Free Emily Goes to Exeter by M. C. Beaton Page A

turned back to the sink and began to attack the plates as if they were personal enemies while Mr Fletcher looked miserably at her slim back.
    ‘I should not have said that. Please forgive me.’ Mr Fletcher waited anxiously.
    Lizzie slowly turned around. ‘Very well, you are forgiven.’
    ‘What think you of our Miss Pym?’ asked Mr Fletcher, all eagerness to avoid painful subjects.
    ‘She makes me want to laugh,’ said Lizzie with a smile, ‘and that is unusual these days. She has those funny eyes and that odd way of looking down her nose. I think she must have been used at one time to managing a large household. She is monstrous efficient.’
    They fell to discussing the other members of the party, with the notable exception of Captain Seaton. Out in the kitchen, Hannah was aware the couple were taking a very long time to wash the dishes and was pleased.
    She herself was busy hoisting a leg of mutton on to the clockwork spit. She was glad the spit was operated by clockwork. She had a sentimental streak about animals and was always sorry for the dogs when she saw them in their cages turning spits. She saw Emily edging toward the kitchen door, and determined that she must not leave. A little housewifery was the way to a man’s heart.
    ‘I would now like you to make some tartlets for dinner, Miss Freemantle,’ said Hannah.
    ‘I do not know how to,’ said Emily loftily. ‘I am used to servants doing all menial work for me.’
    ‘As I am,’ said Hannah pleasantly, ‘but you must admit the circumstances are extraordinary. There is a recipe here’ – she held out a sheet of paper – ‘for jam tartlets. Very simple. You just follow the instructions and measure out the ingredients. Come. I will show you what to do.’
    Emily sighed loudly but returned to the kitchen table. Under Hannah’s instructions, she mixed the ingredients for the pastry and made little cases in a baking pan, filled the cases with strawberry jam, and put little crosses of pastry across the top of each.
    The storm howled outside. The kitchen fire blazed merrily. The air was full of the smells of cooking. For the first time in her life, Emily felt a sense of achievement as Hannah opened the oven and put those precious tartlets inside.
    ‘And now?’ asked Emily.
    Hannah smiled. ‘And now I think you may repair to the coffee room and have a rest.’
    Perversely, Emily was reluctant to leave. The conversation in the scullery had ceased. Lizzie Bisley was singing ‘Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill’ in a tuneless soprano, and then Mr Fletcher joined in in a light tenor.
    ‘Tartlets on their own are not very much for dessert,’ Emily said. ‘Can I try something else?’
    ‘There is fruit-cake,’ said Hannah. ‘Gentlemen love rich fruit-cake, but I fear that might be beyond your powers.’
    ‘But you could show me?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘May we try?’
    How very pretty she was, thought Hannah, when whe was like this, all flushed and happy and unselfconscious.
    Together they looked out dried fruit and flour and butter and eggs, cream of tartar and baking soda. Hannah took turns at beating the cake because Emily laughed and said her wrists were aching. How excited Emily was when the rich mixture was finally loaded into a round tin. She had forgotten about Lord Harley, about the storm. There was no way she was going to leave that kitchen until the results of her labours came out of the oven.
    Hannah set her to grinding coffee beans to make coffee. Mrs Bisley and Mr Fletcher came into the kitchen and said they were going to tidy up the bedchambers and Hannah smiled on them in a maternal way. Lord Harley entered the kitchen with Mr Hendry and Mr Burridge but Hannah shooed them out, saying the ladies were too busy working, and Lord Harley looked at Emily with a flicker of amazement in his black eyes.
    Lizzie and Mr Fletcher had to go through the coffee room to get upstairs to the bedchambers. In front of the coffee-room fire sat Captain Seaton, a