Read Online 02 - Flight of Fancy by Evelyn James - Free Book Online

stoutly before her mistress.
    “Don’t go changing the subject,
had me all at sixes and sevens wondering where you were.”
    “Was Tommy worried?”
    “He fell asleep in the armchair
right after dinner, didn’t even know you were gone. Right fine man-of-the-house
he is. Now where did you go?”
    “To a gentleman’s club.”
    “Don’t be pulling my leg.”
    “I did Annie, and please do not
point at me. I went to see Colonel Brandt who is one of the witnesses in my
current case.”
    “And could it not have waited
until morning?”
    Clara gave Annie a long look.
    “No.” Sighed the maid, “Course
it couldn’t.”
    “If it satisfies you Annie I feel
no further forward for my evening expedition.”
    “Just in future, would you mind
remarking where you are going?” Annie relaxed, “Come on then, I’ll see if I can
rustle up some cocoa from the pantry.”
    Clara followed Annie into the
kitchen of her home. The Fitzgeralds had been reasonably well-off and the house
had once been thriving with servants. The kitchen remained a testimony to those
old days when Mr Fitzgerald had been alive and working tirelessly as a lecturer
on medical science. The room still had all its pine and oak units, big dressers
stacked with copper pots and delicately painted plates, a huge butler sink with
an old-fashioned pump standing over it and a massive range that helped warm the
house too. And then there was the large oak table in the centre of the room. So
well-scrubbed it was almost white, and grazed with countless scratches from
pots, plates, and knives.
    Clara loved that table. She
could recall how cook had stood with her arms up to the elbows in flour
kneading bread and pastry and letting Clara help. She had fond memories of
Christmas cake mixes being stirred by each household member (for luck) on that
table, and rows of jam tarts and gingerbread men being prepared for the local
fete. Cook had left them just before the war. Her son signed up and her
daughter-in-law nearly broke down in the High Street in distress, so cook went
to keep her company. Her son was killed a year later. The male servants of the
house also left to join up or help out in other ways if they were too old for military
service. By the time Clara’s parents were killed the house was running on three
maids, one of which doubled as an adequate cook. Clara dismissed them from
financial considerations not long after. For almost three years Clara rattled
about the house on her own and then Tommy came home a physical and mental wreck
and Annie entered her life as a desperately needed helper. She had never looked
back, but, just for a moment as she sat at the table, the memories of those old
years before the war washed over her. Bittersweet, but still her memories.
    “I had a speck or two of cocoa
left.” Annie grunted, opening a tin canister that had probably not been
refilled in four or five years, “It will be mostly milk, or I could stir in
some Bovril?”
    “No, indeed, I think I shall
stick with hot milk and a hint of cocoa.”
    Annie set the milk in a pan and
began carefully bringing it to the verge of boiling.
    “You would think by now they
could have the shops properly stocked.” She moaned, “It’s been two years since
the war, but Mr Higgins never has any cocoa, nor oranges. I used to love the
occasional orange, I would save up for one.”
    “At least we have the
essentials of life, butter, milk, cheese, eggs and meat no longer exists on a
first come first served basis. I missed butter during the war.”
    “My mam kept a goat, on a good
day she could save enough milk to churn. Oh, it didn’t always go right,
sometimes I would come home and find her crying over a lumpy mess that weren’t
butter, weren’t cheese and certainly weren’t edible. But when she did do it
right she could make a reasonable butter. She was quite proud of herself.”
    “And quite rightly Annie, who,
these days, has the skills to churn butter, or even knows