The Kitchen Front

by Jennifer Ryan

  Audrey got up and helped her chop the chives. “But everything’s changing now, with the war. So many women are single or widowed, and now there are places where you can leave your children during the day to go to work. My cousin works in a munitions factory and says there’s a nursery where they look after the workers’ children. And I can help out if you’re still here.”

  “But I won’t still be here,” Zelda said, scraping the chopped herbs into her hand and putting them into the pot. “I’ll be back in London, being me.” She turned to Audrey, annoyed. “Cooking is the only thing I know I can do right. All I have to do is win this contest, and then I’ll get a job as a head chef, just you see.” Her eyes bore into Audrey’s. “You can’t take that away from me.”

  She went back to her cooking, singing again, louder, as if to blot out the conversation. The powdered egg mixed with water became thick and creamy-yellow under her whisk, and she gently poured it over the vegetables.

  Audrey looked through the window. The boys were weeding, the hens pecking away, and over the garden to the hills, a hawk soared gracefully through the blue sky. The world was still turning, regardless that Matthew wasn’t there; but then, he hadn’t been for such a long time. And where was the package, his things, his precious things?

  Yes, there they were, on the table.

  Carefully, she put them back in the box, placing it on the shelf of the dresser. “Welcome home,” she murmured quietly to them, to him, wherever he was. “You won’t ever have to go away again.”

  A sudden yearning to go to the church filled her. Somehow she had to empty her heart, feel some sense of peace. She pulled on her cardigan, took the roses, and went to the door.

  “Can I leave you with the boys for a while?” she asked Zelda, who nodded from the stove without turning around, and then she quietly slipped out the door into the afternoon sun.

  It felt strange walking down the lane on her own. Leaving the house—leaving her boys and her cooking—it wasn’t something she did very often, if ever. The air, the space, felt different, as if her world had been put on pause, and she suddenly felt the sheer transience of life, the fragility as fine and delicate as a spider’s thread.

  She glanced back at Willow Lodge, grateful for its certainty, grateful for Zelda, through all her chaos, helping with the boys and the cooking, rescuing her from the chicken coop, and resuscitating her with tea and friendship.

  How she hoped that she, too, could help Zelda in return.

  Cool and silent, the church was dark except for the blue light streaming through the stained-glass window, spreading a heavenly beam across the altar and down through the nave. The smell of damp entwined with the sweet, floral scent of roses.

  There had been a time when Matthew’s rosebushes had been their pride and joy. Then, when the war looked inevitable, together they dug most of them up to make way for the vegetables. She smiled as she recalled that day, Matthew blinking in the August sunshine, his shirtsleeves rolled up.

  “How much I’ll miss all this, when I’m away.” He’d given her a sad, clenched-mouth smile. “I want to remember it all, just like this, right now. The sun beaming down on us, the boys playing on the grass, and you, my darling, looking so absolutely beautiful.”

  He’d come toward her, putting his hand on her cheek, looking over her face, into her eyes, as if trying to remember every last piece of her.

  She sat in the pew at the front, tears brimming over her eyes, and she sank to her knees.

  “Dear Lord,” she began hesitantly. “Today I want to thank you. I want to thank you for giving me Matthew, for although it breaks me apart that he’s gone”—she had to stop as a lump caught in her throat—“at least I had him for the time that I did, that I reveled in the love of one so creative, so kind, so worldly, that we had each other, and knew a love so deep, so encompassing.”

  There was a stillness around her, as if the entire place, the hymnbooks, the choir stalls, all the saints and apostles had paused to listen.

  “My grief is only equal to what I had that was lost, and if my sorrow is immeasurable, it is because the depth of our love, our world, and the joy we created, was so immense on the other side of the balance. I would not be without it for all the world.”

  Another sob came, but she swallowed it back.

  “I want to thank you for my boys—the physical manifestation of him left for me. They are my one and only link with him now—them and my memories. Every time I recognize a smile as his, a movement of the head, the lift of an eyebrow, they bring me closer to him. Alexander with his creativity; Ben, who looks exactly like him; little Christopher with his big heart. He flows through all of them, and every day, as they become men, he will remain with them, running through their veins.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “I want to thank you for my home. I know it’s in tatters, but it’s an old friend, ready to give what it can to us. I think I used to see it as a burden, but now I realize that it’s our haven, a shelter from the storm. I pray that we can keep it.

  “And finally, I want to thank you for Zelda. She might be an odd, chaotic creature, but she is also kind, resourceful, and caring. I don’t think I realized how much I needed a friend, and now, at the time when I truly need it, here she is, helping take care of me—helping take care of all of us.”

  Audrey’s Fruit Scones

  Makes 12

  3 cups flour

  ½ teaspoon salt

  5 teaspoons baking powder

  1 tablespoon sugar

  1½ cups dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, red currants, apricots, prunes, etc.)

  ¼ cup butter

  ¼ cup margarine, lard, or suet

  1 egg, beaten, or the equivalent in dried egg powder

  1 cup milk

  Preheat oven to 425°F/220°C. Sieve the flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl. Add the sugar and dried fruit and mix. Cut the butter and margarine into small pieces and rub it in. Mix the egg and milk and slowly add until the dough is a stiff consistency. Roll it out into a thick layer, about 1 inch thick, and use a floured cutter to cut it into circles. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 10 minutes, or until risen and golden brown.

  Nell

  Afternoons were Nell’s quietest part of the day. Mostly she used them for special preparations, such as stocks, jams, and pickling, but this afternoon, she and Mrs. Quince had a wedding cake to bake. It was for a local couple eager to tie the knot before he boarded a naval ship for Burma.

  “It’s the third wedding this summer!” Mrs. Quince exclaimed. “Let’s hope they know what they’re doing. Plenty a pair found they didn’t get on after the last war. The men came home jaded, and the women, well, we were just exhausted.”

  “It’s the romance of it, isn’t it? In any case, you never know what’s going to happen, do you?” Nell came out of the pantry with a large, white, cardboard wedding cake, beautiful false icing adorning its top and sides. It would look almost real when she set it on a plate covering the smaller cake they’d baked for the occasion.

  “Such a shame the real cake’s so small the guests don’t get a decent slice,” Mrs. Quince said. “I’ve been baking wedding and christening cakes for the locals for years, and I tell you, it’s an embarrassment to give them such a paltry one.”

  Nell took a deep whiff of the rich fruitcake and grinned. “But it’s Mrs. Quince’s Special Occasion Cake! Everyone loves it—even if they only get a small bit each.” She shrugged. “Everyone knows we can’t do any better with the rations. We’ve made it as big as we can with extra shredded carrots and apples, plus some dried blackberries and prunes from last year. And it has soy-flour marzipan, too. They’ll be thrilled.”

  With the cake finished, she put the kettle on for tea and took a chair at the kitchen table, a pile of recipe books beside her. She had set aside a little
time to work out her next dish for the contest: the main course.

  “Indian, Indonesian, ah, here it is, Italian.” She flipped through to the relevant page. “How to make cacc-i-at-ore.” She pronounced it almost letter by letter.

  “Cacciatore,” Mrs. Quince corrected from her rocking chair. “What a wonderful idea! All the sunshine we’ve been having will have made the tomatoes sweet and juicy. I’m sure Audrey has some to spare.”

  “I thought I could use marjoram. Paolo told me that it’s like oregano, which they use a lot in Italy.”

  “Are you still thinking about that boy?”

  She blushed. “He was the one who suggested that I make cacciatore for the next round.”

  “Well, dear, it’s a lovely dish, although not easy to make if you don’t have experience with Italian cooking.”

  Nell couldn’t help herself. “Paolo’s going to show me how to make it,” she said with excitement. “He gets Sunday afternoon off, and he invited me to meet him in a clearing beside the old shooting hut in the wood.”

  Mrs. Quince stopped her rocking chair. “That sounds a bit shady. Are you sure you can trust him, alone in the wood? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Nell’s face dropped. “But he doesn’t seem the type to take advantage. He’s very respectful.”

  “I’m sure Paolo’s a fine young man, but you have to remember he’s the enemy. Maybe it’s better to find an Englishman, someone who speaks the same language.”

  “Paolo speaks good English. I told you, he had to learn it in his family’s restaurant in the Alps.”

  “It’s more than just words, though, isn’t it? It’s a shared culture, a shared understanding. Are you certain he means the things he says?”

  “Of course he does.” Nell stood up, frowned at her. “Besides, Paolo’s always saying that he doesn’t want to get caught doing anything wrong. He says he likes it at the farm, doesn’t want to be moved anywhere else. He’s risking a lot even asking me to meet up with him. If he did anything to upset me, I could tell Barlow, get him into trouble.”

  Mrs. Quince gave her one of her penetrating looks. “Many a man makes a girl feel good so he can get a kiss out of her.”

  How does Mrs. Quince know about the kiss? she thought. Nell had never even dreamed of anyone kissing her before. Kitchen maids weren’t allowed to fraternize with men, let alone kiss them. In any case, who would want to kiss her, plain little Nell?

  Yet now, with Paolo, it didn’t seem impossible anymore.

  “Just because I’m a maid, it doesn’t mean I can’t want normal things. Maybe I’ll even get married one day, have children—”

  Mrs. Quince made a heavy sigh, her eyes flickering to the window. “Oh, my love. Perhaps I’m being too scared for you. Maybe you should give him a chance.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “Yes, but sometimes in life, you have to take opportunities, enjoy things while you can.” Her eyes gleamed a little. “I can see that look in your eyes, dear. I know what young love looks like.”

  Nell turned, blushing. “Oh, Mrs. Quince. I hardly know him. How could it possibly be anything like that?”

  “I don’t know exactly. But I remember how it felt.”

  Astonished by this confession, Nell moved to a stool beside the old woman’s chair. “Were you in love?” she uttered, incredulous.

  “Once,” she said with a small smile. “It was a long time ago now.”

  “Who was it? What happened?”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. It was here in this very house, when I had just been made assistant cook. I was about twenty-seven, far beyond romantic nonsense. I’d had one or two fancies for some of the footmen when I’d been younger, but nothing like this. He was brought in as an undergardener, must have been about my own age. His name was Harrison, and he had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he could see right into the heart of everything. It was just like he was part of the land himself, natural and rugged.” She paused, deep in her memories, as if trying to re-create life from the past.

  “What happened between you?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing, of course. How could anything happen? It was 1894. Everything was far stricter than it is now. If we were caught even speaking, we would be turned out without pay or a reference. No reference meant no job—assistant cooks were two a penny.”

  “But how did you fall in love if you were never alone with him?”

  “Every day I would find something or other to speak to him about: the quality of the carrots, the tartness of the berries, the variety of herbs. He would come to the kitchen and we would sit—right here, at the kitchen table—and in front of all the maids and other servants, I would explain to him how I needed the produce, and his eyes would meet mine. We could sit for hours, talking about vegetables, soft fruit, eggs, completely entranced with each other.”

  A sigh escaped from her.

  “Didn’t you ever meet alone?”

  “Only once.” She paused, trying to recapture it in her mind. “Sometimes I had to go out to the walled herb garden to collect herbs, and one day, as I passed through the stone arched gate, he was coming from the other direction. I remember it so well.” She smelled the air as if she were there once again. “He stopped in the narrow gateway, and I had to brush past him to get through. Only I didn’t go through. I stopped, too, right there in the gateway, in front of him, our bodies almost touching.”

  Nell gasped. “What happened?”

  “We just looked at each other. I looked up to him, and he bent his head down toward mine, tilted slightly as if to kiss me. And yet we remained apart, something inside us couldn’t bear to do what we both longed for—we didn’t want to know how it felt when it could never happen again. He reached for my hand, his fingers entwining with mine, pulling me gently closer to him, making me long to put my arms around him.” She sat in silence for a moment. “It was as if we were sharing all the love and feelings that we’d had through the years, like we were enclosed inside our own shimmering warm blanket.”

  The old woman seemed to be in a trance.

  “Did anyone catch you there?” Nell asked.

  “No,” she shook her head. “It didn’t last for long—we were too scared. I pulled away from him first, took that first step out of the gateway, into the walled garden. I remember his hand holding mine as I left. It stayed touching mine for as long as it could, before I lost contact, turning to see the sadness in his eyes. We both knew that this was the only moment we would get.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Someone was at the kitchen door, calling my name. I turned and fled back to the house. When I looked back, he was gone.”

  Nell put a hand on her arm. “Did it change things between you and him?”

  Mrs. Quince made a sorry little laugh, snapping back to reality. “After that, our meetings were more intense. He kept hinting for me to come to the herb garden with him, to see the selection and quality of produce. But before I could, he was moved to a different part of the estate. I barely saw him again, yet every time I did, it was there inside me, the shimmering blanket, the love.” She smiled. “I can even feel it now, thinking about it.”

  “Don’t you ever wish you’d run away with him? Got married?”

  “We had nothing,” she said simply. “We both knew that. It would have been difficult to find work outside a big manor house, where we had our room and board covered in our wages. In those days it was rare to leave—no one did it unless they were forced out, and quite often they ended up in poverty, homeless. I remember a maid who left for a young footman, and she was always coming back, begging for her job again. Neither of them could find work, and the young footman had to move back into a manor house where she couldn’t see him. She was stuck, scraping by on charity and bits of food we could sneak out for her. No, I knew eno
ugh about the world outside to stay put.”

  “But you lost the man you loved!”

  Mrs. Quince picked up her recipe book, drawing the conversation to a close. “We didn’t think of love in those days. Even the lords and ladies upstairs had marriages arranged for them. Love was something you got if you were lucky.” She shrugged. “But whatever we did or didn’t have, we always had our fellow servants below stairs. We were like a family, and most of us rubbed along very well. The head cook, Mrs. Newton, she was like a mother to us all, kind and funny—always cheery and bucking up our spirits if we’d had a bad day.” A tear crept to the corner of her eye, and she wiped it hastily away.

  “She sounds just like you,” Nell said, nudging her playfully.

  Mrs. Quince blushed with pleasure. “Well, I try to do my best. Now then, my dear. What are we cooking for this dinner party tonight?”

  “We decided on medallions of fillet steak with béarnaise sauce. Let me get the list.” Nell dashed to get the weekly menu plan from the dresser. “The beef was delivered yesterday, and we ordered extra eggs from the farm for the béarnaise.”

  “It’s lucky we can get all this extra produce.”

  “Don’t you think it’s rather unfair?” Nell slid back onto the stool beside her. “I mean, this contest has made me realize how hard it is on other people, having to cut back on everything.”

  “If you ask me, Sir Strickland and Mr. Barlow are fiddling the books, producing more than they’re letting on.”

  Nell leaned forward. “Paolo mentioned something like that. But how can they get away with it?”

  “The ministry officers are supposed to keep tabs on the farms to make sure they’re reporting everything that they produce. But Sir Strickland has appointed himself as the regional officer, which means he can ensure we don’t get checked properly. The produce that Barlow reports is taken as gospel, no questions asked. I’ll bet the farm’s actually producing a lot more than it’s letting on.”

  Mrs. Quince carefully got up from the rocking chair and very slowly went over to the dresser, stopping on the way to lean on the table and take a few breaths.