‘Something so exciting. Dear Julia Travers’s daughter, Claudia—my god-daughter, you know—is coming to stay for a week. Such a dear girl, and so pretty. It’s all rather sudden.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘But I’m doing my best to plan a pleasant stay for her. I’ve arranged a dinner party for Wednesday evening—just a few friends, and you, of course. Do say that you can come…eight o’clock. Black tie.’
Mr Tait-Bouverie listened to this patiently for he was a patient man. A list of possible excuses ran through his head but he discarded them. He didn’t want to go, but on the other hand a drive down to Thame in the middle of the week would make a pleasant break.
‘Provided there is no emergency to keep me here, I’ll accept with pleasure,’ he told her. ‘I may need to leave directly after dinner, though.’
‘Splendid. I’m sure it will be a delightful evening.’
He thought it unlikely. His aunt’s friends weren’t his, and the evening would be taken up with time-wasting chat, but the drive back to London in the evening would compensate for that.
Lady Cowder talked for another five minutes and he put down the phone with an air of relief. A few minutes later he let himself out of his house with Prince and set off on his evening walk, Wednesday’s dinner party already dismissed from his mind. He had several cases for operation lined up for the week and he wanted to mull them over at his leisure. Much later he went to his bed to sleep the sleep of a man whose day had gone well.
Kate, going to her bed, reflected that her day hadn’t gone well at all. After she had given Lady Cowder her lunch and eaten a hasty snack herself, she’d got into the car and driven to Thame, where she’d spent an hour or more shopping for the elaborate food decided upon for the dinner party. When she got home she had been summoned once more—dear Claudia, she was told, would arrive before lunch on the following day, so that meal must be something special, and Kate was to make sure that there was a variety of cakes for tea. Moreover, dinner must be something extra special too.
Unlike Mr Tait-Bouverie’s, Kate’s day had not gone well.
Claudia arrived mid-morning, driving her scarlet Mini. She was small and slender and pretty—a chocolate-box prettiness—with china-blue eyes, a pert nose, pouting mouth and an abundance of fair curls. She looked helpless but Kate, carrying in her luggage, reflected that she seemed as hard as nails under that smiling face. She had wasted no time on Kate, but had pushed past her to embrace Lady Cowder with little cries of joy which made Kate feel quite sick.
Kate took the bags up to the guest room, fetched the coffee tray and retired to the kitchen where Mrs Pickett was cleaning vegetables.
‘Pretty as a picture,’ she observed. ‘Like a fairy. And such lovely clothes, too. She won’t stay single long, I’ll warrant you.’
Kate said, ‘Probably not,’ adding silently that Claudia would stay single just as long as it took her to find a man with a great deal of money who was prepared to let her have her own way, and indulge every whim. And if I can see that in five minutes, she thought, why can’t a man?
Her feelings, she decided, mustn’t get in the way of her culinary art. She presented a delicious lunch and forbore from uttering a word when she handed Claudia the new potato salad and had it thrust back into her hands.
‘I couldn’t possibly eat those,’ cried Claudia. ‘Vegetables which have been smothered in some sauce or other; it’s a sure sign that they’ve been poorly cooked and need disguising.’
Lady Cowder, who had taken a large helping, looked taken aback. ‘Oh, dear, you don’t care for devilled potatoes? Kate, fetch some plain boiled ones for Miss Travers.’
‘There aren’t any,’ said Kate. ‘I can boil some, but they will take at least twenty minutes…’
‘Well, really… You should have thought of it, Kate.’
‘If Miss Travers will give me a list of what she dislikes and likes I can cook accordingly.’
Kate sounded so polite that Lady Cowder hesitated to do more than murmur, ‘Perhaps that would be best.’
When Kate had left the room Claudia said, ‘What an impertinent young woman. Why don’t you dismiss her?’
‘My dear, if you knew how difficult it is to get anyone to work for one these days… All the good cooks work in town, where they can earn twice as much. Kate is a good cook, and I must say she runs the house very well. Besides, she lives locally with a widowed mother and needs to stay close to her home.’
Claudia sniggered. ‘Oh, well, I suppose she’s better than nothing. She looks like a prim old maid.’
Kate, coming in with home-made meringue nests well-filled with strawberries, heard that. It would be nice, she thought, serving the meringues with an impassive face, to put a dead rat in the girl’s bed…
Claudia Travers wasn’t the easiest of guests. She needed a warm drink when she went to her room at night, a special herb tea upon waking, a variety of yoghurts for breakfast, and coddled eggs and whole-meal bread—all of which Kate provided, receiving no word of thanks for doing so. Claudia, treating her hostess with girlish charm, wasted none of it on Kate.
Lady Cowder took her god-daughter out to lunch the next day, which meant that Kate had the time to start preparing for the dinner party that evening. She was still smarting from her disappointment over her half-day off. No mention had been made of another one in its place, and over breakfast she had heard Claudia observing that she might stay over the weekend—so that would mean no day off on Sunday, either.
Kate, thoroughly put out, started to trim watercress for the soup. There was to be roast duck with sauce Bigarade, and Lady Cowder wanted raspberry sorbets served after the duck. For vegetables she had chosen braised chicory with orange, petits pois and a purée of carrots; furthermore, Kate had been told to make chocolate orange creams, caramel creams and a strawberry cheesecake.
She had more than enough to get on with. The menu was too elaborate, she considered, and there was far too much orange…but her mild suggestion that something else be substituted for the chocolate orange creams had been ignored.
After lunch she started on the cakes for tea. Claudia had refused the chocolate sponge and the small scones Kate had offered on the previous day, so today she made a madeira cake and a jam sponge and, while they were baking, made herself a pot of tea and sat down to drink it.
As soon as Claudia left, she would ask for her day and a half off and go home and do nothing. She enjoyed cooking, but not when everything she cooked was either criticised or rejected. Claudia, she reflected crossly, was a thoroughly nasty young woman.
The cold salmon and salad that she had served for dinner the previous evening had been pecked at, and when Lady Cowder had urged her guest to try and eat something, Claudia had smiled wistfully and said that she had always been very delicate.
Kate had said nothing—but in the kitchen, with no one but the kitchen cat to hear her, she’d allowed her feelings to erupt.
Sally, Mrs Pickett’s niece, arrived later in the afternoon. She was a strapping young girl with a cheerful face and, to Kate’s relief, a happy disposition. She served tea while Kate got on with her cooking, and then joined her in the kitchen. Mrs Pickett was there too, clearing away bowls and cooking utensils, making endless pots of tea, laying out the tableware and the silver and glass.
Kate, with the duck safely dealt with and dinner almost ready, went to the dining room and found that Sally had set the table very correctly. There was a low bowl of roses at its centre, with candelabra on either side of it, and the silver glass gleamed.
‘That’s a marvellous job,’ said Kate. ‘You’ve made it look splendid. Now, when they have all sat down I’ll serve the soup from the sideboard and you take it round. I’ll have to go back to the kitchen to see to the duck while you clear the dishes and fetch the hot plates and the vegetables. I’ll