Free The Snow Globe by Judith Kinghorn Page B

the intermittent whirring of the new refrigerator in the scullery. Not that she was at all sure of that, mind you. In fact, she had only just sat back down from checking on it, staring at it from the safe distance of the scullery doorway, when it had started its strange juddering again and given her a fright. Well, they’d managed for enough years without one, and the use of electricity to keep food cold didn’t make much sense to her; an unnecessary expense, in her opinion. But folk seemed caught up with newfangled gadgets these days, and they were advertised all over the place, even in
True Love-Stories
.
Fair enough,
she had said to Mr. Jessop,
if you
have that much money to burn,
and he had agreed with her, had nodded—in that way he always did.
    Hopefully no one would ever suggest replacing the range, she thought, glancing to its blackened facade. Three sturdy doors—two eyes and a nose—looked back at her beseechingly, like a familiar old face threatened with extinction. It would be over
her
dead body. Nobody in their right mind would cook with electricity. She certainly would not. And yet, it seemed to her as though the world wouldn’t stop until it had changed
everything
. And for no need. More money than sense, she sometimes thought, because you could buy almost anything these days, even ice cream. She preferred her own, using the old wooden ice cream maker, where you put thechopped ice into the outer bowl and the cream, sugar and other ingredients in the inner bowl and then turned the handle, slowly, over and over, until the cream was gelled—the way she had been taught all those years ago.
    Mrs. Jessop’s thoughts continued to drift. Plagued by nostalgia, she more than hankered for the past. It was to her like the iridescent tip of a dragonfly’s wing hovering in the long, sultry summer of her memory. She wished with all of her heart to be back in that place, to feel the warmth of the sun on the back of her young neck once more, to catch a glimpse of
him
once more.
    â€œMichael,” she whispered.
    One of the reasons she liked to be alone in the kitchen at this time of night was so she could think about him and sometimes say his name out loud. Everybody liked to do their thinking in private; it was the only way to think properly, and certainly the only time she could. If she had been at the cottage with her husband, well, she couldn’t have thought about Michael, because it would have been disloyal . . . and he might see her smile or something and wonder what she was thinking about, and then she’d have to tell him because she didn’t believe in lying and it would very likely set him off on one of his turns, and she didn’t want that. No, it was always better to think about Michael in private.
    Whenever Mrs. Jessop thought of that time, and of Michael, it was impossible for her not to remember her cousin Nellie and Mr. Forbes. She cast her eyes over the table—already laid for breakfast, over the assortment of eggcups and teacups and plates, the image in front of her transforming itself to a smaller table, a basement kitchen and Mr. Forbes holding the tiny infant in his arms. He wasever so good with babies, destined to have a few, at least. Destined to be a father, she thought. No, he was not a saint, but he was a good man at heart.
    â€œAll in the past,” Mrs. Jessop murmured.
    But the past almost always came calling at this time of night, and in the roll call of lost names Mrs. Jessop was tempted always to remember the others, those who had once been with her at Eden Hall. She began to go through the names in her head and then stopped. She didn’t want to get maudlin; it was Christmas, and they were in a better place now anyway. But it was hard not to think of them at this time of year, and hard not to see and hear them, too: the ghosts of the kitchen and servants’ hall. And yet so much had changed, so many had gone, that that time