Yankee Wife Read Free Page B

and several sturdy pairs of shoes. She yearned for the pretty satin dancing slippers on display, but practicality wouldn't allow the purchase, even though she could have afforded it. She bought warm underwear, and stockings, and two modest flannel nightgowns. Her own things, stashed in a trunk in the storeroom of the supper club where she played piano, were hardly worth going back for. Because of the stringencies of the war, she had not had a new garment in five years, and everything she possessed was worn thin and painfully out of fashion.
    That last thought made Lydia chuckle. When had she, daughter of the well-intentioned but chronically impoverished Dr. Wilkes McQuire, ever concerned herself with fashion? Her one luxurious purchase was a book—she'd read the volumes tucked away in her trunk until the pages of most of them were coming loose from their bindings. Still flush with money, Lydia returned to the hotel and marched herself bravely up to Room 10.
    The chamber proved to be very spacious, with a large mahogany-framed bed, a settee and chairs upholstered in spotless blue taffeta, and a white marble fireplace. On the mantel stood a crystal vase filled with spring flowers.
    Charmed, Lydia closed the door with her foot, set her packages carefully on the settee, and stood in front of the fireplace, touching a blossom thoughtfully. There were red and yellow zinnias, pert daisies, irises and tulips and crocuses, creating an explosion of color made double by the reflection in the mirror above the mantel.
    Lydia was not accustomed to such luxuries, and their sudden appearance in her life was overwhelming. It seemed incredible that, only a few hours before, she had been faced with a choice between two such basic needs as food and shelter.
    Now she was ensconced in a fancy hotel room, with money to spend, new clothes to wear, a book to read, and a kitchen staff virtually at her beck and call.
    She made her way to a chair and sat down, frowning. If there was one thing life had taught her, it was that everything had a price. Sooner or later an accounting would have to be made.
    Lydia closed her eyes and held fast to the arms of the chair. It was possible that Mr. Quade wasn't the gentleman he seemed; he could be a procurer. Perhaps she was bound for some backwards harem, or even an opium den in the Orient!
    She sighed, opened her eyes.
    It was also possible, she concluded, with some, relief, that she would simply end up in a sturdy log cabin somewhere in the timberlands to the north, keeping house for Devon Quade. She would live out her life in peace, raising three or four children along the way, and then it would be over and the world would go right on as if she'd never existed at all.
    Hardly comforted, and no less confused for all her deliberations, Lydia rose with resolution and explored her surroundings. There was a small room reserved for bathing and other hygienic necessities, and after careful thought, she turned up the gas jet beneath the huge tank over the bathtub. While the water heated, Lydia unwrapped her parcels and laid out all her new things on the bed, as much to admire as to choose what to wear. She had bought nothing frivolous, just plain, practical, woolly things, but she felt rich and dissolute all the same. This must be what it was like to be a kept woman, she decided.
    Finally, after an hour, Lydia turned a spigot on the tank in the bathroom and warm water began to flow into the tub. She hastily undressed, enjoyed a luxurious soak, something she had not had since before the war, then scrubbed her body and shampooed her hair.
    When she climbed out of her bath, she felt like a woman resurrected and restored to glory. She dried her hair, combed out the tangles, and put on fresh new underthings and a prim gray-and-white-striped dress with a high collar. With this, she wore new stockings, ribbed and scratchy, and a pair of plain black shoes. She stuffed her old things into the trash basket in the bathing