"Let the Widow Eat in the Kitchen," Her In-Laws Said — The Duke Carried His Plate Down to Join Her
Chapter 14
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"Mrs. Ashdown! God bless my soul! I wrote to you in Madras three times! I wrote to you at Ashdown Park!""Her Ladyship wrote back that you'd gone to America. She wrote that to a great many people," said Grace. "May I have my deed, please, Mr. Hobbs?"He gave it to her. And the keys—a great iron ring of them, rusty and heavy, which he lifted out of his strongbox and laid in her hands as if they were the crown jewels.The Anchor was in a terrible state. It had stood empty for 6 months since the last tenant, a drunken former boatswain named Crab, had run off owing three quarters' rent. The windows were boarded, the roof leaked over the taproom, rats had been in the kitchen, the great black range where Grace had cooked her first stew at 10 years old was rusted solid, and someone had stolen the copper pans and the pewter tankards and the old ship's bell that used to hang over the bar.Grace stood in the middle of the dark, damp taproom with the keys in her hand and the rain dripping through the ceiling, and she began to laugh. She could not help it. It was the happiest she had been in 3 years.She started work the next morning at 5:00 in an old gray dress and an apron with her sleeves rolled to the elbow. She scrubbed, she swept, she hired a carpenter from the dockyard to mend the roof and a blacksmith from the Point to free the range, and paid them in pies because she had no money. She went to the market on the Hard and bought spices and rice and a bag of tamarind from a Lascar sailor off an East Indiaman who stared at her when she asked for it by its Tamil name.On the fifth day, a carrier's cart pulled up outside, and an elderly woman climbed down from it with a bandaged hand and a carpetbag. It was Mrs. Dawlish, the cook from Ashdown Park."I've given my notice," she said before Grace could open her mouth. "20 years I've cooked for that woman, and she never once came into my kitchen to say thank you. You were in it 2 years, and you thanked me every single day." She set down her carpetbag on the taproom floor. "I can't do much with this hand for a month or two, but I can tell those two useless girls from the village what to do, and I can keep the books, and I know where to buy the best mutton in Hampshire. Where do you want me?"Grace hugged her so hard that the old woman squealed.And on the ninth day, word got round the harbor. It went the way news always went in Portsmouth: from the quay to the dockyard to the ships at Spithead. In the space of an afternoon, Tom Penrose's girl was back, the one who used to make the oyster pies. The Anchor was opening again.