The Cook

by Harry Kressing

  Daphne smiled, most beautifully, and replied that she was extremely pleased to see Dr. Law; she added, in a slightly teasing voice, “Mrs. Hill said you had gotten some grave reports about me, that I was ill and dying and that you had come to see for yourself. Well? How do I look? Do I look unwell? Or unhappy?”

  Daphne Vale looked truly radiant, physically fine and in the highest of spirits, and Dr. Law was unmistakably nonplused. Slowly he shook his head. “I have never seen you looking so well. Or so beautiful. I don’t understand it—you have changed so. And I received such reports from your mother and father . . .”

  Daphne laughed gaily. “I have never felt better in my life, Doctor.—I am going to be married soon.”

  Dr. Law nodded. “I know that, my dear.”

  “I shall be Mrs. Harold Hill.”

  “Yes, my dear, I know. And no one could be more happy for you than I . . . But, Daphne, tell me something”—and Dr. Law gently grasped the girl’s elbow and led her into a darkened corner of the dining room, out of earshot of Conrad and Mrs. Hill.

  The grandfather clock struck eight-thirty.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Daphne was saying. “I’d rather be Mrs. Harold Hill than anything in the world. Anything, Doctor, anything. Can you understand that?”

  They had returned to the center of the room. Dr. Law was twirling the left point of his beard. He looked very grave . . . or very serious . . . or very dubious—or weary.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I don’t know.”

  Daphne moved away from his side.

  “And I am going to have what I wanted. Things have changed. I am getting my wish.”

  Dr. Law said nothing. Daphne glided over to Conrad, who was leaning against the dining-room table. She turned and held out her hand to Dr. Law.

  “I am extremely happy.”

  Dr. Law took her hand. Then he turned to Conrad.

  “This is all your doing, sir . . .”

  Conrad looked at him coldly. “Are you asking me or making a statement?”

  “Good night, Doctor,” Daphne said quietly.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Dr. Law said. “I really don’t know.”

  He turned back to Daphne. “My dear, I wish you the very best . . .”

  Mrs. Hill accompanied Dr. Law to the front door. As soon as it closed on him Conrad turned to Daphne. She looked at him for a moment, trying to smile. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she sank to the floor unconscious.

  “Get Mr. Hill to carry her upstairs,” Conrad said. “You come into the kitchen with me. Some changes will have to be made in serving, which often happens when a dinner is delayed . . .”

  35

  From the time it had been decided to advance the date of the wedding, everyone in the Hill household was extremely busy. Louise was brought over the very next day, and she began getting Daphne’s trousseau ready. The regular members of the household set about planning and getting ready for the wedding itself and for the move to the Prominence.

  Conrad went to Cobb to consult the lawyer who was the present executor of the last Cobb’s will, because the first thing to find out was where the wedding should be held: at the Prominence or in either of the mansions. Conrad said the Prominence would be preferable, if legally possible, because of the symbolic significance: the Prominence had been the home of the Hill and Vale forebears and would henceforth be the home of the Hill and Vale descendants, and so it should be the situs of the unification of the past with the future. On the other hand, both the Hill and Vale mansions were literally negative symbols: each proclaimed the schism. As for getting married in a public place—where could a suitable one be found in Cobb? And as for going to the City and holding it there—that too was out of the question, if for no other reason than the bride’s state of health. She was much too delicate to undertake such a journey. Indeed, her condition also excluded the traditional honeymoon trip. Conrad had talked this over with Harold, and they had decided it would be best to take up residence at the Prominence immediately after the wedding rather than tax Daphne’s strength with all the exertions of a honeymoon.

  The lawyer decided there were no legal impediments to the performance of the marriage at the Prominence. This pleased Conrad immensely. The lawyer also told him something about the last Cobb’s will: any of the surviving Hills and Vales who chose to reside at the Prominence after the joining of the two families had to provide in his will that all of his property should pass, on his death, to the bride and bridegroom, and then to their heirs and descendants, except for life interests and limited legacies to their children and certain collateral heirs. The purpose of this provision was obvious: to join the estates together, just as the families had been joined, so that the last Cobb could finally rest in peace, secure in the knowledge that he had succeeded in passing down intact the vast Cobb holdings.

  Conrad reported this to Mr. Hill and asked him whether he was aware of the provision. Mr. Hill answered that he hadn’t looked at the will for many years but that he thought he remembered something of the kind. Anyway, his own will would only require a few minor revisions for compliance.

  “Does Mr. Vale know about it?”

  “I don’t know, Conrad.”

  “Then perhaps we should get him over here for a little talk.”

  When Mr. Vale came, Conrad told him about the provision, and then added, “I assume we are all going to move to the Prominence. There seems no point in maintaining these separate mansions. They represent a family feud which is much better forgotten.”

  Mr. Vale, fat and friendly, looked a little puzzled at these words.

  “But, Conrad,” he remonstrated mildly, “I thought it had already been decided that we would all move to the Prominence—Eva has spoken to Mrs. Hill about it many times. I thought it was just taken for granted that that was what we all wanted.”

  “Good,” Conrad answered. “That’s all I wanted to hear.—You understand the provision of the will?”

  “Yes, certainly,” said Mr. Vale. “But it doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ve already made my will, leaving everything to Daphne, or in case she marries, to Daphne and her husband, and their heirs. All that remains to be done is to insert Harold’s name in the document.”

  Conrad replied he was glad to hear that there was no impediment to the Vales’ taking up residence at the Prominence immediately after the wedding.

  “None whatever,” agreed Mr. Vale. “In fact, that’s what we’ve been doing all these weeks—getting ready to move from our mansion to the Prominence. That’s a lot of work, Conrad . . .”

  No one was working harder than Harold Hill.

  After Harold and Daphne had become engaged and the move to the Prominence had been assured, Conrad and he had many discussions about the great kitchen there. Conrad still refused to visit it, saying there would be plenty of time, but he told Harold that a kitchen such as he described was a godsend, both to cooks and diners, and that not to employ it to capacity would constitute a rejection of a gift of the gods; surely calamities would follow in the wake.

  “Great cooks,” Conrad said, “require great kitchens. And vice versa. They also require great diners, and ditto vice versa. Harold, you will be a great cook. The Prominence kitchen shall make you one. And you, in turn, will make it great—no, I mean it,” he said as the young man tried to demur; “I absolutely promise it. When we get to the Prominence you’ll see what I mean. Meanwhile, we must make all preparations and learn as much as we can. Here, at the Hill mansion, you can only learn how to cook and to be responsible for the dishes. It is not feasible to have you supervise other cooks—besides, first things first. There will be time enough at the Prominence for you to learn to be in charge of other cooks . . .”

  It was in this context—the pending move to the Prominence—that Harold had begun to do more and more in the kitchen. There was no time for him to go to the mill any more and he didn’t try to make the time. When he wasn’t in the kitchen or on a shopping trip, he was in
Conrad’s room poring over the books. And after he had been shopping with Conrad the two of them would go to the Shepard’s Inn, and while Conrad drank a few beers and gossiped with whoever was there, Harold would sit in the corner and read one of the cook books he had brought with him.

  And then, when the wedding date was suddenly advanced, Harold’s efforts to perfect his skills so that he could move into the Prominence kitchen and try to do it a little justice, became positively frantic: if he could have absorbed all that was in Conrad’s books and at the same time spent twenty-four hours a day in the kitchen—if this had been humanly possible, without doubt Harold would have done it.

  36

  “The wedding will be a very small affair, just the families and the best man.”

  Conrad leaned back and called to Nell for another round of drinks.

  He had just told everyone that the wedding between Daphne Vale and Harold Hill was to take place a week from the coming Thursday and not two months hence in June, as all had thought. The news caused quite a sensation. He explained that the change in announced plans had not been made public because not till yesterday had the actual date become certain; all had hinged on some special clothes for the bride. These had arrived yesterday from the City.

  “Why the rush?” someone asked. “I thought June was the month for weddings . . .”

  “The health of the bride-to-be,” replied Conrad quietly. “It is delicate, and daily grows increasingly so.”

  Several of the men expressed amazement at this. Looks passed back and forth among them.

  “We heard nothing about that,” said one of the men. “Everyone thought, now that Miss Vale isn’t fat any more she is in good shape.”

  Conrad smiled and said that the secret had been well kept. “You see,” he explained; “now that Rudolph, Maxfield, Betsy and Mrs. Wigton are gone, there are no sources of information at the Hill mansion. Eggy, of course, is still there, but he sees no evil and speaks no evil. Whatever is known in Cobb about the goings-on at the Hill mansion must be learned from one of the Hills themselves, from Daphne or from me. There is no other way of finding out.”

  Yes, that made sense.

  “Conrad,” said one of the men, “you said the wedding would be a family affair except for the best man.”

  The speaker paused, and waited till Conrad nodded that he was quoting him correctly.

  “All right then, Conrad—who is going to be the best man? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Yes—who is going to be the best man?” asked several voices at once.

  Conrad picked up his stein and blew the froth from the top. Then he drank it all off and set it down with a bang.

  “I am, gentlemen—I’m going to be the best man! Nell! Bring us another round!”

  37

  Conrad talked to the workmen who were responsible for the maintenance of the Prominence grounds and the upkeep of the castle itself, and told them he wanted everything in perfect order for the wedding. Mr. Hill accompanied him when he talked to the men, and then both Mr. and Mrs. Hill went with him when he visited the Prominence to decide in which room the wedding should be held.

  It was the first time Conrad had approached the Prominence since that day when he had initially set eyes on it from the road and had sought out the narrow stairway that led up the cliff face to the plateau. Several workmen and two supervisors went along with them. One of the supervisors carried the key for the drawbridge mechanism.

  Conrad spent about two hours going through all the rooms and halls of the great Gothic structure. However, he spent at least half of that time in the great kitchen . . .

  As they descended the narrow stone staircase, Conrad, squeezing down sideways, smiled and said, “I think the Vales are a bit too plump to negotiate this passage.”

  Mrs. Hill laughed and said she thought so too.

  “We shall have to bring ladders for them,” suggested Mr. Hill very practically and seriously.

  And though no one said it, it was obvious that Ester would also require a ladder.

  Indeed, at the rate Conrad had been gaining . . .

  Conrad’s correspondence with people in the City, always very heavy, had been increasing steadily over the recent weeks. And then suddenly it doubled, and then tripled, and practically every night, after giving Harold instructions for a dish to work on, Conrad would retire to his room to read the stack of letters which had arrived that afternoon, and to answer another stack which had come the day before. Often he was occupied with this work until three or four in the morning.

  Mr. Hill, upon whom had been devolved the responsibility of bringing in the mail and putting out the letters which were to be picked up by the postman, knew of course of the sudden increase in Conrad’s correspondence. But he said nothing about it to Conrad. Indeed, he almost never initiated a conversation with Conrad; he waited till he was addressed. But he did tell Mrs. Hill, who casually mentioned to Conrad that she didn’t see where he found time to answer so many letters. For her part, she said, she was so tired at the end of the day—what with learning all the new table settings he was teaching her and then actually laying them, and serving the meals and then doing all the washing-up, with help from Mr. Hill and Eggy, naturally; plus all the work involved in getting ready for the wedding and the concomitant move to the Prominence—that when she left the kitchen at night and went to her room, she literally fell into her bed and slept a dreamless sleep till the next morning when it was time to get things ready for breakfast.

  “If I had to answer letters, Conrad,” she concluded, “I’m afraid I’d lose all my correspondents. I’m simply too worn out at night . . . Although, I suppose, if the letters were really important . . .”

  Her curiosity about the letters was patent. Conrad answered that they were important, otherwise he certainly wouldn’t be sacrificing his sleep for them. But he did not elaborate on this statement, and it was not until shortly before the wedding day that Mrs. Hill found out what all the correspondence had been about.

  The family, including Ester, were gathered in the dining room—Conrad had told them he had something to impart.

  He sat at the head of the table. In front of him were two stacks of letters, with their respective envelopes attached.

  “In a few days,” he began, tapping the stack on his left, “we shall be moving to the Prominence. It is an enormous place, and even if we did not plan to entertain, it would take more than just the four of us, plus Eggy, to run it in the proper manner. But since we do plan to entertain”—and his eyes darted quickly to the other packet of letters—“of necessity we need an augmentation of the present staff; I gather that’s understood.”

  Mrs. Hill furrowed her brow, and then her worry expressed itself: “You don’t mean you’re going to take Betsy back?”

  Conrad shook his head impatiently. “Certainly not. There are no servants in Cobb I’d dream of taking into the Prominence, with the exception of two cooks: Charles and Paul are going to assist Harold in the great kitchen. The rest of the staff is coming from the City—that’s what these letters concern, Mrs. Hill.”

  Mrs. Hill smiled with half-satisfied curiosity as Conrad untied the string, picked up the top letter and started reading the qualifications, experience, etc., of a Mr. Breen, who was to be Mr. Hill’s assistant. Nominally Mr. Hill would be in charge of all the staff. But Breen would be actually responsible, and it would be his duty to train Mr. Hill to take over in fact as well as in title. Breen would be given six months to accomplish this.

  Conrad then read out the qualifications of a Mrs. Thorn, whose duty it would be to train Mrs. Hill. Mrs. Thorn, too, would be given about six months.

  Conrad picked up the next letter . . .

  When he had finished reading the stack of correspondence it was obvious he had assembled a most professional staff, and Mr. and Mrs. Hill were looking extremely pleased. They had listened very attentively, frequently nodding and smiling, but never once interrupting.

  Ester evident
ly hadn’t listened at all; she just sat there, directly opposite Conrad, staring straight ahead, either at him or through him. If there was any expression on her face it was one of slight dissatisfaction.

  Harold hadn’t listened either, not even when the letters concerned the additional cooks Conrad was bringing into the kitchen: spread out on the table in front of him were half a dozen cook books, and Harold was immersed in them to the total exclusion of everything else.

  “Now,” Conrad said, “we have finished with these”—he retied the packet and pushed it to one side—“and we come to these . . .” And he drew the other stack toward him. “These you shall see in a moment—but first, let us contemplate the wedding day. Let us try to get it into perspective, and not just our own, because it presents two faces: one to us and the other to the people of Cobb—and very prominent guests from the City.” This was the first mention of any people coming from the City and Mrs. Hill opened her mouth to exclaim, but Conrad continued without pause: “We want both of these faces unexceptionable. For Cobb, the Hill-Vale wedding shall be the most important social event of the generation. It must live in their memory. We must put on a notable performance—a perfect performance.”

  Mrs. Hill, who was still smiling at the pleasant surprise of City guests, nodded in agreement. Then almost at once her expression changed. “It’s a shame Daphne is in such delicate health. A proper wedding in the grand ballroom with hundreds in attendance . . .”

  “Of course. Everyone likes a great wedding.”

  “Oh, I know they do. And it’s been so long since there was one in these parts. So very long.—Well, we’ll just have to make it up to them with the reception. That’s all we can do.”

  Conrad’s eyebrows arched disdainfully. “Ah, yes, the reception. Too bad even that can’t be perfect: a reception without a receiving line leaves something to be desired. And as for Harold standing there alone . . .” Conrad paused, and then when Mrs. Hill began slowly shaking her head, he continued, “The townspeople expect a receiving line—to pay their respects to the new mistress. They would cherish that experience. It would be something to tell their children . . .” He paused again, and Mrs. Hill watched him as he began tapping the table with the packet of letters.