She Walks in Beauty by Siri Mitchell Read Free Book Online

for meat; the tines weren’t long enough. It wasn’t for fish. Or for bread. It had to be for something that was mostly meant to be eaten with a spoon. A jelly? No. Jellies were meant to be spread with a knife. And it was surely not a soup spoon.
    Aunt placed the utensil back on the table. “It’s for ice cream.”
    “Oh.”
    “And how about this one?”
    That one was a very spidery-looking fork. It had three long, thin, very sharp tines. So it wasn’t meant for placing anything in the mouth. It had to be for stabbing something. Something like a … roast? No. It wasn’t sturdy enough. Something like a cake? No, it would pull right out. It was made for something small but hard. Something like an apple? But why would anyone want to stab an apple? An orange? “An orange.” I said it with much more confidence than I felt.
    “Close. It’s a lemon fork.”
    “Oh.”
    On and on and on she went. A dozen forks. A dozen spoons. A dozen knives.
    “And this?”
    “It’s a . . .” It couldn’t be what I assumed it to be. It was a shovel. A tiny narrow shovel in miniature. But what else could it be? “It’s a shovel.”
    “Yes, of course it’s a shovel. But what is it destined for?”
    “Something very … deep.”
    “Yes.”
    “And rather … narrow.”
    “Yes.”
    I was beginning to perspire behind the ears. “And … I really don’t know, Aunt.”
    “Well, you’d better know! And I’ll tell you now: It’s a marrow shovel.”
    “A marrow shovel.” I had not known there was such a thing.
    “Yes. To dig it out of a bone.” Exasperation was evident in her tone.
    “Is there a reason why I couldn’t just use a knife?”
    “Would you like me to give you a toothpick as well? In fact, why not pick the whole bone up with your hands? And then wipe them on the table linen once they’ve become soiled? Any more questions?”
    I did indeed have more questions. But what I wanted to know most of all was why I had been told to betray my closest friend. But I didn’t ask her. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to do it.

6
    BY THE TIME Thursday afternoon came, I was battling a headache two days old.
    And Lizzie exploded in a display of hysterics when she saw me. As soon as she could, she latched on to my arm. “Did you see him?”
    “Who?”
    “The heir! At church!”
    I nodded.
    “Then tell me what he looked like. We arrived too early and by the time I knew he was there, we had already left.”
    “He was . . .” I tried to disengage her gloved hand from my arm. “I’m not sure exactly which one he was.”
    Lizzie only hung on tighter. “But what do you mean?”
    “There were two. Two young men in the De Vries pew.”
    “Then tell me what they both looked like and I’ll tell you which one he was.”
    But how could she possibly know? “The first was darkhaired. . . .”
    She nodded.
    “Actually, they were both dark-haired.”
    “I adore men with dark hair!”
    “And … the one was wearing a frock coat.”
    “What color?”
    “Gray. Really, Lizzie, could you stop grasping at me?”
    She dropped me from her clutches. “And the other?”
    “An Inverness.”
    She wrinkled her nose. “An Inverness? I’ve never liked them. I hope that one’s not the heir. Although maybe … maybe I could just throw it away once I’d married him.”
    Throw it away? She would just throw someone’s clothes away?
    “Or you could. So. They both have dark hair.”
    “Yes. The one combs it back, like this.” I swept my hand from my brow over the crown of my head.
    “The one in the frock coat or the Inverness?”
    “The frock coat.”
    “And the other?”
    I shrugged. “He didn’t seem to care much where his hair went or what it was doing.”
    Her lips crimped into a frown and then suddenly lifted. “The one in the frock coat’s the heir.”
    “But how do you know?”
    “I just do.” That question settled, Lizzie launched into a recital that took at least ten minutes to perform: who had been seen with whom