After the Fire by Belva Plain Read Free Book Online Page A

familiar in the house. But each time she drew back; Francine never brought up the subject, almost surely because she had changed her mind about him—how could she not have changed it?—and was ashamed to remember her original mistake. It was far better to forget the bad beginning.
    Hyacinth was feeling the sweetness of life.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T hey had been dancing all afternoon, whirling to the music of a very good five-piece band. A floor had been laid on the lawn, and an awning prepared in case of rain, which, happy to say, was nowhere in sight. All around stood a scalloping border of small tables, each with its starched white petticoat and taffeta bows. At one of them now sat the family, momentarily at rest and watching the dancers.
    Jim was “in his element,” to use one of his own frequent expressions. He used it now.
    “Watch that Gerald swing. He's in his element. And watch Hy keeping right up with him. I never knew she was that fine a dancer.”
    Francine was pensive.
I suppose there must be much more that we never knew about her,
she thought.
    “Quiet little baby sister,” George said. “The first one in her class to get married! I would never have predicted it. He's quite a guy, too. Very impressive. And let me tellyou, I meet a lot of impressive guys in the global banking business.”
    Granny agreed. “Yes, isn't he a charmer? I fell in love with him myself the first time I saw him. As I told Hyacinth once, marriage is a very, very serious business. But this one is going to be splendid. She's going to be so happy. I see it. I feel it in my bones. How about you, Francine?”
    Of course Hyacinth has told her what I said about him that time, Francine thought, and now she wants to pin me down to a yes or a no. It will surprise her to hear that I am moving toward a yes. At the least, I haven't found anything to criticize in him during all these past months.
    “Yes, I do think so,” she said.
    She prayed and she hoped, hoping that she had not done too much damage in misjudging this man whom Hyacinth so adored. She prayed that the memory of her drastic words might fade completely away. There in the bright afternoon, Francine grew solemn. How easy it had been to rear those three young men now whirling on the floor! Never had she been baffled by any one of them. But Hyacinth? I suppose I annoyed her a good deal, she reflected. I know I did. She worried me, and we bickered far more than we should have done. But I only wanted her to be happier, and livelier. I only wanted her to be something she couldn't be!
    “Look at her,” Jim said. “She's opened up like a rose.”
    Francine's eyes were already following her daughter. Her head was flung back in laughter, her short veil wasfloating, and her feet were flying. She was dancing with a fellow who worked at the museum. Friends there had sent an original and pleasing wedding gift, a set of photographs, most beautifully framed, of the Shackleton expedition to the South Pole. Hyacinth had her own kind of friends.
    When Gerald cut in, Hyacinth stood up on her toes to reach him and kissed him on the mouth. And again her feet flew. Her veil floated, and she was radiant with love. She had indeed opened up like a rose, as Jim had just said.
    He, too, was beaming with happiness. “A perfect party, darling, my efficient wife. Perfect as always. I'd love to catch you once forgetting some little thing. Just one thing, once.”
    “Well, you've caught me now. The decanters are close to empty. I'll run in and make sure I've remembered to tell the waiters there's more wine in the garage.”
    When Francine returned, she brought a message for Granny. “The cooks want to know where I bought the cookies and what they cost. They're interested.”
    Granny laughed. “Oh Lord, those are my old spice cookies. They're an eighteenth-century recipe from a Williamsburg cookbook, or maybe it was New Orleans. I don't even remember.”
    “Well, there are hardly any left, and you must have made