Chapter 15

It was a bright, cold morning with primroses along the hedge bank and the smoke going straight up from the new chimney into a clear blue sky. The kitchen was full to the door. Abel was there with his wife, and Mr. Tebbutt in his Sunday coat, and the curate, and the old gentleman in the velvet coat who had come every Sunday since Twelfth Night and would sit nowhere but next to Winifred.Dorcas had roasted a leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic in the French way, and the whole lane smelled of it. The Duchess sat between Winifred and the curate in a plain blue dress with her sleeves pushed up, helped to carry the plates, laughed out loud at something Abel said, and looked for once since she had come into that county as though she belonged somewhere.The Duke sat on the end of the bench by the door with his penny on the table in front of him, ate what he was given, and said very little. Dorcas served him last, gave him the best slice, and put her hand on his shoulder for a moment as she did it—the way you would with a nephew who had come in late and cold.When the dinner was over and Winifred was singing, Maud went to the mantle and took down the tin. And from under the money, she took out a folded note, a little worn now, with a broken red seal: Four shillings a week until Lady Day.Lady Day had come and gone, and the aunts were still at Cold Harbor and meant to stay.She held it a moment, and then she laid it in the fire and watched it curl and blacken and go up the clean chimney in a thread of smoke.When she turned round, Dorcas was watching her from her chair, and nodded once.Maud went back to her place. Her husband's brown coat hung on its peg by the door where it belonged, and the three old aunts sat at her table in their faded silks, with the spring sun coming in through the mended window across the white cloth. And the kitchen at Cold Harbor was the warmest room in the county.

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