Miss Grant opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of water.
“What is it, Miss Grant?” she prompted, trying to soften her tone.
“I broke the eggs this morning. I backed into the counter and I must have hit it just the wrong way because the bowl tipped over and two eggs rolled out and fell onto the floor, and I’m very sorry, miss.” The truth poured out of the young woman like a waterfall until at last she was spent and her shoulders slumped forward.
Mrs. George shot her a scathing look.
Oh, why doesn’t the bloody floor open up and swallow me whole?
Mrs. George said Stella scared her cooks more than the Germans frightened the wounded soldiers upstairs—and now Miss Grant would scurry away from her even faster. For as much as she disliked having her kitchen overrun by cooks from Voluntary Aid Detachment, she disliked it more when those cooks wouldn’t talk to her.
She touched a hand to the synthetic silk scarf she wrapped around her hair to keep it out of the way and straightened her shoulders, preparing to make amends as best she could. “Miss Grant, accidents happen.”
“I’ll replace the eggs. I’ll… I’ll find a way to do it,” promised Miss Grant.
But she couldn’t by that evening, when Stella needed them. They were to make a custard, which she would be serving Mrs. Symonds; Father Bilson, the vicar at Highbury; and his wife, Mrs. Bilson. Mr. Hyssop, a solicitor from one village over, would round out the party. This long into the war, few people had illusions that any dinner party would come close to the ones they’d had before 1939, but Mrs. Symonds was one of the few holdouts. To not serve pudding—even in wartime—was unthinkable.
“I’ll make do just fine with four eggs, Miss Grant,” said Stella.
The young woman nodded several times in quick succession and scooted off down the hallway.
“But, Miss Adderton, Mrs. Symonds ordered a custard specially because it the vicar’s favorite,” Mrs. Dibble said, her hands twisting before her.
“I’m afraid Father Bilson will just have to be happy with a different sweet,” said Stella, flipping through her mental list of recipes to try to figure out what she could make with four eggs, a bit of milk, and not much else.
“I’ll go tell Mrs. Symonds,” said Mrs. Dibble.
“Do that,” said Stella to the retreating housekeeper’s back, knowing that the news would incur her employer’s disapproval. Not that Stella received much else from Mrs. Symonds these days.
Mrs. George gestured to her other assistant. “Miss Parker, go see to Miss Grant.”
The taller girl set down her knife and half ran from the room.
When they were alone, Mrs. George began, “Miss Adderton.”
She put her hand up. “I’m sorry to have upset Miss Grant. I will apologize.”
“We must share these facilities, tight as the quarters might be,” said Mrs. George.
“They wouldn’t feel quite so tight if you would keep a tidier work space,” Stella said, sweeping her eyes over the countertop covered in carrot peelings.
Before she could continue her attack, a knock on the kitchen door cut her off. Stella marched over, wrenched it open, and froze. Standing in front of her was her sister, Joan, with her nephew, Bobby, in tow.
“Hello, Estrella,” said Joan, deploying the pet name Joan always used when she wanted something.
“What are you doing here, Joanie?” she asked, taking in Joan’s deep blue wool coat with a wide black felt lapel, which showed off her creamy skin and rich auburn hair to their best advantage. A smart little black hat Stella had last seen her sister wear to Joan’s husband’s funeral sat perched at a rakish angle on the crown of her head. The lipstick smeared across her lips was a brilliant vermilion—just a shade too bright to be respectable.
“Aren’t you going to ask us in? It’s freezing out here.” When Stella didn’t move, Joan put a hand on Bobby’s head. “You don’t want your nephew to catch his death in this cold, do you?”
Stella stepped away from the door.
“What a lovely big kitchen you have here,” said Joan, looking around and nodding a hello to Mrs. George and the other cooks, who’d slunk back in.
“It isn’t mine. Why aren’t you in Bristol?” She looked down at Joan’s hand that clutched a small battered brown case. “And why do you have luggage?”
Immediately Joan looked contrite. “You’re going to be angry with me.”
“What have you done?”
“It’s just that I didn’t want to write to you only for you to say no—”
“Joan…” Her tone was warning.
Joan sucked in a breath. “I need you to take Bobby.”
Stella blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
“Your nephew. I need you to take him. The bombing’s started again,” said Joan.
“So evacuate like you did at the beginning of the war,” she said.
“I have a job now at the munitions factory. I’m a vital worker,” said Joan.
News to Stella. Joan had always run from work like it was a rash, but she supposed that had been before Joan’s husband had died.
“Besides, I can’t evacuate with Bobby again,” Joan continued. “I’ll go crazy if they send me out to the countryside, but you’re here. You can take him.”
Stella looked at her nephew, who gazed up at her with enormous hazel eyes and then dipped his head.
“I can’t, Joan. I’m a cook. I work all day.”
She was running Highbury’s kitchen on her own with no help, volunteering twice a week with an Air Raid Precautions unit, and spending long hours every night hunched over the little desk in her room, toiling away at her coursework. Trying her hardest to make something of herself.
But as she looked down at the thin little boy in his little school coat and trousers with a tie that looked almost comically big on him, guilt welled up in her. How could she say no to her nephew?
“How long?” she asked.
“Oh, Estrella, thank you!” her sister cried, throwing her arms around Stella.
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Symonds first, and—”
“Ask me what?”
Stella stiffened and turned to find Mrs. Symonds, perfectly pressed as always, walking through the door.
“Well, this is quite the scene. Mrs. Dibble told me that there was to be no custard tonight, but I didn’t expect it was because you were having a party, Miss Adderton,” the mistress said.
“This is Bobby, my nephew, and my sister, Joan,” she said.
Mrs. Symonds looked between the two of them, as though trying to find a resemblance between mousy Stella and brashly glamorous Joan. “Your sister?”
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Symonds,” said Joan, her hand outstretched.
Stella wanted to crawl out of her skin. A cook’s sister approaching a lady for a handshake. Joan, a domestic’s daughter and a domestic’s sister, should have known better.
Mrs. Symonds looked at Joan’s hand and flicked her gaze around the room, as though searching for someone to blame. “Can anyone please explain?”
“Joan lives in Bristol and is worried about air raids. She’s concerned about Bobby’s safety, so she’s brought him here. It’s quite the surprise to all of us,” said Stella, hoping her employer could read between those incredibly broad lines.