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“He killed my brother.”
“You can’t trade on that forever," she says with all the empathy of a concrete footpath. “We’ve all got to eat, and we’ve all got to pull our weight.”
“I don’t. I don’t care if we all starve.”
“Is that right. Then you won’t be having lunch or dinner, I imagine.”
“Fine by me.”
“Very well.”
She storms out. I wait about two minutes, and then I call for Crichton. He always seems to hear me, no matter where I am. It's almost magical.
“Crichton, the kitchen lady won’t feed me anymore. I’m so hungry and she says if I don’t go down to the kitchen and cook things, in your kitchen, that I thought was yours, I won't eat. But that's not right, is it? That we should go into your kitchen, and that she should make me go in there. In, as I say, your kitchen.”
He flinches slightly every time I say the word ‘kitchen.’ He really loathes being pushed out of the way, I imagine. Crichton doesn’t hate manual and menial labor. He lives for it. I bet having Mrs Crocombe here is a constant thorn in his side. I bet, and I win that bet.
“It is not right, miss,” Crichton says. “Here. Take these chocolate biscuits.”’
Less than thirty minutes after Mrs Crocombe disappeared all fired up with purpose, Crichton approaches me in an excitable state. I haven’t seen him this animated in quite some time. I imagine he is absolutely furious.
“I thought you should know, sir, that the kitchen has cut Nina off.”
"What does that mean?”
“The woman who has inhabited it has not only banished me," he says, clearly offended. “But she's decided Nina is not going to eat if she will not cook. And Nina…”
“Nina has decided this is a battle of wills she wants to engage in.”
“Precisely. The young lady is spirited and will not be threatened into any particular course of behavior.”
“No, she won’t,” I sigh. I am going to have to deal with this, and swiftly. I have the strangest feeling that Nina is behind this, setting the domestics at loggerheads with her talent for manipulation.
“Mrs Crocombe, you appear to have initiated a hunger strike.”
“She’s a spoiled brat. She’ll come around tomorrow. You mark my words, and she’ll make herself useful too. We’re women. We don't have the luxury of stopping when death comes. We've still got to cook, still got to clean, still got to live.”
Sexist? Maybe. Anachronistic? Definitely. Should I really expect anything else from a woman of her age and station? No.
“I’m thinking if you killed that poor boy, you had your reasons,” she says, smiling at me in a way that implies if I just agree with her, she will back me up no matter what I do — ride or die, as the Americans say.
“Thank you, Mrs Crocombe.”
“Welcome. Now don’t you worry about Nina. I’ll make sure she doesn’t starve. I’ll also make sure she doesn’t run this house from that fine bedroom you’ve installed her in.”
“You’re a foolish woman,” Crichton interjects. I am shocked to hear him speak so plainly. He must be absolutely livid.
“Excuse me!? I never!”
“Crichton, please.” I palm my face. Just as I was starting to calm her down…
“The girl needs to eat. She has been through unimaginable trauma. And for you to come sweeping into our home, spreading filth across the kitchen and monopolizing every bit of space…” Crichton is uncharacteristically animated. He likes Nina. He regards her as his mistress, I think. And to have both his kitchen and his mistress disrespected together is too much for his constitution.
“The brothers like what I make,” Mrs Crocombe says. “And the girl is a spoiled wretch. She will come around when she learns she doesn’t get fed unless she works for it.”
“I’ve given her a pack of biscuits," Crichton says. “Poor thing was starving.”
“I can’t help if I’m being undermined, Father Bryn.” Mrs Crocombe appeals to my authority.
“Perhaps you should both leave Nina to me,” I suggest. “Mrs Crocombe, the brothers are grateful for your efforts, and Crichton, your faithfulness to those you care for is unmatched. Perhaps, to borrow an American term, you might both be happier if you learned to stay in your respective lanes.”
They are both huffy, but they have also both been complimented, and that has taken the edge off the conversation.
“I don’t have time to stand about all day. I’ve got lasagne in the oven,” Mrs Crocombe says, making an excuse to leave.
“And all over the oven door and the kitchen floor, and probably the wall,” Crichton mutters at her departing back.
“Nice work. And nice try.” I put my head into Nina’s room. She's sitting in front of a roaring fire, halfway through a packet of biscuits. She still hates me, of course, but she can't get the smile off her face. She wants her cunning to be noticed and celebrated. She knew precisely what she was doing when she called Crichton after Crocombe. I imagine she might even have put Crocombe up to the idea in the first place by some indirect means. She’s not stupid.
