He was expressionless as he watched her. “I prefer flat clouds that look like a blanket.”
“Altostratus?” Pandora asked in surprise, setting down her fork. “But those are the boring clouds. Why do you like them?”
“They usually mean it’s going to rain. I like rain.”
This showed promise of actually turning into a conversation. “I like to walk in the rain too,” Pandora exclaimed.
“No, I don’t like to walk in it. I like to stay in the house.” After casting a disapproving glance at her plate, the man returned his attention to eating.
Chastened, Pandora let out a noiseless sigh. Picking up her fork, she tried to inconspicuously push her potatoes into a proper heap again.
Fact #64 Never sculpt your food to illustrate a point during small talk. Men don’t like it.
As Pandora looked up, she discovered Phoebe’s gaze on her. She braced inwardly for a sarcastic remark.
But Phoebe’s voice was gentle as she spoke. “Henry and I once saw a cloud over the English Channel that was shaped in a perfect cylinder. It went on as far as the eye could see. Like someone had rolled up a great white carpet and set it in the sky.”
It was the first time Pandora had ever heard Phoebe mention her late husband’s name. Tentatively she asked, “Did you and he ever try to find shapes in the clouds?”
“Oh, all the time. Henry was very clever—he could find dolphins, ships, elephants, and roosters. I could never see a shape until he pointed it out. But then it would appear as if by magic.” Phoebe’s gray eyes turned crystalline with infinite variations of tenderness and wistfulness.
Although Pandora had experienced grief before, having lost both parents and a brother, she understood that this was a different kind of loss, a heavier weight of pain. Filled with compassion and sympathy, she dared to say, “He . . . he sounds like a lovely man.”
Phoebe smiled faintly, their gazes meeting in a moment of warm connection. “He was,” she said. “Someday I’ll tell you about him.”
And finally Pandora understood where a little small talk about the weather might lead.
After dinner, instead of the customary separation of the sexes, the assemblage retired together to the second floor family room, a spacious area arranged with clusters of seating and tables. Like the downstairs summer parlor, it faced the ocean with a row of screened windows to catch the breeze. A tea tray, plates of sweets, port, and brandy were brought up, and a box of cigars was set out on the shaded balcony for gentlemen who wished to indulge. Now that the formal dinner was concluded, the atmosphere was wonderfully relaxed. From time to time, someone would go to the upright piano and plunk out a tune.
Pandora went to sit in a group with Cassandra and the other young women, but she was obliged to stop as a set of warm masculine fingers closed around her wrist.
Gabriel’s voice fell gently against her ear. “What were you discussing with the prim Mr. Arterson while stirring your potatoes so industriously?”
Pandora turned and looked up at him, wishing she didn’t feel such a leap of gladness at the fact that he’d sought her out. “How did you notice what I was doing all the way from the other end of the table?”
“I nearly did myself injury, straining to see and hear you all through dinner.”
As she stared up into his smiling eyes, she felt as if her heart were opening all its windows. “I was demonstrating cloud formations with my potatoes,” she said. “I don’t think Mr. Arterson appreciated my stratocumulus.”
“I’m afraid we’re all a bit too frivolous for him.”
“No, one can’t blame him. I knew better than to play with my food, and I’ve resolved never to do it again.”
Mischief flickered in his eyes. “What a pity. I was about to show you the one thing carrots are good for.”
“What is it?” she asked, her interest piqued.
“Come with me.”
Pandora followed him to the other side of the room. Their progress was briefly interrupted as a half-dozen children crossed in front of them to pilfer sweets from the sideboard.
“Don’t take the carrot,” Gabriel told them, as a multitude of small hands snatched almond and currant cakes, sticky squares of quince paste, crisp snow-white meringues, and tiny chocolate biscuits.
Ivo turned and replied with a chocolate biscuit making a bulge in his cheek. “No one is even thinking of taking the carrot,” he told his older brother. “It’s the safest carrot in the world.”
“Not for long,” Gabriel said, reaching over the herd of feasting children to retrieve a single raw carrot from the side of a dessert tray.
“Oh, you’re going to do that,” Ivo said. “May we stay and watch?”
“Be my guest.”
“What is he going to do?” Pandora asked Ivo, wildly curious, but Ivo was prevented from answering as a matron approached to shoo the marauders away from the plates of sweets.