"Let the Widow Eat in the Kitchen," Her In-Laws Said — The Duke Carried His Plate Down to Join Her
Chapter 17
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How the Duke of Aldridge, the most eligible man in the south of England, had dined at Ashdown Park and tasted a soup. How he had asked who made it and been lied to. How he had learned that the cook was the widow of his dearest friend, kept in the attic for 2 years, and sent to eat in the kitchen whenever there was company. How Lady Ashdown had told him the widow was in America, and how the duke had picked up his plate in front of the whole family, and walked down the back stairs to eat his dinner at the servants' table.People laughed about it for a week. Then they stopped laughing and began to talk about Lady Ashdown instead. The invitations to Ashdown Park dried up. The neighbors who had dined there for 30 years found they had other engagements.When Lavinia went up to London for the Little Season in October, three hostesses in a row were unable to receive her, and at the one ball she did attend, she sat out every dance. Somebody had told the story there, too.Lady Ashdown did not go to London at all that winter. She stayed at Ashdown Park alone in the big, cold house with its 40 rooms, and spent her evenings in the morning room with a miniature of a fair-haired boy in her lap.On a bitter night in the middle of January, with snow falling thick over the Hampshire Downs, and the Portsmouth Road nearly impassable, a carriage with the Ashdown arms on the door pulled up in Broad Street outside the Anchor.Grace was in the kitchen when the pot boy came running in to tell her. She went out into the taproom wiping her hands on her apron, and there in the doorway, with snow on her bonnet and her face gray with cold and 9 hours on the road, stood her mother-in-law.The whole taproom went quiet. Every sailor in Portsmouth knew the story by now.Lady Ashdown looked round at the low, smoky room, the crowded benches, the rough faces staring at her. Then she looked at Grace. She did not speak. Grace could see her hands trembling inside her muff.Grace crossed the room. She took her mother-in-law's arm and led her to the best table in the house, the one by the great fire under the ship's bell that a grateful dockyard carpenter had found and hung back in its place. She pulled out the chair. The pot boy was sent for a hot brick for Lady Ashdown's feet and a glass of mulled wine. She did all of it without a word, quite gently, the way she would have done it for any half-frozen traveler who came in out of the snow.Lady Ashdown did not sit down. "No," she said. Her voice was hoarse. "Not here."Grace looked at her."I came to ask you a question," said Lady Ashdown. "I've been trying to find the courage since September. I don't think I'll find it twice." She took a breath. "May I eat in the kitchen with you?"