Netherwood (46 page)

‘They make hats there, Henry,’ said Isabella patiently. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

And even Lady Hoyland found herself overcoming her pique and laughing.

Veal-and-ham pies, steak puddings, scotch eggs, drop scones, raspberry jam tarts and lemon pancakes. This was Eve’s menu for Tuesday evening, and nothing on it would be bigger than bite-sized. While still in Netherwood, she had taken the trouble to write it down and present it to the countess for her approval – the proper way of things, she thought, in grand households. Lady Hoyland had trilled gaily and made a rather fatuous
comment about the fun of serving food for the poor to her titled friends, and Eve had taken her leave feeling immensely relieved that Amos hadn’t been in the room to hear her.

Since she had first devised the tiny portions for the countess at the opening of the mill, she had fine-tuned the process of making them, getting herself organised with a battery of special equipment which gave her the consistency she sought. She had had the inspired idea to visit the forge at New Mill pit yard, where she’d talked the blacksmith into a bit of freelance work on her behalf. Anna had made a set of drawings to show what they were after: cast iron trays with indentations for pies and puddings, but in miniature. The smith had obliged, producing twelve custom-made baking trays, some of them with rounded hollows for sweet tarts and pies, others with flat-bottomed indentations and traditional sloping sides. He made a set of high-sided cast-iron rings too, just an inch and a half in diameter, and she used these to stop the pancake batter and the drop scones running in the pan. The raised pies she still made entirely by hand, as the slight irregularities gave them charm, but she had a set of twenty-four china thimbles in which she made the daintiest suet puddings known to womankind. They were large for thimbles, but tiny for pudding bowls, so pressing the crust inside them could only be done with her little finger, and even that was a squeeze.

She came back down to the kitchens wondering what sort of reception she might face now that the Hoylands had practically welcomed her as a member of the family. In fact, for a while, there was no reception at all; backs were still turned as she made her way through the main kitchen, facial expressions still set somewhere between neutral and hostile. Mrs Carmichael was nowhere to be seen, although the family’s meal was in the final stages of preparation so Eve assumed she would be making an appearance soon enough.

Still, it mattered not a whit to Eve. She had her thoughts
for company, and plenty to be getting on with, so she settled herself at her station and began to rub butter into a mix of flour and finely ground sugar to make a sweet paste for the jam tarts. The beaten yolks of two eggs stood at hand, ready to be judiciously added when the time was right. She wanted a very short texture, so that the pastry was no less of an event than the raspberry filling. It was all accomplished lightly and expeditiously, her cool fingers working the alchemy required to turn these few ingredients into something other.

‘There wouldn’t be half so many failures at the pastry table if greater care was taken over the making of it.’

Eve turned to see Mrs Carmichael in the open doorway. What a peculiar thing to say, she thought. She wondered if the cook had intended a compliment, but was so out of the habit of being pleasant that it came out as an admonishment.

‘Well,’ Eve said carefully, ‘t’same could probably be said about most things in life, don’t you think?’

Mrs Carmichael nodded thoughtfully. She seemed to struggle for a moment, her mouth working soundlessly as she tried to frame her next sentence. ‘I believe,’ she said, with some effort, ‘that I misjudged this situation.’

‘Oh?’ said Eve. ‘Really? In what way?’

‘Well. If perhaps it had been clearer that you were only here for a brief period and for a very particular reason …’

She petered out, looking somehow smaller than when Eve had first encountered her. The silence between them grew, and the cook spoke again.

‘I bear you no ill-will, Mrs Williams,’ she said. No, thought Eve, not now you’ve seen how things stand upstairs. ‘And I hope we can be friendly.’

‘Mrs Carmichael,’ said Eve. ‘I don’t think we can be friends, as a matter of fact, but there’s no call to be enemies either. I can see I’ve risen in your eyes today, and I think we both know why. You jumped to conclusions about me that were entirely
wrong, and only now, when you see that t’family ’old me in esteem, do you trouble yourself to find out why I’m ’ere.’

Her voice was even and pleasant and caused no stir in the room next door. She had no desire to humiliate, simply to speak the truth, but it was supremely satisfying to be able to do so. Mrs Carmichael looked displeased; the conversation had not gone as she’d intended. She had hoped to bestow her approval on Eve’s appointment and had assumed Eve would be glad of it. But there was no arguing with the facts.

‘Anyroad,’ said Eve, falling into Netherwood colloquialisms in the thrill of the moment, ‘if you don’t mind, I’ve work to be gettin’ on wi’. Fairy pies,’ she added mischievously, purely to baffle.

‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Carmichael. ‘Indeed. And luncheon to be prepared.’

She retreated into the main kitchen.

‘Dinner,’ said Eve, far too quietly for anyone to hear.

Then she turned back to the preferred company of her perfect pastry.

Later that day, when she’d done all she reasonably could for tomorrow, she took herself off to the courtyard to find Samuel Stallibrass. She’d had an idea and one that Anna, were she here to tell, would approve of enormously. This time Samuel was easily found, sitting on a three-legged stool in the sunshine, smoking a pipe and polishing a stirrup iron.

He looked up as she approached, and beamed. ‘Well, well,’ he said, talking around the obstruction of his pipe. ‘You look happier than when I last saw you.’

‘I think that’s safe to say,’ said Eve.

He leaned in and pretended to study her expression. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I think it is too.’

‘Shouldn’t one of t’stable lads be doing that?’ she said, nodding down at the stirrup and rag in his hands.

‘They already have,’ he said. ‘And a poor job they made of it too. How’re you getting on with Beryl?’

‘Beryl?’ Eve had no idea who he meant.

‘Mrs Carmichael. Cook.’

‘She thought I was after ’er job—’

‘So she was nasty to you?’

‘Yes. Then she saw Lady ’oyland greetin’ me like a long-lost relative—’

‘And now she’s changed her tune. It’s just like Beryl Carmichael, that. Judges a person by how much other people esteem them.’

Eve nodded. ‘She sent me some ’elp this afternoon though. Young lass called Molly or Polly or summat. Sound of ’er own voice startles ’er, so I couldn’t quite catch what she said.’

Samuel laughed. ‘She’ll soon learn to speak up. It’s the survival of the fittest down in that kitchen, dog eat dog. Give me an outdoor life any day.’

‘Never a truer word spoken,’ said Daniel, who had appeared through the wide stone arch that led to the garden. A brief flash of pleasure lit Eve’s features, which she snuffed out immediately, replacing it with a casual smile, though not before Samuel had spotted it. Aye aye, he thought, could be trouble, though if she’s free from obligation in Netherwood she could do worse.

‘Eve,’ said Daniel.

She looked at him.

‘Will you come and sit in the garden for a while?’

This was bold, and she flushed a little. ‘I just wanted to ask a favour of Mr Stallibrass,’ she said.

‘Is that so?’ Samuel said, taking out his pipe at last. ‘And what is it?’

‘I’d like to go back to that shop you showed me. Fortnum …’

‘And Mason. Would you indeed? Spending your money on canned exotics, are you?’

‘No,’ she said, wishing she wasn’t saying this with an audience. ‘I wanted to put a, well, a …’ – she wondered how Anna would phrase it – ‘a business proposition to them.’

Samuel hooted with laughter at this, but Daniel didn’t. He said, ‘I’ll take you. We can walk from here.’

‘Can we? Would you?’ said Eve.

‘Yes we can, and yes I would,’ he said. ‘Come and sit in the garden for five minutes. Tell me about your proposition.’

So she did, casting an apologetic backwards glance at Samuel, who shrugged as if to say, that’s life, and waved her on her way. She’d wanted to see Daniel anyway and had intended to seek him out in the garden after talking to Samuel. She had something for him, wrapped in a linen cloth in the pocket of her apron.

‘I wanted to give you this,’ she said, taking it out as soon as they were seated. ‘To say thank you for t’lily of t’valley. That was such a kindness, sending them to my room. I could smell them as soon as I opened t’door.’

‘Plenty more where they came from,’ he said. ‘You can have them every day, my lady. Well, until they’re finished.’

She laughed.

‘I’m a gardener, not a worker of miracles,’ he said. ‘So, what’s this?’ He took the proffered parcel.

‘A pie,’ she said, and smiled, because it sounded so prosaic. ‘A fairy pie.’

He opened it with careful fingers, and lifted out the perfect little veal-and-ham pie, holding it delicately between thumb and index finger.

‘Did you shrink it?’ he said.

She laughed again. ‘It was never big,’ she said. ‘I make ’em like that for Lady ’oyland.’

‘That’s just beautiful,’ he said, turning it all angles. ‘Look
at it. We should leave it under the trees at the bottom of the garden for the little folk.’

‘Eat it,’ she said.

He grinned at her and put it in his mouth, chewed a few times and swallowed.

‘My oh my,’ he said. ‘Pie heaven.’

T
he afternoon shift at the Netherwood collieries started at half-past one, and many of the men preferred it to days or nights. There was a leisurely start to the day, a spot of dinner at your own kitchen table and a clocking-off time that, if you moved sharpish, left enough time for a jar at the local. Generally the shift rota was a straightforward alternation between the three: afternoons, days, nights, in an endless cycle. Occasionally, if you were lucky, there’d be a swap with another man who preferred a night shift, or who was laid off with sickness or injury. A two-week run of afternoons almost passed for a holiday, in a life where holidays didn’t exist.

Amos, though, was contrary. He would always choose days or nights over afternoons. Days got the shift over with, left you free to grow vegetables, swing a pummel at a knur or waste your money at the dog track; nights were the same. But afternoons hung over you like a threat from the moment you woke, tarnishing your free time with its inexorable approach. You had to watch the clock, on afternoons. You were a slave to the march of time.

This is what Amos thought, anyway. He had spent this Tuesday morning in the allotment, hoeing weeds in the spring
sunshine, breaking off every so often to have a look at his fob watch. His cap and jacket were hanging on the handle of a spade, and his snap tin and dudley were balanced on the walls. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves, but it was hot work, and when Percy Medlicott turned up, he paused by the gate and said, ‘That’s a right muck lather tha workin’ up, Amos.’