Out of the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Author:V.C. Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2020-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

The party turned out to be more fun than I had anticipated. Despite being there without Garland, I was treated like royalty once everyone knew who I was. I was, after all, even though only through marriage, a Foxworth. I saw how my dressing like a nun first had offended some. They grimaced like people with stomach pain, but once they learned my identity, what was at first so distasteful became “so clever.”

Most of the women worked their way to the front to be sure they had introduced themselves almost before I had gotten across the room. If I moved left or right, the clump, which was what they seemed to me, moved right along. At times I really felt like I was surrounded by a flock of geese pecking away at me with their questions about Foxworth Hall and the life I led: “Why would you ever leave those grounds?” “How long is your lake?” “How many servants are there really?” “Are there really hundreds of works of art?”

I gave vague answers to questions about Garland, basically stating he was a man dedicated to his work.

“I know what you mean,” Louise Mason said. She was a woman in her late thirties who I thought looked on the verge of turning sixty. She had wrinkles my mother didn’t have. She looked back disapprovingly at her husband, who ran an export-import business, and said, “There is such a thing as a ‘married widow.’ ”

Heads nodded in agreement, but eyes were searching to see if I was going to say something more sensational about my husband. I sensed that a good gob of gossip about him and me surely had been spread like butter on bread before I had arrived, since no one had expected to see me. Melinda Sue kept her gaze on the floor when questions about Garland were asked. She looked afraid I would mention her innuendos and find confirmation.

“Yes, well, not everyone and every marriage is the same.” I looked at Melinda Sue when she raised her gaze. “Didn’t you tell me at lunch never to judge a book by its cover?”

“What?”

“Surely you all know that what seems to be true often is not.”

Eyes widened, heads bobbed. I smiled gleefully. Most had no idea what I meant.

“Nevertheless, we can’t live in our husbands’ shadows,” said Adelaide Wiley, who liked the theme we were on. “We’ll wilt like flowers if we just hang on their reputations and never have one of our own.”

“Yes, poor us, striving for some identity and more of the attention we deserve. Our husbands are so busy it’s almost as if we have to make an appointment to see them,” I said.

I watched their faces go from shock to smiles.

“You sound like a suffragette,” Adelaide said cautiously.

“Politics is boring. I can’t even spell the word,” I replied.

Some continued to smile, but there was clear disapproval from a few.

“You don’t have to be in politics to enjoy the company of other women,” Amanda McKnight said.

“Socially?” I asked, teasing her.

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