Woman in Black by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page A

earning a modest salary working nine to five? Was she somehow to blame? No, she thought. Her husband was driven in a way that went beyond a mere desire to provide his family with all the things he hadn’t had growing up. Their lifestyle had been a validation of sorts: proof that he was Someone. The irony was that he hadn’t needed to play fast and loose; he’d have made it on his own merits. But Gordon had been impatient. Why wait when he could have it all now , simply by bending a few rules?
    She thought back to when they’d first met, in their junior year at Duke. Her first day of a class in Shakespearean literature, she was scribbling notes when she happened to glance up and see a dark-haired boy gazing at her unabashedly. She was used to being stared at by boys; what made this one different was that he didn’t look away when she caught him at it. His lips curved up in a faint smile instead, as if he and Lila were in on a private joke. Lila was intrigued. For the remainder of the hour, she found herself sneaking glances at him. He was different in other ways as well, more mature-seeming. Also refreshingly clean-cut, in a reverse-cool sort of way, in his snug-fitting jeans and polo shirt, his dark hair cut short but not too short, compared to the boys around him—the sons of the privileged who went out of their way to look as derelict as possible.
    In the days that followed, she found herself noticing other things about him as well. Like the fact that he seldom took notes, yet whenever he was called on in class, he made the most intelligent, incisive remarks. It was obvious that he hadn’t just studied the material; he’d given it a great deal of thought. Lila found herself shying from raising her own hand after Gordon had delivered one of his brilliant insights, fearing that she’d sound stupid in comparison. Thus, she was taken off guard when he approached her after class one day to comment, “I liked what you said about Julius Caesar. About its being no less of a betrayal because Brutus felt conflicted.”
    â€œI’m not so sure Professor Johns agreed with me,” she said as she gathered up her books and notepad. “I just happen to have my own views on the subject.” She had a Ph.D. in the subject of betrayal, after all. Hadn’t she betrayed her best friend and the woman who’d practically raised her? Even all these years later, Lila was haunted by the memory: Abigail mutely beseeching her as Lila had stood rooted in place, unable or perhaps unwilling to speak up in Rosie’s defense. And even when she could have made amends, had she lifted a finger to do so, written a single letter? No. That she would have to live with for the rest of her life.
    â€œâ€˜O pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth!’” Gordon intoned in a stagy British accent before adding in a normal voice, “Do you think he was appealing to God or Caesar, or both?”
    â€œMaybe he was asking forgiveness from himself.”
    He cocked his head, eyeing her with keen interest. She found herself noticing the little flecks of gold in his wide-set hazel eyes and the whorl at his hairline, above his right eyebrow, like a thwarted cowlick. “I like the way you think.” He paused to stick out his hand as they made their way out of the lecture hall. “Gordon DeVries,” he introduced himself. “Listen, if you don’t have another class to get to, do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”
    As it happened, she was on her way to another class: a course in quantitative analysis, which she was semifailing and could ill afford to skip. But she found herself replying nonetheless, “Sure, why not?”
    They lingered in the cafeteria for the next hour or so. She learned that Gordon had grown up poor, in the hills of Tennessee, the eldest of three boys, all with different fathers, and that he’d been raised by his grandparents after his mother had run