by Linda Bridey
The door opened again and Mick and Iris came in, but they weren’t holding hands. Maybe she and Chuck ought to keep that sort of thing to themselves for now. Maybe the others hadn’t gotten that far. But Chuck had almost kissed her just now. Who knew what the others had got up to when no one else was around?
Mick and Iris sat down side by side at one end of the table. Mick pretended to look around the room. “What is there to eat around here?”
“Rita will be here in a minute with the food,” Iris told him. “She’s our cook. We’re late, so she probably took everything back to the kitchen to keep it warm for us.”
“Does she know we’re coming?” he asked.
Iris nodded. “I told her when we came into the house earlier. I also checked in on her before I came out to get you.”
So Iris had gone out to bring Mick into the house. So they’d spent some time alone, just like Chuck and Violet. Violet stole a glance across the table and spied Jake gazing at Rose again, but Rose kept her eyes down on the table in front of her.
Violet opened her mouth to fill the silence up with some nonsense or other when the cook herself came in with a tureen of soup. She served it out to the three couples as they sat in silence, waiting for her to leave. Violet glanced from one of her sisters to the other, from one man to the other.
Mick and Iris stared straight ahead of them without the slightest indication anyone else occupied the room. Rose kept her eyes down, but Jake gazed around the room with a slight smile on his lips, taking everything with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. When Violet looked at Chuck, he smiled at her. He probably would have taken her hand again if she hadn’t turned away.
Rita left the room, and only after the door clicked shut behind her did the six diners stir to life. Yet still they didn’t speak. For a long time, only the slurping and sipping of soup filled the room. In the end, Jake let his spoon clatter into the bowl and gave a loud sigh. “That hit the spot. What’s for dessert?”
Iris’s eyes flew open, and then she laughed. “That’s just the soup course, silly. Rita will bring the main course next.”
“What is the main course?” Chuck asked.
Iris flashed him a winning smile. “Beef, of course.”
The three men exchanged a quick look and erupted in laughter. “Excuse me,” Chuck exclaimed. “I should have assumed.”
Rita brought the roast in, a dish of potatoes, and another of greens and cabbage. The three couples waited in silence until the cook placed the plates on the table and left the room.
“This looks capital,” Jake remarked. “Thank you for arranging all this. This beats the pants off train station food any day of the week. I can’t think of the last time I had a home cooked meal.”
“It was all Violet’s doing,” Rose told him. “She planned the whole thing, and Rita even uses Violet’s recipes.”
Jake and Mick raised their eyebrows at Violet. She moved her cabbage around in her dish to stop them seeing her cheeks burning.
“That’s pretty good goin’,” Chuck put in. “This roast smells delicious. And it falls apart perfectly. You don’t even have to cut it with a knife.” He put a piece in his mouth. “Outstanding. I’m impressed.”
Violet smiled at him and lowered her eyes to her plate.
“And she grew the greens in the garden, too,” Rose added. “Did she tell you that? Just about everything on this table came from Violet’s garden—except for the beef, of course. That came from Iris.”
“Just wait until you taste the plum cake,” Iris told them. “If you think the meat is good, Chuck, the cake is divine. And it’s all hers. She came up with the recipe herself. And she cooked it, too. Don’t ever let her tell you that she didn’t. Rita runs the kitchen, but when it comes to her plum cake, Violet does everything herself.”
“She does?” Chuck asked. “What does she do?”
Iris marked off the steps on her fingers. “She mixes the batter, she controls the fire in the stove, she checks it in the oven, and she takes it out when she decides it’s done. She doesn’t leave anything to anyone else.”
“You ladies sure are something extraordinary,” Jake exclaimed. “It’s not many women can claim to put on a meal like this, all with the fruits of their own labors.”
“Nonsense!” Violet murmured. “Women all over the country do this sort of thing all the time.”
“But didn’t you tell us,” Mick replied. “That you were raised to be high-brow society women, and that Cornell doesn’t want you doing this sort of thing? Didn’t you tell me you were doing all of this behind his back, to make up for his bad management? Now, that’s sayin’ something. There’s probably not a woman in a thousand who would do that, and there’s probably not a woman in a million who could pull it off. And here you sit, the three of you at one table.”
“I didn’t do it,” Rose corrected him. “I’m not doing anything behind Cornell’s back. It’s Violet and Iris doing everything.”
“You’re here with us now,” Violet reminded her. “You’re getting married against his wishes. None of us could get away with this if we weren’t all doing it together. I’m grateful to you for that.”
“And you’ve kept our secrets, too,” Iris added. “We couldn’t do what we do if you weren’t helping us pull the wool over Cornell’s eyes.”
Jake patted her hand on the white tablecloth. “I don’t mind. To me, you’re just as good as they are.” They shared a heartfelt smile.
Chapter 19