The Weeping Ash Read Online Free Page A

recalling her father’s shortness before meals, particularly in Lent.
    â€œWh-what a pleasant room!” she ventured in a placating manner, glancing around her. The bedroom was scantily furnished as yet, with a chest, a small rug, a bed, and two chairs; a hastily kindled fire burned rather flickeringly in the grate. One charming feature was a large, semicircular bow window which commanded a prospect of dusk-shrouded lawn, rosebushes, and yew hedge: “How delightful this will be in summer—” Fanny was going on, wondering if it would be in order to voice a wish for hot water, when her husband said curtly:
    â€œTake your clothes off.”
    â€œWhat—?”
    â€œMake haste—undo that dress.”
    â€œBut it was such a short way from the carriage—I am not at all wet—”
    â€œDon’t be a fool—do as I say!”
    And as she was still slow to follow his meaning, gazing at him with startled eyes, he began himself pulling undone the fastenings of Fanny’s striped muslin overdress—breaking a couple of tags in the process—dragged the garment off her shoulders, and tossed it on the floor. “Now your petticoat—don’t just stand there staring!”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œ Your petticoat, girl ! ”
    Exasperated by her slowness, he kicked off his own boots and breeches, then flung her on the bed.
    What followed was so appalling to Fanny that, though it was to be re-enacted over and over during the weeks and months to come, every grim detail of the first occasion remained stamped on her memory for the rest of her life. The furious intentness of her suddenly red-faced, blind-eyed husband on his own purpose, as he thrust and battered at her, panting, cursing, and muttering to himself, only, it seemed, occasionally noticing her existence enough to snarl, “Open your legs wider, idiot!”—the totally unfamiliar shock of the whole experience, and its suddenness—the complete disparity of her expectations with this aspect of Thomas Paget—all these things in combination worked upon Fanny with almost shattering effect.
    Some ten minutes later, when her husband matter-of-factly pulled himself upright and began hunting for his breeches, which had got kicked under the bed, Fanny lay still, limp, gasping, and shocked, horrified not so much by the pain—though that was certainly the worst she had ever felt—as by her own ignorance and fear of what he had done to her, what damage he might have done, tearing and bruising areas of whose very existence she had not previously been aware.
    â€œWell, don’t lie there like a gaby,” he said irritably. “Get up and put your clothes on! Dinner won’t be long. Some of those fools will be along soon, I daresay, with the baggage.”
    â€œI’m bleeding—”
    â€œSo I should hope—or I’d have had a word to say to your father!”
    â€œThere’s blood all over the sheets,” she said, beginning to sob.
    â€œWell, tell the maids to wash them! Where’s my cravat? Damn it, Frances, can’t you be some help? Don’t just lie there! I want to go out to the impress rendezvous and see if my placard has brought in any volunteers. For heaven’s sake ,” he broke out in exasperation, “I thought I had got myself a wife, not a whining little mawkin. I’ll have you show me a cheerfuller face than that when I get back, my girl, or I’ll know the reason why!” And, slamming the door to demonstrate his justifiable annoyance, he ran smartly down the stairs, shouting for Jem the bootboy to bring him his officer’s greatcoat.
    Fanny lay dazedly for a few minutes longer, then, hearing muffled footsteps on the stairs, she huddled among the untidy bedclothes and pulled the sheet over her nakedness.
    * * *
    Thomas Paget was a many times disappointed man. Indeed, by the middle of his life he had fallen into a habit of