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The Duke Sent Her His 3 Old Aunts for Winter — By Easter His Duchess Begged a Seat at Their Table

The Duke Sent Her His 3 Old Aunts for Winter — By Easter His Duchess Begged a Seat at Their Table

Chapter 7

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Then he asked her in careful schoolroom French where she had learned to cook like that. She answered him in French, much better than his, and he blushed to the ears and came back the next Sunday with a gentleman friend.The gentleman friend was the squire's son. After that, it was the squire's wife who came in her carriage to see what her son was eating in a farm kitchen—and stayed to eat it.Then, one Sunday in Advent, the lane from the farm gate to the turnpike was lined with carriages, and Winifred had to stand at the door and turn people away very sweetly; they went away determined only to come earlier next week."It was not only the food," the county ladies said. It was Maud going round with the jug, with flour on her sleeve and a face pink from the oven, making everyone who came in at that door—gentry and ditcher alike—feel as though they had been expected.Mr. Tebbutt came in the second week of Advent. He put his penny on the table without a word and sat down next to Abel. And when he had eaten, he stood by the door a while, turning his hat round in his hands."I spoke out of turn, Mrs. Lowry," he said. "At the lychgate.""You did," said Maud.He nodded and went out. But the next day, there was a side of bacon hanging from the hook in the beam, and nobody had paid for it.Up at Brexwell, the Duchess heard about the farm from her own dinner guests. She was twenty-six, married since the spring, and she had come from a London house full of people to a great gray house on a hill with nobody to talk to. Her new rooms were all rose silk and gilt, but they were cold, and she sat in them in her shawl and watched the rain.
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The Duke Sent Her His 3 Old Aunts for Winter — By Easter His Duchess Begged a Seat at Their Table

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