Chastity by Elaine Barbieri

back."
        "She'll come back."
        "Damned arrogant pup…"
        Reed did not bother to reply as Dr. Carr turned toward his bag with a soft curse. Instead, he picked up the hideous, wire-rimmed spectacles that had fallen onto the bed beside him, and with great satisfaction, slid them under his pillow.
        Oh, she had never felt so good.
        Leaning back in the tub, Chastity recalled her incredulity when she first entered the primitive bathing facilities. She supposed her experiences of the past few days should have prepared her for the room that was nothing more than a   shed added to the rear of the hotel, and a tub that was nothing more than a canvas sling attached to a frame that appeared too fragile to support even her weight. Still furious from her parting conversation with the Reverend Reed Farrell, she had momentarily considered abandoning the whole idea of bathing. But all her reservations were dismissed the first moment the warm water touched her bare skin.
        Luxuriating in the steaming water for a few mindless moments longer, Chastity sighed aloud. She reached onto the stand beside her and picked up the washcloth and soap she had purchased from the loathsome storekeeper earlier. The fragrance of roses reached her nostrils as she worked up a lather , and Chastity sighed again. Aunt Harriet and Aunt Penelope had detested floral fragrances, but she had always loved the scent of roses. Somehow, it stirred blurred images of her mother and returned to mind more vivid pictures of bathing with her sisters in a common tub. She remembered that the aroma of roses had been strong as their mother had dutifully scrubbed them clean, and that the fragrance had often been accompanied by the sound of petulance in her sisters' voices.
    " It isn't fair, Mama! Chastity's hair is prettier than ours! "
         " That's not true. ? Mama had been insistent. " Chastity's hair is a more brilliant color, true, but Honesty's hair is as black as satin, just like your father's Irish great-grandmother, and Purity's hair is the color of corn silk, like mine. Your father is proud of you all. He says all his girls are beautiful. "
        "I know, but Chastity's hair is curly, like Papa's, and it's prettier."
        "I wish I had hair like Papa's."
        "It isn't fair."
        And later, when her sisters stroked her hair as they lay abed, " You're so lucky, Chastity. " A familiar sadness welled inside Chastity. She recalled so little about her sisters, but she remembered that Honesty had been the most beautiful of the three of them, and the most willful. She remembered that Purity was fair and angelic looking, but that she often tested Papa's patience with her mischievous nature. She recalled that she had been happiest when following in the footsteps of her two older sisters, and that she was proud to be the one who had inherited Papa's curly red hair and his brown eyes that danced with flecks of green. She recalled crawling up onto his lap and staring nose-to-nose into his face, so intently that he laughed aloud. She had loved to hear him laugh, and she had known no greater joy than to cuddle on his lap with his arms around her.
        Chastity wiped away a straying tear. Her parents had perished when their wagon was swept away in the flooded river that day, she was certain. If they had not, they would have found her sisters and her and brought the family together again.
        But her sisters were alive. She was certain she could feel their hearts beating when she clutched her locket the same kind of locket her father had given to each of his girls and she was just as certain that she would find her sisters if she had the courage to try.
        Although they had never actually said the words, Chastity knew that Aunt Penelope and Aunt Harriet had not shared her belief just as she knew that as conservative as they were, they had been uncomfortable with the bright shade of her hair and its persistent