very still.
“Oh, you poor dear!” Mrs. Hathaway put an arm around Serena’s shoulders. “Here, sit down, I see we need to talk. Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you. Won’t they be expecting their dinner?”
Mrs. Hathaway’s eyes glinted brown like Solomon’s when he was particularly determined about something. “They can wait.” So they sat. Serena focused all her energy on not twisting her handkerchief in her lap.
“Allow me to apologize for my husband. I’ve spoken to him about his behavior, I promise you.”
“Oh, I wish you hadn’t—”
“I certainly did. But really, you mustn’t take it to heart. Mr. Hathaway was much ruder to Jonas, I assure you.”
“He was?” Serena wondered what Mr. Hathaway would think of René. Nothing good, probably.
“Jonas won’t even come to church anymore.”
“Isn’t he a Methodist?”
“Yes, but he used to come every week when he was first courting Susannah. That was before some rather sharp words passed between them on the subject of the church’s organ.”
“The organ?”
Mrs. Hathaway smiled. “My husband is emphatically low church, but he loves that organ, and Solomon plays it. When Jonas intimated that perhaps incense would be next, Mr. Hathaway was very intemperate in his response.”
Serena was surprised into a smile. “Oh, dear.”
Mrs. Hathaway sighed. “You can’t blame Solomon for wanting to show you off.”
“What do you mean?”
Mrs. Hathaway smiled fondly. “It’s obvious how proud he is of you, and well, he’s always been so shy. Elijah was the one who was more popular with girls, you know, and—”
“But Solomon and I aren’t—we’re not—you didn’t really think—” She had never lied so badly in her life.
But Mrs. Hathaway believed her. Her face fell. “Don’t you care for Solomon?”
When had she ever cared for anything more? “You thought that Solomon and I—You wouldn’t mind Solomon bringing home his—his—”
“Solomon wouldn’t bring anyone here that he wasn’t in deadly earnest about,” Mrs. Hathaway said flatly. “Oh, dear. Are you sure you can’t feel anything for him?”
Serena had not the slightest notion what to say. “He’ll get over me,” she said at last.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Hathaway said worriedly. “He doesn’t get over things easily. And I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
“How—how does he look at me?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed! As if—as if he doesn’t quite believe he’s not dreaming. As if someone had lit a candle behind his eyes. Mr. Hathaway and I—we just assumed—”
Serena got that feeling again, as if everything was tilting sideways, the spoons about to slip off the table and crash onto the floor. “You really want me and Solomon to—”
Mrs. Hathaway sighed. “I just want my children to be happy.”
“And you think I can make him happy?” An edge of skepticism made its way into Serena’s voice despite her best efforts.
Mrs. Hathaway gave her a sharp look. “You don’t?”
“I’m not—I’m not the sort of woman who makes people happy,” she said, but it was starting to sound unconvincing even to her, as if the idea were a dress she had outgrown.
Mrs. Hathaway pursed her lips. “You don’t seem to have made yourself very happy, certainly.” She watched Serena, then said, “You know, I ran away from home too when I was a girl.”
“Yes, to get married.”
“True. I don’t say I approve of the choice you made. If Mr. Hathaway hadn’t married me, I would have gone back home. But—well, perhaps it’s rude of me to tell you this, but I never thought your father would be very easy to live with.”
Of course Mrs. Hathaway had known her father. They were all the same age. “Did you—did you know my mother?” she asked, her heart beating faster. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear.
Mrs. Hathaway hesitated. “Yes. I—well, she was a very pretty, charming girl. You reminded me of her when we first met. But I don’t suppose she could have stood up to him.”
Serena blinked back tears, suddenly, for the pretty, charming girl her mother had been—even if Mrs. Hathaway obviously hadn’t liked her. Of course Serena’s girlish airs and graces, when she used them, were clumsily copied from her mother, who had thought they would protect her and had found out her mistake.
“But what I meant to say is that I do understand what made you do it,” Mrs. Hathaway said. “I know what it’s like to be raised as a gently bred girl and to feel as if your family is smothering you with a pillow and telling you it’s for your own good. I told them to