American Ghosts & Old World Wonders

Read American Ghosts & Old World Wonders for Free Online

Book: Read American Ghosts & Old World Wonders for Free Online
Authors: Angela Carter
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories
stoical.
                                    Minister's wife thin-lipped, furious.
                                    Minister's son and Annie-Belle, in simple white cotton wedding-dress, join hands.
     
                                    MINISTER : Do you take this woman. . .
     
                                    (Close up) Minister's son's hand slipping wedding ring on to Annie-Belle's finger.
     
                                    INTERIOR. BARN. NIGHT
                                    Fiddle and banjo old-time music.
                                    Vigorous square dance going on; bride and groom lead.
                                    Father at table, glass in hand.
                                    Johnny, beside him, reaching for bottle.
     
                                    Bride and groom come together at end of dance; groom kisses bride's cheek. She laughs.
     
                                    (Close up) Annie-Belle looking shyly up at the Minister's son.
     
                                    The dance parts them again; as Annie-Belle is handed down the row of men, she staggers and faints.
     
                                    Consternation.
                   
                                    Minister's son and Johnny both run towards her.
     
                                    Johnny lifts her up in his arms, her head on his shoulder. Eyes opening.
                                    Minister's son reaches out for her. Johnny lets him take hold of her.
                                   
                                    She gazes after Johnny beseechingly as he disappears among the crowd.
                           
                Silence swallowed up the music of the fiddle and the banjo; Death with his hair in braids spread out the sheets on the marriage bed.
               
                                    INTERIOR. MINISTER'S HOUSE. BEDROOM. NIGHT
                                    Annie-Belle in bed, in a white nightgown, clutching the pillow, weeping.
                                    Minister's son, bare back, sitting on side of bed with his back to camera, head in hands.
     
                In the morning, her new mother-in-law heard her vomiting into the chamber-pot and, in spite of her son's protests, stripped Annie-Belle and subjected her to a midwife's inspection. She judged her three months gone, or more. She dragged the girl round the room by the hair, slapped her, punched her, kicked her, but Annie-Belle would not tell the father's name, only promised, swore on the grave of her dead mother, that she would be a good girl in future. The young bridegroom was too bewildered by this turn of events to have an opinion about it; only, to his vague surprise, he knew he still loved the girl although she carried another man's child.
                "Bitch! Whore!" said the Minister's wife and struck Annie-Belle a blow across the mouth that started her nose bleeding.
                "Now, stop that, Mother," said the gentle son. "Can't you see she ain't well?"
                The terrible day drew to its end. The mother-in-law would have thrown Annie-Bell out on the street, but the boy pleaded for her, and the Minister, praying for guidance, found himself opening the Bible at the parable of the woman taken in adultery

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