The Abandoned Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

convoluted tale, which Julia had difficulty following, that had to do with a spirit who seemingly, so far as she could make out, disliked wash days, “there’s never been a hint-of a haunt at Three Elms, so you’d likely never think on ’em, living there. But if you was to stop at the Manse, where the Mundfords dwell,” he said, brightening, “you’d be up to your pretty chin in ’em. Oh,” he said wisely, “not that she’d be like to tell you the tale over tea, not she, for she thinks ’em disgraceful, like they had to do with bad housekeeping, like mice or beetles. But there they do bide, mark me well.”
    Old Joseph rattled off his tales of dire midnight doings as Ruby plodded down the drive to Mrs. Bryce’s house, thinking contentedly that he was entertaining the pretty lass handsomely from the way she sat silent and big-eyed, attending to him. But he could not know that it was not his ghosties and haunts that she was frightened of. Rather, she was aghast at the sudden realization of her own unwillingness to part from newly familiar friends such as himself to go to an unknown future more terrifying in its emptiness than any of the specters that capered through the Mundfords’ house.
    When Ruby slowed as she came to the base of the drive, Old Joseph left off his story to comment with surprise, “Seems like you got company, missy. Could it be the cap’n’s back?” There was a certain amount of chagrin in his tone, for he liked to be the first to know the local gossip. But then, when he dropped the reins and lowered himself to the ground to help the young lady down from her high seat, he stood and looked closely at the equipage and horses being held by an unknown boy. “Nay,” he grunted, “I lie. For cap’n’s a seafaring dog, with never such an eye to cattle. Them’s spanking brutes, bang up to the mark.”
    Glancing at the high phaeton and the two gleaming black horses as she straightened her skirts, Julia had to agree with Old Joseph’s outsize admiration. The pair of animals seemed to be of a completely different species than poor Ruby, standing head-down and patient.
    “They do shine in the sun,” she commented.
    “Pah, shine,” Old Joseph said, shaking his head at a female’s foolishness, “the shine’s in the brushing. Ruby’d shine too if I was daft enough to curry her half my life. No, those two could be covered in muck and still they’d be thoroughbreds. It’s in the bone, missy, it’s bred in the tone. You can see it in the eyes, in the points. It’s spirit and intelligence and line, missy.”
    As it is with you, missy, Old Joseph thought as he touched his battered hat when Julia thanked him kindly for the ride before she disappeared into the house. Born and bred it is with you, too, whether you work for your bread or no. And then, casting one more admiring glance at the equipage, he clucked to Ruby, But in a tribute that would have warmed Miss Hastings’ heart had she known it, Old Joseph, though he had left his seventieth year behind in the winter, gave no further thought to the fine, glistening black horseflesh he had seen in the drive, but rather let his thoughts linger instead on a mane of heavy gleaming gold hair as he drove away.
    Julia was consumed with curiosity as to who would call upon her mistress in such fine state, but she would not allow herself to sink so low as to question Mr. Duncan, the butler, as to the visitor’s identity. For, she thought as she mounted the stair to her room, it was enough that she had to work for her livelihood in others’ homes. If she began to try to live through their lives a s well, she would be lost. But she had gotten only so far as the first landing when she heard her own name being called.
    “Oh Julia, my dear,” Mrs. Bryce called from the bottom of the stairs. “Do come down, you have a visitor.”
    Julia paused so long upon the stair, frozen in disbelief, that Mrs. Bryce became impatient. If her companion had compunctions