Chapter Nine #3
“When are we going to have the cake?” Minnie broke in, leaning her head on one fist, clearly bored.
“Yes, let’s have no more talk of war.” Mrs. Kerwyn stood up and collected her plate and Kate’s.
“I can get it, Mom,” Kate offered, standing as well, glad of the change in subject.
“No, you don’t!” Mrs. Kerwyn patted her shoulder. “You sit down. Louisa and Nettie can help. Go on, girls,” she said with a nod. “Gather the plates. Minnie, you bring the food.”
“Aw!” Minnie whined.
“You heard your mother,” Mr. Kerwyn growled, and Minnie accordingly jumped up.
Mr. Kerwyn rose, too, but instead of going into the kitchen, he went into the front room.
Kate was almost certain she knew what he was after, especially when she heard the scrape of the cabinet door open.
Sure enough, when he returned, he was carrying what was left of his special whiskey and several little glasses.
“Oh, no, Dad!” Kate cried out. “Not that!”
“It’s my whiskey!” Mr. Kerwyn declared, setting it heavily on the table. “And I’ll say when we drink it! If this is your first party, we need to make up for lost time.” He began filling the little glasses as Louisa and Nettie, and now Harriet, carried the rest of the dishes to the kitchen.
Mrs. Kerwyn appeared with the cake. It was a large chocolate construction, only slightly lopsided, with chocolate jimmies sprinkled on top. It produced immediate oohs and ahs from around the table.
“I made it!” Nettie announced, hurrying into the room behind her mother. Kate caught Nettie’s glance at Henry, but, as usual, he was staring at Kate.
Kate looked away, again feeling as though he could see right through her.
“Here you are!” Mrs. Kerwyn declared. “Better late than never, I suppose.”
“Thanks, Mom. And Nettie,” she added. “It looks delicious.”
Despite the very likely probability that Nettie had made the cake more to impress Henry than as a gift for her, Kate was, in fact, touched. She hadn’t had a slice of cake in ages. Mrs. Kerwyn hadn’t made her traditional Christmas cake this year on account of Kate being so ill.
Mr. Kerwyn began passing the small glasses, each holding just a tiny dram of his whiskey, around the table. “This is the last of it.”
Kate felt horribly guilty to be the reason for the whiskey’s extinction, but she was moved by her father’s gesture. Ever since Minnie had tattled about all the goings-on the night of Ray’s party—including Kate’s lack of participation—Mr. Kerwyn had begun to favor Kate even more than usual.
“Here’s to Kate!” he said, raising his glass. “Happy birthday, girl!”
Everyone echoed the sentiment and drained their glasses. Kate took a sip, her throat constricting a little at the burn. Edmund raised his already-empty glass to her before laughing at something Mary whispered in his ear.
Mrs. Kerwyn sliced into the cake and began passing plates of it down the table.
“Open your presents!” Minnie shouted. “Mine first!”
Kate groaned internally. It had been hard enough to sit through dinner with everyone’s attention on her, but opening gifts would be unendurable. Before she could protest, however, Minnie grabbed the little pile arranged on the sideboard and dumped them in front of her sister.
“I couldn’t accept these,” she faltered, looking around the table. “Thank you, though.”
“Don’t be stupid, Kate,” Louisa called from the other end of the table. “Open them!”
Louisa seemed in a particularly foul mood tonight, perhaps because Vernon had not been able to make it, or because Nettie was desperately trying to get Henry’s attention, or, more likely, because she had drunk almost a whole bottle of cider herself.
Kate pushed her half-eaten cake out of the way to make room for the gifts.
“This one first!” Minnie declared, putting a small pink bag in front of her and then hovered nearby.
Kate examined it. The pink was intriguing. “Where’d you get this?”
“From the Merc,” Minnie answered excitedly.
Kate shot a questioning glance at Harriet.
“Melody ordered a whole box of pink bags. That was before she decided to go back to Chicago.” She gave a little shrug. “So Fred’s using them up on the candy.”
“Don’t tell!” cried Minnie.
On that note, Kate opened the bag and pulled out a small assortment of candy sticks.
“Oh my!” Kate declared. “Thank you!” The candy was only a penny a stick, but she appreciated that the girl had spent her few precious coins for a gift, though Kate did suspect that Minnie was hoping Kate might share the spoils. “Would you like one?”
Kate could tell that Minnie was tempted, but her sister refrained. “Well, maybe a half of one. Some other day, though.”
“The cider was our gift,” Harriet said, tilting her head toward John. “But there’s one there from Mom.”
“Oh! We should have invited your mom!” Kate cried.
“She wouldn’t have come,” Harriet insisted. “And, anyway, it’s just a little thing.”
Based on the aroma emanating from the package, Kate suspected the contents to be of an organic variety. Though it was wrapped tightly in tissue paper, it smelled faintly of lavender. Kate carefully pulled away the paper to reveal a small burlap sachet.
“She made it from herbs in the garden. Mostly lavender. It’s for your bureau drawers. To smell nice.”
Kate gave the sachet a deep sniff, her eyes closing involuntarily at the pleasant scent. It made her long for summer. “Thank you, Harriet! It’s lovely. You’ll tell her thank you, won’t you? And thank you for the cider.”
Harriet smiled her usual big smile, and Kate suddenly missed their old comradery. She wished she could talk to her friend alone.
The next package, this one wrapped in old newspaper, contained a new pair of stockings. “That’s from me and Louisa,” Nettie called out between bites of cake.
“Thank you.” Though she did need a new pair of stockings, Kate suspected that the gift, like Minnie’s, was a somewhat selfish one, as both her older sisters would undoubtedly ask to borrow them. She set them to the side.
The last package was small, too, though not squishy as Mrs. Mueller’s. This one was in a proper box and was wrapped in fancy store-bought paper. It was obviously from Henry.
She frowned to see him staring at her eagerly, grinning his usual grin.
She suddenly felt as though she were some helpless woodland creature and him a wolf who had her in his sights.
She wished she could run out of the room.
She had no desire to receive a gift from Henry Crawford, but to reject it without even opening it would be horribly rude.
Kate took a deep breath and tried to pry open the paper without ripping it.
When she had finally pulled enough of it away, she gasped at the box’s gold embossed lettering—Van Dyke—which told her immediately that it was jewelry of some sort.
She prayed it was perhaps a watch, but the box was too small for that.
She could feel the perspiration trickle down her back as she lifted the lid. Inside was a beautiful gold cross.
“It’s to go on the chain from Mary,” Henry explained. “When she told me she was giving it to you, I knew immediately what I should get.” He paused. “Do you like it?”
“Well . . . of course I do, but it’s . . . it’s really too much, Henry. I can’t possibly accept this.”
“Why not?” He seemed amused.
“What is it?” Louisa called. “Pass it down. Let us see!”
Kate obeyed and handed it to Nettie, who looked at it briefly and then passed it.
“Honestly, Henry. I can’t accept that.” Kate looked at her mother for support, but Mrs. Kerwyn was absently chewing a bite of cake. Kate then turned her eyes to her father, but he merely smiled and raised his glass to her.
“Can’t refuse a gift, girl. Take it.”
“There! You see?” Henry leaned back in his chair, beaming.
“Well, thank you, I suppose,” she said, averting her eyes. “Thank you, everyone, for the party. And for your gifts.”
“Just one left.” Edmund reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small oblong object wrapped in cloth. Standing slightly, he stretched across the table to place it in front of her.
Kate smiled, suddenly delighted. She hadn’t been expecting a gift from Edmund! She carefully began to unwrap the cloth.
“Sorry I didn’t have any paper. The cloth bit is actually a handkerchief. Ma made it for you. She thought you might need new ones after being sick for so long.”
“It’s lovely!” she said, noting the embroidered blue trim along scalloped edges. “You’ll thank her for me, won’t you?” She flashed him a smile. She further unwrapped the handkerchief to find that it held a beautiful black fountain pen.
“Oh!”
“It’s for your sketching. Is it the right kind?” Edmund asked eagerly.
“Yes, of course it is!” She had never had such a fancy pen!
“I got it at Hartigs,” he explained, referring to the stationer in town. “I thought it would be good for your cider labels. And your other art stuff. Your pictures and all that.”
“Thank you, Edmund,” she replied, looking intensely at him, as if they were the only two in the room. “I shall cherish this.”
Edmund beamed. “The clerk at Hartigs recommended several, but Mary helped me decide.” He gave Mary a sideways smile.
Kate’s delight immediately dissipated.
“Why does everyone suddenly think Kate’s an artist?
” Louisa chided with a slight hiccup. “Just because she makes baskets and writes out labels for cider? I mean, they’re nice baskets, Kate, but let’s be honest.” She hiccupped again.
“They’re just scraps you put together to make money while you were pouting in a hole in the ground.
I’d hardly call them art!” She gave a little laugh, and Nettie nervously joined in.
“I never said they were art,” Kate said quietly. So much for birthday goodwill. Well, what did it matter? It probably wasn’t really her birthday, anyway.
“But they are art,” Henry insisted. “Kate could have a showing in a gallery somewhere.”
“What’s a gallery?” Minnie asked.