Chapter 15
“Noah,” Violet said one morning. “I though you and I might go out for a picnic today. How does that sound?”
Her mind was full of plans. The idea had come to her last night, and she had lain awake for hours in pleasant thoughts about how it would go.
They would go down to the river that ran behind the house and lay out their blanket there.
Perhaps they would bring along a book to read together, or maybe they would just sit and talk.
They would eat sandwiches and bring some of Molly’s cookies as well. It would be a truly beautiful day.
Noah, who had been sitting on the settee and staring at the pages of a book without turning them, looked up at her. “A picnic?”
“Did you ever go on one with Margaret?” Violet asked him.
“No, we never did that.”
Violet was glad. So her plan would not stir any painful memories for the boy.
“This could be something you and I do together from time to time,” she said.
“It could be our special bonding activity, a way for us to get to know one another better. Why don’t you go and change into play clothes, and I’ll have the kitchen get a picnic basket ready for us to take out? ”
“Okay!” Noah jumped to his feet. “I’m going to be so fast, Violet. This sounds like fun!”
He ran off, leaving Violet feeling pleased and proud of the idea she’d had.
It would be wonderful to spend this time with Noah, to really get to know him and see what he was like now that the two of them had gotten past his initial resistance to her.
She imagined watching the water, Noah cuddled up against her, and listening to her read to him.
It was a fantasy she had had in her head for a long time—mothering a child like that—but it had seemed out of reach for so long. Now it was really about to happen.
She went to the kitchen and asked Molly to prepare their picnic.
Molly went to work immediately, slicing bread for sandwiches.
There was a picnic basket in the kitchen, and she began to pack it.
“The dowager duchess had us purchase this basket once—she actually sent me to market for it back when I was her lady’s maid,” she explained, handing it over to Violet.
“But then she never used it. I never knew why she had wanted it, but maybe she foresaw that you would have a need for it one day.”
“That could be,” Violet murmured. She picked up a few pieces of fruit from a plate and added them to the basket.
“I think I’m realizing that my aunt was very good at anticipating my needs, even though we hadn’t seen one another in some time.
She must have understood me much more thoroughly than I ever realized she did. ”
“I think that’s true,” Molly said gently. “She spoke of you often, you know. I could tell that she was very fond of you.”
Violet sighed. “I wish I could have come to see her again before she died,” she said wistfully. “If it had been up to me, I would have, but my father would never have allowed it.”
“She knew,” Molly murmured. “She knew how oppressive your father’s house was, Lady Violet, and she worried about it. She knew you would have come if you could. Don’t torment yourself about it. She was at peace with the fact that you loved her very much, and she loved you too. Let that be enough.”
She folded a napkin and placed it over the top of the picnic basket. “There,” she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “That ought to suit the two of you. I hope it’s a good time.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Violet said with a smile.
She thanked Molly, hoping that Molly understood it was for more than just the food.
This conversation had contained a lot of things she had very much needed to hear, and it was wonderful to gain the perspective of someone who had actually known Aunt Margaret.
To know that Molly thought her aunt would be happy with her right now absolutely meant the world.
She went back out to the foyer to find Noah waiting for her in his play clothes. He was dancing about the room with excitement, and when he saw her, he came running over. “Is that the picnic?” he asked.
Violet nodded. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes!” He trotted toward the door, and Violet followed along in his wake.
She allowed Noah to lead the way down to the water, noting the worn grass. It seemed that he came this way often. His footing was sure, even where the ground was uneven, and he hummed a little song as the two of them went along.
When they reached the water’s edge, Violet laid out the picnic blanket and began to unpack the basket.
She waited for Noah to come join her, and perhaps to exclaim over the delicious things she’d brought for them, but he didn’t.
Instead, he went all the way down to the water’s edge and dropped right down on his hands and knees in the dirt.
“Oh…” She frowned. “Noah, you don’t want to get your hands dirty before we have our lunch. And your clothes…”
“You told me to put on play clothes,” he reminded her. “Play clothes can get dirty.”
“I brought your bear book.” She pulled out the new one Jonathan had gotten for him. “Do you want to come over and read for a bit?”
“No,” he said. “Reading is for inside. Outside is for playing. Hey, there’s a frog here!”
To her shock—and horror—he reached right into the water. When he pulled his hand back, there was a squishy, bulging lump of something. As she watched, it expanded and contracted slightly.
Violet couldn’t help it; she shuddered.
She had never been the sort of person to appreciate the dirtier side of the outdoors. It was unladylike, she felt, not to mention repugnant. To reach into a river full of creeping things and pull one of them out made her skin crawl.
And the toad itself…it was a disgusting animal.
It looked to her as if Noah was holding a pile of mud in his hand.
An oddly shaped pile, to be sure, but it seemed as though it might dissolve in his grip, that if he were to squeeze too hard, it would turn into sludge.
How was she supposed to eat lunch after watching this?
Now Noah was on his feet, trotting back over to the picnic blanket—and the toad was still in his hand. Violet leaned away as he sat down on the edge of the blanket, smudging it with the dirt that was now on his pants.
He held out the toad. “Do you want to hold him, Violet?”
“No,” she said firmly. “You should go put him back.”
“I don’t want to, though,” he said. “I will soon, but I want to look at this toad. They’re so interesting, don’t you think? Feel the skin!”
He held the toad out again. Violet recoiled. “I don’t want to touch it!”
“Why not?” Noah looked genuinely confused. He looked down at the toad in his hands as if he thought he might discover some unknown quality it possessed—as if there might be something specifically unlikable about this toad, but another one would have been perfectly fine.
Violet didn’t know what to tell him.
She didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm.
He was a little boy taking an interest in little boy things.
It seemed perfectly natural to her that he should be intrigued by slimy creatures—and, after all, hadn’t she already seen him fascinated by a worm?
This wasn’t any different, really, although she did find toads more repulsive than worms somehow.
But she wouldn’t have wanted to touch the worm either, so perhaps there wasn’t such a difference at all.
If Noah knew how ugly she found the toad, would he feel any differently about it? Would that make him stop wanting to explore the world around him? She didn’t want to take that from him. It was one of the things she was most fond of about Noah—the open curiosity he had about everything he saw.
But he knew that something was wrong. He was a clever boy. She had to be honest here and tell him something.
“I suppose I’m uncomfortable with toads,” she said.
“Are they dangerous?” He looked down at his toad again. “They don’t bite. I catch them all the time, and they don’t do anything to me.”
“No, they don’t bite. They’re not dangerous,” she said. “I’m just not used to such slimy animals. There’s nothing wrong with being slimy, but I’ve never held something like that before.”
“You never caught a toad?”
“No, never,” she told him.
“Not even when you were my age?”
“Little girls don’t do that kind of thing as often as little boys do,” she said.
“I’m sure there are some who do. But when I was your age, I liked to stay indoors.
I would read books or play the pianoforte, or sometimes work on my needlepoint.
Things like that. I’d never have dreamed of pulling toads out of the river. ”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like very much fun,” Noah said. “You should probably start pulling toads out of the river now in order to make up for it. You should go down there and catch one of your own.”
Violet laughed. “There’s no way I could do that,” she told him. “I’d be as likely to trip over my skirts and fall right into that water, and then where would we be?”
“Well,” Noah said, “If you won’t try to catch a toad, I think you do at least have to touch this one. I think that it’s only fair.” He held it out one more time. “Just put a finger on his back,” he urged. “Just one finger. Feel how rough he is.”
He was so earnest about it, so eager, that Violet found she couldn’t refuse him.
She reached out a single finger and rested it lightly on the toad’s back.
Noah had been right. The animal’s body was rough and pebbly, but it was soft in its way, too. It was clear that she wasn’t touching mud or a rock, but something alive. As she watched, the toad opened and shut its mouth a few times. Its body swelled slightly in Noah’s hand.
“He’s so interesting,” Noah said. “I wish I could keep him as a pet!”
“That, we’re not going to do,” Violet said firmly, withdrawing her hand. “If you need a pet, maybe we can talk about a dog or a cat. But put the toad back in the water now.”
Noah sighed. “All right.” He ran down to the water to release his toad.
Violet wiped her fingers on the blanket beside her.
She had to admit that it hadn’t been as bad as she had thought it might be.
By the time Noah got back, she was unpacking their lunch, promising herself she would try to relax a little more.
After all, she was going to be raising a little boy, and that was going to mean getting comfortable with the kinds of things little boys—and Noah in particular—liked. She would have to get dirty.
She glanced up toward the house and was met with another surprise.
Jonathan was there, crossing the lawn, toward them from the house.
She glanced at Noah. “Did you tell Jonathan to meet us here?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t know he was coming. But this is good! Now we can all have our picnic together. It will be fun.”
Violet wasn’t sure what to say or how to respond. But she hoped very much that that was true.