The Kitchen Front

by Jennifer Ryan

  Which is when he saw the bruising on her wrist.

  Gently, he lowered her hand back to the table, holding it and stroking her palm with his thumb.

  She blushed, both humiliated by what he had seen and, if she were honest, overwhelmed by the sensation of his skin on hers. How sensitive he was.

  How strange it felt that someone finally knew.

  For a moment, they sat there, looking into each other’s eyes as the clock ticks faded into the background. She had never before felt this new, strange breathlessness, as if he saw right into the vulnerable and caged woman inside.

  “Did your husband do this to you?” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being overheard.

  “No, of course not,” she lied. But her hand remained there, her breathing fast. “He’s a good man, well—perhaps not very good, but—”

  He bent his head down carefully and kissed her wrist and then turned his head and softly kissed the side of her neck. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul.”

  The last time she had been kissed was so long ago that she could barely remember the sheer headiness of it. The softness, the uneasy laying open of her feelings, her needs, and the passion escalating inside her like a firework that had been desperate to explode for decades.

  What am I doing? she thought frantically. Yet she could barely stop herself from falling into his arms.

  Suddenly, a knock at the door made her leap away.

  It was the butler.

  “A telephone call for you, m’lady.” He looked from one to the other.

  Did he suspect?

  “Who is it?” she said impatiently.

  “The home economist in Middleton would like to know if you can cover her demonstration. She has suffered a bereavement.”

  Frustration overwhelming her, she excused herself and strode out to the telephone in the hall. The last thing she wanted was to end this meeting with Chef James.

  What had passed between them? The way she felt, his kindness, his warmth—she had never felt those things before.

  But, more to the point, she wanted it to carry on forever.

  The telephone call was short. The poor woman was devastated—her son had been killed in Singapore. There wasn’t anything she could do. She had to drop everything and drive over to Middleton to do the Sheep’s Head Roll demonstration, of all things.

  Returning to the back reception room, distraught, she broke the news to Chef James that she was going to have to draw their meeting to an end.

  He stood, taking her hand in his sorrowfully. “That’s all right. You must be a very busy woman. I completely understand.”

  No, you don’t understand! her mind thought chaotically. My life is nothing without you!

  But then his eyes bore into hers again, his finger sweeping the palm of her hand, a gesture at once warm and flirtatious. “I will see you the afternoon of the contest, Lady Gwendoline.”

  “Th-thank you,” she said, a headiness coming over her that she had never felt before.

  He turned and left, and she watched his broad shoulders as he passed out the door and into the hall, listening to his footsteps, a few words with the butler, then the front door closing.

  The room felt empty. His absence seemed to leave a vacuum in the great house, as if he’d removed every speck of light and heat.

  Only one burning question filled her mind.

  How can things ever carry on as usual after this?

  How could she stop herself from falling in love with this man? Was this how it felt before an affair?

  Sir Strickland would murder her. That was certain.

  But does he have to know?

  It could only be once—one moment of happiness. That was all that she needed. It would keep her going—make her feel alive…

  She hurried to her bedroom, dressed quickly in a navy skirt suit, and out she went. The drive wasn’t long, but she couldn’t be late.

  How tedious it is! she thought.

  And yet deep inside, her heart beat faster, her blood coursing through her body as if it had been suddenly brought back to life.

  By the time she was back from Middleton it was four in the afternoon. The demonstration had not gone well—although unrationed, Sheep’s Head Roll was evidently not a crowd-pleaser.

  How she longed to be back in the privacy of her reception room, free to think about the morning with Chef James.

  Free to dream about the next time she saw him—the Saturday of the cooking contest.

  But she was not to have her space. Minutes after her return, Brackett entered.

  “Sir Strickland requests a meeting with you in his study, m’lady.”

  The butler’s eyes didn’t meet hers, which didn’t mean anything per se, but there was an ominous feeling in the invitation.

  As she tidied her hair in front of the large, circular mirror in her reception room, she wondered what it could be, and as she trod softly through the hallway, she listened for the telltale sounds of files being thrown across the room, bellowing voices, telephone receivers being slammed down.

  But all was silent, only the echo of the grandfather clock that had stood in its spot beside the library door for the past hundred years, watching with the steady eye of a magistrate.

  Anxiety washed over her, but she pulled herself together, murmuring, “Come on, Gwendoline. You’re tough. You can take it.”

  Slowly, she raised her hand and knocked gently. “Darling,” she said in her most normal, cheery voice. “Brackett told me to pop in.”

  There was nothing. She let out a long, relieved sigh. He must have changed his mind. Her heart was racing, her hands sweating. She turned to go.

  But suddenly, the door swung open, and there he was—his nostrils flared, his eyes bulging with almost deranged rage—her husband.

  “Get in here.” He grabbed her silk blouse by the collar and jerked her toward him into the study, throwing the door so that it slammed shut behind her.

  “What is it, darling?” she asked. Her mind frantically leafed through the events of the last day, trying desperately to recall the reason for this anger. There must be something she did—or didn’t do—something she said, some way that she’d inadvertently humiliated him, exposed him. She knew it was pointless to search for it, though—she could never tell when something could be misconstrued, how one word could signal treachery, betrayal.

  Shoving her down on a chair, he stalked to the large leather thronelike chair behind his vast mahogany desk. “You broke your promise,” he spat maliciously.

  Blood gushed into her face, but she tried to put a smile on, a frown creasing her brow in confusion. “What in heaven’s name can you mean, darling? I’ve been busy with the cooking demonstrations, the contest. No time for breaking promises!” she tittered, not unlike a silly schoolgirl—a tactic she’d used to pacify her mother’s displeasure all those years before, equally as unsuccessfully.

  He ignored it, continuing crossly, “You promised me that you wouldn’t let your silly cooking demonstrations get in the way of my business.”

  “Well, they don’t,” she said confidently, but inside her head, her mind reeled through the last few days. Had she missed something? Was there a dinner party that she’d failed to attend? Sir Strickland’s assistants always let her know when her presence was required, and she meticulously wrote them in her diary. It didn’t pay to forget these things. She wracked her brain. There must be something!

  “Let me remind you,” he snarled, “that your presence was required at a lunch at the Ministry of Agriculture today.”

  A flush of panic swept through her, at once hot and ice cold.

  “There wasn’t anything in my appointment book.” She tried to keep her voice light, keep it from shaking. “Your assistants must have forgotten to let me know.”

>   Did I look at my appointment book before I said yes to the Middleton demonstration?

  No, she wouldn’t have missed it. She checked her schedule every morning and evening, often more. Her husband was not forgiving at the best of times.

  He leaned back in his chair, his fingers together in a point, like the steeple of a church. “Do you recall what it is that I do for a living?” There was a mean glint in his eyes.

  Shaking, she began, “I’m so sorry, darling. There was nothing in my appointment book. I assumed you didn’t need me. I was at a demonstration in Middleton. It went jolly well.” She gave a little laugh, trying to lighten the sense of doom descending around her. “The Ministry of Food is so proud to have me doing their demonstrations. It’s so important that we keep on their good side, isn’t it, darling?”

  There was a pause while Sir Strickland watched her squirm.

  She wanted to run out, but she knew better than to try. It was safer to face the music, attempt to appease him.

  “Yes, your work is so utterly crucial,” he said sarcastically. “But wouldn’t you agree that my luncheons are far more important to the welfare of this household?”

  “As I said, I’m so very sorry. Truly I am. I didn’t know that I was needed. All I do at these luncheons is talk about how wonderfully the war’s going when we all know that it isn’t. Your associates wouldn’t mind if I wasn’t there.”

  “They are not me, though, are they?” He stood up and walked around the desk so that he was standing in front of her, his bulk menacing. “I’m going to be lenient, because I know how you can’t help making silly mistakes.”

  “I know. I’ll try harder—”

  “You’re not awfully clever, are you?” he said. “That’s the problem, really, isn’t it? I know I should have spent more time with you before we married. You were on your best behavior, pretending to be so resourceful, when you’re just as foolish as all the other silly women out there.”

  She looked at the floor. If she argued with him, she would come out the worse. She had learned that the hard way.

  “So, what should I do with you?” he asked, a seemingly innocent question.

  But it wasn’t a question at all. It was a test.

  And as if to back this up, he grabbed her blouse by the collar, scraping the side of her neck roughly with his fingernails.

  “I’m so incredibly sorry,” she gasped, the heat of pain throbbing through her. As a girl, she had prided herself on never apologizing. These days it poured out of her mouth every day, fervently, as if in prayer. “I’m truly, truly sorry.”

  “And?”

  “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

  “How can we be certain, though? How can we know that it won’t happen again?”

  “Well, if you let me know in advance, then I can ensure I’ll be present at your luncheons, and—”

  He released her blouse and turned back to the desk, beginning to calm down. “It won’t happen again if you give up your silly job, will it?”

  Something inside her seemed to turn brittle and crumble away, a tendon holding her heart together. Her shoulders caved in. “But it’s for the war effort,” she said feebly. How could she let him take away the one thing that was her own?

  “Oh, you think that your work is more important than mine, do you?”

  “No, no, of course not. That’s not what I meant. I only wanted to say that the demonstrations are crucial—”

  “Oh, I think we both know why your cooking demonstrations are so crucial, don’t we? They’re crucial to Gwendoline to make her look important, aren’t they? You need them to show off to the village—to that ramshackle sister of yours, although why you think you need to compete with her I will never know.” He made a mock chortle. “Why she married that fool of an artist is beyond me.”

  Lady Gwendoline felt her face fall. “They found his body, you know,” she said softly. “Matthew’s body and belongings.”

  He made a derisive snort and looked down at the papers on his desk with impatience. “Of course he’d be the sorry type to get himself killed. And are we expected to honor him just because he died in battle?”

  “There’s a memorial service for him tomorrow, in the village church.” Her shoulders became more upright, more certain.

  He looked at her quizzically, a small laugh. “You’re not going to go, are you?”

  “Well, I thought I should,” she said, half lost in thought. “She is my sister, after all, the only family member I have left.”

  “Your family? Your family that despised you and cut you out of their will? You were always better off without them.”

  She felt an odd shiver. That was her mother who did those things, not Audrey. True, Audrey hadn’t stood up for her when she was young, but she was a child herself. She wasn’t a bad person, was she?

  Certainly not as bad as Lady Gwendoline’s husband when he was in a temper. His rages had increased since the war started, and the flowers and jewelry afterward had long since fallen by the wayside. She tried to ignore his rages, but they ate away at her sense of reason, her sense of who she was, deep inside.

  But more than that, they scared her. Her world had become one of treading on eggshells, following his rules, trying not to upset him. It was like she was trapped in a cage, taunted by a tyrant.

  A small voice in her head whispered that the cage was of her own making.

  He sneered. “I suppose now that you have no job, you might as well go to the memorial service. It’s important for us to keep up appearances.”

  “Yes,” she said mechanically.

  She watched as he settled himself back at his desk, flipping through a pile of papers. Half panicked by what he might do next, she stood up, awaiting his next tirade.

  Then he looked up, mock surprise on his face that she was still there. “You’re dismissed,” he said as if she were a fool to wait for him to release her.

  And she knew that she was.

  In the hallway, once the study door was safely closed behind her, she stood, breathing slowly in an unusually measured pace. Normally she would race back to her reception room to plan for the day ahead, trying to keep busy so that she couldn’t hear the voices taunting her in her head.

  But today she stood quite still, staring into the stream of sunlight beaming through the tall window into the long hall, the air static with tiny particles of swirling dust. Her job, the contest, even Chef James seemed to fade into the background as she realized with awful clarity that she couldn’t live with this any longer.

  The Ministry of Food’s Sheep’s Head Roll

  Serves 4 to 6

  1 sheep’s head

  Salted water

  1 tablespoon vinegar

  ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

  1 garlic clove, crushed

  1 teaspoon chopped parsley

  1 teaspoon chopped sage

  1 teaspoon chopped thyme

  1 teaspoon chopped chives

  ½ teaspoon mixed dried herbs

  2 pounds carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, or parsnip, diced

  1 cup flour

  ½ cup breadcrumbs

  Salt

  Cover the sheep’s head with salted water and leave for 30 minutes. Drain and put the head in a large pot with cold water to cover. Bring to a boil to blanch it. Drain and wrap the head in a cloth to keep in the nutritious brains. Fill the large pot with fresh water, add the vinegar, cinnamon, garlic, herbs, and vegetables, then put in the head. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2 hours, or until the meat comes away from the head.

  Drain, reserving the stock, and set the head and vegetables to one side. Take the meat out of the head and thinly slice the tongue, putting it to the side. Chop the other meat and brains and blend them with the cooked vegetables, flour, breadcrumbs, and a littl
e salt.

  Using a floured board, roll the meat mixture into a long strip. Wrap the slices of tongue around the meat. Keep the shape by either wrapping the roll in baking paper or margarine paper, or by fitting into a large, greased jam jar. Put it into a steamer and cook for 1 hour.

  This can be eaten hot with vegetables and gravy or left to cool, sliced, and served with salad.

  Audrey

  It seemed absurd to Audrey that this was happening, surreal. What was she doing here, standing outside the church, about to have a memorial service for her husband? His body, she was informed, was buried close to where he fell, in Germany. It was something that she loathed—that his pure, courageous, kind soul would remain not with his own, but with his enemy.

  How could that ever be right?

  From the very beginning, the first time she laid eyes on him at the garden party at Fenley Hall, she knew it was him and no one else. Was it the kindness in his dark, sloping eyes? Or was it his courteous humor, his gentle manners, the warmth of his smile? Behind his dark, handsome face was a tranquility and depth that seemed to be encapsulated in his every move.

  She’d been young, only sixteen. It wasn’t the first grown-up party she had attended, but there hadn’t been many, and she’d made a great effort in refitting one of her mother’s dresses to fit her slender figure. It was a modest cream-colored dress, high-necked and almost down to her ankles, as was the fashion.

  Matthew had been introduced to her, along with some other men—the few who had returned from the war. He touched his lips to the back of her hand, his large dark eyes gazing up at her in warm adoration. “There’s to be dancing later, and I’m sure that a girl as beautiful as you would be a wonderful dance partner. Would you do me the honor?”

  “Of course I will.” She felt a laugh in her chest, as if it were silly for him to ask—weren’t they meant for each other?

  The dance took eternity to begin, and she tried not to look through the crowds for him, but whenever she did, he was there, looking at her, ready with a smile.

  In those days, young women were never allowed to be alone with a man, and her mother was strict and sheltering. The waltz was the closest she ever came to touching a man, and as Matthew led her softly around the ballroom, she felt something inside her unbuckle, as if she was realizing for the very first time what it meant to be human, what it meant to be alive.