Winter Is Past. Ruth Morren Axtell

How are the preparations for the meal coming?”

      “Oh, Miss Breton, there’s not nearly enough done,” said Mrs. Coates, ringing her hands. “Without Cook, none o’ us knows enough about cooking to carry on.”

      Althea turned to the first kitchen maid. “Show me what she has done.” The girl showed her around the room then took her into the kitchen and pantry. Althea found the cook’s scrawled menu and a few written recipes she had left beside it.

      Back at the dining table, she addressed the assembled servants. “It is now three o’clock. We have between four and five hours to prepare a dinner for the sixteen people who will assemble upstairs. It is not much time for a dinner of this many covers. I’m going to need the help and cooperation of each one of you.” She looked at each face in turn. “Can I count on all of you?”

      “But surely, miss, you can’t… We can’t prepare such a meal,” protested a chorus of voices.

      “We not only can, but will. Mr. Aguilar expects a dinner to be served by eight o’clock this evening.” She gave them a smile of reassurance. “I believe enough preparations are under way. I have sufficient experience in a large kitchen to guide me somewhat. I’m relying on your collective know-how to do the rest.

      “Now, if someone would be so good as to hand me an apron, we shall begin.” Althea began to roll up her sleeves. “Oh, yes, thank you.” She took the large apron the kitchen maid had brought her. “What is your name, please?”

      “Daisy, miss.”

      “Very well, Daisy. You stick by me.” She glanced at Giles, who was still looking at her, his mouth slack. “Giles, could you and Harry be so kind as to take Mrs. Bentwood to her room? Or perhaps to your sitting room down here, Mrs. Coates?”

      “Yes, miss, right away.” Apparently relieved at being dismissed from the coming activity of the kitchen, the butler quickly signaled to one of the footmen to help him.

      “When you come back, we can go over your wine selections,” she told him.

      “Yes, miss.”

      “Now, the first thing is to get the roasts in the oven,” Althea told the remaining staff. “Daisy and I will see to those. Let’s see, there’s the pheasant and venison, which thankfully have already been dressed. Now, Mrs. Coates, if you would be so good as to don an apron and oversee the vegetables at this table.

      “Oh!” Althea slapped her forehead. “Rebecca! I forgot about Rebecca!”

      “That’s all right, miss.” A young parlor maid spoke up shyly. “I can take her tray up and sit with her.”

      “Oh, would you? That would be wonderful. Tell her I’ll be in to see her later. Perhaps you could read to her?”

      The woman blushed and began twisting her hand in her apron. “I’d like to, miss, only…only I can’t.”

      It took Althea a few seconds to catch her meaning. “You can’t read—is that what you are trying to tell me?”

      She nodded, her eyes downcast.

      “Well, look at a picture book with her. Sometimes she feels like reading, and you can have her read to you. If not, you can make up the story as you go along, with the pictures. Do you think you can do that?” She gave her an encouraging smile.

      The girl nodded, her eyes hopeful.

      “Martha—” Althea turned to the scullery maid “—you start setting up a kettle to boil water for the lobster. I may dispense with the bisque and simply serve the meat on a bed of greens. All right, to work….”

      Nearly five hours later Althea took her damp handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the perspiration from her forehead. Her dress clung to her body; the only thing keeping her from collapsing over the suffocating coal stove was the knowledge that the clock was ticking without mercy. Every second counted.

      She kept her eye on the various pots simmering before her, all the while stirring the sauce in front of her. She had concocted what she could from the cook’s receipes. Other dishes she had improvised from all her girlhood years spent in the kitchen with her own family’s cook, who had been more of a mother to her than anyone. She also drew on her experience in recent years from her work at the mission’s kitchen. She knew what feeding a multitude entailed.

      “How does this look, miss?”

      Althea glanced at the tray Martha held out to her. She had filled the pastry cups with the creamy fricassee. “Very good. We shall have to keep them warm until they are ready to be served. Place them here.” She indicated a spot with the tip of her wooden spoon, then went back to stirring.

      “Miss, we’ve finished cutting the fruit into the crystal bowl.”

      “Very good, keep the bowl on ice. How is the syllabub?”

      “All set. We’re also keeping it cold.”

      “Miss Breton.” Mrs. Coates came up to her with a look of concern. “Shouldn’t you be getting upstairs to dress? It’s going on eight. The guests are all here.”

      Althea looked at the watch pinned to her dress. “Oh, so it is. Let me just put the shrimp into this sauce and check on the fish.” She removed the sauce from the stove, then opened the oven door and looked at the flat white fillets baking in butter. She tested one. “Yes, these are ready.”

      While Mrs. Coates took the pan out of the oven, Althea pricked the pheasant with a long fork. She basted it and the venison one last time.

      “Daisy, come here and stir the shrimp carefully into this sauce. Giles, you will be able to oversee carving the pheasant and venison?”

      “Yes, miss.” Giles was sharpening the long carving knife with a whetstone.

      “How does the table look upstairs?”

      “All is in order. Sixteen places, with their place cards.”

      “And the sideboard?”

      “All is in place.”

      “The wines?”

      “Uncorked.”

      Althea walked to each servant in turn and gave last-minute instructions.

      “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Coates,” she said, taking a glass of lemonade from her. “That tastes wonderful.”

      “Your cheeks look so flushed. That stove is awfully hot.”

      “Yes, it certainly is. I begin to see why Cook might take to drink.”

      “Oh, no, miss. She’s a disgrace. We shall speak to her in the morning, you can be sure.”

      “How is she? Have you looked in on her?”

      “Snoring like to wake the dead.”

      Althea drained her glass, then proceeded up to her room. As soon as she had closed the door, she began stripping off her clothes. They were drenched. As she was walking to her basin, a knock sounded on her door.

      “Yes, who is it?”

      “It’s Dot, miss, the parlor maid.”

      Althea opened her door a crack then, when she saw it was the young woman who had sat with Rebecca, bade her enter. “How is Rebecca?”

      The young woman smiled. “Oh, she’s fine. Dropped off to sleep while I was still talking, poor lamb. We had a grand time imagining the dinner party tonight.”

      “I was going to stop in as soon as I took off these wet things.”

      “I heard you come in. Would you like me to help you dress?”

      Althea was going to refuse help, then thought about how late she was. “Thank you. Please come in. I must hurry. I should have been down by half-past seven. Could you help me undo these buttons?”

      “Certainly,