A Winter Affair

by Minna Howard

  With its new role she accepted that the layout of the chalet was different to the time she was last here. These rich guests were far too important to eat in the kitchen, as she had done in the past, but at least it meant she could stay out of the way in here. Bert came bustling in, sniffing hopefully round the floor, when he didn’t find anything, he gave a long sniff of disapproval and left the room.

  Half an hour later she heard the guests arrive, clumping into the hall in their boots, having had to walk through the snow from the car before changing into their shoes for inside.

  Saskia crept into the kitchen. ‘Wow look at you, Kiss the Cook,’ she giggled, ‘is that an invitation to Lawrence?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Eloise said hurriedly; she hadn’t thought of that. ‘The twins gave it to me for my birthday, and it’s the best one I have, my others are faded or stained. I pushed it in at the last minute without thinking. No one’s going to see me anyway.’

  ‘They might come in to congratulate you, well not Aurelia, she can’t bear anyone to upstage her.’ Saskia rolled her eyes.

  ‘Aurelia?’ Eloise’s heart did an annoying little dip, remembering Lawrence’s conversation with her on the phone making her think she was waiting for her to fail so she could rush to the rescue. ‘The ready-made food person?’

  ‘Yes, Quinn thinks it‘s disgusting; he believes food should be freshly cooked not frozen or cooled and put in some tarted-up box for someone to shove in their own oven.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Eloise said mournfully, dreading what he’d think of her cooking.

  ‘Better go and join them, we’ll catch up later; so glad you’re here. Ohooo, baby meringues.’ She stretched out her hand towards them.

  ‘Oh, please don’t. Theo has eaten some already and there won’t be enough,’ she begged her.

  ‘OK,’ Saskia smiled as she left the room. ‘If there are any leftovers… which I doubt, maybe I can take them home in a doggy bag.’

  Eloise laughed, ‘I’ll see to it, if Theo hasn’t got there first.’

  A little later, Theo, who’d been pouring out the drinks, came into the kitchen, announcing the guests were about to eat.

  ‘Most of your canapés went,’ he said, ‘now I’ll take in the starters.’ He watched her putting the finishing touches to them. Individual tomato sorbets scattered with avocado and chives. ‘Too pretty to eat, but they’re not much more than a mouthful,’ he said, picking up the tray.

  ‘They are only the starters,’ she wailed but he’d gone, leaving her feeling anxious that they’d complain the portions were too small.

  The evening passed in a whirl, Eloise was so tired she felt like a robot. Each time Theo came back with the finished plates he told her their verdict.

  ‘They liked the sorbets but Aurelia thought they were too cold,’ he announced. ‘Lawrence said the lamb was not very well carved.’

  ‘I thought it easier to carve it in the kitchen,’ Eloise said, wondering how many more criticisms there’d be.

  At last the dinner was finished and when Theo had stacked the plates in the dishwasher and she’d left the pans soaking for Vera, she was about to slip up to bed when Theo, his jacket on ready to go out and Bert jumping impatiently round his feet, appeared saying; ‘Lawrence said to go and meet the guests, they want to thank you for the dinner.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘no doubt Lawrence will tell me every detail of what they said tomorrow.’

  ‘No, you must go, it won’t take long, they’ll be gone soon.’ He went out and she heard him open the door and felt the shaft of icy air come in before he closed it behind him.

  Taking off her apron and pushing back her hair, she went down the passage to the large room that now took up most of the ground floor of the chalet. Struggling to calm her nerves, she entered the room and stood awkwardly just inside surveying them.

  For a split second in her befuddled mind she thought a polar bear had got in until she saw it was a woman, her blonde hair smoothed back from her face by a sort of white fur halo with two little tufts like ears sticking up. She was dressed in a furry white jacket and white trousers too.

  Saskia noticed Eloise. ‘Eloise, what a scrummy dinner,’ she exclaimed and then all of the other guests turned towards her, murmuring small platitudes with kind smiles, all except for the woman in white, who said dryly, ‘Darling, just a few little tips. I had some ice shards in my sorbet, and the meringues were too sweet and…’

  ‘It was all absolutely delicious,’ Saskia said firmly. ‘Didn’t you think so, Quinn?’ She nudged the rotund man with curly grey hair and a craggy, bronzed face sitting beside her.

  Eloise held her breath waiting for the great man’s verdict.

  ‘Indeed… perhaps the presentation could have been a little sharper, but no, a good try.’ He smiled in her direction.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eloise was encouraged by his smile. ‘Goodnight,’ she said quickly and she left them, fighting back her tears of exhaustion, before Lawrence had time to add his own criticism of her failings.

  Six

  The dazzling light cut through the gap in the curtains, waking her, and for a moment Eloise lay there trying to get her bearings, before springing up in alarm. She glanced at her clock, almost 10 o’clock! If she hadn’t failed the cooking test last night, she’d failed big time this morning by oversleeping and missing breakfast. By now it would be too late for the early risers who wanted to beat the queues to get up the mountain.

  But this week’s guests had not yet arrived, she reminded herself as she pulled on her clothes, there was only Theo and Lawrence; surely they could get their own breakfast? She’d make sure she’d be up bright and early tomorrow when the guests had arrived. Theo was very easy-going but Lawrence was not, after all he was responsible for running the chalet, and having had one of his chefs running off was perhaps wary of all of them. She hurried to get ready before running downstairs, gearing herself up for his disapproval. She dashed into the kitchen and a small wiry woman in a blue overall who was polishing up the monstrous cooker turned and smiled at her. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning… You must be Vera. I’m Eloise. I… I overslept, have they had breakfast?’

  ‘Yes, Theo was up very early to go to the mountains and Lawrence has gone out. He said to remind you the new guests arrive this afternoon and please make a cake.’ Vera gave the cooker one last sweep of her cloth before going over to the sink, her darting movements reminding Eloise of an eager bird.

  ‘Was he angry?’ she asked.

  Vera looked round at her, frowning in surprise, ‘No, why would he be angry?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t up in time to cook his breakfast.’

  ‘He usually gets his own, or sometimes I do it for him,’ Vera glowed as she spoke of him. Eloise remembered Theo had told her that Lawrence had rescued her from an unkind employer.

  She was stressing too much about Lawrence’s opinion of her. Surely if he’d wanted her to do breakfast he’d have thundered up the stairs to get her out of bed? Having been let down by so many chefs he was obviously worried she’d be a failure too, she would show him she wasn’t, that he could rely on her.

  ‘But you must have something,’ Vera bustled round, her arms swinging like a windmill. ‘Coffee machine is there, tea and coffee in the cupboard, eggs and milk in the fridge… porridge there.’ Eloise guessed from her accent that Vera was from the Italian side of Switzerland.

  ‘I’ll just have coffee and toast, but if you’re busy in here I don’t want to get in your way.’

  ‘I’ve finished in here, now I will do the big room, it’s no trouble.’

  Even though Theo had assured her that Vera would cope with the pans and dishes, Eloise felt guilty about all the dinner party stuff she’d left in the sink. She said, ‘I’m sorry I left such a mess last night, I only arrived yesterday and I had to cook dinner for Lawrence’s friends as a sort of test to see if I was up to cooking for his rich clients. I meant to clear things before you arrived thi
s morning, I’m sorry I didn’t.’

  Vera laughed, ‘You should see how some of these cooks – chefs they like to call themselves – leave the place. Don’t you worry, now have your breakfast and then make your cake. What kind will it be?’

  ‘Do you think they want a sort of sponge with layers of icing or something more substantial like a fruit or carrot cake, or chocolate?’ Eloise went over to inspect the coffee machine – another gleaming appliance she felt was better suited to a coffee bar than a home.

  Seeing her consternation, Vera came over and showed her how the coffee machine worked, saying she’d have coffee now too before starting on the main room. ‘I think it’s best to have more cake than icing,’ she said, ‘then when they arrive you can ask them what they like, some don’t even want cake, though what about Christmas cake? Lawrence loves his Christmas cake.’

  Christmas, why did she keep forgetting that it was only two weeks away? Probably because she couldn’t bear to think about it, as she was now on her own instead of being surrounded, as she’d been in the past, by her family.

  ‘I usually make mine some weeks before Christmas, so it can marinate in the brandy,’ she explained to Vera.

  ‘You could start it today, as you will have some time before the clients arrive.’

  ‘I haven’t got the ingredients,’ Eloise said, ‘I should have thought about it and bought them yesterday.’

  ‘You can go to the shops. Lawrence left you the car keys, he said to use the jeep when you want.’

  Eloise felt slightly queasy at the thought of driving down the snow-covered roads to the village. ‘When will Theo be back?’ she asked.

  Vera smiled, ‘He’s off skiing and will be back just in time to go to the airport to pick up the clients.’ She frowned, ‘Can you not drive?’

  ‘Yes I can, I’ve just never driven in the snow, but I will. I’ll just have some breakfast and make the cake for this afternoon. I think I’ll do a lemon drizzle cake, most people like that, and perhaps some shortbread biscuits, and then I’ll go to the shops for the dried fruit, nuts and brandy. Or should I wait to see if Lawrence has some brandy already?’

  ‘He’s got a special brandy, so I’d ask him if you can use it first, he keeps his eye on his cellar.’ Vera’s voice held a warning. Eloise wondered if other chefs had been driven to raid the cellar to gear themselves up for the job. ‘The shops close over lunchtime, they open again in the late afternoon,’ Vera reminded her, before saying she’d better see to the main room.

  Left alone in the kitchen, Eloise spent the morning baking and prepared some of the dinner for the guests arriving later. While the cake was cooking, she went outside to get her bearings; the resort seemed to have changed so much since she was last here all those years ago.

  The thick carpet of snow crunched under her feet. Tiny footprints left by the birds crisscrossed parts of it, along with Bert’s paw prints. She hadn’t seen him this morning and she wondered where he was.

  The land that enclosed the chalet was edged on two sides by fir trees high enough to provide some privacy but not too high to overpower it. The front of the chalet was open to the mountain and the view down to the village, and the side coming from the road had fewer trees clumped on one side, leaving space enough to drive in. The blue minibus Theo had collected her in was parked beside a jeep, the second one had gone, the ridges of the tyre marks where it had stood still frozen from the night.

  She walked along the road. Way down, she saw the stream cutting its path through the snow. She smiled, remembering how she’d got stuck in it once, when she was about ten. She and her sister, Joanna, would ski down to the bus stop and they and other children would race each other on sledges. It would be hazardous to ski or sledge down there now amongst all the new chalets.

  She headed back towards Jacaranda; the air was pure and cold, the mountains rising in the distance ahead of her, stark white against the sky.

  The stillness and the peace was suddenly shattered by the sound of a car shooting up the hill. She stood back and a dark red sports car whizzed past her and turned into Jacaranda, coming to a screeching halt. She hurried on up to see who it was and as she arrived she saw Aurelia getting out. She opened the boot and took out a box, then seeing her, she said, ‘Lawrence has ordered a cake from me, he’s worried that you won’t have time to make one for the clients arriving this afternoon.’ There was a smug look of defiance on her face, her cold blue eyes staring scornfully at Eloise.

  She was not going to feel intimidated by her. ‘Oh, thanks, but I’ve made one already, I’ve just come to take it out of the oven.’ She eyed the pink box in Aurelia’s hands.

  ‘What kind is it?’ Aurelia asked.

  ‘Lemon drizzle.’

  ‘Oh, a nursery cake, one for the children’s tea, that’s nice, though there won’t be any children,’ Aurelia said dismissively.

  Before she could think of a retort, another car arrived – the jeep – with Lawrence in it, and Eloise escaped, leaving Aurelia to him. Inside, she struggled with the anger rising in her. How dare Aurelia try to undermine her by turning up bearing cakes like this? Had Lawrence told her he was unhappy with last night’s dinner and instructed Aurelia to bring it round, perhaps ordering even more food to feed his discerning guests? And why go behind her back? Couldn’t he at least give her a chance – it was so rude and demeaning.

  She hadn’t time to worry now though or her cake would burn and that would be the last straw when Aurelia had probably bought round a perfect croquembouche. She hurried into the kitchen to take it out of the oven and put in the rounds of shortbread she’d prepared. The warm, sweet smell of baking went some way to soothe her. She would not put up with Aurelia trying to upstage her, she would make that clear with Lawrence the moment she saw him.

  She heard footsteps clumping down the passage into the kitchen and she tensed herself for the fight. Even if Aurelia came with him she would say her piece. Her job was difficult enough without this though.

  Lawrence entered alone, carrying the pink cardboard box she’d seen in Aurelia’s hands. He put it down on the table. Tempting Delights by Aurelia, it proclaimed in black scrawly writing on the lid.

  ‘Hello, Eloise,’ he smiled, ‘hope you slept well. I left you lying in this morning as the real work starts today.’

  She waited for him to tell her that he’d decided that Aurelia would prepare most of the meals, but he seemed cheerful, asking if she had everything she wanted. Instead of making her feel at home this unnerved her, wondering why he had ordered a cake from Aurelia having left a message with Vera to ask her to make one too.

  As he said nothing about it, she said firmly, ‘I’ll be up early tomorrow. Tell me what time the guests want breakfast and it will be all ready for them.’

  ‘Good, we’ll ask them when they arrive.’ He eyed the lemon drizzle cake cooling on the rack. ‘Mmm you’ve been baking.’

  ‘Yes, Vera told me you wanted me to make a cake for the guests this afternoon,’ she said, Aurelia’s sarcastic remark of it being a ‘nursery cake’ still rankling.

  ‘I did, and Aurelia sent a cake too,’ he gestured towards the box, ‘in case you didn’t have time to bake one before everyone arrived.’

  ‘I know, I’ve just seen her. Is she going to appear at every meal with some dish she has cooked and bill you for it?’ Her voice sounded sharper than she meant it too.

  He looked horrified, ‘No, why ever would you think that? She just thought you might find it difficult on your first day to get everything done – she did it to be kind.’ He regarded her with disapproval as if she was the one in the wrong, misinterpreting a good deed for a bad one.

  He left the room before she could explain that Aurelia had told her that he had ordered it. Was that true and was Lawrence trying to avoid telling her that he had Aurelia on back-up? Or had Aurelia lied about Lawrence ordering the cake, and if so why? What was she trying to achieve?

  Eloise opened the box containing Aurelia’s creation and
inside was a beautifully iced chocolate cake with Welcome to Verbier written in white icing, making her lemon drizzle cake look decidedly underdressed.

  Who was the welcome to Verbier for? She didn’t feel it was for her. It was more like a warning from Aurelia to keep off her turf.

  She struggled with a sudden wave of homesickness but, what was worse, Aurelia had succeeded in making Lawrence think she was a bitch to undermine her generous gesture when in fact Aurelia was throwing down a challenge.

  It looked as if she had a fight on her hands and she must do all that she could to win it.

  Seven

  It was bitterly cold but the sheer beauty of the sun touching the tops of the mountains and the crisp snow beneath his skis filled him with exhilaration. Lawrence pushed off down the slope, it was still icy so he must take care, by the time it had softened up he’d be back in the chalet seeing to the guests. He needed this hour to himself, just him and the mountains – though he wasn’t the only skier here, but these first few were the fanatics, the real lovers of the sport and the majesty of nature. Very soon the slopes would be jostling with all the holidaymakers, swarming over the snow like multicoloured ants.

  Here in his own space, the white peaks reaching on into infinity, he felt calmer, more able to assess his thoughts. The guests had arrived last night, quite late as their flight had been delayed. Eloise had made a delicious cake, and the home-made shortbread biscuits were perfect, so different to the bought variety. She’d laid them out on the dining table in the living room, alongside a rather sickly-looking cake Aurelia had given him for the guests’ tea, only they hadn’t arrived in time to eat them, so Eloise had put them away to bring out again today.