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But there would be muffins.
seven
LOUISE
APRIL 13
“Right on my doorstep, I tell you!L’audace!”
Oh dear.Louise closed her eyes briefly, not in prayer, but to ward off an impending headache. She had hoped that Hamish, her handyman, was exaggerating when he’d broken his usual stoic silence to pass on a warning that Delphie was in “one of her moods.”
But it was clear as Louise marched toward the garden patch torn into her once-lovely lawn that that was too much to hope for.
Delphie gestured with sagging arms at Louise’s new gardener, while the object of her wrath protested, “I promise, ma’am, Miss Cavendish told me to expand the garden this way.”
“Don’t bear tales to me, young man.” Delphie’s strident voice had slipped into the thick French Canadian accent of her girlhood, the way it always did when she was upset. “I don’t know how you talked your way into her good graces, but I know Louise wouldn’t stand for this.”
Hurrying the last few steps to close the space between them, Louise positioned herself firmly between the two combatants: Mr. Keats, hands in a defensive posture and tools scattered at his feet; Delphie planted firmly on the edge of the ragged expansion.
“Would someone please explain what this is all about?”
Both flinched at her stern tone—how had she grown to sound so much like her father?
Delphie reluctantly tore herself away from the artillery-range glare she was leveling at poor Mr. Keats, her wrinkles bunching. “This young fool said you gave him leave to tear up the ground right next to my kitchen.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Keats’s mouth said, while the one eye visible outside of his eyepatch said—begged, rather—“Save me!”Poor fellow had likely never seen anything in aerial combat quite like Delphie Morine. If General MacArthur had the sense to enlist her, her scowl alone could drive a panzer line into full retreat.
Directness was the only course of action. “He’s telling the truth, Delphie. I did give orders to expand the garden based on the number of vegetables we intend to grow. You can look over the charts if you like.”
Delphie turned her scowl on Louise, but her tone descended from outrage to an offended grumble. “Couldn’t it push toward the road instead?”
“The trees lining the drive would block the sun,” she explained patiently.
Delphie crossed her arms, glancing between them, as if not sure anymore whom she should be angry with. “You could have at least asked.”
Ah.So that explained the pique of temper. In some ways, the ways that really mattered, she and Delphie were equals. But when it came down to decisions about the estate, well ... Louise was the Cavendish. The deed was in her name, the responsibility to govern it well in her hands.
“I’m sorry, but it’s what must be done.”
To his credit, Mr. Keats simply stood in respectful silence with perfect military posture, not a hint of gloating on his face. Then again, it never paid to upset the cook, who couldget her revenge in a hundred subtle ways. Dinner, Louise was sure, would be overdone tonight.
With a huff, Delphie’s shoulders slumped. “It’s too close to the house, mark my words. You’ll see.”
Mr. Keats stared after Delphie as she flounced away. “Is she always like that?” he said in a near whisper, as if the older woman might be listening from the kitchen window.
“Since my childhood at least.” In fact, either Delphie had mellowed with time, or Louise had just gotten used to her. “Once you’ve prepared the soil, Hamish will help build the fence and trellises.”
He squinted in confusion. “Trellises?”
Perhaps the young man was a bit slow. Then again, an encounter with Delphie could set anyone back a bit. “For the beans and other climbing vegetables.”
“Oh, sure. The kind they use for flowers.”
“I suppose. But there are to be no flowers.” Just in case he hadn’t read the note on her chart, though he seemed a thorough type—the army air forces didn’t turn out any others. “This is meant to be a functional kitchen garden, nothing more.”
“Nothing wrong with a little beauty, Miss Cavendish.” He winked with his good eye, and Louise might have been offended, except it seemed almost a reflex. So far, by her watchful count, he’d winked at her, Delphie, Hamish’s wife, the postman, and twice at Jeeves, for goodness’ sake. If anything, it called attention to the war injury that had removed him from the field of battle and sent him knocking at her front door, searching for work.
“I won’t give a cent toward frivolous plants that can’t be cooked or canned. You’ll have to take your beauty from the sky rather than the land.”
