Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t be alone with all these other homes around me.
    “If I’ve come out into the sunshine, I can’t very well go back into the shadows, now can I?” I said out loud. I found myself walking past my house toward town.
    Why not go to the tea on my own? I will reach out to these ladies as I am asking Aimee to do with me. They may well be the light at the end of my tunnel.
    Cady Pickering’s home was only a few miles away, the Beauchamp Manor, known to be the town’s prettiest. I longed to see its inside. The address was on her calling card.
    The sun touched warm on my face and urged me forward into the daylight.
    “Ruby, wait!”
    I turned to see Aimee running down her steps toward me, her hat in hand, her cape unbuttoned.
    “Thank you for the note,” Aimee said when she stopped, winded, beside me. She began tucking blonde flyaway curls under her floppy hat, her crystal blue eyes shining. “It was what I needed to get me going. I can’t stay hidden forever. And it is a warm sunny day!”
    I looked at the hastily applied face powder highlighting the blues and purples, at once feeling happy and sad. The sun may be warm, but it can be harsh.
    We didn’t stop walking or talking for several miles, not until we stopped outside the white gate of a two-story manor.
    The vast elegance of this estate was overwhelming in those days. The white-washed colonial brick house gracefully adorned several acres of lawn and gardens. A red brick walkway winded its way to the whitewashed porch, its landing armed on each side with a large white column. Two white wrought iron chairs sat to one side, separated by a matching table displaying a potted geranium.
    I halted, intimidated. “Aimee, what is the proper etiquette for a tea nowadays? It will no doubt be a formal one, from the looks of this place. I’m not suitably dressed!” I touched my hair with nervous fingers. “Mercy, I’m so pale! Do I still have dark circles under my eyes? I tried this new hair design this morning, from
Harper’s Bazaar
magazine, a Gibson Girl hairdo I think it’s called, some sort of pompadour, but my hair is too thick and long, and oh dear, look at the straggly ends coming down!”
    “Oh Ruby, you mustn’t worry about such things,” Aimee said, moving her own frizzed hair away from her eyes. She was slightly out of breath from our fast walk and constant talk about children. “If these women worried about such trivial matters as appearance, they would be society’s proper ladies clinging to their own homes, serving tea to other properly behaved wives. That is not the purpose of this tea. Why, I see them as hardy soldiers prepared to fight for their rights as women!” She linked her arm with mine. “Besides, we are all pale this time of year and you have such pretty blue eyes and shiny brown hair, nothing else matters.”
    This image of soldiers charged me. I hadn’t a clue regarding women’s rights or the lack thereof, but I willed myself to appear ignorant and ask. One thing I knew for sure; Aimee and her friends would surely understand my own invisible prison. I felt my down-turned mouth slowly turn up into my own defiant smile. I lifted my chin and walked up Cady’s walkway ready to right my world.
    The ladies were assembled in somewhat of a circle so that one could see all. I couldn’t say they were unattractive, but there was a certain austerity that seemed to infiltrate into a statement oftake-me-as-I-am. The various shapes and design of white blouses and simple black skirts established their uniform of mixed travels, yet all roads led them to this unity. The air about them sang out with a mission. One on the outside had to fight hard not to feel further intimidated. I wiped my clammy hands on my skirt.
    I hoped they wouldn’t notice these clammy hands, as they shook a how-do-you-do. Their extended hands took me off guard - I had never been offered a handshake before. Was this socially acceptable now among women? It seemed so