The Stranger by Kathryn Hore

Author:Kathryn Hore [Kathryn Hore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2022-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I went home to Granger.

The hem on my dress was still not mended, but I couldn’t face the seamstress now. What did it matter that I’d found a letter warning of bad things? Or that it was clear as air we hadn’t enough food and maybe even the water was drying up? Nobody wanted to hear. Not Rass, not Miss Kenzie. Not even the Stranger come to town.

I trudged up the Hill Road, dragging my heels in their flimsy sandals, me in my pretty sparkling dress that was made to show off a different woman’s attributes. The cleavage I didn’t have, the curves that weren’t ever going to be mine. Granger always made it clear how I was supposed to look and yet I’d never managed to fit, not even that first dress he gifted me back when I was still scrubbing pots for Christian. Staying at the Hotel and trying to keep my head low, cos I was already tainted in the town’s eyes and I desperately didn’t want fingers pointing anywhere near Suse.

Granger often stopped in with gifts for me then, old jewellery or little bits of make-up. Pepper said I shouldn’t take them, that I needed to be careful about accepting presents from a man like him, but the town’s whispers were already starting about Suse being ill and me from a sick family so near. If Granger were coming by, if he were taking an interest in me, that would stop any talk, wouldn’t it?

So next time Granger appeared, I smiled and cocked my head at him in the way he seemed to like. After that, he bought me a new gift. That dress.

Black sequins and a long skirt which picked up dust from the scratched boards beneath my feet and me without the curves to fill it out. I scrambled into it in the storeroom before rushing out to show him. Twirling around while he watched, satisfied. Nodding his approval.

I didn’t let my eyes flicker to Pepper, who sat on the far side of the kitchen in her usual dressing-gown, long hair piled up messily on top of her head, frowning into a bowl of broth.

Granger drew himself up to full height with a smile. ‘Hope you like your gift. Sure looks sweet on you.’

I twirled again and made sure my eyes were bright and singing, for I knew how to show appreciation. Then Old Josey and Christian came in and the men’s talk turned to rationing meat, Christian shaking his head as they left the kitchen to see to business.

It left only me and Pepper in the kitchen. She frowned at me drowning in black chiffon.

‘Well. It certainly is a dress,’ she said, the laughter lines around her mouth now turned down. ‘Low-cut and leggy as hell.’

‘It’s pretty. Granger thinks so. I think so too.’

‘It’s not a dress for a fifteen-year-old. What’s a man of his age doing styling you in ways he likes, anyhow?’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Give it back, Chelsea, love.

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