The Kitchen Front

by Jennifer Ryan

  “I think this is the one.” Gwendoline budged open the door.

  It was a small sitting room, shabby but cozy, a red woolen rug on the floor and a drab green armchair at the side, dilapidated and a little frayed at the edges. A door led into a bedroom.

  “This is the head cook’s sitting room.” Gwendoline looked around at the sad little place, imagining Mrs. Quince tinkering around, sitting in the green chair after a long day. She peered through the window. All you could see was a slope of grass as the ground went up to level off around the terrace on the next floor up. This accounted for the lack of daylight in the room, the musty, slightly damp smell.

  “What a sad place to be,” Zelda murmured.

  On one side of the room was a small desk, bare except for a few recipe books and a small clock, quietly ticking even though the old woman was gone. On top of the books lay an especially tattered one, bloated with extra sheets of paper, the corners dog-eared and yellowing.

  “There it is.” Gwendoline picked it up. “It’s Mrs. Quince’s recipe book. All her secrets, her own special magic, lie inside these pages. She wanted Nell to have it.”

  Zelda sighed. “Let’s hope it’ll pull her out of her stupor. The funeral’s tomorrow. She’ll have to come out of her bedroom then, won’t she?”

  They went back to the corridor and quietly closed the door behind them. “Death is a difficult thing to come to terms with.” Gwendoline patted the book. “Let’s hope this helps.”

  Nell

  Curled up in bed, the past few days felt like a split second and a million years. Every time Nell opened her eyes, the dreadful truth arrived once again: She was living in a world that no longer contained Mrs. Quince.

  Then had come the arrival of Mrs. Quince’s old recipe book.

  “I’ll just pop it here on the bedside table,” Gwendoline had said, leaving a cup of tea beside it.

  There it had remained for the rest of the morning, the tea untouched and the curtains unopened. She didn’t want the book. She wanted Mrs. Quince to be alive there with her.

  That the book now belonged to Nell only compounded the feeling of devastation.

  And now I have to take her place—become the cook, no longer the student.

  How could she, young Nell, step into the shoes of such a wise and dexterous cook?

  But by afternoon, her slim white hand pushed out of the covers to touch it. She couldn’t help herself. The book was the only part of Mrs. Quince left in the world—it was a portal through which she still existed.

  The essence of her collective skill and knowledge.

  As soon as her fingers made contact, the frayed cover so familiar to her, she felt a calm settle upon her, like a soft snowfall soothing everything around and inside her. It was as peaceful and real as if it were Mrs. Quince’s hand itself.

  Within minutes, she couldn’t help but pull the book under the covers with her, holding it to her chest as she wept silently.

  An hour later, she lay quietly, completely still. The tears had stopped, as if she simply couldn’t cry anymore, and suddenly she was filled with a yearning to open the book, read the old woman’s words.

  Sitting up, she pulled the book onto her lap and opened to the first page.

  Mrs. Newton

  Fenley Hall

  Nell’s heart began pounding. Had this book belonged to someone else?

  Hurriedly, she looked back to the page.

  That’s when she spotted the date at the bottom.

  September 1875

  That was over sixty years ago. The book had belonged to a different cook before it became Mrs. Quince’s.

  Wedged between the cover and the first page was a single yellowing sheet of folded paper, tattered around the edges with age. Nell carefully took it out.

  It was a letter.

  My dear Eileen,

  Wasn’t Eileen Mrs. Quince’s first name? Was it written to the young Mrs. Quince? Nell read on.

  I know that by the time you read this letter, I won’t be with you any longer. It was a good thing I taught you how to read, otherwise I wouldn’t have any way of talking to you. How strange it must feel to have me speak to you from the other side of the grave. Now, I know you’re going to be sad, but you will be the very best cook the county has ever known, so don’t despair, and whatever you do, don’t let yourself slip into a stupor. Work hard, that’s what I always say. There’s nothing like a good day’s work to get over the glums.

  Here is my recipe book, for you, my dear. As your teacher and friend, it is both my duty and my pleasure to pass it into your safe, competent hands. Please take care of it, carry on my good name, and perhaps you, too, will have someone special to pass it on to at the end of your life—hark at me! You’re still so young and pretty I can’t imagine you ever becoming old and gray like me. Look after the book well. Fill it with your finest new recipes, and always, always remember that being a cook is both a blessing and a joy. You are spreading both nourishment and delight to the world. You are the most blessed of people.

  I will miss you, but wherever I am, I will be watching over you, waiting to see you there one day.

  God bless you, dearest Eileen.

  Mrs. Newton

  Tears pricked Nell’s eyes. Mrs. Quince had had a teacher, just like she had! And the book had been inherited from her, and was now being passed on again, like a family heirloom handed down through servants, who had no children of their own, to the ones that they adopted along the way.

  An idea thrust its way through her.

  “Did Mrs. Quince leave me a letter?”

  She flicked through to the next page, and then the next, opening all the slips of paper that had been tucked into the book. There were recipes for trout mousse, aspic jelly, bacon and mushroom tart. Sheets of paper detailed methods for lamb cutlets, fish quenelles, and lobster soup. Leafing through, she saw recipes she’d never seen before, never tried, but she quickly passed over them, her fingers trembling with nerves.

  She was coming to the end of the book, and still there was nothing, until, right there, slipped inside the back cover, was a new, folded sheet of paper.

  Dearest Nell,

  Please don’t be sad, my dear little Nell. I know that you’ll think you’re lost without me, but truth be known, you’ve been doing everything by yourself these last few years. You’re the very best cook in Kent—probably the whole of England. It’s time to stand up for yourself and your cooking, as you will go far, my dear, very far indeed.

  I don’t know if you saw the letter that dear Mrs. Newton wrote to me when she left me the book, but this was passed down to me, just as I’m passing it down to you. I know what you’re going through, Nell. I was torn apart when Mrs. Newton died. I was a little older than you perhaps, but she had taught me everything I knew. When you came along, it was like I was reliving it all over again, only this time I was Mrs. Newton, and you, Nell, you played the part of me. I loved to watch you grow and learn—you were the perfect pupil, always attentive and so very skillful. You brought my life a new joy that I thought I would never have again after Mrs. Newton died, a kind of family of sorts. You made my life worth living.

  Now remember that, my dear, and know that someone else will come along—maybe a young kitchen maid, or perhaps you’ll even have a husband and children of your own—and you’ll find a new kind of happiness with them. I know you’ll be upset, but know that I am in a good place now, looking down over you, and bestowing all the love that I have in my heart, until you are here with me again.

  With all my love always, Mrs. Quince (Eileen)

  Nell let the page fall from her hand as she bent over with tears. Her dear, dear friend, writing to her, speaking of love and happiness, of all that she’d meant to her, and it suddenly felt overwhelming, like a current was pulling her under and she’d
never be able to escape.

  But suddenly she felt a surge of energy inside her. Thrusting the bedclothes back, she got out of bed, quickly dressed, and ran down the stairs, the recipe book under her arm. She headed straight into the kitchen, where Audrey and Zelda were cooking the day’s pies.

  With a certainty as old as the hills, she knew that there was only one thing she could do.

  She had to cook.

  As Nell burst into the kitchen, Zelda looked up, baking pan and floury rolling pin stopped in midair.

  “Are you all right, Nell?” She put the rolling pin down and went over to her.

  Nell shrugged her off. “I’m fine,” she said in a manner that indicated that she really wasn’t.

  Sliding the recipe book onto the table, she sat down incredibly straight and began flipping through quickly.

  “We need to cook for the funeral tomorrow.” Her fingertip raced down each page, looking for the right recipes. “We need this to be a funeral feast that would make her proud.”

  Audrey pulled out a chair. “Good thinking. I’m assuming everyone will come back here for cake and so forth.”

  “Cake? We need to make this a feast. This is to be a celebration of her life—and what better way to celebrate than with food. We’ll have to make the best spread anyone’s had for the whole war!”

  Zelda raised a penciled eyebrow. “We’re running a little short on ingredients. These pies are for the new customer in Middleton. We can’t tell them that we couldn’t manage it.”

  “We’ll just have to do our best,” Audrey said. “Use all the tricks of the trade to get around it.”

  The list was hastily drawn up, as Nell was eager to get cooking.

  Zelda leaned forward to whisper, “Do you think she’s well?” as she and Audrey watched Nell simultaneously whisk up egg white, fold baking parchment into a makeshift piping bag, and boil potatoes for mashing.

  “I think it’s all part of her own individual grieving process,” Audrey whispered back. “Perhaps you could get Gwendoline to pop back to Fenley Hall to see if there’s any oil left over there—in fact, tell her to bring any ingredients she can find back here. We can do with anything we can get.”

  The rest of the afternoon sped by. Zelda nominated herself as Nell’s sous-chef, chopping, greasing, and rolling as necessary, while Nell, a look of ferocious concentration on her face, blended, boiled, and baked.

  They made sausage rolls (the sausage meat blended with mashed potato to make it go further), ginger buns (the ginger flavor masking the sour taste of the dried eggs), salmon loaf (tinned salmon blended with potato and bread, then baked), cold-pressed rabbit pie (using rabbits bred in the neighbor’s garden), bacon and potato pasties (with extra fried onions and mushrooms to make up for the small quantity of bacon), and lentil sausages (mashed with leek and potato and rolled in breadcrumbs).

  Zelda made her special spinach, egg, and cheese lattice tartlets, using dried egg powder and adding a little bacon fat for extra taste—they didn’t have a lot of cheese. When she pulled them out of the oven, the golden, flaky pastry smelled so delicious that they had to cut one into small pieces to each try a little.

  It was late in the evening by the time they’d finished. Zelda and Gwendoline had cleaned up and gone to bed, leaving Audrey to put on the kettle for a last pot of tea with Nell.

  “Time for a well-deserved rest, I think,” she said as she began wiping the table down. “Tomorrow’s a big day. You need a good night’s sleep, Nell.”

  But Nell was sitting at the table, her nose in the recipe book, a candle glowing beside her. “There’s one last thing I have to make.”

  Audrey came and peered over her shoulder. “What is it?”

  Nell looked up, biting her lip to stop herself from crying. “I need to make her Special Occasion Cake. It was her favorite. She knew that everyone adored it, and it was her gift to them, providing nourishment and pleasure.” Nell put her hands on the book. “And now it’s my gift to her and all who loved her.”

  Audrey pulled out the chair beside her and sat down, putting an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “But she wouldn’t have wanted you to stay up all night cooking, would she?”

  Nell turned to her, her eyes large and glistening with tears. “I have to do it.”

  Audrey sighed, looking around the tidy kitchen lit dimly by a lone bare bulb and a few flickering candles.

  Nell got up and went to the pantry to collect the ingredients. There was none of the rushing of before. She was calm, measured, peaceful.

  “I’ll stay and help,” Audrey said.

  And there they stood, beside each other, silently measuring out flour and raisins, grating carrots to sweeten it, blending butter with oil, as if it were a religious ritual. This cake was to be an homage to the old woman, one of the best cooks in the country, and one of the very best people who ever walked the earth.

  “It helps when I cook,” Nell said softly. “I feel her closest to me when I’m here in the kitchen, busy. It’s as if she’s just sitting over there, telling me what to do, smelling the air, the scent alone telling her how something would taste.”

  “I think she’d be happy, seeing you here, cooking.”

  Nell let out a little laugh. “Yes, she was always one for keeping busy. It seems she learned it from her predecessor, Mrs. Newton.” She looked wistfully into the flickering brightness of the candle flame. “Just as I will take it along with me, pass it on to whoever comes next.”

  Audrey left her alone with her cooking, going to bed after a busy day.

  The kitchen, now empty but for Nell, seemed still, silent.

  And as she added the raisins, the flour, the honey, Nell felt the presence of the old woman behind her, murmuring, “that’s right, a few more raisins” and “that’s the perfect consistency—moist but firm.”

  Then, as she reached the very end of the recipe, there was a final instruction.

  Leave it to bake until it feels ready.

  “What does that mean?” she whispered, praying for a response. Mrs. Quince had a nuance with food. She had the kind of understanding one acquired only after years—decades—of cooking. “How will I know?”

  But the voice behind her seemed to murmur, “You’ll know, Nell. Trust your instinct.”

  A warmth seemed to pass through her, and then it was gone.

  The kitchen was cold and empty. The gentle tick of the wooden clock faded in and out of her consciousness. She looked around at the dim space, tears coming to her eyes. “Where are you, Mrs. Quince? Where have you gone?”

  But there was nothing.

  She was alone.

  Standing alone beneath the bare bulb, she bent her head into her hands and began to cry. But almost as soon as she had begun, the rich, warming smell of the baking cake stirred her back to the here and now.

  She had to check the cake.

  But how would she know it was cooked through?

  She didn’t want to cut into it, and using a toothpick had limitations with a cake like this.

  A wave of potent, spicy aromas enveloped her as she opened the oven, transporting her to another place, another time. She was back in the Fenley Hall kitchen, plump Mrs. Quince turning out the cakes for the Fenley Summer Fair just before the war—they hadn’t held it since the war began. The busy excitement. Would they win the cake contest again? Would Ambrose Hart be there, presenting the prize to the winner?

  She’d been a different person then, a girl.

  As she took the cake out of the oven, she smiled through her tears at her old friend, so real in her dream.

  “This is the cake to win a thousand contests,” she murmured, remembering the fair.

  There was a cooling rack on the table, and as she took it over, she wondered again how she would know if it was properly cooked. But as she set it down, she sensed the f
irmness of the texture as the succulent smell of the baked cake filled the air.

  Suddenly she was absolutely certain that it was perfectly cooked, not a moment too little or too much—just as Mrs. Quince had told her.

  She had the nuance, the instinct—the power—to cook by herself.

  And as she stood there, taking this in, feeling herself standing a little straighter, her hands deftly turning the cake onto the cooling rack, she knew.

  She was ready.

  Mrs. Quince’s Wartime

  Special Occasion Cake

  Serves 12

  For the cake

  2¼ cups flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  2 tablespoons butter, margarine, or fat

  ½ cup oatmeal

  1 tablespoon sugar, or the equivalent in saccharin

  ½ cup dried fruit

  1½ cups grated carrot

  1 tablespoon syrup or honey

  2 eggs, or 2 tablespoons dried egg powder, reconstituted

  For the mock marzipan

  ¼ cup margarine

  ½ cup sugar

  2 teaspoons almond essence

  1 cup soya flour

  For the icing

  4 tablespoons powdered milk

  2 teaspoons sugar

  2 tablespoons margarine or butter

  A little vanilla essence or other flavorings (optional)

  Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl, then rub in the butter, margarine, or fat. Add the oatmeal, sugar, dried fruit, and grated carrot and mix well. Add the syrup or honey and the reconstituted eggs and mix with a little water so that it’s relatively firm. Put it in a greased cake pan and bake for 1 hour. After taking it out of the oven, leave it to cool for at least an hour before removing it from the pan and applying marzipan.