Recipe for Love (29 page)

‘I am pretty much hanging.’

‘Well, don’t worry about the parents’ breakfast. I’ll give them one of my fry-ups. That’ll keep them quiet for hours. Get up when you feel like it.’

‘OK, but really, I quite enjoyed being a maid. Or maybe it was a cook general?’

‘You’re neither! You’re a friend!’

‘It’s all right. I do know that. I was just saying …’ What she was saying escaped her and she yawned hugely. ‘I’m going to bed. Night night. And congratulations!’

ZOE SLEPT LATE
the following morning. She had woken once in the early hours, and realised it was Gideon’s car that had disturbed her. Sadness washed over her again, but her long day meant she didn’t stay awake for long and awoke again after nine. She showered and then went up to the house.

The kitchen was full of bustle and noise. The news of the baby had leaked into the ether and half the neighbourhood seemed to have arrived to wish Rupert joy. His parents, seated at the table with mountains of bacon and eggs in front of them, seemed far less bossy and imposing than they had the night before.

‘Morning!’ she said when she could make herself heard among the half-dozen people seated at the table. Only three of them were eating breakfast, but they all had mugs of something in front of them.

‘Zoe! Sweetheart!’ said Rupert, getting up and engulfing Zoe in his cashmere sweater. ‘Everyone! This is Zoe! She’s staying to help with the baby for a bit.’

In among the ‘hello, Zoe’s Zoe heard Rupert’s father say, ‘I thought she was staff, not Rupert’s bit on the side.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said his mother. ‘He wouldn’t let her in the house if he was sleeping with her.’

Glad no one else seemed to have heard this, Zoe pulled up a chair and accepted a large mug of something put into her hand by a smiling Rupert. It turned out to be
coffee
. The lovely warm atmosphere of the kitchen softened the blow of Gideon’s departure at little. If nothing else Zoe felt she’d made real friends here.

‘So you’re in that cookery competition they’ve had here?’ asked a friendly woman sitting next to Zoe. ‘I don’t know how you cook in front of the cameras. I’d turn into a heap of nerves and drop everything.’

‘It’s like that to begin with but you forget the cameras frighteningly quickly,’ said Zoe.

‘Well, rather you than me,’ said the woman, shaking her head and pushing back her chair. ‘Rupert, I must go. Give my love to Fen and the baby. I’ll be over again the moment she gets here. But don’t let her have too many visitors, she’ll get exhausted.’ She sent a look up the table that was missed by Rupert’s parents but observed by everyone else.

‘I should go too,’ said almost everyone, and the big table was soon nearly empty, leaving only Rupert’s parents and Zoe. Rupert was showing people out.

Zoe got up and started gathering dishes as Rupert’s parents left the room.

She was about to check everything had been cleared from Fenella’s study when she realised it was occupied. Rupert’s mother was having a few words with her son.

‘Darling, I know you have all these bolshie ideas about how to treat servants but really and truly they need to know their place! They feel comfortable with that! God knows what Winterbotham would have done if we’d used his Christian name! Had forty fits, that’s what.’

Zoe had to listen although she knew perfectly well she shouldn’t.

Rupert was amused, she could tell, and wondered if his mother could too. ‘Mater! Zoe is not Winterbotham! She’s a dear friend who is helping out! She’s not a servant.’

‘Well, she was putting on quite a creditable impression of one yesterday!’

Zoe nodded smugly.

‘Although that spinach she served with dinner was a little odd. I didn’t know you grew spinach and strange to have it at this time of year.’

Zoe could hear the frown of confusion in her voice.

‘You know, Ma, I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Rupert.

‘Typical man, never remotely interested in the garden. But what I’m saying is, if you keep your distance with her, she’ll be really quite useful. But this “all friends together” nonsense is just that! – nonsense!’

‘But if I treated her as a servant I’d have to pay her,’ said Rupert.

Zoe stiffened. She couldn’t take money from Rupert and Fenella, not unless she had a proper job with them.

‘Oh, she’s free, is she? In which case, my darling, forget I ever spoke!’

Zoe went back to the kitchen. So Rupert’s mother was mean as well as demanding. Poor, poor Fen!

Rupert was adamant that Zoe did her own thing after breakfast, at least until he had got the kitchen tidy. So, after a brisk walk to clear her head, she sat down at her laptop in the cowshed and started researching recipes. But eventually she accepted that she couldn’t concentrate; all she seemed able to do was think about Gideon. She couldn’t decide if Gideon really liked her – in a long-term, meaningful way – or if she was just a convenient armful. How she wished they had had another night together. If they’d been together for longer she might have learnt more about him. When they were together she felt so sure of him, but when he wasn’t there doubts rushed in. Doubts
that
said she was mad to be with him when she’d been warned against him and knew for herself she was risking her heart.

She got up from her computer and went back to the house. There’d be loads to do there. She was doing no good sitting on her own, dreaming.

Rupert insisted on roasting a joint of beef for supper, getting it ready before he went to visit Fenella and the baby.

‘So how’s Fen liking it in hospital?’ asked Zoe, wrapping up the paper of potato peelings and putting them in the compost.

‘She says everyone is brilliant but she’s homesick,’ he explained, dusting half a cow with mustard and flour. ‘She wants me to buy chocolates or something as a thank-you for the staff.’

‘I could make cupcakes, if that would be any good. The nurses probably get quite a lot of chocolates. Cupcakes would be a change.’ It would also keep her busy.

‘Oh Zoe, I couldn’t ask you to do that!’ said Rupert.

Interpreting this as a ‘yes please’ Zoe said, ‘You didn’t ask, I offered. And I’m very happy to make some. There are cases and things left over from the wedding.’ She paused. ‘It’ll give me something to do in between bell-answering duties.’

Rupert gave her a look of embarrassment mixed with despair. ‘I know! I’m so sorry! I have explained but they don’t understand that you’re a friend and not a servant.’

‘It’s fine, really it is! It’s quite funny actually, and I like trying to second guess their requirements and make them happy.’

‘You’re a star.’ Rupert closed the oven door behind the joint.

‘And as such, would you like me to pick some more
coltsfoot?
It went down OK yesterday. Or will they object to having the same vegetable twice in succession?’

‘Frankly, I’d give ’em peas and beans and to hell with the farting!’

Then Rupert gave her a hard squeeze and a kiss on the cheek before going off to see his wife and daughter.

THE RECEPTION COMMITTEE
for the baby was rather like the line-up of servants in
Downton Abbey
, about to receive an important guest. Zoe felt as if she was starring in a television period drama. Except this time of course there were no cameras rolling.

It happened because Fenella’s parents had sped down from Scotland the moment they discovered that Rupert’s parents were there.

‘Fenny swore she didn’t want anyone,’ Fenella’s mother said. She was far friendlier than Rupert’s mother in spite of being more grand. She even insisted Zoe call her Hermione. ‘She said she and Rupert would manage fine and we could come down when it was a bit more convenient to us!’ This she had told Zoe while Zoe chopped onion and carrot to make cottage pie with leftover beef. ‘But frankly, my dear, I think Rupert’s parents are ghastly and don’t want my daughter unprotected from them!’

Zoe, who was already fairly fond of Hermione, nodded. She and Hermione weren’t quite at the stage where they could share bitchy remarks about Rupert’s parents but it wouldn’t be long.

‘And have you heard the latest?’

As Rupert’s parents thought of Zoe as below-stairs they hadn’t made her privy to whatever the latest was.

‘They want the christening immediately!’

Hermione was obviously appalled and so was Zoe. Poor
little
Glory wasn’t even home from hospital! ‘Why so soon?’ Fairly sure Rupert’s parents wouldn’t like it, she added a bit of garlic to her vegetables browning in the pan.

‘Because they want to go on a world cruise and they’ve brought The Christening Gown with them!’ Hermione’s eyes flashed. ‘We have a lovely christening dress which I bet is far prettier than theirs, but apparently it has to be the Gainsborough robe that’s used.’

‘But couldn’t the christening be after they get back from their cruise?’ A couple of good shakes of Worcester sauce went on top of the veg.

‘Apparently not! They are so old-fashioned I’m surprised they even drive. They were even muttering about Fen being churched!’

Zoe, who was piling meat and vegetables into a dish, put down the frying pan. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.’

‘Exactly! That is my point! Who on earth gets churched these days?’

‘Maybe if I knew what it meant … ?’

‘Oh, it’s an ancient custom whereby a mother who’s had a baby is purified in church because childbirth is obviously disgusting.’

Zoe turned to her mashed potato. She had a pile the size of a small pillow and she started blobbing it on the meat and vegetables. ‘Why?’ She wouldn’t put it past Lady Gainsborough to insist.

‘There is no real why! But Rupert’s parents come from the ark and probably do think giving birth makes a woman unclean.’ Hermione paused. ‘Although to be absolutely honest I don’t think they meant it too seriously.’

‘Good.’ Zoe opened the door of the Aga and slid in the dish. Would large dishes of food made out of leftovers feature in her fine-dining menu? Somehow she doubted it, although it was well within her skill set.

‘Now you’ve done that, bless you, let’s go upstairs and wait for Fen and Glory,’ said Hermione. ‘They shouldn’t be long now.’

Rupert’s parents had obviously had the same thought, or perhaps they were worried that they needed to be the first to see the baby, but it transpired that they all ended up on the steps of Somerby.

‘Well, at least we’ve got a good day for it!’ said Fenella’s father, making the best of things. ‘What do you think about the name?’

‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life,’ said Lord Gainsborough. ‘Arethusa! For God’s sake!’

‘Apparently that was some sort of joke on Rupert’s part,’ said his mother. ‘But Glorianna is even worse! I only
hope
we can make her see sense before the christening. Why she couldn’t choose a proper family name, I don’t know.’

Hermione was bristling. ‘Well, I think it’s a good choice. It took me a little while to get used to the idea but now I have, I think it’s a lovely name. She’ll be called Glory, anyway.’ Hermione scowled at her co-grandmother and Zoe hoped they would never have to spend Christmas together.