apron pocket. Hullo, Sally.”
The younger woman was carrying in the head of a hog on a great platter. As she set it at the end of the table, she replied, “Mrs. Redfern told me what a good practice it was to have a pocket book and pencil at all times. A cook might need to write any sort of note about a recipe or an ingredient, and it saves time never having to hunt up paper and pen.”
“Exactly right.” Marianne beamed at her. Even the hog’s head seemed to smile from its dish, as if pleased that it had finished brining.
“Mrs. Redfern, I’ll get the stockpot ready for the head,” replied Sally. This sentence likely made little sense to Jack, but Marianne understood it to mean that her assistant would collect the needed vegetables and seasonings and bring them to a boil.
“Remember to add trotters, or the brawn won’t thicken,” Marianne instructed. “A half dozen should do. And remove and quarter the ears before you put the head in.”
Sally bobbed her head, understanding, and retrieved a shining pot from its place. She passed into the scullery to fill it with water.
“You’re a fine teacher,” Jack said. “Did you ever think of offering lessons in the evening, like Miss Carpenter does?”
“Oh. I don’t know.” Marianne glanced at the hog’s head. It still appeared pleased. “I do like teaching, but I’ve never thought of working with someone outside of my own kitchen.”
“Surely cookery is as useful a skill as what you’ve learned from Miss Carpenter.” He rubbed at his shoulder with a persecuted expression.
“Cooking’s different.” She wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t have the excitement of throwing an assailant to the ground.”
Jack raised his eyes to the plaster ceiling. “There is a hog’s head staring at me from the end of the table, and she says cooking isn’t exciting.”
She laughed. “That’s for making brawn, and it’s only here for another minute. Though if you don’t know the reason, I suppose it does lend the kitchen an air of mystery.”
“Or grisliness.”
“Or that,” she granted. “Maybe Miss Carpenter’s fighting is the same as teaching lessons myself. If I’d never tried it, I’d think I could never do it.”
“Which means you’re all prepared to become a wonderful teacher as soon as you try it out.”
“But if I were to teach...” She looked at the hog’s head. The book of handwritten notes. Neither offered her insight. “I’d have less time for cooking.” Or being with you.
She wasn’t sorry when Sally swooped by, picked up the head, and strode back to the stockpot with it.
“When we gain something,” Jack said, more serious than he’d seemed yet today, “something else is lost. I believe this completely.”
Marianne considered. “I suppose that’s true. As I gained cooking knowledge, I lost my satisfaction with the way I grew up. It’s no longer enough for me to embroider and watercolor and smile. Those skills did me no good, and all the while I was building them, I didn’t know how helpless I was becoming.”
“That is not such a bad thing to lose, then.”
“It’s not.” She added more quietly, “I’ve lost more too. I’ve lost my faith that the way things have been is the way they have to be.”
He nodded at her prized book. “You are talking about more than the method of spicing a joint of meat, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
Though it wasn’t spices that had got her thinking of what we’ve always done versus what could be. It was the pages of sauces.
Ever since she had begun learning cookery, Marianne had loved sauces. They were like clothing for food, turning the plain into the special. The bland into the savory.
Mrs. Patchett had been fond of traditional English fare, and certainly Marianne preferred good fresh ingredients that didn’t need to be hidden by vinegar and salt. But a sauce! Oh! It turned a good saddle of mutton into a roast that popped with the flavors of heavy meat, floral herbs, pungent garlic. It awoke the nose as well as the mouth. It not only fed people, it made them smile.
She’d spent some of her wages on books of recipes from France, then translated them with her schoolroom French and the help of Mademoiselle Gagne, the French instructor. Many of those notes had made their way into the book, now open and vulnerable before Jack. She’d made that book without him, when she’d never expected to see him again. When she had accepted that.
She’d been all right on her own because she’d