"Let the Widow Eat in the Kitchen," Her In-Laws Said — The Duke Carried His Plate Down to Join Her
Chapter 19
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Sir Reginald came too, in the spring. He rode down alone and stood awkwardly in the taproom with his hat in his hands and asked to speak to his sister-in-law. When Grace came out of the kitchen, he went very red and said all in a rush that he was sorry he had never once stood up for her in two years, and that Freddy would have been ashamed of him, and that he would quite understand if she threw him out.Grace gave him a bowl of oyster pie instead. He ate three. He came back every month after that and brought his own little boy with him. And the child grew up thinking the kitchen of the Anchor was the most wonderful place in the world.Even Lavinia came in the end. She came in the summer after a season in London that had been a disaster from beginning to end, sat at the kitchen table, cried, and said she had been a stupid, selfish girl. Grace taught her to make pastry. It was the first useful thing Lavinia had ever learned, and she was so proud of it that she told everyone.The Duke of Aldridge asked again in August.He asked in the kitchen on a warm, still evening with the door open to the yard and the sound of the sea coming in, a year to the day since the first time. He had peeled 400 potatoes in that year by his own count, broken 11 tankards, and learned to make a passable mutton stew.There was no kneeling. He only put down his fork across the kitchen table from her, looked at her, and said, "It's been a year, Grace.""I know," said Grace. "I was counting, too.""Well?"She looked at him across the table for a long moment—at the dark, serious face that had sat on her veranda in Madras every Sunday for 5 years, that had sat beside her husband's deathbed all night, that had carried a letter in its pocket for 3 years, and walked into an attic kitchen with a dinner plate."I'll keep the Anchor," she said. "Of course, I'll cook here every Sunday, whether you like it or not. And if your duchessing friends in Hampshire don't like it, they can come and eat it, and then they can say what they like.""They'll come," said Nicholas. "Once they've tasted the soup, they'll never leave.""And you'll carry your own plate," said Grace. "Always, into any kitchen I'm in."The Duke of Aldridge smiled at her—the slow, warm smile she remembered from a veranda under a tamarind tree 6,000 miles away."Always," he said.They were married in October 1822 at St. Thomas's Church in Portsmouth, where she had married Frederick 9 years before.Lady Ashdown sat in the front pew on the bride's side and wept throughout. Sir Reginald gave the bride away, red-faced and solemn, because his mother had told him to, and because, he said afterwards, it was the least he could do. Eleven old soldiers of the 49th Regiment of Foot formed a guard of honor at the church door in their faded red coats, with their swords raised.