Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's CourageGlasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson
General
Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's Courage
Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
"And a nurse? You'll want a nurse, won't you?"
"I'll want anything I can get, and I'll want it quickly. There, hurry,
while I find a bathrobe of Archibald's. He's wet through--soaking wet.
He must have been out all day in the storm."
Miss Polly vanished into the dimness of the hall, and after a few
minutes Gabriella heard her fluttering voice demanding a telephone
number as if she were still supplicating the Deity.
"Take off your wet clothes while I get you a drink and some hot
blankets!" said Gabriella when she had found one of Archibald's
bathrobes in the closet. It occurred to her that George was really
incapable of undressing himself, but she felt that she would rather die
than touch him again. The loathing which had overpowered her outside in
the storm became stronger in the close air of the house. "I can't touch
him. I don't care what happens I can't touch him," she told herself,
while she placed the flannel robe on the rug, and hurried back to the
kitchen. Her whole body was benumbed and chilled, not from cold, but
from disgust, yet her mind was almost unnaturally active, and she found
herself thinking over and over again: "So this is the man I loved, this
is the man I married instead of Arthur!"
When she came back with a cup of broth and some hot blankets, she found
George in the flannel gown of Archibald's, with his wet clothes on the
floor at his feet, from which he had forgotten to remove his shoes. He
drank the soup greedily, while Miss Polly lighted the wood-fire she had
laid in the open grate.
"The heat's comin' up all right in the radiator," she said, "but I
thought a blaze might make him more comfortable."
"Yes, it's better," replied Gabriella sternly, while she stooped to
unlace George's boots. There was no compassion in her heart, and it
seemed to her, while she struggled with the wet lacing, that the fumes
of whiskey spread contagion and disease over the room. She was not only
hard and bitter--she felt that she loathed him with unspeakable
loathing.
"I declare, Gabriella, I believe he has gone deranged!" Miss Polly
cried out sharply, dropping the poker and starting to her feet in an
erratic impulse of flight.
With the flannel gown clutched tightly to his chest, where the dull
rattling sounds went on unceasingly, George was staring in fascinated
intensity at the reflection of the electric light in the mirror. Then
suddenly, with a scream of terror, he lifted the poker Miss Polly had
dropped, and flung it over Gabriella's head in the direction of the
dressing-table. At the noise of breaking glass, Gabriella rose from her
knees, and said in the hard, quiet voice she had used ever since the
first shock of the meeting:
"If you are afraid, lock yourself in your room, Miss Polly. I am going
downstairs for Mr. O'Hara."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account