Chapter 46
What Vincent found surprised him. Catherine's eyes and heart were full of compassion and she was sending comforting thoughts his way. He was a bit confused at what he thought were the mixed signals, but decided to go with her feelings rather than his.
He smiled at her and in doing so almost missed Mary's diplomatic answer. "I think since Vincent teaches so many of our reading and literature classes that he would be the perfect person for the job." She also hadn't missed the silent communication going on between Vincent and Catherine and was pleased by it.
Catherine could see in Father's eyes that he was inclined to grumble about that, so she rushed in to ask Mary what plans were already in place for the yarn. She was told that many projects had been started for the children, and Mary herself had chosen the sapphire blue yarn with the sweater vest pattern on the label.
"However, with as cool as it is here I thought I might adapt the pattern to include sleeves since there was more than enough yarn."
"That's a great idea Mary," she agreed. "Who do you have in mind for the finished project?"
Mary grinned, "Well I think there is only one choice since the color matches Vincent's eyes so perfectly."
Vincent was about to protest that he really didn't need a new sweater when Catherine smiled and told Mary, "I was thinking that when I picked out that color."
"I had a feeling you might have been," Mary responded.
Father had been watching this interchange and was about to put in his two cents worth when Jenny jumped in with, "I hear that you are quite a Shakespeare fan Sir." After that the two of them were focused on talk about their personal favorites of the bard's works.
William himself had to come and shoo them out of the dining room, because none of his young helpers had the courage to ask Father to move so the table could be cleaned. The five planned to meet in Father's study in a while, after Catherine and Vincent gave Jenny a brief tour of the tunnels.
Jenny was endlessly fascinated by everything they showed her and was disappointed when the tour was over and Vincent said they should head back to Father's study.
"Hey, I have a question!" Jenny declared.
Catherine couldn't keep from laughing. "Another one?" she asked. Jenny had probably asked about one hundred questions already during their tour.
"Yes, another one!" Jenny sniped with a grin. "Why haven't you told me your dad's name? What is with all this formal 'father' stuff? I mean I can see that he is a bit stuffy, but is his name a secret or something?"
Catherine was going to let Vincent answer her friend, since the truth was, she had wondered those same things herself. When she saw the odd look on Vincent's face, she tried to see if the Bond would be of any help. What she discovered there was that he was both confused and a bit surprised.
"As far back as I can remember everyone has always called him Father, even Mary. I started to do so as soon as I could speak and by the time I might have been old enough to question it, it was so natural that I guess I didn't think anything more of it. I do not know if he planned to keep his name a secret, only that when he came Below it was because he was rejecting the world Above, so maybe he rejected his Above name as well. All my life he has told me how awful the world Above is. I suppose when we get to his study you could ask him," Vincent offered.
"Chicken!" Jenny teased and then said, "Sure I'll do your dirty work for you, but if I do, the next time I come down here for a visit you have to promise to take me back to the magic bridge! All those voices from nowhere were so cool!"
"I would be glad to take you anytime you wish Jenny. You do not need to do something you do not wish to do just to get me to take you."
"Aw heck, Vincent! I was only kidding! Besides that, Cath can tell you I love to stir things up. So I would have fun trying to get an answer from him about his name."
To be continued….