The Kitchen Front

by Jennifer Ryan

  “Of course, why didn’t you say?” Gwendoline rolled across, but then she realized that she was moving to Audrey’s side of the bed, her night cream and a dog-eared copy of Grandma’s Little Black Book of Recipes. “But isn’t this your side?”

  “I don’t want you on Matthew’s side, that’s all.” She huffed, switching the light out and getting into bed. “Look, Gwendoline, I’m incredibly tired. I know that what you’ve been through must be horrendous, and I can hardly bear to think about how Sir Strickland’s behaved to you all these years, but it’s been a long day. While I will help you in this, your hour of need, I simply can’t just forget all the mean, unfair things you’ve said and done to me over the last few years.” She concluded this with a curt, “Good night.”

  “Good night.” Gwendoline lay on her side, her eyes open in the dark room, watching Audrey’s back. She knew she’d never helped when Matthew went missing and had lorded it over her sister when she was forced to ask for a loan. The reason, of course, lay deep in the past. She’d been the second, unwanted girl—the child that had not been the longed-for boy. Audrey was the golden child, Gwendoline, the dark cloud. The rift between them had come early and never healed. It hadn’t been Audrey’s fault how their parents had doted. And yet it was Gwendoline who continually punished Audrey for it, even after their parents were gone.

  Gwendoline turned the events of the day over in her head. The end of her marriage, albeit a bad one, was almost too great a happening to be analyzed. No, she would leave that for tomorrow. But what she couldn’t forget was the pain, the fear—was he going to kill her? Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw it flash over and over again. It hadn’t been the first time he’d hurt her, but every time it happened, he seemed to go just a little bit further.

  She felt no sadness—and certainly no regrets—about leaving him, just a kind of numbness. A coming to terms with the reality that she’d bottled up inside all these years. Each time he berated her, tormented her, it eroded something, and tonight had been the final blow. The mirage of her life had come crashing down.

  On the other side of the bed, Audrey lay grieving, her dear husband gone. Whatever Gwendoline had said about Matthew Landon in the past—how he was impoverished, worthless, talentless—she realized it was all lies. Deep inside, she knew that Audrey had got something far more valuable than any of those things: love.

  Suddenly, she felt a vague movement in the mattress, the shuddering of tears.

  “Aude, are you all right?” she whispered.

  There came no reply, only an abrupt halt in the movement.

  “Aude, it must be absolutely heartbreaking without Matthew, and I’m sorry that I’m here in his place, but please let me help you.” She put a comforting hand on Audrey’s shoulder.

  It was shrugged away.

  “You must hate me for all that I’ve done, but you know, our mother didn’t make it easy for me to be nice to you.”

  Audrey’s sobs ceased, but her shoulder remained turned.

  “Mama was lovely if you were you,” Gwendoline began slowly. “If you were me, she was critical and biased, continually reminding me that I should have smiled more or been as pretty and charming as my older sister.” She paused. All those unspoken words, those pent-up feelings she had never told a living soul. All that hurt. “She said she’d never wanted me.”

  There was a short silence, and then Audrey said, “I know.”

  The words hung in the air.

  “You knew?”

  “I saw the way she was with you,” Audrey said carefully. “That’s why I was kind to you, gave you my things, let you win. I wanted to make up for it.”

  Silence fell over them.

  Audrey continued, “You’re right. I think it was because I looked like her, and I loved to cook, just like she did. You were mischievous and stubborn—clever, to be honest. I think she felt that she couldn’t relate to you. You were beyond her.”

  “I loved to cook, too. You were only better than me because you were always two years ahead of me. By the time I was old enough to have the basic skills, you already had a cooking club of two. There was never any room for me.”

  “I’m sorry, Gwen. It must have been hurtful,” Audrey said softly.

  “Do you remember how she used to put me down? She took every possible chance to make me feel small, bad—worse than unwanted. She made it clear that it was my fault that I wasn’t as wonderful as you. I didn’t grow up expecting to meet a man who loved me; I got to adulthood knowing that I had to make the best of what I had, find someone who would put up with me. Well, I found one better: a man with enough money and status to finally win my mother’s approval.”

  Audrey turned around in the bed. “But you never did, did you?”

  “No,” Gwendoline said in a small voice. “Even a prize as great as becoming a lady, married to a wealthy man, wasn’t enough for her. I tried harder, pushed Reggie to buy Fenley Hall before our wedding. I knew she’d like that—she loved the beautiful old building. But when I told her, she just laughed and said, ‘You’ll never be a real lady.’ ”

  “That’s dreadful, Gwen.”

  There was silence while Audrey thought it over, and then just as Gwendoline was wondering if she might have nodded off to sleep, she felt a fingertip against her hand, and then another. Slowly, the hand slipped over hers, and held it, just as it had so many years before, when they were girls.

  “I’m sorry, Gwen. I didn’t realize just how bad it was for you.” There was a sob in her voice, and Gwen knew that she must be struggling to rethink what she knew about her mother, reframing her past, her life.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Aude. I was wrong to take it out on you. The problem is, even when I knew that there was nothing I could do to change her mind about me—even after she died—I carried on trying. I had to prove I wasn’t the monster she thought me. It’s as if my mind has been fixed on that goal all my life, and I can’t seem to change the path. But the irony is that marriage to Reggie rather thrust me further in that direction.”

  Audrey put an arm around her. “Oh, Gwen. I’m so sorry you had to put up with that tyrant, and that I wasn’t able to help you. Was he always so…well…violent?” She flinched at the word.

  “It started slowly, and at first he was always so remorseful, buying jewelry and gifts. But then it grew in frequency, the gifts stopped, and his regard for me went down. To be honest, what he said, the belittling and the criticisms, were worse than the violence. I sometimes thought that that’s what I had to put up with to make someone love me. But it wasn’t. He never loved me. He just enjoyed having someone to dominate. I think I’ve known it for a while, but it wasn’t until these last few weeks that I began to understand.”

  Audrey pulled her in tightly. “But now you’re free of him. You’ll be able to start afresh. You were such a spirited child, so lively and inventive.” Then she added quietly, “We used to be friends, when we were small. Perhaps we can be friends again.”

  “I think we both need a friend—or a sister.” She clasped Aude’s hand tightly.

  They lay in silence, both in thought.

  “Aude, do you remember when we were young, we would share a double bed like this when we visited Aunt Elizabeth in Sussex? We used to warm our feet by rubbing them together.”

  And as they lay side by side, their feet warming each other’s in the middle of the bed, Gwendoline began to feel that perhaps everything was going to be all right.

  Perhaps, at least for the moment, she had found her new home in her old home, a chance to start again where it had all begun.

  Nell

  The wind was up that morning, and Nell had to battle against crossing gusts as she cycled frantically to Middleton Hospital. She’d managed to prepare today’s pie and cake orders as soon as the electricity had come back on—the government had taken to cutting it off in the earl
y morning to save energy. The night before, she had tucked a large pot of boiling porridge into a hay-box before she went to bed so that it would be cooked for breakfast, along with a thermos of hot water for tea.

  She hadn’t seen Mrs. Quince since her dramatic move to Willow Lodge, or even since the last round of the contest. There was so much to tell.

  But when she reached the hospital, the news wasn’t good. Although Mrs. Quince was more her usual jolly self, more tests had to be done, and the old cook explained that her stay in hospital was going to be longer than expected.

  “They say that my heart’s not working properly,” she said. “It’s a bit confusing when the doctor starts using long words, but the way I understand it, when my heart beats, it’s not always even, sometimes it flutters quickly and sometimes it stops for a few seconds.”

  “Is that what caused you to faint? Are you going to be all right?”

  The old lady patted her hand. “Don’t worry about me, dear. I’m just fine here, where they can keep an eye on me. Now, tell me what’s been happening.”

  Starting at the beginning, Nell told her about their departure from Fenley Hall.

  “Goodness! I knew that all wasn’t well between Lady Gwendoline and Sir Strickland, but this! And how is she getting along with Audrey? They were always at odds.”

  “They’re getting on very well,” Nell replied. “Gwendoline was very comforting at Matthew’s memorial service, which made a good start. Now she’s positively turned over a new leaf, being terribly useful, especially with the business. New orders have already come in from the British Restaurant in Middleton and a few local cafés from nearby towns. The WVS run the Pie Scheme, bringing pies to harvest workers so that they don’t have to stop for long, so that’s a big order. Gwendoline’s ever so good at selling things. Oh, and she asked us to stop calling her ‘lady.’ She says she doesn’t want to be a lady anymore.”

  “Well, that’s a change of tune.”

  “The other news is that Zelda has been living with Audrey since the beginning of the contest. No one was supposed to know because”—she lowered her voice—“Zelda is the pregnant evacuee that Audrey had to take a few months ago.”

  “Zelda’s pregnant?”

  “You can imagine our surprise when, fresh as a daisy, the morning after we arrived, she bounced into the kitchen and began making breakfast for the boys. She jumped out of her socks when she saw that we were there.

  “ ‘What are you doing here?’ we asked, and she reluctantly told us that she’s now seven months pregnant, swearing us to secrecy.”

  Mrs. Quince shook her head in disbelief. “Doesn’t it show? I wonder what the BBC will have to say about that!”

  Nell grinned. “That’s why we’re all sworn to secrecy. She’s managed to get away with it so far, but I can’t imagine even the most draped dresses will be able to hide it by the next round. She plans to tell Ambrose that she’s giving the child up for adoption so it won’t scupper her chances of winning.”

  “I wonder how that will work out.”

  Nell also told her that Paolo had been moved to a more secure German POW camp near Canterbury. “I don’t know how I’m going to get to see him again. It’s too far for a day trip, even if I had the time. I’ve written him a letter. I hope it gets there.”

  Patting her hand, Mrs. Quince said, “Don’t despair, dear. I have a feeling everything is going to turn out all right. You mark my words, all you need to do is focus on the contest.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, my cacciatore won the last round!” she declared, clapping her hands together. “Ambrose gave it nine points.”

  “You see, that’s wonderful news! What are the running scores?”

  “I’m in the lead now, with eighteen points, then it’s Audrey with seventeen and Zelda with fifteen, and last is Gwendoline with only twelve.”

  A grin came over Mrs. Quince’s face. “All you need is one more top recipe and you’ll win.”

  They began to talk through the recipes. Desserts and puddings were among Mrs. Quince’s fortes, and she had plenty of suggestions.

  “It’s the sugar that’s going to be difficult, and you’ll get extra marks if you can come up with a clever way to get around it.”

  “Everyone’s talking about sweeteners these days, like saccharin.”

  The old lady’s mouth turned downward. “It gives a bitter taste. In any case, sugar provides a texture and consistency that you’ll miss if you just add a sweetener. No, we’ll have to think of something else.”

  “What about using ripe fruit?” Nell said, warming to the subject. “That’ll provide some extra sweetness, and it’s the right time of year. I wish we could get our hands on a banana.”

  Mrs. Quince chortled. “The nurse told me that a single banana was auctioned at a fair in London last week for a fortune. You could buy a television set with that kind of money, apparently. It wasn’t even very big.” Her laughter turned into a cough.

  Nell patted her on the back. “There are other fruits. What about dried fruits? Chopped prunes stand in very well for currants and sultanas.”

  “Too common. Everyone dries every scrap of fruit left over—even the subpar bits. You need something more unique, more special. Ripe fruits could work well. Some have more sweetness than others. Cherries and apricots are good, and then there are the berries—raspberries and blackberries are best—but you could also add some strawberries. Some of the sweeter apples can be delicious, especially when stewed and pureed.”

  “What about some kind of pie?” Nell yelped. “We could do a fruit tart, using our homemade jam to add some extra sweetness.”

  Mrs. Quince nodded, still thinking. “No, it has to be something more…spectacular.”

  They sat in thought for a while.

  “What about your summer pudding? That’s a Ministry of Food favorite as it doesn’t use any butter at all. We can layer the berries and add some of the elderberry wine I made for the starter, just to give it an extra special flavor.”

  Mrs. Quince’s eyes brightened. “Oh yes, it would be delicious. You could add bicarbonate of soda to reduce the amount of sugar you need—it makes the fruit less acidic, which means you need less sweetness to balance it.”

  “And what about using sugar beets instead of rationed sugar? Audrey grows some in her garden. It’s quite a lot of work boiling and straining them, but you end up with a lovely sweet syrup.”

  “Perfect! And then you should add a dish of mock custard. My recipe comes up a treat.”

  “I’ll bake the bread specially, so we don’t need to use that dreadful National Loaf. It’ll be perfect.”

  They sat discussing the details until visiting time was over.

  But as Nell bade her old friend and mentor goodbye and left the ward, she couldn’t help but worry about her. She could see that the old cook was more seriously ill than she was letting on. Her pallor, that cough—they all told a different story.

  Her body was gently collapsing.

  Nell’s Summer Pudding

  Serves 6 to 8

  For the elderberry wine

  ½ pound elderberries

  1 tablespoon sugar

  For the pudding filling

  ¼ cup sugar, or the equivalent of sugar beet syrup

  1 cup elderberry wine

  2 pounds berries

  14 slices bread, or more depending on the size of the loaf

  For the mock cream

  1 tablespoon cornstarch

  ½ cup milk

  2 tablespoons butter or margarine

  2 tablespoons sugar

  Caramelized black currants, using 1 cup black currants and 1 tablespoon sugar

  First, make the elderberry wine. Put the elderberries into a saucepan with water to just cover. Boil until the fruit is soft
and mushy, 20 to 30 minutes. Sieve, pushing through as much of the cooked flesh as possible. Add the sugar and bring back to a boil, then put it into a sealable jar or bottle. It is good for both drinking and cooking, but it won’t last longer than a week or two.

  For the summer pudding filling, dissolve the sugar in the elderberry wine. Bring to a boil for about 5 minutes to create a rich syrup. Add the berries and cook for 1 minute, then strain, reserving the juices.

  Use butter, margarine, or oil to grease a pudding basin or cake pan. Remove and discard the crusts from the bread slices, and then cut the slices into wide fingers, shaping them so that together they fit around the inside of the pudding basin. Dip each bread finger into the reserved cooking juices for a few seconds, then use them to line the inside of the basin or pan. Continue until the basin is completely lined.

  Pour in the stewed berries, and then close the top with more bread dipped in the reserved juices. Take a plate that fits well over the top of the basin or pan and grease it with butter or margarine. Put it on the top of the pudding, weighting it down with a few scale weights or some cans from the pantry. Leave in a cool pantry or refrigerator for at least 6 hours before serving.

  Just before serving, make the mock cream. Put the cornstarch and milk in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring continuously until it forms a paste. Set aside and allow to cool. Blend the butter or margarine with the sugar to make a fluffy mass, then gradually add the milk and cornstarch mixture, whisking continuously. The result will be a thick cream. To vary the thickness, use more or less cornstarch.

  To serve, turn the pudding basin or pan upside down and lift off the bowl or pan. Beneath should be a purply-red bowl-shaped pudding. Garnish with black currants caramelized in a small pan with a little water and sugar. Serve cold with mock cream.