Katherine, When She Smiled by Harmon Joyce

Author:Harmon, Joyce [Harmon, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-10-07T23:00:00+00:00

At the dinner table at Greymere that evening, Han offered, “I quite like Miss Katherine Rose. She’s restful.”

“Restful?” exclaimed Clara. “Is that a good thing?”

“She is rather restful, now that you mention it,” Charles said. “But I’m not sure precisely why.”

“She doesn’t feel the urgent need to fill every silence,” Han said.

Thinking back to their ride together, Charles realized that this was so. He also realized that the ability to remain comfortably silent was quite soothing.

“Silence?” asked Clara, in the tone of one being introduced to an unfamiliar concept.

Charles chuckled, and Hector leaned over to pat his wife’s hand. “Never mind, m’dear,” he said.

It was late the next morning that carriage wheels were heard on the gravel drive outside. Clara leaped to her feet and dashed to the window. “That must be her,” she said. “Indeed, it is!” And she flew down the steps to the front door. Charles, who’d been dealing with correspondence after breakfast, followed her at a more leisurely pace.

He found a post-chaise pulled up at the front. A tiny vivid creature in a cherry red carriage gown and a crushed bonnet leaped out without assistance and gave Lady Clara a vigorous hug.

“Thank you, thank you, for rescuing me from Bath!” the pixie exclaimed. “I’d acquired a suitor, a retired general, mind you, and was quite at my wit’s end. A trip to the country suits me admirably.”

“Mandy, you absurd thing,” Clara replied. “What have you done to your hat?”

“I believe I sat on it,” Amanda said. She took off the offending garment and tossed it into a tree. “I hate hats,” she added.

“Hate hats!” gasped Clara, appalled at this heresy.

“It’s different for you,” Amanda said. “Hats love you. They want to cooperate with you. I’ve never yet had a hat that didn’t despise me and plot for my downfall.” She tucked her arm in Clara’s and the two women moved toward the door, still chattering. “And I understand that you are, how do they put it, going to present your lord with a token of your affection?”

“I know!” crowed Clara. “Isn’t it absurd? Me a mother?”

“I must be the godmother,” Amanda cautioned. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

They had reached the foot of the steps and finally looked up. “Good God, is that Charles?” exclaimed Amanda, advancing up the stairs.

“Who else would it be, goose?” asked Clara.

“Charles! Gracious, when did you get so large?”

Charles bent over her hand. “When did you get so tiny?” he replied.

“I certainly didn’t shrink,” Amanda told him. “I just stopped growing eventually. And apparently you did not.”

“I think I’ve attained all the height I will reach,” he assured her. “So I’m as large as I will ever be. Or perhaps not, considering the excellence of my cook, but any further expansion will be around, rather than up.”

“That’s good to hear, because I think my neck would grow fatigued if I had to look up much higher.”

It was a lively day and evening at Greymere. Clara and Amanda had not met

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