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This information penetrated the haze of my thoughts. Mr. Davis, our butler, rarely took a day out. That he’d chosen to depart on a Thursday, which everyone knew was my full day off, was curious.
“I’m certain he will return in time for supper.” I continued into the kitchen, where Tess, my assistant, bent over the work table, slicing potatoes like a mad thing. “Good afternoon, Tess.”
Tess ceased banging her knife and glanced up at me without her usually cheery expression. “I’m that glad to see you, Mrs. H. Mrs. Redfern is in a right state.”
From the loudness of this proclamation, I gathered that Mrs. Redfern, the housekeeper, must be above stairs where she could not hear us.
“I’m certain everything will be well, Tess. Do carry on.”
Tess’s knife began thumping away again, so much so that I feared for the condition of the potatoes. Telling myself that Tess had things in hand, I slipped out and along the slate-tiled corridor to the back stairs.
The door to the butler’s pantry was shut, and no light flickered under the crack beneath it. On impulse, I tried the handle, but the door was locked.
I reasoned, as I mounted the stairs, that Mr. Davis’s affairs when he was not in the house were his own. His outing must have been important, and I had no doubt he’d soon return. He’d never let the footmen attend supper without his eagle-eyed supervision, especially when Mr. and Mrs. Bywater had guests, as they did this evening.
Upstairs, I swiftly changed into my gray work dress. I shook out and brushed my good brown frock, before hanging it in the wardrobe. The hat went into its box on the wardrobe’s top.
I’d been able to acquire a few more pieces of furniture for my small room, a bureau that held my washbasin and undergarments, and this wardrobe. I didn’t have many gowns—two besides my work frocks, but Lady Cynthia, the Bywaters’ niece, had insisted Mrs. Bywater put some cast-off pieces of furniture in my room. Mrs. Bywater, who didn’t want the bother of hiring someone to lug the unused furniture away, allowed Cynthia this indulgence.
I’d done perfectly well without all these furnishings, but Cynthia was trying to be kind. I admitted it was nice to have a place to keep my best and second-best gowns free of dust.
After washing the soot of London’s coal smoke from my face and hands, I descended to the kitchen again. I needed to pay attention to the meal, I decided as I began to help Tess chop vegetables at the table—we’d have ten at dinner tonight—but my mind strayed back to Joanna and her troubles.
Poor Sam. He worked hard to provide for Joanna and his four children, and uncomplainingly had taken in my daughter when I’d turned up on their doorstep with her nearly thirteen years ago. I’d been a wretched and terrified woman, sobbing in their parlor, my babe in my arms. Grace, always sensitive to atmosphere, had been crying as well.
Joanna, my dearest friend since we’d been tiny girls, had pulled me into her embrace and promised she’d do anything in the world for me and Grace. Sam had sat down with us and assured me that we could devise a way to keep Grace safe while I sought a position in a kitchen.
Their compassion brought tears to my eyes now, blurring the leeks I was slicing for a soup à la julienne.
“Mrs. H.?” Tess’s voice shook me from my thoughts. “How many slices of these potatoes do ye want? I’ve done about a thousand, I think.”
She exaggerated, but she did have a heaping pile of creamy white potatoes on the cutting board.
I brought myself back to the present. I needed to cook, not woolgather.
“That should be sufficient,” I said, trying to be my usual brisk self. “Now, I see you have some water simmering. Excellent.” I had instructed her that a pot of hot water must always be available on the stove, as it took too long to heat the water every time one wished to cook a vegetable. “We will boil those and then put them in a pan with butter, parsley, and a bit of leftover velouté sauce. Then we’ll heat that in the oven, season with lemon juice, and send it up with the roast.”
“Mmm.” Tess closed her eyes, savoring the dish in her mind. “What’s that called, then?”
“Potatoes à la maître d’hôtel,” I informed her. I’d also tear up winter greens for a salad and finish the meal with both a gâteau with orange liqueur sauce and a lemon tart. It was the season for citrus, which both ripened in hothouses and was brought in by ship from the world over.
“That’s a funny name,” Tess said about the potatoes. “What’s it got to do with a hotel?”
Usually, I had a lecture prepared to explain the origin of dishes, but today I hadn’t the fortitude. My worry about Sam was increasing as the kitchen filled with the sounds and scents of our cooking. I could stoutly proclaim Sam would never dream of stooping to theft, but the lofty men who ran his bank could make him take the blame no matter what.
What happened to Sam if he was shut up in a prison? What happened to Joanna and her children? To Grace?
“You all right, Mrs. H.?” Tess once more jerked me from my doleful contemplation.
“Yes, I am perfectly fine,” I said. There was no use in giving way. I’d have a good night sleep and make a start on the problem in the morning.
“It’s just that you’ve torn that lettuce into teeny little bits. No one will be able to lift that on a fork, try as they might.”
I looked down and saw that yes, my hands had shredded the pieces of dark green and red lettuce until they were nearly minced. I gathered them up and dropped them into the bowl of carrots Tess had already cut into matchsticks, following those with the leeks I’d chopped.
“I’ll put all this into the soup. A bit of lettuce gives it body. Now, cease gawping at me and put those potatoes on. They won’t cook themselves.”
Tess sent me an aggrieved look, not happy being admonished when she’d done nothing wrong. I tamped down on my anxiousness and tried to get on with the meal.
We made good headway, though I had to fold my lips to keep from snapping when Tess dropped a potato slice and spilled the salt. Not her fault my dearest friend’s world was crumbling and possibly taking mine with it.
Finally, the meal was finished, the platters loaded onto the dumbwaiter, which Tess cranked upward to the footmen in the dining room. The dishes weren’t much different from what I’d do for a family supper, though there was a larger quantity in each. Mrs. Bywater had invited several of her friends and their husbands to dine tonight. Lady Cynthia had been coerced into attending, which she’d promised to grit her teeth and bear.
Just before eight o’clock, when supper was to be served, Mrs. Redfern hastened into the kitchen, her heeled boots clicking in an agitated fashion.
“Mr. Davis still has not returned,” she announced. “The footmen are milling about in disorder and the wine hasn’t been opened or decanted. The master is not best pleased. Whatever are we to do, Mrs. Holloway?”
