Free The Storms of War by Kate Williams Page B

‘You are always so
clumsy
.’ She’d written two letters to Arthur so far, had them all sign both. She said Celia’s signature was wobbly.
    Celia fled to the kitchen. It was her second favourite part of the house, after the library. She loved the coolness of the white surfaces, the stone of the floor under her feet and the high glass jars full of sugar and flour. Sometimes Mrs Rolls would show her the recipes and give her scraps of cake mix or raw pastry. Not today. The kitchen was all activity. Ellie was sieving flour, and all around them were meat pies in stages of preparation. There were two empty pastry cases on the side, alongside a bowl of raw meat, chopped eggs and chopped parsley. Jennie and Sarah, the housemaids, were hunting for a tin, taking out piles from the cupboard, deep in conversation.
    Celia supposed her mother wanted one to play apple bobbing or some type of party game. Jennie she was most devoted to, tall and thin like a candle, with a pale face and a shock of yellow curly hair she could never control. She was like you had drawn her picture on a piece of paper and slotted it into a top and made it run very fast: she hurried everywhere, talked a thousand words a minute, did everything quickly. ‘More haste, less speed,’ Mrs Bell called after her, hopelessly, because Jennie was always rushing. Once Jennie had even fallen down the stairs, she had been so determined to dust them in double-quick time. Celia had come out from the parlour just as she fell, hands flailing, landing on thebottom step with a bump. ‘No harm done, miss!’ she called out, then leapt to her feet and hurried off. A ball, that was what she was, a yellow rubber ball that never stopped.
    ‘More pies? I cannot credit it.’ Mrs Rolls beat the pastry circle with her plump hands. ‘As if I don’t have enough to do. After all that fuss on Tuesday over French soup and ice stacks, and Sir Hugh returning my chicken almost untouched.’ Celia pulled herself up to perch on one of the surfaces, kicking at the morning light with her feet.
    ‘Mama worries when Sir Hugh comes.’
    ‘And now she is demanding enough for this party to feed the whole of Africa.’ The cook’s face was the plumpest of all, a big moon under her tight bun of brown hair streaked with grey. Celia wondered if cooks were ever thin. Mrs Rolls held up her hand and counted off. ‘Meat pies, plum cakes, hams, a pig’s head and apple tarts. That alongside the normal meals, and however many other visitors plan to descend.’
    ‘I could help,’ said Celia, thinking of red and amber jam tarts and plum cake mix.
    ‘You? Whatever next.’ Mrs Rolls brushed her face with a floury hand.
    ‘Someone’s after my job,’ said Ellie, smiling at Celia. ‘I could swap and marry an aristocrat like Miss Emmeline.’ She was a tiny girl from the village with red hair in a plait and bright green eyes – too pretty to be a kitchen maid, Mrs Rolls had complained when she first arrived.
    Mrs Rolls continued to beat her pastry circle. ‘Less of that, my girl.’
    ‘I might be good at chopping,’ pushed Celia.
    ‘I’m sure, miss. Get along with you now. Come back in half an hour or so and you can have the pastry ends.’
    ‘No one will play with me. Even Tom is too busy.’
    ‘Well,’ said Mrs Rolls, banging the pastry with her pin. ‘That is no bad thing, Miss Celia.’ She spoke carefully. ‘You are getting to be a young lady now, no need to play with boys.’
    ‘Tom and I have always played together.’
    ‘That’s what I mean.’
    ‘She
’d make sure you did,’ said Ellie.
    ‘Who do you mean?’ asked Celia.
    ‘Her,
you know. Madam Cotton,’ said Ellie.
‘Mrs,
oh yes.’
    ‘Ellie!’ Mrs Rolls brought down the rolling pin. ‘Stop that talk, right away. Get to those pans before I give you something proper to do.’
    Celia shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘I’m warning you, Ellie!’ called Mrs Rolls. ‘Miss de Witt, time for you to go back