A bucket of ashes Read Online Free Page A

I am led to understand that you hold the highest regard for Miss Sweeney, who is no “miss” as I shall explain, it falls to me as a man of rectitude who is vexed to see good folks such as yourselves gulled by a cunning Colleen to inform you that “Miss” Sweeney is in no way what she appears to be. On the 8th of July in the course of my afore-mentioned duties I had ocassion to observe “Miss” Sweeney leave your home on Tremont St. and hire a hackney coach, her uneasy manner arousing my intrest to the degree that I followed her at a distance in my gig North across the river to Charlestown.
    The hack proceeded to Charlestown State Prison, the driver waiting outside the gate as “Miss” Sweeney entered the Prison where she remained from one o’clock in the afternoon until half passed that hour. When she came out and got back in the hack I could not help but notice that her color was high and her atire unkempt withal. Which is to say her hat being crooked and a fair degree of dust besmirching the back of her dress.
    You can imagine my cogitations as to what such a visit might betoken. Upon finding myself two days thence in posession of considerable free time I set about making inquiries as to the nature of that visit. Such inquiries being hindered by my being sacked and the stain upon my repute it took me some time to sort things out. But at length I became privy to the truth, which is that “Miss” Sweeney is MRS. Sweeney wife of Duncan Sweeney inmate at Charlestown State Prison these 10 years passed with 20 more years to serve for the crimes of armed robbery and aggravated assault.
    Knowing that good folks such as yourselves could not and would not countenance such bald DECIET I took pen to paper so that you might know how you have been hoodwinked and act accordingly, which is to say sack MRS. Sweeney with all haste. I warrant she is as Bad an Apple as ever washed up on our shores.
     
    Ever most faithfully yours,
    Chas. A. Skinner
     
    Nell lowered the letter, sweat beading coldly on her face.
Please, St. Dismas. Please don’t let this happen. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose Gracie.
    She pressed a hand to her stomach as it pitched, launching a surge of bile into her throat. “Oh, God.”
    Bolting up from the settee, she raced through the buttery and down the service hallway to the little bathroom off the laundry room, hunched over the water closet, and emptied her stomach. She flushed, rinsed out her mouth, and surveyed herself in the toilet glass. Her face was waxen, her eyes panicky. She whipped the absurd bathing cap off her head, and with palsied hands smoothed down her hair, plaited into a single, still damp, rusty brown braid.
    “God, help me,” she whispered, and walked back to the great hall on legs that felt as if they were made of India rubber.
    Viola was sitting with the letter in her hand, watching Nell gravely; Clancy, sitting next to her, bore a similar expression. “Are you quite all right?”
    Nell nodded, although, of course, she was anything but. “It’s the heat,” she said dully as she wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “This blasted heat.”
    “And this letter, I should think. From your reaction... It’s true, I take it.”
    Nell sank to her knees in front of Viola, her strength utterly sapped by the double volley of bad news in such a brief period of time. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hewitt,” she said in a watery voice. “I’m sorry. I... I never meant to deceive you. That is, I never wanted to. I hated it, I always hated it. But I just... I knew I couldn’t be Gracie’s governess if I was married, especially to a... to someone like Duncan.”
    “Does Will know?” Viola asked. All she knew about Nell and Will was that they’d developed a friendship based on common interests, not the least of which was Gracie. When people had started whispering about the amount of time they were spending together, they pretended to be engaged in order to protect Nell’s reputation.