed the subject with Miss Hastings herself. For she was, after all, a lady. Well, not actually a lady, they had to admit, for she had no title or high birth, and was really only a paid governess - companion. But there was that in her voice and her attitude which placed her above them. She was pleasant to a neighbor and friendly to a fellow; but there was a distance she maintained, a coolness no sane male could ignore if ever a conversation became too personal. They could no more pay court to such a composed young woman than they could stand and gaze in rapture for half the morning at a field of mustard flowers as she was doing now.
    But Miss Hastings was not merely appreciating the scenery, she was instead trying to imprint it all on her memory so that she could then take it with her wherever she might chance to go from here. She would leave soon, she knew. However much she might not wish to depart, the letter had been posted and the deed had been set in motion. It had been a pleasant situation, working for such an undemanding mistress in such a beautiful locale. But for the embarrassing attentions of a certain very young fellow, she might have been very glad to stay at it until she had reached an age for retirement. She might have been very angry at the lad, just as she had been at others of his sex who had caused her to lose other-positions, but she could not even harbor a grudge against him. For she loved him. And, she thought, he could hardly have known better, for after all, he had only been in existence upon the planet for a scan t sixteen months.
    Six months previously, when Miss Julia Hastings had taken up her position, young Toby had spent most of his days in his cot, in his room with Nurse: Because of that, even though the woman at the employment bureau had described her duties in her new position rather nebulously as “... a sort of companion to poor lonely young Mrs. Bryce, now that her husband’s fulfilling his commission at sea. In time you might work with her infant son as governess as well,” Julia had not paid too much attention to Toby.
    In any event, Mrs. Bryce had taken up her time completely then. She was a pretty, silly little young-woman, a new wife, bored and