“You know,” Rosie whispered, catching Katherine by the arm. “I’m concerned for Miss Harriet.”
Katherine stifled a heavy sigh. The lunch rush was in full swing, and Miss Harriet, or rather, Mrs. James, was in the kitchen, replenishing their supply of scones and Cornish pasties. “Oh really?”
“Yes. I know she’s kindhearted, but…” Rosie let her sentence trail as she nodded her head significantly across the room to where Sally was fumbling her way through clearing the table.
“Rosie, it’s her first day.” Katherine could feel the irritation growing in her like an expanding balloon.
“I know that, but have you seen how clumsy she is?” A clatter rang out and Sally dropped to her knees, hurriedly gathering up the bin of silverware she had knocked off her cart.
With a warning look at Rosie, Katherine walked quickly over to help.
“Here, let me.” she said gently.
“I don’t know what happens sometimes, I just can’t seem to keep from dropping things.”
Sally tried to laugh, but Katherine noticed a deep red flush creep over the new girl’s face. She put a hand on Sally’s shoulder and smiled. “You know, it’s only your first day. You’re probably just nervous.”
Sally reached for the last fork and stood to put the bin back on the cart. Then with a hurried, “Thank you, Katherine.” Sally wheeled the cart into the kitchen.
“See what I mean?” Rosie said as Katherine passed her table again.
“Now, Rosie, you leave Sally alone. It certainly doesn’t make settling into a new job easier to have someone watching to find fault with you.”
“Me? Finding fault? Why—"
Katherine turned deliberately and walked into the kitchen. She always found Rosie irritating, but today—today it went beyond irritation. This was anger: a seething, burning anger that made her want to unleash a torrent of bitter words on Rosie, to make her feel what the victims of her gossip felt. After all, hadn’t her insinuations driven away many of the Harborside’s customers when Captain Braddock first returned to run the shop? And now, to pick on someone like Sally, trying so hard to do her best—it was too much.
“Katherine, what’s wrong?” Mrs. James asked, pulling a tray of fragrant scones from the oven and sliding another in.
“Tell me again why we have to put up with that woman?” Katherine’s tone held more force than she had intended to let out.
“Ah, Rosie’s been at it again, I see.” Setting her tray down, Mrs. James turned. “Sally, this will be good for you to hear as well.”
Sally froze, holding a handful of forks mid-air above the bin she had been replenishing.
“For all her faults, Rosie is one of our most loyal customers. She says more than she ought most days, and that’s certainly not right. But if it were you, wouldn’t you want others to treat you with kindness and longsuffering? Whatever it is she has said today, let it motivate you to look beyond her words to her heart. For all her flash and bluster, she’s a very lonely woman. She tears others down, seeking to build herself up. Like everyone else in the world, she simply wants to be loved.”
All was silent in the kitchen for a moment, until one of Sally’s forks slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.
Mrs. James put a hand on Katherine’s shoulder. “I can see that some solitude might be in order, Katherine, before you go back out, so I’ll take over for you while you finish up in here. The last scones are in, and those pasties are ready to be plated.” Turning at the doorway, Mrs. James said gently, “and remember, Katherine, ‘what doth the Lord require of thee’?”
“To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,” Katherine answered quoting a verse they had recently been discussing. “Thank you,” Katherine said with a faint smile as Mrs. James moved towards the doorway and a wide-eyed Sally followed her with the cart.
Lord, help me. Katherine prayed, letting out a long breath, lifting up her anger and bitterness to the Lord, even as her hands moved about the mundane necessities of scones and pasties and tea trays.
5 Rainy Day at the Harborside
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
Katherine sat in her window seat, curled up in a blanket, Bible on her lap. As she gazed out at the roofs of the buildings across the street, she drank in the stillness of the moment. The window, studded with raindrops, the dark sky just beginning to take on a lighter shade of dull grey, the sun's silent rising behind the heavy curtain of clouds, each seemed to echo the joyful quiet in her heart. Katherine read the verse again and took a deep breath, savoring it all.
This morning, she felt the verse to be true. She had learned to spend time with God, and found joy in His presence like nothing she had ever known before. But as much as she wanted to sit and bask in the joy and peace and quiet rest, snuggled beneath a blanket with the raindrops tapping against the glass, she knew she needed to get up. Today was Thursday, the day she unpacked boxes and restocked shelves at the Harborside.
As she reluctantly moved the blanket aside and walked over to the coatrack by the door, Katherine heard muffled sounds of baking sheets and mixing bowls. Mrs. James must be here. She bent to pull on her boots. Then, as she pulled a jacket on over her thick sweater, she heard a crash. It sounded as if someone had dropped a whole stack of baking sheets, all at once. Sally must be here too.
She threw a scarf around her neck and pulled a warm hat over her dark brown curls. The weather had finally turned, and she knew it would be a wet, cold walk across Harborhaven’s downtown blocks to the Harborside this morning.
As she came downstairs into the tearoom, she saw Sally carefully laying forks and knives and dishes on the tables. She bent close to the tablecloth, adjusting each piece three or four times before moving on to the next. Katherine smiled at her thoroughness.
“Good morning, Sally!”
The girl jumped, disturbing the silverware she had just carefully placed. “Oh, good morning, Katherine. I’m supposed to try waiting tables today, since you won’t be here.”
“That’s great, Sally! And do you feel any less nervous today?”
“A little… although I did still knock the pans off the kitchen counter.”
“I heard,” Katherine chuckled. “But I'm sure it will get better in time.”
Sally gave her a skeptical look. “Did you drop things when you first started?”
Katherine paused a moment, thinking. “No, at least not often… but everyone’s different.
Sally’s face clouded a little as she repeated softly, “Yes, everyone is different.”
