Magic and Miracles, page 68
A muscle worked in Mrs. Butter’s square jaw as she came back to the preparation table. “Is that meringue ready yet, Maggie? I need to sweat it in the oven.”
It wasn’t even close and Maggie reattacked the white substance with vigor. “It’s coming along, Mrs. Butters.”
“Well, get a move on!” Something her ladyship had said must have further soured the cook’s mood.
“Let me make you a nice cup of tea,” said Gwen sweetly. It was in no one’s interest if the cook was irritable.
“Tea? Tea? You think I have time for tea? Her ladyship has asked for Vichyssoise and beef Wellington. I’ll need to roast at least two for that many people. And canapés with drinks! She must think I’m a miracle worker.”
“Oh, but you are,” soothed Gwen.
And we are here to make everything, thought Maggie.
As Mrs. Butters flapped her arms, sighing and blustering, Gwen got out the lard and flour and sent Lilly to the larder for two beef roasts.
“Maggie, you make the canapés when you’re done with that and remember not to use any of the shellfish,” directed Gwen. She was five years older and had plenty of apprentice years under her belt. Having just got engaged, the staff was sure it would not be long until she went to work in the same house as her fiancé or searched for her own kitchen to manage.
“Sliced baguettes with stilton and curled cucumber?” Maggie asked.
“Perfect,” Gwen replied. “And perhaps some puff pastry for vol au vents. I have some in the cold storage from Monday that will do nicely.”
While everyone’s attention was elsewhere, Maggie snatched a prawn and put it in the pocket of her apron. She would cook it up later while no one was looking, then eat it cold in her room.
When Lilly returned with two plump red roasts, Maggie whispered, “I wonder who these people are, anyway?”
“Clive says it’s the Duke and Duchess of Lampshire.” Clive was a gangly, third year footman. “He saw the crest on their luggage as he helped them in from their cars.”
“Ooh! No wonder Lady Farrow is being so accommodating. A few steps up from our usual guests.”
“And they must actually like each other,” declared Lilly, “as they have six children!”
Most aristocratic marriages were still arranged by parents seeking wealth or power. They took little account of the feelings of the parties involved. Such marriages produced one, perhaps two children at most. Six children could only mean what Lilly theorized—the couple were genuinely fond of each other.
“What else did Clive say?”
“One of the children is married. They have two young children that Nanny has to guard in the nursery.”
Maggie frowned. Nanny was not known for being particularly flexible. Having reared the Fellow’s children, she was paid a retainer to be on hand for any visiting grandchildren or young guests.
“One of the young ladies has a fiancé, two other young ladies are unmarried, and two bachelor brothers,” continued Lilly as she cut the lard into cubes with a sharp knife. “It’s a large party.”
“I know it’s a lot of work, but I love it when this big, old house is full,” said Maggie.
Lilly’s eyes gleamed. “Me too.”
Though Lilly often tried to get the upper hand, she and Maggie remained best friends and made it a habit to sneak up the servants’ stairs when there were guests in residence, to gawp at the fancy dresses and jewelry.
“Should be lots to see tonight,” whispered Maggie.
2
“What’s that smell?” asked Lilly, nose wrinkled, her chin digging into Maggie’s back.
“Nothing,” replied Maggie, the stolen prawn burning a hole in her apron.
Noses pressed to the small gap in the servants’ door. The two kitchen maids hid themselves from view, watching for the great ladies to descend for dinner. Mrs. Butters was under the impression they were collecting brussel sprouts and carrots from the larder.
An older lady stepped into their line of vision with an unfaltering step and rigid back. Pince-nez perched on the end of her pointed nose as she read from a card.
She stopped abruptly and a plump man almost bumped into the back of her.
“Look at this, Charles,” she said, waving the card in front of her sharp, intelligent face, framed with steel gray hair that was shaped in the Edwardian bouffant style. The husband, shorter than his wife by a good two inches, leaned over a prominent paunch. “What is it, Mary, dear?”
The duchess’s expensive clothes reflected the fashion fumes of yesteryear. “An invitation from Anna Novikov for an at-home. Who do they think they are? A mere two generations ago her great grandfather was digging for coal in Russia.”
Her husband’s bushy, white brows met in an exaggerated ‘v’. “Shocking. Of course, you won’t go.” They passed out of the line of vision and into the drawing room.
Two more long minutes ticked by with no one else venturing into the vestibule.
“We’d better go,” murmured Lilly.
“Just one more min—”
A tall, young woman on the arm of a dashing young man stepped off the main staircase. Maggie had never seen eyes so green. The couple looked around. Then he pulled the girl into his arms, planting on her the most passionate kiss Maggie had ever seen that was not on a silver screen.
Her stomach squeezed with delight.
Voices above the couple floated to the floor, forcing them to pull apart.
“I can’t wait to be married, Juliette,” gasped the man in a surprisingly breathy tenor.
“Me neither, Theo.” Juliette smoothed her midnight blue dress and plumped her yellow hair before moving out of the line of sight.
Lilly pulled Maggie’s sleeve. “Come on!”
“You go,” said Maggie. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Hmmph!”
Maggie waved Lilly away.
An ethereal beauty dressed in a beaded off-white and silver gown hurried across the marble floor, her hand in a crystal-encrusted clutch bag. She headed into the drawing room as the oak grandfather clock struck the hour. A nagging urgency to leave overcame Maggie, but she overruled the emotion.
Two stylish young men were next, each dressed in dapper dinner suits, not a hair out of place.
“Where is Jules?” one of them asked.
“Down already, I think,” said the other, turning to leave and accidentally locking eyes with a shocked Maggie.
He winked.
“Oh!” She pulled the door closer until their footsteps retreated. She really must be getting back to the kitchen.
“Oliver!” The new voice was testy and tart. Maggie crept forward again to behold a tiny woman in a black and white frock with a matching bandeau. The girl pouted with full, red lips. “Oliver, wait for me!”
Sudden thunder on the servants’ stairs jolted Maggie.
“If I come up there and find you…” came the discordant strains of Mrs. Butters.
Bloomin’ badgers! Maggie mindlessly grasped the amulet.
Immediately spinning, crushed in time and space, the necklace worked a totally new, terrifying kind of magic. Just when Maggie thought she could take no more, her body stopped sharply, her stomach wobbling. Up until now, the amulet had only moved walls and fences.
Carefully opening her eyes, she saw nothing but black. What had happened? Was she blind? Wiggling her fingers, she met resistance. What on earth? Moving her knee was impossible. She was trapped, but by what? The unwelcome stirrings of claustrophobia grabbed her by the throat. Concentrate! Pushing onto tiptoes, her eyes found a sliver of light through which she could see the door to the drawing room and the edge of the grandfather clock.
Flippin’ ferrets! She was inside the decorative suit of armor! How ever would she get out?
A perfectly patrician nose came into view. The handsome man stopped to check his pocket watch against the grandfather clock, long enough for Maggie to briefly forget her current predicament and admire his sharp chin and jawline. He could be in the pictures.
“James,” called a distinctly feminine voice from above, which caused the gentleman to look up.
His smile slipped. “Darling! I thought you were still taking a nap.” He waited while Maggie watched in fascination. Eventually a plump, rosy-cheeked cherub joined him.
“Thank you for waiting,” she said breathlessly, pulling on the golden gloves that matched a hideous frock of the same color.
“A man must wait for his wife, Diana.” He offered his elbow and the pair headed for the drawing room.
Maggie counted the people she had seen in her head. “That’s all of them. Now, how am I going to get out of this pickle?” She tried to move her arm to clasp the amulet. Nibblin’ newts! The metallic prison pinned her arms firmly to her sides.
Beads of sweat burst out across her forehead. She was in a real jam. Putting all her strength into it, she inched her arm up. Creak. The suit of armor rocked slightly. Taking a deep breath, she rocked from side to side. Her efforts caused the armor to gain momentum. Crash! Landing hard on her side, she knew the noise would bring the party out to the foyer and she would be discovered.
And dismissed.
Realizing that the back of the armor had come loose in the fall, she slipped her arm out and up as the doors to the drawing room burst open. Reaching for the amulet, she felt herself spinning again until she jerked to a stop.
The servants’ lavatory.
Taking a moment to recover, she rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a paring knife and slashed an ‘x’ into the bottom of a brussel sprout.
Her arms throbbed.
“Where did you come from?” asked Lilly.
“Maggie!” boomed Mrs. Butters from the servants’ stairs.
“She’s in here,” called Gwen, who had just returned from the cold storage with a large jug of cream.
“What the blazes!” cried Mrs. Butters, appearing harassed at the kitchen door. Pointing a finger at Maggie, she cried, “How did you get past me? I know you were up there.”
Maggie arranged her face into angelic innocence. “I was in the lavatory. I told you earlier, something I ate didn’t agree with me.”
Mrs. Butters narrowed beady eyes. “If I find out you’re lying to me, I swear…”
3
Once the servants ate and cleaned away their dinner, Maggie prepared the vegetables for upstairs, wrapped the beef Wellingtons, and placed them in the oven. Once finished, it was time to beat the cream that Gwen had brought out for the pavlova. Maggie’s arms still ached from beating the egg whites and smarted from her fall.
“I’m going to my room for some tea,” announced Mrs. Butters. “Dinner is being served upstairs at eight. No shortcuts!” She cast an evil eye at Maggie and disappeared.
“How did you do it?” asked Lilly.
“What?” replied Maggie.
“There’s nowhere to go but down those stairs. How did you get past Mrs. Butters?”
Maggie caressed the amulet necklace and Lilly fixed her eyes on it.
“I thought that necklace just got you out of danger and scrapes by moving fences and walls,” whispered Lilly.
“Me too, but…” she looked around to make sure no one could hear. “Something new happened. As I touched the amulet, I started spinning and ended up in the suit of armor in the grand foyer.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. Did you not hear a crash?”
“No, but there’s a lot of noise down here.”
“Well, I couldn’t get out of it and I was itchy with claustrophobia.” Maggie explained how she had rocked and knocked the whole thing over. “It brought everyone rushing out of the drawing room. But the fall had loosened the back and I managed to reach my hand up and clasp the necklace. That’s when I ended up in the lav.”
The amulet was an aqua green crystal, encased in delicate bronze, crafted like creeping ivy. It was a precious family heirloom, handed down for over three hundred years. Legend had it that a distant Irish ancestor had married a woman who turned out to be a white witch. She had created the necklace for her only daughter to protect her from the evil men who abounded in Ireland in those days. She had blessed it to remove the wearer from danger.
Her mother claimed it had served Maggie’s family well over the centuries and before her death, she had entrusted it to Maggie with a warning. Maggie hadn’t really believed the spell surrounding the amulet, but the first time she touched it after falling through a ditch on the moors and dropping into a dark cave, it had provided a ladder for her escape.
Since then, she had worn it night and day.
“Don’t ever abuse the power,” her mother had cautioned as she lay dying of influenza. “If it senses you are not in real danger, it may stop working forever. Don’t risk it, love.”
The magic of the necklace did not cure sickness or conjure up gold, but this was the first time it had transported Maggie to another place entirely.
“The lav!” Maggie motioned for Lilly to keep her voice low. “Did you see any more dresses?” Lilly’s eyes had taken on a dreamy aspect.
“You should have stayed. There were some corkers.”
“Not everyone has a magic necklace,” Lilly whispered with a quirked brow.
“Is everything ready for upstairs?” bellowed the cook, emerging from her small room.
“Yes, Mrs. Butters,” replied Gwen. “The beef Wellington is in the oven and all the vegetables are simmering. Maggie did a fine job with the canapés.”
“Hmpph.” Ever since learning that Gwen, her star pupil, was probably leaving, the head cook could barely praise her protégée at all.
Though praise in the kitchen was scant in general, the one thing Maggie did like about working in a big house was that you never went hungry. She spent many days as a child, her stomach gnawing for want of food. Her mother had borne seven children. Maggie was the only daughter, and her father’s work in the mines was sporadic at best. Mrs. Malone did her best with what little she had, but with nine mouths to feed, they rarely had three squares a day. In contrast, in the three years Maggie had worked at Longfellow Hall, she had needed to be fitted for three new uniforms.
“Right!” declared Mrs. Butters, retying her apron. “Let’s get busy!”
The clock showed seven thirty. Maggie arranged the canapés on a delicate platter and handed it to Harry, one of the footmen, who winked as he took it with white-gloved hands. Maggie suppressed a shudder. She found Harry’s features too big for his face, but he had been showing increased interest in her over the last few months.
Lilly tipped her head with a grin. “Do I hear wedding bells?”
Maggie threw a tea towel at her.
“Miss Malone!” roared the cook. “If you have no work to do, I am sure I can find some waste the pigs would enjoy.”
This was Mrs. Butter’s favorite punishment—feeding the pigs. Just the idea of the smell made Maggie nauseous.
“Where are those carrots julienne?” she demanded.
“Right here, Mrs. Butters,” Maggie called.
Before they knew it, the footmen were down with empty platters and Maggie loaded up the next trays with soups while Gwen removed the beef Wellington to rest before Mr. Moody, the butler, took it upstairs.
With no time to waste, Maggie and Lilly chopped peaches and strawberries for the pavlova, which had been sweating in the oven for the last four hours, as the footmen ran up and down the stairs.
As the girls were fanning the fruit across the top of the whipped cream, Harry thundered back down the stairs, his face taut and red as the strawberries. “Call a doctor! Call a doctor! One of the ladies has taken ill.”
Gwen ran to the butler’s parlor to call the doctor while the color drained from Mrs. Butters’ round face. “What happened?”
“It were something she ate,” Harry replied. “She was clutching her throat and gasping for breath.”
Mrs. Butters fainted into a heap on the kitchen floor.
4
The butler entered the kitchen like a man awaiting execution. “The doctor has been called, Mr. Moody. He’s on his way,” explained Gwen as she and the housekeeper, Mrs. Hearthstone, placed a folded towel under Mrs. Butters’ head.
Nodding, he wandered into his office. Maggie was sure he was off to take a snort of brandy.
“Lilly, grab the smelling salts,” demanded Mrs. Hearthstone.
Gwen held the salts under Mrs. Butters’ nose. A jerk of the head in protest and the cook’s eyes snapped open, full of confusion.
“What happened?” She reached to touch the back of her head.
“You had a shock,” said Gwen. “Does your head hurt?”
The cook winced. “Yes.”
“Maggie, fetch a cold cloth. Let’s get you up into a chair. Lilly, pour Mrs. Butters some tea with extra sugar.” There was always a steeping pot of tea under a cozy.
Maggie did as she was bid and watched the cook’s expression with concern, a witness to the moment when remembrance of the cause for the cook’s angst returned. Mrs. Butters put a hand to her wrinkled forehead. “They’ll blame me,” she wailed. “Then where will I go? The poor house. That’s the only place for a lost soul like me.”
Amongst other disagreeable traits, Mrs. Butters was cursed with a penchant for the dramatic. Like the time they saw a mouse in the larder and she declared that every item of food in the kitchens would have to be given to the pigs.
“There, there,” soothed the housekeeper. “We don’t even know what caused the illness yet. Could be a bad case of indigestion.”
“Poison!” bellowed Mr. Moody, his usual sense of decorum thrown to the wind, running through the kitchens like a prophet of doom. “They think it’s poison! And she’s dead!”
Dead?
“Ohhhhh!” yowled Mrs. Butters, head to the table.
“Mr. Moody!” shouted Mrs. Hearthstone above the general din. “Please calm yourself! You must set an example.” Her eyes pierced his and Maggie wondered that he didn’t burst into flames.
