Please, if you have not read the others, check out chapters 1 and 2. At least sample chapter 1!Chapter 1-http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?t=89347
Chapter 2- topic89784.html
Enjoy!
Chapter 3
Lunch was in the dining room, a fancily set, well lit room. The table was long and each setting had fine china and glass. She heard someone coming down the stairs and enter the room.
“Ah, Harrison!” Bertha said. “How was your ride?”
Harrison Abernacky was a gentleman, maybe 20 and one, Alice guessed. He was tall, wearing nice, clean clothing, and had well trimmed brown hair. He smiled. Alice would have thought him handsome, if it wasn’t for the things to come out of his mouth.
“Wonderful. Ms. Marian Williams, it’s a pleasure.” he said with a small, galant bow. Aunt Marian smiled in a self satisfied sort of way as he brushed her knuckles with his lips in a gentlemanly way.
“Harrison, this is Miss Alice Roxanne Williams. She’s Mr. William’s daughter, as you know.”
“So I have heard.” he said in a smooth voice, crossing the room to take her hand himself. “It’s a pleasure.”
Alice curtsied politely, wishing for her hand back.
“You as well, Mr. Abernacky.” she said. He patted her hand.
“Please, call me Harrison.”
Alice smiled and took back her hand. Everyone sat around the table. Alice glanced at Aunt Marian and Bertha, who were looking at each other with knowing smiles. She scrunched her nose.
Lunch was a fine fare. All the extra utensils made Alice dizzy. She thought of a scene from one of her books, where one of the characters ate his meat with his fingers because he didn’t have a fork. She imagined plunging her fingers into her beef and eating it that way. The thought made her chuckle to herself.
“So, you ride, Harrison?” Aunt Marian asked. Alice thought this was a somewhat pointless question. Everyone around here rode. That was the only way to get around.
“Yes.” Harrison Abernacky replied with a nod. “All the time. I’m quiet accomplished, if I do say so myself.” he pushed his chest out slightly.
“Alice loves to ride.” her aunt gushed. “With her father, all the time.”
Alice smiled tightly as Harrison looked down the table at her.
The rest of lunch went something along those lines until Aunt Marian happily suggested Harrison go take Alice to see his horses, to which Bertha wholeheartedly agreed. So before she knew it, she was walking down the Abernacky streets, arm in arm with Harrison A. himself.
He was babbling on and on about something, Alice had stopped paying attention some time ago.
“Do you, Alice?”
“Hm?” she looked up, her mind quite far from the boy she was walking with.
“I said, do you really like to read?” Harrison asked as they walked along, quite slowly, in fact. Delicately. Like a lady and a man should. It annoyed Alice, who was full of energy that had been dampened from sitting inside, talking all day.
“Of course, yes.” she said.
“Oh?” he smiled. “As do I, as do I. It’s refreshing to find someone who has as much of a passion for words as I.”
“Yes. Refreshing.” she said tightly. “Refreshing”.
She stared across the street, her head not here with Harrison Abernacky, but in the back of that general store, picking out a new adventure book. Maybe a romance. Alice loved romances.
Harrison asked her another pointless question. Then it hit her, like the lasso cowboys always threw in her books.
---
“It’s just outrageous to me.” Alice said, throwing out her hands. She was in a chair in the kitchen back at home, her long cornsilk blonde hair out of it’s neat style and tumbling down her shoulder. The place smelled like the soup in Eliza’s kettle, better than the icky rose smell of the Abernacky’s house.
“I mean, I kind of knew it, probably, at the back of my head, but then it just hit me. Aunt Marian and Bertha Abernacky are trying to set me up.”
She said the last part in an incredulous tone, her hands stroking at her hair as was a nervous habit of hers. Eliza chuckled.
Eliza Winslow was Aunt Marian’s handmaid. At nearly 30 years of age, she was both parts Alice’s mother and best friend. She always had a free ear, even when she was cooking or darning or washing.
Right now, she was bustling around the kitchen in her white apron, working on dinner. Her hair was up in a clean, sensible bun. She turned to glance at Alice before stirring her soup again.
“That’s a smart match, you know.” she said thoughtfully. “The Williams and the Abernackys? No wonder they want the two of you together. You’d be one of the most powerful couples in this whole darned West, if I do say so myself.”
“But Horsebelly Harrison? He’s so... I am not going to be Alice Abernacky. Aunt Marian can’t dictate whom I marry.” she insisted. Eliza fully laughed at Alice’s moniker.
“Horsebelly Harrison? Is he really that bad?”
“He is.” Alice fiddled with her hair again as she spoke. “He’s arrogant, for one. He thinks he’s quite a catch in these parts. Which he probably is, money wise and all.”
“Of course. He’s the son of the most powerful man in town, and the richest.”
“Yes, well...” she trailed off. “I don’t think we’d be good together.”
“Why not?” Eliza asked. “You like reading, he likes reading. You like riding, he likes riding.”
“He likes Shakespeare, I like dime novels and action adventure. He likes riding properly, with the other rich men around here, I like riding astride and racing my Pa. Imagine what he would say to me, astride. Not very ladylike. The only reason Pa still lets me do it is because he knows me. I don’t think Horsebelly could ever know me as well as Pa.” she clarified, looking at the ceiling.
“Have faith.” Eliza said, turning to look at the pouting Alice. “You’ll find a fella one day. Maybe not Harrison, but someone who’ll really know you like your Pa does. Most everyone does. Find someone, I mean.”
“I can’t wait for that day.” Alice said, smiling brightly. “The boys out here are really fine. Except Harrison, of course.”
Eliza laughed musically again.
“The way you make it out to be, just about every backhand cowboy and lawless rider would be better. Be careful not to stare too much. I’m not sure how much your Aunt would approve of one of these boys.”
Alice smiled for real now. The idea of disobeying her Aunt brought the smile there. Another adventure to be had out here? And she was planning on having one. She had no intention of just bending to her Aunt’s will and become a proper heiress to her Pa’s new land claim and all those sitting down and hostess like things that entailed. As far as her Pa went... well, he’d understand. He would understand all of her wishes. He always had and always would. That’s what he was best at.
She pulled her hands from her hair and inspected them. They looked so delicate and clean. Too delicate, she thought. Too delicate for her Western adventure. She’d have to make do with what she had. That’s what every heroine and hero in every book she’d ever read had to do. She’d work out a way to have an adventure out here, delicate hands and all.
REVIEWS ARE LOVE!!!
Gender:
Points: 1891
Reviews: 44