A Heedless Young Housekeeper - part 3

After Catherine had sent Dorcas to ready her dress, she turned her attention to the kitchen where their cook was already bustling about filling the entire place with tantalizing aromas. She was determined to shine in the table’s abundance, there would surely be no reason for General Tilney to find fault with their eating habits as he had on his previous visits. Mrs. Robinson, Catherine privately thought, exceeded even his cook in quality but Henry’s father too often seemed content with mere quantity, this evening he would not be disappointed.



“Dinner will be served at seven o’clock precisely.” She said more for her own remembrance than for Cook’s.
“Don’t you fret ma'am; we’ll be ready for them.” Mrs. Robinson said confidently in a tone that seemed to advise the enemy to beware.
On this note of confidence young Mrs. Tilney made her way to the drawing room, in her opinion the prettiest room in the world. She so enjoyed sitting here with its view of the apple trees and the small cottage in the meadow. It was the first room at the vicarage to feel the effect of its young mistress having been newly papered and furnished in the first year of her marriage. There Catherine straightened a candlestick and found one of Kitty’s dolls behind a cushion that had gone astray.



Later that afternoon as Catherine retired to dress before the Northanger party arrived, her husband came from his dressing room tying his cravat. “Cathy, my dear, I have been remiss in congratulating on our fifth wedding anniversary.”
“I had nearly forgotten it myself, in the busyness of the day.” She confessed and motioned for Henry to tie her sash.
“It seems like only yesterday we were engaged. I can still remember what your mother said when I asked for your hand.”
“Really, and what was that?” Catherine sat at her dressing table and slipped a pair of emerald earrings through her earlobes.
“She told me that you would make a heedless young housekeeper.” He said, smiling at his wife in the mirror.
Catherine chuckled. “I dare say she was right!”
“She also said that there was nothing like practice, and I believe in that statement she had great wisdom. I am daily filled with amazement at the way you care for our children and manage the household. I’m so proud of my little wife.”
Tears stung her eyes as she turned to look at him. “Things haven’t turned out too terrible.” She whispered.
“No indeed.” Softly Henry bent to kiss his wife the “heedless young housekeeper”.