Chapter 12
The Cook
“The day has produced some effects however; has had some consequences which must be considered as the very reverse of frightful.”
Jane Austen, Persuasion
“Do you do a lot of this then?” Amelia asked George.
She was currently sitting with Alice’s tall, slender brother in a hired cab watching the front entrance of a newish terraced house in a quiet, tidy London neighborhood.
They’d kept the curtains almost entirely closed, and the windows up to avoid being seen, or overheard.
Unfortunately, one result of these precautions was that the tiny space was also mostly airless.
“A lot of sitting in cabs on sweltering summer evenings?” replied George. “Not as such.”
“I meant skulking about in front of private residences.”
“Not as much since I got married, but as a bachelor, I skulked with the best of ’em.”
“Odd, Alice never mentioned it.”
“Weeelll,” George drawled. “It’s not the sort of thing a chap talks about with his sister, really.”
Amelia grinned. She liked George. She’d been worried about how Alice’s brother would regard her, considering the nature of her relationship with Alice. But George had taken their situation in stride.
“Alice has every right to keep company how and with whom she chooses,” he had said. “And if anyone wants to argue the point, I recommend they take it up with Alice. I also recommend they alert their appointed heirs beforehand.”
But as much as Amelia liked him, and respected the skills he’d picked up in his years as a newspaperman, she was beginning to feel her patience wearing the tiniest bit thin.
It had been several hours since they had seen Miss Smith (or whoever she really was) disappear into the pretty row house across the way.
Since then the only sign of life from the house had been one of the servants going out with a basket to do a bit of late shopping.
“So, the plan is that we wait here until Miss Whoevershemightbe comes out again?” asked Amelia.
“It is,” replied George.
Amelia tapped her fingers restlessly against the carriage door handle. “What if I had a different idea?”
George cocked his head toward her. “That would depend on what it was.”
Amelia leaned forward. “How are you at playing a drunken layabout?”
Amelia stood on the street, consulting a little notebook and squinting at the house numbers, as if looking for a particular address.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the woman they’d watched leave Miss Smith’s house stumping up the street, her basket full to bursting with vegetables and parcels wrapped in brown paper.
George was there as well. But he was hanging off the area railing of the house next door, and singing.
“There were three drunken maidens!” George sang, or, rather, slurred. “Come from the Isle of Wight!”
As she passed George, the cook, as Amelia guessed she was, turned up her nose and quickened her step. George lurched into her wake.
“An’ they drank from Saturday morning!” he bawled. “Nor stopped for Saturday night!”
The cook hurried forward, and George broke into a staggering run to keep up. “When Saturday night came in, me boys, they would not then …!”
Amelia drew aside, but in the wrong direction. She collided with the cook, and then George crashed into them both. The cook shrieked and staggered. Her basket slipped off her arm, and the contents scattered all across the cobbles.
George roared with laughter. Amelia grabbed the basket.
“Get away with you!” She swung the basket at his head. “Souse! Roistering sot! Shame on you! Making trouble for honest women!”
“Hey! Hey! Stop tha’!” George drawled, but he also snatched the basket out of her hand and, dangling it high over her head, he half ran, half staggered off in the other direction.
“Oooo! Men!” cried Amelia, but she quickly turned back to the cook. “Are you all right?”
The woman was puffing and holding her sides. “Just about. Young rowdy! He’s lucky I didn’t get my hands on him, is all I have to say.”
“Here, let me help you with those things.” Amelia bent down and started gathering up packages. Soon, she had her arms full, and the woman was leading her down the stairs and through the door to the kitchen of Miss Smith’s row house.
“Put those down there, would you?” The woman indicated the broad work counter that ran down the center of the room. “Thank you so much, Miss …?”
“McGowan. Amelia McGowan.”
“Maggie Stokes,” the woman introduced herself.
“I’m cook here, as I’m sure you’ve sorted out by now.
Will you take a cup of tea by way of thank you?
There’s just time. Herself”—she jerked her chin toward the ceiling, indicating the young woman upstairs—“will be wanting supper early, as she’s going out tonight, and the girl’s got a bad tooth and gone to get it pulled, so I’ve no help at all today. Still, mustn’t grumble.”
Amelia settled herself on a stool, and worked hard to suppress her grin. Like most people who declared one “mustn’t grumble,” Mrs. Stokes did, in fact, grumble at length and was glad enough to have someone listen while she did.
She grumbled about the rudeness of young men as she picked over her packages, carrots, potatoes, swedes, and runner beans.
She grumbled about the prices at the market and the impossibility of finding anything truly fresh these days at the poulterers, about the general uselessness of all “girls” and not a few of the men, who worked on the staff with her, which left her to do all manner of chores that she wouldn’t have had to in a better managed house.
She also poured out a mug of tea so black it could have been coffee and pushed it toward Amelia.
“Is your lady the particular type?” Amelia blew on the tea to cool it. “Or is it that hard to find good help?”
This (as intended) set off a fresh round of grumbles.
This time mostly about how “too many” was “too proud” to even think of taking up a position in the household of a single woman, and that just because she was a single woman.
You might believe that beggars would think twice about being such choosers, times being what they were, but no, they just declared that their reputations would be spoiled and they would rather be out on the cobbles than do honest work in an honest house.
Mrs. Stokes further declared that she minded her own business, and as long as her wages were paid on time, she was grateful for a place. Times were never good for a woman getting on in years, and one had to think of the future.
“Is it that hard then?” prompted Amelia. “I’ve never been in service with a single lady.” Which was a lie, as she’d been in service with Miss Thorne, at least for a little while, but Mrs. Stokes didn’t need to know that.
“Much less trouble than a bachelor establishment if you ask me,” said Mrs. Stokes.
“Much more regular habits and much less riot. If she takes herself off like she does tonight, it just leaves me more time to do my work and have things all nice and ready for the morning, and I needn’t worry about her bringing a whole party back with her at last minute and turning the household on its head.
Now, I’ll say that Michaels—she’s the lady’s maid—she’s got more reason to grumble than some, but between you and me, Miss McGowan, she’s as much a gadabout as Miss herself, and so they suit each other perfectly well.
To my way of thinking, Michaels should count herself lucky to have this place.
She might find herself in a mischief in some other house.
” She nodded her head several times to emphasize that point.
“Where do they go?” asked Amelia, leaning forward, as if she was eager for the gossip. “The theater? Almack’s?”
“Phew! As if one of those snobs would let a lady on her own through their doors! And that just for the crime of being on her own.” Mrs. Stokes sniffed. “No. It’s Barron’s tonight, I heard Michaels say. And Olmstead’s afterward and then a late supper at Rule’s.”
Barron’s and Olmstead’s were both gaming clubs, Amelia knew, and Rule’s was a restaurant, one that didn’t normally admit women at all.
Mrs. Stokes insistence that this was a respectable house was suddenly looking a bit questionable.
But Amelia kept that observation to herself and finished her tea.
While she did, Mrs. Stokes moved about the kitchen, putting things away and continuing with her long list of things she felt she mustn’t grumble about.
“Well, I should be getting on,” Amelia said when her mug was empty. “Thanks ever so much for the tea, and good luck with the supper tonight.”
“Good luck to you, my girl, and if you’re ever in need of a good place for yourself, you come see Mrs. Stokes. I’m sure we can find something for you.”
Amelia hesitated for a single heartbeat. “You mean that, Mrs. Stokes?”
Mrs. Stokes looked hard at her. “You have experience?”
“I do. I been upstairs maid and lady’s maid. I can make a light, clean and mend, and do hair.”
“Where last?”
“Mrs. Charlotte Black,” she said promptly. “Only the family’s moving abroad, and I ain’t going to no foreign parts.”
“Good girl,” said Mrs. Stokes. She drummed her fingers on the counter. “All right. You come with me.”
“Where have you been!” cried George when Amelia climbed back into the cab.
“Getting a job in Miss Smith’s establishment,” she replied. The sight of George’s jaw dropping was positively heartwarming.
“As far as anyone in the household knows, I’m on my way home to get my kit and I’m to be back at seven tomorrow morning. Oh, and Miss Smith herself is going to be at Barron’s tonight,” said Amelia.
“You’re positively amazing.”
“I know,” replied Amelia calmly, and George laughed.
“You said Barron’s?” George pulled out his memorandum book and made a note. “That’s quite the destination for someone who’s still supposed to be in the schoolroom.”
“And quite the schoolgirl to have a whole establishment of her own, even if they are a little lax about checking up with references.” Amelia let him help her into the carriage. “Seems to me we might want to send word to Sanderson Faulks. He’s a member at Barron’s, isn’t he?”
“Faulks is a member everywhere,” said George. “It’s what makes him such a useful fellow to know.” He tucked his book away. “Let’s see if we can track him down, shall we?”