Chapter Eleven

The next morning, no one had time to notice Alec’s hangover—the day of the reception was upon them! All the Kings were swept up into feverish preparations for the guests who would begin arriving that afternoon. Hetty had invited so many people that the reception was to be held outside, on the lawn around the King farmhouse. Mercifully, the weather was fine, making the marquee Hetty had insisted be set up over the tables strictly ornamental.

Janet, who would have preferred to have slept the day away, had been up since dawn rushing about as fast as she could go. Breakfast was no sooner gulped down than the children were pressed into service to get the tables ready. All the best tablecloths—commandeered from the farmhouse and Rose Cottage—were spread over the tables, their ends fluttering softly in the breeze. The children trotted back and forth, bearing pies, cakes, sandwiches, pickles in cut-glass pickle dishes and endless other goodies.

Carrying one of the last loads, Felix made his way anxiously across the lawn balancing a column of china cups and saucers for the tea to be served with dessert. Reaching the table with all items intact, he set the fragile cargo down in relief. Felix was dressed in his best suit, complete with tight bow tie and constricting vest. He tugged at the tie, then noticed the great bowl of whipped cream sitting unguarded, practically next to his elbow. Of course, with all the running about, nobody had bothered to think about lunch, so Felix was starving. It didn’t help that he was surrounded by the most tempting dainties the King family could produce. Perpetually hungry, growing boy that he was, he peeped to make sure Olivia’s back was turned, licked his fingers and prepared to plunge them into the bowl.

Hetty, zooming in on his blind side, was upon him in a flash.

“Ah! Don’t you dare, Felix King!”

Foiled, Felix jumped back guiltily and sped off for another load of cups. Felicity passed him, balancing a cherry pie in each of her hands. She slid the pies onto the table next to where her Aunt Hetty was standing examining the silverware. Eagle-eyed for every detail, Hetty pounced upon a serving spoon.

“Felicity, this is dirty,” she complained, holding it up to the light, then thrusting it into her niece’s hand. “Must be able to see one’s face in it, remember? Run inside—get a clean one!”

Felicity, who had been working hard since sunup, looked as though she might have exploded on the spot had her Uncle Roger not appeared just then to view the layout. The spread tables and heaps of food exceeded even his expectations of Hetty’s extravagance. His eyes lit up in admiration.

“You’ve done a remarkable job, Hetty,” he said appreciatively. “I am indebted for the warm hospitality.”

Hetty flushed happily at praise from her favorite brother. “Really, Roger, it’s nothing,” she cooed, as though all the bounty around them had simply been conjured from thin air.

Gripping the spoon in her fist, Felicity marched over to where her mother and Felix were now arranging the cups and saucers into rows.

“It’s nothing to her, all right,” Felicity muttered through gritted teeth, looking back to where Hetty was gushing over Roger. “We do all the work and she gets all the glory.”

“Felicity,” Janet admonished, but only halfheartedly. Janet was of exactly the same opinion herself and feeling more harried by the minute.

Almost before they knew it, the guests began pouring in, including the reporter and photographer Hetty had made sure to invite from Halifax. The photographer wasted no time in setting up, and soon Roger was posing stiffly on the lawn.

“Smile, please,” the photographer instructed from under the dark cloth that kept light from interfering with the photographic process.

The flash went off. Andrew, Olivia, Sara, Janet and Hetty applauded excitedly, delighted, in spite of everything, to have a celebrity in the family.

“Now,” said the reporter, scribbling in his notebook, “maybe we could have one in front of the house where you were born.”

The reporter led Roger over to a position in front of the house—and, of course, all the rest of the family followed. Sara and Andrew looked on curiously while Hetty stood beside the children, peacock-like in her moment of glory. Alec, suffering from a headache and the disapproval of his siblings, stood a little further off to view the scene.

“How about one with a close member of the family?” the reporter asked, determined to cover every possible angle for his story.

At this request, Andrew’s eyes gleamed with sudden, perfectly natural anticipation. Imagine! Himself and his famous father in the pages of the Halifax Herald! That would be proof his father noticed him all right.

As Roger turned to his waiting family, Andrew was already stepping forward, but it wasn’t the boy Roger’s gaze alighted upon, it was Hetty.

“Come on over here, Hetty,” he called out, even as he turned to explain to the reporter “My sister was the one who pushed me to become a geologist.”

Making a feeble attempt at modesty, Hetty hurried over to stand beside her brother.

“Oh, now, Roger’s exaggerating,” Hetty gushed. “Oh, I’m hardly prepared for this sort of thing,” she professed, even though she was wearing her very best dress and had spent a good hour that morning fixing herself up for the occasion. “What must I look like?!”

Hetty beamed into the camera lens, her arm around her favorite brother. Neither of them noticed the dejected look that swept Andrew’s face. Olivia noticed, though, and put her hand on Andrew’s shoulder in an effort to comfort him.

“It’s only a photograph,” she whispered.

To Andrew, it was obviously much more, for it meant that Hetty was more important to his father than he was. Alec observed the scene with a sad look, too, but he was hardly in a position to comment about it to either Roger or Hetty.

“Everyone’s going to think this was my idea,” Hetty chirped.

“Smile, please,” the photographer instructed again just before he set off the flash.

Hetty, despite her supposed unpreparedness, turned on a smile like a stage professional. At the same time, nursing his hurt, Andrew turned and walked rapidly away. Anxiously, Olivia watched him leave.

“And again, please,” called out the photographer, causing Roger and Hetty to go through their performance yet again, neither of them paying the slightest attention to Andrew.

Standing beside Olivia, Sara, too, watched Andrew go into the barn. When she frowned in concern, Olivia nudged her in his direction.

“Go on,” Olivia urged in a whisper. She couldn’t very well leave the scene herself, but Sara might be able to cheer the boy up.

Andrew found his way into the barn and slammed the door behind him. In the cow stable, he searched out an empty stall, slipped into it and sank down on the straw, not caring in the least about the effects on his best suit. When the stall door swung shut, he had completely disappeared from sight.

Back at the reception, guests were still arriving. Andrew slipped even further from his father’s mind, for Roger and Hetty had no sooner left the photographer than they found themselves buttonholed by two distinguished looking gentlemen. One was a Professor McKearney, who was looking very interested in Roger, indeed.

“We were just trying to twist Roger’s arm into accepting a position at Dalhousie University,” he was telling Hetty as he accepted a cup of tea.

Hetty, visibly impressed, managed to swell up another inch or two with pride.

How grand to have a university wanting Roger as a member of their faculty!

“Dalhousie? Oh! Afraid you’ll be wasting your time, however,” she fluttered.

“Roger still has significant commitments in Brazil, you see. Don’t you, dear?” she asked him importantly.

The professor looked disappointed. He’d hoped that Roger would not be in such strong demand.

“Just for another year,” Roger explained, as though spending time in all sorts of exotic, foreign places was just a part of everyday life for him.

Meanwhile, Sara had made her way to the barn in pursuit of Andrew and was looking through the stalls. At the far end of the stable one of the cows, the very one who had been privy to Alec’s drinking bout of the night before, was now lowing continually in a distressed tone. Sara, however, had no time to investigate.

“Andrew?” she called out.

“Just leave me alone!” Andrew muttered from somewhere inside.

Sara went straight to the stall where Andrew was hiding and peered over the top of the door. Andrew was leaning disconsolately against the back wall in the straw, hugging his knees to himself.

“Come on, Andrew,” Sara cajoled. “You’re missing all of your father’s party.”

“Who cares?”

These were hardly the words of a boy who rejoiced in his father’s success. Sara looked at Andrew more closely.

“Are you all right?”

“He’s going away,” Andrew muttered, finally getting to the heart of the matter.

“I’m sure it won’t be forever” Sara said comfortingly. “Uncle Alec says he’ll be back within the year."

Andrew was unimpressed with Sara’s attempt to find the bright side.

“That’s what he says flow, till something more important comes along. I don’t know—he just keeps running and running. Maybe things would be different if my mother were still alive.”

The cow suddenly let out a bellow that seemed to shake the rafters of the barn. Sara sped out of the stall to look.

“What’s the matter with Molly?”

As if to answer, the cow gave a mournful bellow as she crashed about in her stall. Alarmed, Sara bolted from the barn and ran at top speed towards her Uncle Alec, who was talking to Janet on the edge of the crowd.

“Uncle Alec, there’s something wrong with one of the cows. She’s making an awful noise.”

A sick cow was a serious matter to the farm’s economy, especially a farm that had only three cows in its herd and had lent all its money to Amos Spry. Alec set off at once with Sara towards the barn.

By now, the other two cows were setting up a ruckus in sympathy with their distressed comrade. As Alec approached Molly, she tossed her head and bawled again, as if to blare that it was about time some help appeared.

“Easy, there, girl. Easy.” Alec’s voice was soothing as he walked quietly up and rubbed the animal’s head. When Molly accepted him, he patted her broad sides and bent down to examine her udder.

Andrew, now worried and curious, too, forgot his own problems long enough to stand up and lean over the door of the stall where he had taken refuge.

“What’s wrong with her?” Sara wanted to know.

“Whoa, easy,” Alec was saying to the cow as it sidled away from his exploring hand. “I’d say she’s got mastitis.”

“What’s that?” Sara had never heard the dangerous-sounding word before.

“It’s an infection of the udder that cows get when they’re not milked regularly,” Alec told her. “Andrew, when did you last milk this cow?”

Luckily, Andrew had done all his chores and felt he had nothing to hide.

“I used the machine this morning.”

“The machine?” Alec scowled suddenly. “Good Lord. Sara, you’d better get me some hot water.”

Then Alec turned to Andrew crossly, for he had expressly forbidden the use of the machine in his barn.

“And you had better learn to follow instructions, young man.”

As he dashed out the barn door, Andrew looked most upset. He had only tried to be loyal to his father’s ideas in using the labor-saving device. What was the point of buying an expensive milking machine if Uncle Alec still wanted all the cows milked by hand?