The Outlander Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked but was yanked by the upper
     arm to twist and face her keeper.
    â€œDon’t be smart. I despise a smartarse. You remember where you
     are, missy.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œHand me that brush.” The widow handed the wooden brush over
     her shoulder and submitted to a brutal currying of her hair, her scalp pulled taut and
     her eyebrows raised. She was obliged to hold on to the edge of the tub with both
     hands.
    â€œShe takes it too far, I say. Bringing home all manner of rubbish so
     Emily and I have to deal with them. Charity is one thing. Letting ’em steal the
     silverware’s another. Pissing in the coal room. Making off with my Sunday roast in
     their jackets. And guess who doesn’t like it when there in’t any
     dinner?” Zenta’s hands were like hooves pounding a flinty road, her breath
     stormy on the widow’s cheek. “And now it’s you, little miss sly-boots.
     I’ll tell you one thing: if you hurt that old woman’s feelings or abuse her
     kindness, it’ll be a damnation on you. I’m not like her, you know. I
     don’t believe you’re mad. I don’t think there’s anything wrong
     with you a’tall.”
    â€œI’m not mad,” the widow said.
    â€œI don’t wonder you’re weak, though,” the woman
     said. “You’ve had a baby. I can tell by the look of you.” She gesturedat the widow’s sore and laden breasts. They had been used,
     then abruptly unused, and the widow had had no clue how to remedy the disaster.
    Zenta’s eyes shone unkindly, she was pleased with her cleverness.
     “How long ago? I’d guess two months. Where is he now?”
    There was no answer, which indeed was the answer. No lie could touch the
     question. The widow’s mind shut off the image that had grown up before her,
     ghastly and sudden. She met Zenta’s eye, a ragged, hot attention forming where
     before there had been nothing. Zenta saw it and her face fell.
    â€œOh no. You didn’t . . .” Her voice became soft and
     peculiar. “Did you lose it?”
    The widow’s long hair dripped, strewn in weedy patterns across her
     back. “Yes.”
    â€œDid it live long?” Zenta asked with a strange eagerness. How
     precious news of suffering is, how collectible.
    The widow looked down to where her toes were splayed out against the tub
     and saw for the first time that several nails were dark with blood. One middle toe was
     badly cut. She did not know what had caused this. She felt no pain there, nor anywhere
     else in her body. Did he live long? How far away from here? How long ago?
    She brought the heel of her hand to her mouth and bit down hard, waiting
     to feel the yank of pain. The hand was not numb, in fact she knew she had broken the
     skin, but the throb that came afterward was distant, a fretful voice floating on the
     air. Both women gazed at the ring of marks left there on her palm, a pink stain forming
     slowly.
    Zenta’s scrub cloth hung frozen in the air. “You can get up
     now,” she said, wholly unnerved. “Get up.”
    BEFORE SUPPER , a storm gathered to the east. Clouds
     dimmed the air and smears of rain angled near the horizon. A blue haze of humidity hung
     everywhere. Inside the house it was cool, the hallways shadowy. Evening seemed to fall,
     then fall again. They had taken supper early, the old lady alone in the dining room,
     mirthless, as if eating were a chore. The widow ate in the kitchen, sitting on a high
     stool, holding her plate on her lap. Food! She was so grateful for it.
    When the dinner platters came back, Zenta and Emily quickly devoured what
     was left. Without seeming to do so, the widow watched them carefully. She remembered
     from her father’s house that maids did this. Ordering a little too much at the
     meat counter, cooking a few too many potatoes, then scavenging afterward. She remembered
     one