"Mr. Holloway," she said. "James said you arrived without trouble." "I did, thank you." He nodded.
His eyes moved around the kitchen, not checking on her, she realized, but checking on the kitchen itself, the way a man automatically inventories what needs to be done when he enters a space. "Supper at 6," he said. "Mabel mentioned," Clara said. "Is there anything I can help with this evening?" "Mabel has supper handled," he said.
It was not unkind. It was simply information. "Tomorrow you can take a look at what needs doing." "Tonight, rest." "I'm not tired," she said.
He looked at her, then actually looked at her, not through her, and she had the brief sense that she had surprised him, though nothing in his expression changed. "Rest anyway," he said. "Six children will be up before dawn, and they'll have something to say about it." "Seven," she said. "You said six," she said.
"James told me there are seven." A pause. Something moved behind his eyes, something brief and painful that he closed down almost immediately. "Seven," he said. "Yes."
He left the kitchen. She stood for a moment looking at the doorway he had gone through. He hadn't corrected himself. She filed that away carefully, the way she filed everything away carefully, because she had learned that the things people don't say are usually more important than the things they do. Supper that evening was the education she had expected it to be.
Mabel had made a beef stew competent, properly seasoned, served without warmth. She moved through the kitchen with the efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times and intended to continue doing it exactly the same way. She set seven places and then after a pause, set an eighth for Clara without looking at her. The children came to the table in rough order of age. James sat at the far end nearest to his father.
Ethan 14, dark-eyed, quiet to a degree that Clara registered as something to pay attention to, sat beside him. Thomas and Daniel came in arguing about something involving a fence post and a dare and settled only when their father looked up from his chair. Luke climbed in sideways and knocked his spoon off the table and retrieved it without apparent embarrassment. Sam came last and sat directly across from Clara and folded his hands and looked at her. "Are you going to say grace?"
He asked her. "Sam," Nate said quietly. "I'm just asking," Sam said, perfectly reasonably. "Mabel says grace," Ethan said, not looking up. "Mabel always says grace," Sam said.
"But maybe the new lady wants to." Mabel set a bowl of stew down in front of Sam with more precision than the action required. "I'll say it," Mabel said. They bowed their heads. Mabel said grace a short, practiced prayer, entirely without flourish, entirely correct, and then they ate.