Mrs. Quince patted her hand. “My cooking days are gone. I’ve done enough baking and kneading for one life. To be honest, my dear, you’re the one who’s been doing it all for the last few years. What a joy you’ve been to me, making each day brighter and friendlier. Whoever it was who sent you to me”—she glanced at the heavens—“they knew what they were doing.”
“It was the other way around. It’s me who should be grateful for finding someone as wonderful and kind as you. Before I met you, I was alone. But you took me into your heart, showed me how to cook, and made me feel like I belonged. You made me feel I was more than an unwanted orphan, that I was someone who could be useful, someone who could cook great dishes. Someone who could stand up for herself. You were the one who made me come alive.”
Quietly, Nell began to cry, vast waves of grief convulsing through her as she put her head down beside Mrs. Quince’s hand. The older woman stroked her hair, as if she were still a girl.
“There’s something I want to share with you, Nell.”
Nell brought her face up to look into Mrs. Quince’s tired gray eyes. “What is it?” she said, desperate for more—any last details about her life, herself, her.
“I want you to have my recipe book. You’ll find it in my old room, on my desk.”
The handwritten book was the most precious thing she owned. It contained her life’s work, her recipes, each with notes that showed her continual urge to perfect it. Pages added, slips and pamphlets tucked in, recipes crossed through and referenced to new ones. Nell had never been allowed access to it, only to look at pages as they were needed. The book was the essence of Mrs. Quince.
If there was a greater confirmation of her coming death, it was this: that she was handing over her recipe book to the young woman to keep safe in her physical absence.
Nell looked at the old lady, her teacher for all these years, the person she looked to for instruction and expertise. Now she would no longer be there to help and guide her. She would have to cook by herself, using her own expertise, with only the treasured recipe book for guidance.
“I can’t do it,” she gasped.
“You have a gift for cooking, child. I helped to teach you, but you have the skills within you.”
“But you…you were the only one who had faith in me. How can I cook without you?”
Her breathing had slowed. “You must try.”
There was a long pause, Nell waiting, watching, but the old woman’s eyes had closed, her breathing slowed. Her lips fell, as if no longer needing to stay taut.
“Mrs. Quince,” Nell cried, grabbing her hand, stroking it. Then, leaning forward, she smoothed back the hair of the old woman. It was the first time she had made such a gesture, as if she were looking after her, and not the other way around.
Then she did something else she had never done. She bent over and gave the old lady’s cheek a kiss.
It was soft, caring—a final gesture of the love between them.
Beneath her lips, she felt a small movement, an acknowledgment of the kiss—or at least she thought she had—and then, almost impossibly, the life seemed to drain away from her dear old friend, the energy gone.
Nell felt a shudder run through her. She turned quickly to beckon the nurse over. “There has to be something you can do!” she whispered urgently.
The nurse quietly took Mrs. Quince’s pulse, felt for her temperature, leaned her head down to listen to her breathing.
Mrs. Quince, with one final breath, as long and as gentle as a midsummer mist, seemed to just slip effortlessly away from her body, which remained, still and warm, in the hospital bed.
The nurse, her fingers on the old woman’s pulse, only said, “I’m sorry, dear.”
She didn’t need to say anything else. Who needs to speak when the painful reality is as clear as day?
The nurse quietly stepped away to fetch the doctor, leaving Nell alone.
“What am I going to do without you?” she whimpered, scooping up her old friend’s hand. “You’ve been everything to me: my teacher, my best friend, my mentor, my”—she gasped at the words—“the only mother I ever had. Why did I never tell you that? Why couldn’t I have said it?”
Tears thrust through her eyes, and she wanted to scream, roar, shout with the pain that was wrenching her insides apart. “How could you leave me?”
She leaned her head down into the bedsheets and buried the cry that reached out from deep inside her.
“How can I ever get over this?”
“You will, in time.” A voice came from beside her, a soft hand on her back.
“Audrey.”
“It struck me you might want someone here with you.”
She took a chair from the next bed and pulled it over, sitting down, her arm around Nell as the girl turned and wept into her shoulder.
“Shh,” Audrey murmured softly. “It takes a lot of time to get over someone. At first, it’s like your world has stopped turning, like everything has gone into black and white and all that matters is that they have gone. But slowly, the unstoppable scream of pain becomes a howl, and then it becomes a cry, then a moan. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but new life will begin to fill in the gaps.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to get through it. She was at the very heart of my life all the years I was at Fenley Hall.” She found herself smiling at a memory, but then the smile trembled, and a forlorn wail came tumbling out of her, unstoppable, inexorable. “She taught me everything I know: how to make the smoothest roux and the lightest pastry, how to survive a life downstairs, how to enjoy the small things in life, even when you have nothing.”
“She was a complete dear, wasn’t she,” Audrey agreed sadly. “And an incredible cook. You were lucky to have had her as a teacher.”
“The worst thing is that I’m sadder now than I’ve ever been before, and she’s not here to help me.” She turned to the old woman lying on the bed, taking her hand with both of hers. “Why can’t she put her arms around me, give me that big smile of hers, tell me ‘Everything’s going to be all right?’ Because it’s not. It never will be.”
“No, it’s true, your life will be different, a new type of world without her.” Audrey pulled back so that she could look Nell in the eyes. “But at least you have us now.” She smiled warmly as if Nell were her own child. “We are your new family, Nell, and you ours. Zelda’s all alone, Gwendoline, too, and as for me, well, all I have is the three boys. All four of us could do with any extra family that we can get.”
Nell put her arms around Audrey. “Thank you for coming to find me, Audrey, and for taking me in. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“You need to be brave. It’s going to be painful at the start, but if you hold on through the bad parts, one day you’ll find a whole new world opening up.”
Gwendoline
The following morning, Gwendoline received a telephone call at Willow Lodge. It was Sir Strickland’s lawyer informing her that Sir Strickland had been taken into police custody.
“I don’t suppose you have any knowledge of how this came about?” He had a clipped voice, arrogant and impatient, which was probably why her husband had picked him. “We’ll need to arrange a meeting to discuss what is to be done to have him released.”
She sighed loudly. “Since you were the one who issued me with divorce papers, you of all people must understand that I am no longer obliged to support Sir Strickland. Indeed, you can expect to see me siding with my employer, the Ministry of Food, and with the rest of the population who has to live with food rationing. They’re the ones he’s cheating.”
Quick as a flash, he was onto her. “Were you the one who told the ministry about the farm?”
“Do you really think I would do something like that?” She gave a laugh, then bid him a smart goodbye.
Yet as she paused in the h
allway by the telephone, she couldn’t help dwelling on the enormity of it.
Her thoughts were disturbed by Zelda, coming through the front door having walked the younger boys to the village school. It was their first day back after the long summer.
“You look as if you’ve had some bad news.” Zelda looked at Gwendoline, standing alone in the hallway beside the telephone table.
“Not bad precisely. They’ve taken Reggie into custody.”
“Why, shouldn’t that be good news? Our meeting at the ministry must have done the trick!”
But Gwendoline was looking pensive. “I suppose it had to happen—it would have happened eventually with or without our help. Only, it means something else to me, too.”
“What?”
There was a pause, and then she replied, “It’s the end of an era.”
Gwendoline’s eyes went to the window, where the towers of Fenley Hall could be seen above the trees. “I wonder,” she murmured, then looked around. “Zelda, could you spare me an hour or two?”
“Now? Today I was going to get back to cleaning the outbuilding, even though a cat’s had kittens in there and the boys will howl if I turf them out. There are five of them and—”
Gwendoline interrupted her. “I need to go to the hall, collect some clothes and things.” She turned, her eyes beseeching Zelda to come. “I’d rather not go on my own, that’s all.”
The walk was a brisk one, an autumnal wind bringing the musty scent of yellowing leaves and the harvest. “Audrey says this is her favorite time of the year,” Zelda said, kicking a few leaves. “It’s the end of the farming year, marking the start of the rest and recuperation over winter, the magic of renewal. She loves to talk about the seasons, your sister.”
Gwendoline laughed. “We could all do with renewal. That’s why I have to go back to the hall. Sometimes you need to make peace with the past before you can move into the future.”
“You’re already different, Gwendoline, far more relaxed.” Zelda smirked. “You’re even quite fun these days.”
Gwendoline gave her a look, and then she grinned. “I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”
“So being a lady wasn’t as great as it seemed?”
Gwendoline heaved a great sigh. “The title was never really mine. I got it because I married Reggie. It wasn’t because of anything I did, even though I felt so very clever—”
“But you are clever. You’re getting new customers, registering us with the government so that we can get ingredients off the rations from wholesalers. Even the way you managed to get Sir Strickland put away was masterful.” She made a decisive nod. “You’re just as cunning as me, Gwendoline, like it or not.”
“I’m not sure ‘cunning’ is the word I would choose. But it’s nice of you to say so.”
As they crowned the hill, Gwendoline caught her breath when she saw Fenley Hall, her old home. It looked majestic, the creamy gold outside gleaming with grace beneath the blue sky. She had always seen it merely as a stamp of class, in recent years dwelling more on its defects than its grandeur. Now, though, she realized how beautiful the old manor house truly was, how elegant and charming.
Outside, two army vans and a large black car sat in the driveway, and beside the front door, a mustached police officer stood guard, hands behind his back. He eyed them as they approached.
“This property is under investigation,” he informed them crisply.
“My name is Lady Strickland, and until very recently I lived here. I need to get some of my belongings.”
The policeman looked her up and down, taking in her navy blue suit, her designer neck scarf. “Follow me.”
Inside the house, men in army uniform strode around with clipboards, four or five forming a group in the grand hallway, their thick, black boots and khaki uniforms in sharp contrast to the aged grandeur of the place. The grandfather clock watched on, ticking with disapproval.
Gwendoline frowned at them. “What are they doing here?” she muttered to the policeman.
“The army is taking over the hall for the rest of the war. The government wanted to requisition it a long time ago, but Sir Strickland pulled strings to keep full possession. They plan to have a dozen dormitory tents going up on the lawn this time next week.”
She frowned. “That many? It’ll be a bit of a shock for the village, don’t you think?”
He shrugged, disinterested. “They’ll get a lot more business, especially the shop, and the pub, of course. Got any good restaurants? The officers love a good meal.”
“No, the Wheatsheaf closed,” Gwendoline said absently, but then her eyes glazed over in thought and she exchanged a quick glance at Zelda. “Although you never know.”
Sir Strickland’s office was in chaos, a team of men in suits putting piles of papers into boxes to take away.
“Lady Strickland wants to pick up some belongings,” the policeman explained to one of them.
He turned and looked her up and down. “You can go ahead, provided you only take what is yours.” Then he added, “And don’t disturb anything that might be used as evidence.”
Without more ado, Gwendoline and Zelda hurried up the marble staircase to the galleried landing. The door to Gwendoline’s bedroom was open, and she stopped in the doorway. It was exactly as it had been the last time she’d seen it, and the memory of that horrific night flooded back: Sir Strickland throwing her clothes out of the wardrobe, as if he owned them, owned her.
“It feels like such a long time ago,” she murmured to Zelda.
Zelda grabbed Gwendoline’s arm and pulled her inside. “I hope you’re not having regrets—”
“No, no regrets at all. Well, no regrets about leaving. I should have done it years ago—maybe I regret having married him in the first place.”
Zelda had already begun folding the clothes strewn on the bed—she was a little too pregnant these days to stoop easily to the floor. She held up a gold sequined gown, her eyes glinting with envy. “You wanted the upper-class life with all its wealth and power, so you married a man who could give you that.”
Gwendoline took the gown from her, admiring the embroidery, the design, before putting it back in the wardrobe. Why would she need a dress like that? “It just took me a little too long to realize that there was a price to pay. Do you know that he cut me off from my own sister?”
A derisive sniff came from Zelda. “I disowned my sister when I left home at twelve. Item by item she stole everything I had. She set my mother against me—told her I’d been stealing from her, for heaven’s sake. When I was sent out to work at the big house, I never went back. Got rid of them all. Who needs a family, eh?”
Gwendoline looked at her, hands on hips. “One thing I’ve learned through this is that family is incredibly precious. Other things may change us, but we start and end life with our family, whether it’s the one we’re born with or one of our own making. It means that you love and are loved, whoever you are.” Her eyes glazed over. “And you know you’re not on your own.”
Zelda laughed. “You lot are always talking about love. There was no love in my family, not even a sense of duty to each other. My mum loathed us for ruining her life, and me and my siblings were sworn enemies, fighting for food and space—even though I was the one who’d looked after them when they were small.” She carried on folding clothes, as if none of this mattered.
“That’s rather sad,” Gwendoline said, and then she smiled. “It’s good that you’ve found us now. We’ll look after you.”
Wordlessly, Zelda kept her head down, making piles of dresses, tailored suits, and blouses on the bed. She took the gold sequined gown back out of the wardrobe and added it to the pile. “You should bring this,” she said.
“I always had far too many clothes, didn’t I?” Gwendoline stroked the silk fabric of a long cerise evening gown. “Which ones s
hall we take?”
Zelda laughed. “We’ll take them all, of course. Audrey can drive the old delivery van over and collect them.”
“But what do I need all these clothes for? And where am I going to put them?”
“Why don’t you share them out between your friends?” Zelda said with a grin. “We could all do with some extra clothes—especially Nell, if we want to get her out of that maid’s uniform!” She put another onto the pile. “And we don’t want to leave them for the army, do we?”
Laughing, they scooped the clothes into two of the bedsheets, tied them up into two massive bundles, and took them onto the landing.
But just before they headed downstairs, Gwendoline put a finger to her lips.
“There’s one last thing I need.” She went to her dressing table, and there, in the second drawer down, was a stash of letters and documents. After quickly rifling through them, she found a folded, handwritten sheet and pulled it out.
“What’s that?”
She opened it. “It’s the loan agreement for Willow Lodge, the one Audrey and I drew up when she asked for the big loan. The banks weren’t involved, so the police won’t be on the lookout for it.” Her eyes went toward the stairs. “No one will know about it if it simply ceases to exist.” And in one clean movement, she ripped the paper in two. “Now Audrey can keep her home. At least there ended up being one gift I can give her.” She beamed, tucking the remains into her handbag.
Zelda smiled. “That’ll be the best present she’s had in a long time.”
They headed down the stairs, and as they reached the vast downstairs hallway, Gwendoline lowered the sacks onto the floor and took Zelda’s arm. “Come with me.”
The two women padded through to a narrow servants’ door tucked behind the grand staircase. A full, small set of service stairs ran up and down the house, and they went down one flight into the servants’ quarters. There, they passed through the kitchen—strangely old and empty without Mrs. Quince and Nell—and went down a corridor to a room on the side.
The Kitchen Front Page 32