Prelude to Glory, Vol. 9 by Ron Carter

Author:Ron Carter [Carter, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2005-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Boston

August 18, 1812

CHAPTER XVII

* * *

The sound of the front door opening and closing brought Kathleen Dunson to a standstill in her kitchen as she listened for the familiar sound of Matthew’s footsteps quietly crossing the parlor floor.

“Matthew?” she called softly.

“Me,” he answered in a whisper. “Children sleeping?”

“Yes. All but the twins.”

She twisted the handle to close the grate-setting on the stove firebox and walked to the archway into the dining room as Matthew came from the parlor. For a moment she felt the slight rise inside, as she always did when he appeared, and in the same moment she saw the tiny signs that more than twenty years of marriage had taught her. He had come home pensive, preoccupied, troubled.

She spoke first. “Sit down. There’s warm ham and potatoes in the oven.”

“Good. I could eat.”

She turned back into the kitchen. “Small wonder, coming home this late.”

“Things happened,” he replied. He took off his coat and hung it on the back of one of the chairs at the dining table, then tugged the knot loose on his cravat and draped it over the coat. He sat down at the great table, silent, listening to the sounds of the oven door and plates and silverware, and then she walked back into the dining room with a plate of steaming ham and potatoes in one hand and a pitcher of buttermilk in the other. She set them before him and for a moment took deep satisfaction in the light that came into his eyes.

“Be right back,” she said and moments later returned from the kitchen with sliced bread, butter, and a bowl of applesauce.

“That enough?” she asked.

He looked at her with the beginnings of a smile. “For starters.”

She stood beside him while he bowed his head and returned thanks for the bounties of life, then sat down in a chair beside him, feeling that rare joy known only to wives and mothers, of seeing the pleasure in his face as he gratefully ate what her hands had prepared. He was spreading home-churned butter on home-baked bread when the sound of a single chime came from the large, engraved clock on the parlor mantel, crafted by Matthew’s father thirty years earlier.

Matthew paused. “Nine-thirty?”

A wry smile crossed her face. “Nine-thirty pm.”

He understood the gentle reprimand. “Sorry. Things happened. Where was it the twins were going tonight?”

“The theatre. Hamlet.”

“With those two young men?”

Kathleen nodded. “Linda with Robert Littlefield, Louise with Charles Penn. All four together. They’ll be all right.”

“Home by midnight?” Matthew asked.

“I told them. They’ll be here.”

Kathleen leaned forward to straighten her gray ankle-length housedress and rub her feet through her knitted woolen slippers. “It’s been a long, hot day.”

Matthew bit into the bread.

Kathleen continued. “Brigitte came by. She’d been at Margaret’s. Said your mother had another of those spells today. Couldn’t keep her balance.”

Matthew paused. “Get her to the doctor?”

“The doctor came to her. Gave her some medicine—I don’t know what. Told her to stay off her feet as much as she could for a day or two.

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