Dishonoring Jack

Chapter Twenty Two

 Jack didn't notice the strange looks she received as she walked through Irvington until a pair of schoolboys stopped in their tracks, stared at her, and broke out in raucous giggles before running away. Jack's eyes followed their skittering feet and the trail of dust in their wake. What new source of infamy followed her now? Her boot collided with a misplaced cobblestone and she nearly fell on her face. What in tarnation?

She and Donovan had returned to the Bookers' home at dusk the night before and had not seen anyone from Irvington, so Jack had presumed their absence and subsequent return had gone unnoticed. She was apparently wrong. What had the Slate brothers done during their trip to further sully Jack and Donovan's reputations? Jack rolled her eyes and hurried her pace. The Walkers' mansion stood before her, prominent at the center of town.

Oliver Walker had been the illustrious mayor of Irvington for enough years that many simply called him "the mayor" because there was no other. To Jack, he was not the mayor but her infuriating brother-in-law and the father of two girls who had avoided inheriting any of his ample arrogance and condescension. There was a time when Jack and Anita had been close despite the ten year age difference. They were sisters, after all, and none of their other siblings had survived childhood. They were their only living family and despite their differences in age and disposition, Jack had hoped they would always be close. Then, Anita had accepted Oliver Walker's hand in marriage and Jack had been left an outcast, spurned by her sister and brother-in-law alike.

If it weren't for Corrie and Christina, Jack doubted that she would ever associate with them again. However, because of her love for her nieces, Jack came to the Walkers' home regularly to visit with Christina, still recovering from her paralyzed leg and severe bout with pneumonia.

Jack took the brass door knocker and hammered against the door. Mr. Bricker, the butler, peered through the door and bowed. "Miss Harrison, come in."

Jack proceeded through the foyer to the spiral staircase that led to the upstairs bedrooms. Why they wouldn't give the disabled girl a room on the ground floor, Jack didn't understand, but she suspected it had something to do with the miserly control they held over their youngest daughter, especially since Corrie's marriage.

Jack bounded up the stairs two at a time, rounding the corner to Christina's room when a voice summoned her back to the entryway.

"Jacqueline, if I may have a word."

Jack froze and looked down the staircase to where Oliver stood, his hands crossed over his chest. He was decked in a three piece suit and hat that attempted to hide his portly stomach and balding head. He tapped his ivory-handled cane on the ground and lifted his eyebrows at her.

"I'm here to see Christina," Jack said, hesitating.

While she normally would have no problem ignoring Oliver, she had to be more careful given Donovan's tenuous situation. They might need to call on his support at last resort, and Jack couldn't afford to anger him should that happen.

"Christina's not here. She's at that doctor's office today, reading to the soldiers."

She descended the staircase and stood before him as he eyed her with that familiar disapproving quirk of the lips. "Yes?" she asked, her patience waning. "What do you want?"

"Please, step into my office."

Her feet as heavy as lead, Jack followed him to the mahogany office. He sat behind his desk after closing the door. The room was dark, the window shut, and the dim electric light did little to dispel the dreariness. It felt like a stuffier version of the munitions factory.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Mayor?"

"Don't take that tone with me, Jacqueline. I want to speak with you as a concerned family member, not as the mayor." Oliver ran his fingers over his mustache as he spoke.