A Proper Pursuit
Authors: Lynn Austin
Tags: #Fiction, #Christian, #Historical, #General, #Religious, #ebook, #book
A Proper Pursuit
Copyright © 2007
Lynn Austin
Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400
Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Austin, Lynn N.
A proper pursuit / Lynn Austin.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0440-1 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7642-2891-9 (pbk.)
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 3. United States—History— 1933–1945—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3551.U839P76 2007
813'.54—dc22
2007023563
To my family
Ken, Joshua, Benjamin, Maya, and Vanessa
I love you all.
Books by
Lynn Austin
FROM BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS
All She Ever Wanted
Eve’s Daughters
Hidden Places
A Proper Pursuit
Though Waters Roar
Until We Reach Home
Wings of Refuge
A Woman’s Place
R
EFINER’S
F
IRE
Candle in the Darkness
Fire by Night
A Light to My Path
C
HRONICLES OF THE
K
INGS
Gods and Kings
Song of Redemption
The Strength of His Hand
Faith of My Fathers
Among the Gods
LYNN AUSTIN is a former teacher who now writes and speaks full time. Her unique voice and ability to portray compelling relationships have made Austin a favorite with readers and have garnered her wide acclaim, including five Christy Awards for her historical novels
Candle in the Darkness, Fire by Night, Hidden Places, A Proper Pursuit,
and
Until We Reach Home
.
Table of Contents
Saturday, May 20, 1893
I
couldn’t imagine more shocking news.
I sat at Widow Maude O’Neill’s dining room table and stared at my father as the overcooked mutton on my plate grew cold. I would have cried out in protest and begged him to reconsider, but as a recent graduate of Madame Beauchamps’ School for Young Ladies, I’d learned that a proper young lady never caused a scene at the supper table, especially if she was a guest.
Father looked immensely pleased with himself. He leaned back in his chair, his hand thrust inside his suit coat as he played with his watch chain. Maude, dressed in widow’s black for the last time, wore the phony smile that she reserved for my father and did her best to blush like a maiden. She had won a valuable prize in my father, John Jacob Hayes, and she knew it.
I glanced at her unpleasant children, Horace and Harriet, and knew by their smug expressions that my father’s marriage proposal wasn’t news to them. Maude had scrubbed their piggy pink faces so thoroughly it looked as though she had boiled them. I wished she had.
My father’s smile faded as my silence lengthened. ‘‘Well, say something, Violet. Have you forgotten your manners?’’
I looked down at my hands, folded primly in my lap. ‘‘No, Father. I haven’t forgotten.’’ Good manners prevented me from telling my father that he was a fool. Or from smacking the smile off Maude’s pinched face.
‘‘Congratulations, Father,’’ I said in my sweetest voice. ‘‘And best wishes to you, Widow O’Neill.’’ I had learned the proper responses from Madame Beauchamps:
‘‘Never congratulate the bride; offer her
your best wishes.’’
‘‘Thank you, Violet,’’ Maude replied. If her narrow rat face had whiskers, she would have preened them.
‘‘We hope to be wed this coming fall,’’ my father continued. ‘‘It will be a small, private affair at home with only a few relatives and guests in attendance.’’
‘‘Excuse me, Father,’’ I said politely, ‘‘but aren’t you forgetting something?’’
‘‘What’s that?’’
‘‘You already have a wife—my mother.’’
He cleared his throat. ‘‘Yes . . . well, perhaps I neglected to explain it to you, but the fact is, I’ve been free to marry for some time.’’ He sawed off another rubbery morsel of mutton and chewed it vigorously, as if unaware that this second piece of news had shocked me even more than the first.
‘‘Free to marry?’’ I echoed, careful to keep my tone mild. Young ladies never burst into tears in public.
‘‘Yes. You were away at school, and I didn’t want to upset you with the news.’’
I quietly wadded Maude’s damask napkin into a ball as I pondered his words. Why did people always tiptoe around me as if I reclined on a bed of violets that might be crushed beneath their feet?
‘‘Poor, pitiful Violet. Her mother became ill, you know, when she was only
nine. She’s an only child, always daydreaming. . . .’’
‘‘When did Mother die?’’ I had to struggle against the lump in my throat.
‘‘We’ll talk about it later, Violet.’’
‘‘Excuse me once again, Father, but I believe I should have been informed of her passing. You might have—’’
He cleared his throat, interrupting me. ‘‘This is hardly the proper time to discuss the matter.’’ He nodded discreetly toward Horace and Harriet, who had stopped gnawing their mutton to gaze at me with their round piggy eyes. ‘‘I realize, now, that I should have explained everything to you ahead of time, and I apologize for that. But let’s not spoil Maude’s wonderful supper or this momentous occasion with details that can wait until we’re home, shall we?’’
Evidently, my mother’s demise was a detail. I would have excused myself from the table in order to allow my tears to fall, but I was a guest in Widow O’Neill’s home. Leaving midmeal would be unspeakably rude.Weeping at the supper table would be rude as well. Besides, my tears were more for myself than for a mother I barely remembered. Even so, Father might have mentioned her death.
Maude lifted the platter of meat and offered it to my father. ‘‘Would you care for more, John?’’
Maude had poisoned her first husband—I was certain of it. I had read about women like her in my favorite dime novels and pulp fiction magazines. My best friend, Ruth Schultz, smuggled copies of
True Crime Stories
,
The Illustrated Police News
, and
True Romance
Stories
into our dormitory at Madame Beauchamps’ School for Young Ladies along with dime novels in bright orange jackets.We hid them beneath our mattresses so we could read them after lights-out. Of course, proper young ladies never read such trash—but Ruth and I did.
What would become of me after Maude poisoned my father the same way she had poisoned her first husband? Would she drive me from my home to beg for alms in the gutter? I pictured myself on a street corner as snow swirled around me, a tattered shawl clutched around my shivering shoulders, my gaunt hand outstretched in supplication. Then the image faded as I realized that I was much too old to beg for alms. As a pretty young woman of twenty years, a much worse fate awaited me: I would have to become a woman of the night! A warm blush spread across my cheeks at the prospect.
While it may sound vain to call myself
pretty
, I had heard enough people use that adjective when describing me to convince myself that it must be true. My thick, curly hair was the color of strong coffee, my eyes just as dark. And even though Madame Beauchamps had referred to my complexion as a bit
swarthy
and had cautioned me to stay out of the sun lest I resemble
une paysanne
, she had also described me as
trés jolie
. A careful examination of my face in a hand mirror confirmed to me that I was, indeed, quite pretty.
‘‘Would you like some more meat, Violet?’’ Maude offered the platter to me next, her teeth bared in a grin. What if she planned to poison me along with my father, so that Horace and Harriet could inherit our entire estate? I declined politely, then pushed away my dinner plate, my appetite suddenly gone. For all I knew, Maude may have begun the slow, poisonous process this very evening.
‘‘I believe our news has upset you, Violet,’’ Maude said, her head tilted to one side in sympathy. ‘‘We were so hoping that you would be happy for your father and me. And that we would all become one big family.’’ Horace and Harriet had laid down their forks as if waiting for me to graft them into the family tree with my butter knife. They would have a very long wait. I felt a greater kinship with the poor dead sheep on the serving platter than I did with them.
In the long silence that followed I heard a horse trotting up the street. If only it were a young, fair-haired lieutenant, newly arrived from the western Indian wars, riding to my rescue . . .
He had been
gravely wounded by a native’s savage arrow, his uniform in bloody tatters, but his undying love for me had kept him alive, and now we would
be reunited at last, and . . .
The horse cantered past the house, followed by the unmistakable rumble of carriage wheels over the rutted street. Maybe it was a sign from Providence. Perhaps the passing carriage had been sent to tell me that I must run away from home at the first opportunity.
Did twenty-year-old women run away from home? And if so, how did they accomplish it? Did they tie their belongings in a shawl and sling the bundle over their shoulder? A steamer trunk would be much more convenient, considering how many belongings I possessed. The trunk I had taken to school with me would suffice, although I doubted if proper young ladies pushed their own steamer trunks through the streets. Madame Beauchamps had never specifically addressed the subject of proper etiquette when running away from home, but I was quite certain she would consider pushing one’s own trunk through the streets of Lockport, Illinois, unacceptable.