Chapter 9. The One with the Chickens and Kittens

One evening not long after the picnic by the lake, and after a most satisfying dinner she'd prepared for them (of roast beef, gravy, boiled potatoes, salad greens, peas in a cream sauce, peach cobbler, apple pie and tea), the Duke returned from his bath (in the barn) to find his young wife seated on the front porch. She had located an easel in the attic and was drawing a lovely pencil sketch of the sunset and the barn yard scene about them.

 

“I can't draw chickens,” she said, as the chickens cackled and fussed near the well.

 

“I can,” he replied. “I'm quite good with drawing chickens, actually,” he said, as he gently took over the pencil in her frustrated hands and quickly sketched a small flock of chickens into her scene.

 

She stood there with hands on hips, watching, mouth agape. “Where ever did you learn to draw like that?” she inquired, impressed with his rendition of cackling feathered poultry that simply would not stand still long enough for her to capture their likeness.

 

“I...uh...” he stumbled, looking for some way of imparting truth without stepping into a lie. “I've always enjoyed drawing.” The truth was, he'd had lessons from an instructor and a great deal of tutoring on the subject of art.

 

Still amazed, her eyes still barely believing what she beheld as he handed the pencil back to her, she replied with suspicion, “You are indeed the most amazing and talented, well versed, diverse, most well-bred farmer I've ever known.”

 

“I'm sure there are others like me,” he said, trying to dismiss her complement and the amazement in her eyes. He shouldn't have offered to draw the chickens for her. It would just lead to more questions he wasn't ready to answer. “As I said before, I had an excellent tutor growing up.” He tried to downplay his education, but his answer had been truthful.

 

“Well, thank you, for the chickens in my drawing,” she said. “They are very good. I'll stick with objects that aren't moving when I draw. I'd been about to leave them out altogether, but it wouldn't make for a very realistic barn yard, would it?”

 

“No, I don't suppose so,” he said, annoyed with himself. “If you will excuse me, I've got some ledger work to do.” He left her there in the porch and went to the little writing desk in the parlor to escape the whole scene of what had just transpired. In spite of her questions and statements that seemed to delve deeper and deeper into his background, which bothered him only a little, what bothered him most was that she was seemed nearly perfectly suitable to become his Duchess.

 

Somehow this all surprised and alarmed him to some degree. He supposed it was all part of the process of adapting from being a bachelor to a married man. She wasn't demanding or spoilt. She didn't complain. She was quiet and soothing to be around, calming, cheerful. And what he had observed was that her drawing had actually been good, very good, without his help. She had all of the necessary skills to live up to the expectations that would be put upon her as a Duchess, even though she had been raised a mere vicar's daughter.

 

In all fairness to her, he was growing more and more alarmed at the prospect of telling her the truth. She hadn't bargained for any of it and had no idea what she was really getting herself into. Not only could she manage a household efficiently enough without servants and seemed to handle the workload of two people, she could cook, garden, clean and organize, play the piano, draw, sew, knit, read the poets and converse on any topic. She shares my faith and thrives in this quiet country life. She is just so terribly young. Nineteen is terribly young to be thrust into the world of the peerage. Her father had protected her from all of that by leading a quiet life in the country as a simple man of the cloth. Her life would change in so many ways when he told her she hadn't just married a farmer.

 

Dear God, he prayed as he tapped his fingers on the ledger, I'm losing my nerve. Somehow this doesn't seem fair to her, he argued. She's going to be so angry with me when she finds out who I really am. I may lose her in the process of all of this testing.

 

The next day would disturb him even more. He returned from a particularly difficult day to find his wife smiling and laughing on the floorboards in the kitchen, surrounded by a litter of tiny, mewing kittens and a very zealous Benjamin Trimmel assisting her. She was, one by one, nursing each kitten from a little bottle of milk. The kittens were licking droplets of milk as she gently held each one in her lap.

 

He was so startled by the nurturing scene. It immediately invoked images of his wife having their baby and nursing their own child someday. He stood there in the alcove of the kitchen scratching his head, wondering what to say about the creatures that had invaded his time with her. They crawled on her and fell off her lap, nudging each other out of the way to get to the bottle.

 

“Ouch!” she cried and then giggled softly, removing a kitten who'd sunk it's claws into her skin trying to be next in line for nutrition. “Their little claws are so very sharp Benjamin. Be careful that they do not scratch you when you handle them. It hurts!” Benjamin nodded vigorously, rapt with attention at the entire scene.

 

“Where did the kittens come from, or should I not inquire?” he said, sounding like a Duke.

 

“Yes, of course you may inquire, husband,” she smiled up at him, “but only after you kiss me hello.”

 

He dismissed her idea of a hello and reminded himself he dare not kiss his wife. It would only make things harder when she left him. “Hello,” he started again.

 

She ignored the fact that he ignored her invitation to kiss her. How could she be too concerned with that at this moment? The little kittens were purring in her lap and nestling close to her, allowing her to love and nurture them.

 

“I found them behind the barn and asked the Du... “ Benjamin stopped himself before the word Duchess rolled off his tongue. The Duke's eyes glared warningly and he stammered, “Uh, uh, I found them today, behind the barn, and asked her, uh, what we should do with them. I knows they can be good mouse catchers.”

 

“Mouse catchers dear!” exclaimed Alexandra. “Benjamin is right! They can be of great use on a farm!”

 

Benjamin looked up at the Duke, eyes wide with hope.

 

“Where is their mother, or do I not want to know the answer to that?” Hartford asked reluctantly.

 

“We don't know where the mother cat is, do we Benjamin?” Alexandra asked, the little boy nodding vigorously.

 

“No we do not,” Benjamin agreed, trying not to look too eager.

 

The Duke observed his wife again on the floor with the litter of kittens nestled in her lap. One was trying to sniff the milk to determine where it was exactly, while another tried to trample its sister or brother to get to the nipple next. Suddenly he could see his wife holding twins, or triplets, with two or three children at her knee, all crying out for food. And she was gently and patiently feeding each one.... he shook his head until he could see the kittens again and sat down next to them on the floor, silently observing.

 

Benjamin kept each kitten in order when it fell off her lap. He kept them gathered together in the area between the three of them. If one strayed, he placed it back in its proper place. There were several black ones, three gray kittens and one calico, and one with one white paw and the rest all black fur and a white chest. Apparently, it had been decided that the kittens would sleep in the loft with Benjamin if he agreed.

 

“Well, Mr. Harcourt,” his wife said, having explained the terms, with hopeful eyes. “Are you agreeable to this solution?”

 

He cringed, hearing her call him that. He couldn't bare to tell them no, looking from the hope in her eyes to the hope in Benjamin's eyes. It seemed neither of them would breathe again until he said yes.

 

“I suppose so, for now. But Benjamin will have to be responsible for nursing them. Do you understand son? My wife is far too busy to be nursing kittens every day.”

 

“Yes Sir! Thank you!” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

 

“But-- you may bring them by for a visit now and then,” she said sweetly as she began feeding the last hungry kitten. “You will need to feed them several times per day... maybe three or four,” she explained. “Be sure to take this bottle with you and wash it out each time you use it. And we will have to think of names for all of them later. Right now, I have to feed my hungry husband. So run along and take your supper with you.” She motioned to a pail of food she'd prepared for him.

 

William was relieved to see them go as Benjamin grabbed the pail and scooped the kittens up into a basket, covered them with a blanket and dashed out the back door and around the house to the barn loft with his new little friends. He knew the boy was lonely and thought it would bring him a great deal of comfort to have the kittens to look after.

 

His wife was just beaming with happiness at his decision and after Benjamin's exit, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him ever so softly on the cheek. “Thank you William, thank you so much!” He pulled away unexpectedly and caught a slight look of misunderstanding flash through her eyes. She recovered quickly but remained more quiet than usual throughout their meal that evening (a steaming chicken pie with a perfectly golden brown crust, creamy gravy and fresh vegetables from the garden).

 

She managed to make it rather sullenly through an after dinner cup of hot tea with honey, served just the way he liked it, the way Charles made it. They took their tea in the spacious parlor in the two cozy reading chairs by the empty fireplace, but by the end of her cup, she politely declined his request to play a song or two on the piano due to a mild headache. She said she was tired and going to bed early, if he didn't mind. It was the first evening he'd noticed her to be out of sorts and not cheerful. He suspected it was because he had pulled away in the kitchen but needed more time to sort out his concerns and the growing guilt over not being able to tell her about his identity.

 

He had to find a way to tell her soon, and the courage to do so, come what may. It was her honor and his own he felt he might compromise if he didn't tell her soon. He'd never before found himself to be so … indecisive, and so lacking courage. Usually he faced all of his problems and challenges head on. This change in his own behavior puzzled him.

 

Perhaps the best thing to do in the entire matter was to do his best to make the marriage work. He wanted to, with all his heart, he wanted it to work. The question in his mind was how she would react to the truth of his situation and the miserable and glaringly loud fact he had withheld his circumstances and his elevated station in life from her. Each time he saw her scrubbing the floors or beating a rug outside or working hard in the garden to pull weeds he felt a twinge of guilt for withholding the truth from her. At Ivy Clifton she would have servants for all of those chores and lead a life of relative ease, even luxury. Yet, she never complained.

 

It was a difficult end to a difficult day for the Duke. He spent the rest of the evening lost in his thoughts, pacing in the parlor, then the kitchen and then the parlor again, and finally, on the front porch more pacing, before he finally climbed the stairs to retire to bed with a great deal on his troubled mind. He'd stopped outside her bedroom door and had almost knocked, but then decided against it and went straight to his bedroom.