The Silent Hour by Elisabeth Grace Foley Read Free Book Online

rain, a damp shawl that
had slid partly back off her hair twisted around her shoulders, and
a look of gripping, clutching misery in her white face.
    “Jim has been arrested,” she said.
    “Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Meade, not knowing
what else to say.
    Frances came past her into the room, and as
Mrs. Meade shut the door she sat down stiffly on the edge of the
bed, as if it was pain even to move. She looked up at Mrs. Meade
with a strange intensity in her eyes. “Mrs. Meade, what if I
confessed? What if I told them I did it?”
    Mrs. Meade looked shocked. “Oh, my dear, no.
Why, they might believe you.”
    Frances broke down with a suddenness and
completeness that startled Mrs. Meade, into shuddering
half-hysterical tears. She turned and wilted across the bed, her
face buried in the quilt, weeping deep, choking sobs that shook her
whole body. Mrs. Meade took a step closer and stared down at the
girl, her mind circling with new thoughts. She had greatly
underestimated—had not realized what she now saw to be the truth:
that Frances Ruskin was deeply, passionately in love with Jim
Cambert, perhaps more than she had let even him see.
    Mrs. Meade moved quietly but decisively, and
sat down beside Frances on the bed. She leaned over, putting her
arms comfortingly around the girl, and stroked the damp tangled
strands of hair back from her forehead. She hushed and soothed her
until the girl’s sobs gradually quieted, and she lay still with her
cheek against the tear-stained quilt.
    “If they hang him,” Frances moaned, “I’m so
afraid. No one will listen …I don’t believe Jim shot him. But
who else could have? If he’s innocent, and they hang him—Oh,
I think I’m going mad.” She pressed trembling fingertips against
her hot temples.
    “Hush,” said Mrs. Meade, helping her to sit
up, and unwinding the wet shawl. “You mustn’t go and make yourself
ill like this, or then where would we be? Now, then.”
    She drew the raincoat from Frances’ shoulders
and coaxed her arms out of the sleeves; and then gathered the girl
into her arms, pillowing Frances’ head against her shoulder. “Now,”
said Mrs. Meade, “Mr. Hall told me that the case against Jim was
not a very strong one, so very likely you have no cause to
worry.”
    “But they can’t simply let it go—a murder
like this,” said Frances, the words struggling through fresh tears.
“And Jim will go mad not knowing the truth about who shot his
grandfather. How could we ever live like that?”
    “My dear girl, you mustn’t go borrowing
trouble,” said Mrs. Meade with almost a laugh. “When Jim’s name has
been cleared, and you have him safe again, you’ll feel much better.
I can almost guarantee that.”
    Frances drew a trembling sigh, and then
sniffed. There was silence for a moment, a comforting silence, with
Mrs. Meade’s motherly arms around her. “You don’t know how good
this feels,” said Frances, her voice muffled, “to be able to come
to you this way—just to have a good cry out. I’ve been so used to
being the—the sensible one—the one who everyone else leaned on—for
so long. Always the one who kept her head…and never cried…and
listened to everyone else’s confidences.” She gave a very faint
shaky laugh. “But so many times I’ve wanted a mother to put her
arms around me…and a shoulder of my own to cry on…”
    Mrs. Meade’s arms tightened instinctively
about her. She looked away across the top of Frances’ rumpled brown
head, at the lamplight on the closed curtains. Perhaps she did
know…perhaps she had heard enough confidences, and provided a
shoulder for enough bewildered heads, watched enough joys and
perplexities unfold from her own peculiar vantage-point, and come
back enough times to a snug, quiet, solitary room at night, to know
what Frances spoke of.
    She said, “Is that the way you feel about
Jim?”
    Frances lifted her head. “What way?”
    “That you were the one to be leaned on—that
your role was