Murder in the East End - Jennifer Ashley

1

February 1882

He’s asking for you, Mrs. H.”

Ordinarily, these words, spoken by a lad called James, the son of my dear friend, Daniel McAdam, would give me a flutter of pleasant anticipation. I hadn’t spoken to Daniel in several long weeks, as he’d been traveling, this time to Ireland.

Tonight, however, Daniel would have to wait. The kitchen of the Mount Street house where I was cook boiled with activity, the oven hot as a blacksmith’s forge, as I turned out meats, puddings, and tasty sauces as quickly as my assistant, Tess, and I could make them. The odors of roasted flesh and burned sugar competed with that of boiling vegetables and sautéed fish. I’d recruited Charlie, the boy who tended the fires, to help with peeling and chopping. Maids and footmen streamed to and fro, and Elsie, the scullery maid, washed dishes with the vigor of a sailor swabbing down a deck.

“He is most inconvenient, your father,” I called to James as I ladled pan juices over a roasted duck on a platter and arranged boiled new potatoes around it. “Please tell him Mrs. Bywater decided to host a supper ball, of all things, with half a week’s notice. A great part of Mayfair is upstairs now, trying to waltz in what’s meant to be the parlor. Food must flow, Mrs. Bywater said, as though I am a fish-and-chips man.” I slammed the spoon back into the pan and shoved it at Elsie, who fled with it to the scullery.

James took no offense at my brisk words. He sidestepped out of Elsie’s way then helped her balance the pan on the way to the sink, to her delight.

“When service is done, he means,” James said cheerily over his shoulder. “Anything I can do to help, Mrs. H.?”

He was a lovely young man. Going on seventeen now, James was a good foot taller than he’d been when I’d first met him. I was pleased to see that his coat and trousers covered his long arms and legs, new clothes if I were any judge, or at least sturdy secondhand ones.

I wiped my sleeve over my sweat-streaked face. “Take the other end of this platter, and we’ll haul it to the dumbwaiter. And for heaven’s sake spill nothing. A day’s work, this is.”

James lifted his end of the duck’s tray robustly, the lad strong, and it nearly tilted out of my hands. I gave him an exasperated look, and he grinned and eased the platter down to my height.

We had the duck safely into the lift at last, and James cranked the ropes to haul it upstairs. I could only hope that the footmen above who retrieved it treated it with care.

James lingered, and so I used him shamelessly. Another pair of hands was not unwelcome.

Tess and I had spent much of yesterday making a large layer cake with icing and spun sugar decorations. I entered the larder, where I’d stored it, and of course found the cake sagging in the middle, the icing and sugar half-melted and broken. My shriek brought Tess running. When she saw the wreck, she stared in dismay, her language burning the air.

I hadn’t the heart to admonish her for her curses. Many of the words she used were ones that leapt readily to my mind.

“Never mind,” I shouted over her. “We must send something. Help me.”

In the next half hour we worked a miracle of sorts. Into the dumbwaiter went a large apple charlotte thrown together from apples I’d cooked down earlier in the day along with ladyfingers left over in the larder. I surrounded this with plates of macaroons for those with daintier appetites and the rhubarb tart I’d made for the staff. It had been meant as a treat after our hard work, but needs must.

Once all the food was gone, Tess and I could not collapse, because the kitchen had to be thoroughly cleaned and organized for the morrow. I’d have to cook for the family and any guests all the next day, not to mention the servants.

James vanished somewhere in the process, but I didn’t begrudge him his escape.

As I scrubbed down the work table, removing every bit of flour, grease, grit, and meat juices so I’d have a clean surface tomorrow, one of the footmen bounded into the kitchen, out of breath.

He was new—footmen here tended to come and go. Mrs. Bywater had a penny-pinching nature, and an employer had to pay an extra tax on male servants of any kind, as they

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