Southern Ruby Read Online Free PDF Page B

rationalisations I’d made to justify Nan’s behaviour collapsed. My father’s family in New Orleans hadn’t forgotten me. They’d wanted me to be part of their lives. And after the death of my parents, there’d been a dispute about whether I should remain with them or come to live with Nan in Australia. It went part of the way to explain Nan’s secrecy and her denial of any details about my father. But as much as I tried to see everything in a detached manner, I was furious.
    â€˜Nan!’ I cried. ‘How could you have done that to me? You must have understood how badly you were hurting me!’
    I paced the room, rereading the letter. And what was this about an inheritance? How could I inherit something from people I’d never known? Gradually my anger gave way to a deep sense of loss.
    By the time the sun rose, my conflicting feelings had been overshadowed by questions. Was this woman — my Grandmother Ruby — still alive? And if so, what kind of woman was she?

THREE
Ruby
New Orleans, 1953
    L ord, my Aunt Elva was evil and I wished her dead! But I smiled sweetly instead and offered her another piece of Doberge cake.
    â€˜No, thank you,’ she said, pursing those thin lips of hers and shaking her head so her double chin wobbled like a turkey’s wattle. ‘It’s rather dry. When my Millie makes it, it practically melts in your mouth.’
    I glanced at Mae, who stood in the doorway in her faded uniform and watched us with her mahogany eyes. Her pride would be hurt. We’d eaten gravy on bread all week to put on a good show for Aunt Elva. It wasn’t Mae’s fault our oven was old and she’d had to go easy on the butter. I could have killed Aunt Elva with my bare hands right then if it didn’t mean I would hang and then burn in hell.
    It was my gracious mother who saved the moment. ‘More tea then, Elvie?’ she offered, picking up the pot and pouring some into Aunt Elva’s cup.
    My heart sank at the sight of Maman’s trembling hands. She was getting worse, and yet she had dressed up in her mauve-pink pleated dress, powdered her face and buffed her nails.
    Aunt Elva studied the teacup with calculating rather than admiring eyes. It was Haviland Limoges France and had been a wedding gift to my grandparents. These days I usually hid anything of value when Aunt Elva visited, but Maman had insisted that we always offer our guests the best we had. I knew what Aunt Elva was thinking when she stared at the cup, and it wasn’t how pretty the rose and violet pattern was.
    What else does the old witch want? I thought, looking at the bare walls of our parlour where the collection of Degas paintings used to hang. Our blood?
    I loved Maman fiercely and wanted to protect her like a lioness protects her cub. She was everything a Southern belle should be — pretty, unfailingly polite and always thinking of others. But she seemed to live in some time in the past and couldn’t adapt to our present circumstances. Mae and I had been pawning things left and right the past year to keep us going, and Maman acted like she didn’t even notice. In her mind, she was still living in a plantation mansion with a drive lined by oak trees.
    â€˜Excuse me,’ I said, rising from my chair. I grimaced at Mae as I passed her on my way to Maman’s bedroom.
    Mae followed me, and gripped my hands after I’d punched the bed viciously several times. I didn’t know from whom I’d inherited my fierce ability to see reality as it was, but it certainly wasn’t from Maman or any of my de Villeray ancestors, who had almost without exception perished through embarking on romantic but doomed ventures.
    â€˜Miss Ruby,’ Mae said in a hoarse whisper, ‘you control your temper now . . . for your mama’s sake.’
    â€˜I’m going to kill that old witch,’ I said under my breath. ‘Why’d she come here without