House On Windridge Read Online Free Page B

Please say you’ll come for a visit.”
    And she had come. She had telegraphed Kate before boarding the first available train, and now she was well on her way to Windridge.
    But what would she do after that?
    She stared out the window at the dead brown grass of the Flinthills. She had felt fascinated the first time she’d laid eyes on the place at the age of twelve. Her aunt Harriet had figured it was time for Jessica to make a visit to the place of her birth; and sent west with a most severe nanny, Jessica had had her first taste of the prairie and rolling hills where thousands of cattle grazed.
    And secretly, she had loved it. She loved the way she could stand atop Windridge when her nanny was otherwise preoccupied and let loose her hair ribbon and let the wind blow through her brown curls. She liked the feel of the warm Kansas sun on her face, even if it did bring her a heavy reprimand from her nanny. Freckled faces weren’t considered a thing of beauty, not even for a child.
    Now she looked across the vast openness and sighed. I’m like that prairie, she thought. Lonely and open, vulnerable to whatever may come. A hawk circled in the distance, and Jessica absently wondered what prey he might be seeking. It could possibly be a rabbit or a mouse, maybe even a wounded bird or some other sort of creature.
    â€œPoor things,” she whispered. Life on the prairie was hard. Often it came across as cruel and inhumane, but nevertheless, it continued. It went on and on whether people inhabited the land or died and were buried beneath its covering.
    Jessica felt she could expect little more than this.
    Her own life had taken so many different turns from that which she had expected. She had married against her father’s wishes. But because he was a man who had never taken the time or trouble to be a real father to her, his letter-written advice had held little sway with Jessica. After all, she scarcely knew her father. Harriet chose the man Jessica was to marry b ased on his social status and ability to conduct himself properly at social gatherings. It mattered very little that Jessica didn’t love him. She was, Harriet pointed out, twenty-two years old. It was time to marry and take her place as a matron of society.
    But society wasn’t very accepting of you when you ran out of money.
    High society was even less forgiving.
    It grieved Jessica to know Gus Gussop had been right in his long-dis tance judgment of Newman Albright. Gus had called him a dandy and a city boy. Called him worse than that, as Jessica recalled. And Newman had been all of those things.
    Harriet had died shortly after Jessica’s marriage. With her death came the inheritance of a fashionable house and a significant amount of money. Newman refused to move them into the Nelson place. Instead he insisted they sell the place and buy a less ostentatious home. Jessica quietly agreed, having been raised to respect her husband’s wishes as law. What she didn’t realize was that Newman had managed to get himself deep into debt through gambling and needed the sale of the house to clear his ledgers.
    He robbed her of both the fortune left to her upon Harriet Nelson’s death and her father’s wedding gift of ten thousand dollars. A gift Newman never bothered to mention. She found out about these things after New man had died. Of course, by that time they were living in poverty, and New man’s only explanation was that Jessica’s father had cut them off without a dime, and their investments had gone sour.
    Upon Newman’s death, Jessica learned the truth about everything. Things she’d much rather have never known. Part of this came by way of her father’s request. Gus had sent a telegram asking her to be honest with him about her financial situation. When Jessica had given the pitiful statements over to her father via a long, detailed letter, Gus had written back in a livid anger that seemed to leap off