"Let the Widow Eat in the Kitchen," Her In-Laws Said — The Duke Carried His Plate Down to Join Her
Chapter 15
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On the evening of the 12th day, Grace took down the boards from the windows and lit the fires and opened the door.By 8:00, the taproom was so full that men were standing in the street outside. There were old sailors who had drunk there in her father's time and wept into their ale when they saw her. There were young midshipmen who had heard the stories. And there were, to Grace's astonishment, 11 soldiers of the 49th Regiment of Foot, invalided home from India that spring, who had heard in the barracks at Hilsea that the Captain's Lady was back.They stood in a row at the bar in their faded red coats, and when she came out of the kitchen with a tray, they all took off their hats at once, and a big sergeant with a missing hand said, "God bless you, ma'am. You saved my life at Fort St. George," and could not say anything else.She fed them pepper water that night and curry with rice, the way Muthu had taught her. Half of Portsmouth had never tasted anything like it. By the end of the month, people were coming from Southampton and Chichester to eat it.On the first night, after the last customer had staggered out into Broad Street and the pot boy had gone home, Grace sat alone at the kitchen table with a candle and Frederick's letter and read it again. Then she took the iron poker and scratched two letters small into the soft old wood of the table's edge where nobody would ever notice them unless they knew to look:F. A."It's open, Fred," she said aloud to the empty kitchen. "I lit the fires. They heard me laughing on the quay."The kitchen did not answer, but the fire crackled in the range and the sea sighed outside the window. And for the first time in 3 years, she did not feel alone.The Duke of Aldridge came on the 20th night.He did not send word. He simply walked in out of the rain in a plain brown coat without his star or his servants and stood at the back of the crowded taproom like any other customer waiting for a table. Nobody recognized him.Grace saw him from the kitchen door and stopped dead with a tray of pies in her hands. Then she walked over to him calmly and handed him an apron."We're short-handed tonight, Your Grace," she said. "If you want your supper, you'll have to peel potatoes for it."He looked at the apron, then at her, and then in front of half the Royal Navy, the Duke of Aldridge took off his coat, tied the apron round his waist, and followed her into the kitchen.He came back the next week and the week after that. He peeled potatoes and carried trays and washed pans and once, memorably, dropped a whole tray of tankards in the middle of the taproom and was applauded by 40 sailors who never once guessed who he was. The regulars called him Nick and assumed he was some down-on-his-luck gentleman Grace had taken pity on.