‘Isn’t that that nice Noah Sephton in your garden?’ she said, peering through the living room to where she could see the path beyond the French doors.
‘Yes, he asked me if he could use the studio as a darkroom.’
‘Oh? I thought everyone used those digital cameras now, though come to think of it, I noticed his looked like an old one at Libby and Tim’s wedding.’
‘He says he likes the quality and controllability of his old Leica with black-and-white film, especially for portraits, and he also prefers to develop and print them himself. He does use digital too, though, for the colour ones.’
‘Well, I expect it will be very nice for you having someone around, for company,’ she said kindly, and I only hoped her romantic little heart wasn’t cherishing the same mistaken hopes as Libby’s did when Noah was inundating me with chicken gifts and chopping my firewood.
We watched as some deliverymen carried boxes of stuff into the studio—chemicals and things, I suppose—and then a table and chairs and a few other bits and pieces. He certainly seemed to be making himself at home.
‘He’s already paid me rent in advance, as far as I’m concerned, by chopping firewood, but he says he’ll do some heavy digging too.’
‘He’s very kind, but he mustn’t spoil his beautiful hands,’ she said, to my surprise.
‘He has got rather nice hands, but they’re already a bit callused from chopping wood,’ I said guiltily. ‘He even manages to look elegant with an axe; it must be in the bones.’
When the deliverymen had gone, Harry came through the wicket gate, followed by Mac, and stood talking to Noah. Then they both went into the studio, so I supposed Noah was showing him what he was doing to it.
‘It will be nice for Harry to have another man to chat to occasionally,’ I said to Violet. ‘I’m sure I’ve left him alone an awful lot lately, since I’ve been helping Libby with the barn as well as being snowed under with cake orders.’
‘You can’t be everywhere at once, dear,’ she remarked. ‘Now, how many roses would you like me to make?’
Mary phoned later in the afternoon, mostly to tell me that the last stages of pregnancy are hideously uncomfortable, which was hardly tactful of her since this was clearly something I was never going to experience.
And call me a nasty person, but when she said Olivia had suddenly loosened her rigid grip on her diet and ballooned to the size of a walrus seal, I rejoiced.
That seemed to be the budget of her news, except that she said Simply Secrets recently reported that Anji was the latest in a long line of broken-hearted ex-girlfriends of the fickle Noah Sephton. ‘So watch your step!’ she giggled, as a parting shot.
But you can’t believe everything you read in magazines, so who knew what the real status quo was? I suspected she had settled for what she could get.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Three Tiers for the Bride
Now that my cakes have featured both in a wedding magazine and in the glossy brochure of my friend’s wedding reception business, I am getting even more enquiries. But making weird and wonderful cakes was never something that I intended to do full time and so I only accept commissions I really want to make.
And something I quickly learned is that when delivering a cake myself it always pays to keep a little repair kit, including icing sugar and ready-made fondant icing, with you, for any little accidents en route!
‘Cakes and Ale’
It was about ten next morning when I went over to Blessings, already dressed in my black trousers and top, with my snowy apron folded in my bag, and by that time I’d already had three frantic phonecalls from Libby Much ado about nothing: she’d organised the whole thing to such a degree that there simply wasn’t room for error—or not on her part, anyway. She had no control over what the bridal party would do.
I arrived at a crucial moment: a large lady with a scarlet mouth and a face like a doughy, flour-dusted bap, was just placing the third and final tier of an elaborate wedding cake into place.
‘This is Mrs Fosdyke,’ Libby introduced her. ‘She’s the bride’s mother and she’s made the cake herself. Isn’t it lovely?’
‘It’s certainly very impressive,’ I agreed tactfully It was the traditional white job, all icing swags and flourishes. On top, a pair of bride and groom figures seemed to be cowering in the shade of an over-large vase of silk flowers. The tiers were supported by slender silver columns…very slender.
‘Is that straight?’ asked Mrs Fosdyke, still clasping the top tier between bejewelled hands.
Libby, standing nervously in front, said, ‘Yes, it looks fine.’
The woman cautiously let go and then came round to view her handiwork. ‘There, isn’t that just as good, if not better, than any bought one? I told my daughter we needn’t go to the extra expense of ordering a cake when I have been to all the icing classes and knew I could make one myself. Of course, she wanted a bought one, but I told her that your charges had been so extremely high that some economies simply had to be made, after losing our deposit on the first venue.’
‘There are cheaper places,’ Libby said mildly.
Mrs Fosdyke clearly hadn’t economised on herself, for she was dripping with jewellery and the car parked outside probably cost about what my tiny cottage was worth.
The cake, though, was indeed perfectly adequate, if uninspired—and it isn’t easy making a traditional wedding cake, even if you have been to icing classes. I hoped there was enough support under those slender columns, for that part could be tricky for a novice to get right…
But even as the thought crossed my mind, the pristine white tower seemed to shift slightly to one side and tremble…And then suddenly the top two tiers tilted and started sliding downwards in slow motion, like a glacier calving. They hit the floor with a soggy series of thumps, and rolled.
Only the base layer stayed put, with a row of partly sunken silvery columns sticking up like a ruin. It was a ruin.
There was a horrible silence. Mrs Fosdyke had gone as white as the cake and her eyes had glazed over. I bent down and picked up the two tiers, which had luckily come to rest with the tops uppermost, and quietly laid them on the table.
Libby cleared her throat. ‘Oh dear!’ she said inadequately.
Mrs Fosdyke, getting her voice back, came out with an unexpectedly obscene expletive—presumably the ‘something blue’ needed at every wedding—then turned on Libby, saying, ‘This is all your fault!’
‘Mine?’ Libby gasped, taking a step backwards.
‘Yes, of course. The table legs must be uneven, or the floor, and—’
‘No,’ I interrupted, ‘it was none of those things. It fell simply because the columns were unsupported and the weight of the upper tiers made them sink into the cake. You should have inserted dowelling in the layers underneath, where the columns were to rest.’
‘Dowelling?’ she exclaimed, in very Lady Bracknell tones. ‘I never heard of such a thing! You are making excuses.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll find I’m correct. I make wedding cakes for a living,’ I explained, though I didn’t tell her mine were weird and wonderful. I might not enjoy making the traditional kind, but I did know how to do it, and sometimes I used the technique for fairytale castles. In fact, the upper thin cake layer of my four-poster Bed of Roses cake would have to be supported in the very same manner, disguised as bedposts.
Mrs Fosdyke seemed, reluctantly, to accept the truth. She stopped blustering and started wringing her hands over the sorry remains, instead. ‘But it’s ruined! The icing swags are all knocked off and the sides are battered and—’ She stopped, and her eyes widened. ‘Oh my God—Penelope! What is she going to say? And it’s not even as if you can pop down to the nearest bakery and buy one off the shelf, is it?’
‘You don’t need to,’ I said with more assurance than I felt, spurred by the entreating looks Libby was shooting at me—miracles, my speciality. ‘Luckily, the tiers came to rest on their bases and the bride and
groom figures are OK, though the vase and flowers are past mending. If you leave it with me, I’m sure I can do something with it, so it’ll pass muster at the reception. I haven’t time to re-ice it, but I can hide the damage.’
She looked at me uncertainly, but with dawning hope. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, perfectly.’
Then she glanced at her watch and yelped, ‘Look at the time! I’ll simply have to trust you; I can’t do anything else!’ And off she shot.
When she’d gone, Libby looked at the ruins of the cake and said, ‘How on earth are you going to do something with this? It’s a ruin.’
At least the floor is so clean you could eat off it, so it isn’t dirty,’ I said. ‘Come on, help me put the layers back in the boxes, with what’s left of the decorations, and I’ll take them home and see what I can do. Here’s Pia—she can come back with me and help. You don’t really need me for a bit, do you?’
‘I suppose not. The buffet food has arrived and the girls are having coffee in the tackroom before they set it all out,’ she agreed. The three enterprising young women who run Movable Feasts not only help make the buffet food, they also serve it and clear up afterwards.
We explained to Pia what had happened, and she helped me carry the boxes of ruined cake back to my cottage.
There, she watched me while I laid the three tiers out on the work surface, carefully removing the last broken fragments of icing decorations. Underneath, the base layer of icing was quite soft, which wouldn’t have helped support the columns. Amateurs either get it so hard it won’t cut without a hacksaw, or so soft it practically runs off the cake.
After dusting them down with a clean pastry brush, I filled in a couple of gaps with ready-made fondant icing, polished the joins with icing sugar, and then rebuilt the tiers by placing them directly one on top of the other.
‘It’s not so tall and impressive like this, but I haven’t time to put dowelling supports in for the columns—it’s tricky to do,’ I explained. ‘This is how wedding cakes used to be made; it’s much simpler.’
I tied a wide, stiff, silver organza ribbon around each tier, finishing with big, neat bows at the front. It was starting to look austere but impressive.
The bride and groom figures were fixed firmly back into place on top; I was so glad that hideous vase of flowers had got broken! Then, after a glance at the chicken-shaped clock on the wall (another anonymous gift) to see how time was going, I got out a box of little icing roses and fixed them round the edge of the top tier with more sugar paste.
‘I got Violet to make me lots of these, for a cake someone has ordered. I’ll have to make some more, now.’
‘It looks lovely,’ Pia said admiringly. ‘You are clever!’
‘Not really,’ I said modestly, though actually it had come out much better than I had expected. ‘Come on, I’ll get the car out and then we’ll drive back with you holding it—and I’ll take my icing repair kit, just in case anything else drops off!’
But nothing did drop off. In fact, the bride thanked her mother for the beautiful cake with tears in her eyes.
‘Yes, so clever of you to do a Victorian-style stacked cake. I’ve hardly seen one, except at the smartest London weddings,’ Libby said innocently.
Later Mrs Fosdyke did take me aside and thank me for saving her bacon for her, though not with any great graciousness. She didn’t offer to pay me for my efforts, either, though actually I had done it more for Libby’s sake—and the bride’s.
There wasn’t really much for me to do at the reception, except mop up guests who had liberally thrown their food or drink over themselves, or needed a sobering cup of coffee—that kind of minor emergency. Anyway, Pia was proving surprisingly good at helping out too. I think she’s likely to become just as decided and assertive as her mother, given time.
Noah, in one of his lovely suits, took a couple of posed shots of the simpering (and distinctly pregnant) bride with her groom, but after that unobtrusively circulated, photographing the guests as the fancy took him. It seemed to take him a lot.
I remembered that Libby had once said to me that he was handsome, but you didn’t always notice that at first, and she was right, because he seemed able to blend into the background when he wanted to, even when in reality he was the handsomest and best-dressed man in the room.
When the last, lingering guest had gone away and Movable Feasts had quickly and efficiently packed the remains of the day in plastic hampers and departed, Tim opened a bottle of bubbly just for us and we all sat among the wreckage, exhausted.
Noah must have gone back to the gatehouse to change out of his suit, for he now reappeared in jeans and the brightly striped sweater that Pansy had knitted him as a thank you for all the firewood he’d delivered. On him, it looked like a fashion statement, so clearly my little joke had backfired.
We all agreed that the reception had gone very well, for a first performance. ‘And you do realise we have to do it all over again tomorrow?’ Libby said.
‘So do Movable Feasts. I don’t know how they keep it up!’
‘They have other people doing most of the baking,’ Pia said. ‘I asked. Isn’t it surprising how many guests took doggy bags away with them? Usually the richest-looking ones!’
‘Yes, that surprised me too,’ Tim said. ‘Movable Feasts seemed prepared; they had all those little containers ready.’
‘I know,’ I said guiltily. ‘I’ve got one with some smoked salmon in it. It’s a treat I don’t often get a chance to eat.’
Mind you, I don’t often get a chance to eat seafood either, but since the Prawn Incident I seem to have lost my appetite for them.
We couldn’t sit there for long, because we had to clean up the debris, strip the tables, put the linen in hampers for the laundry, and clean the preparation room and the toilets. Gina came in to see how things had gone on and wanted to help, but Libby wouldn’t let her.
‘No, you have plenty to do already with the house and the cooking, Gina. In fact, I can see we need to factor a cleaner into the business; we can’t do everything ourselves. I’ll go and give Dolly Mops a ring and see if they can send someone tomorrow after the next one!’
‘At least the cake will be all right. It’s sitting in my larder now,’ I said. Tomorrow’s reception was for two dog-breeding friends of Freddie’s, who had met at Crufts. ‘Apart from having to model a Boxer and a Dachshund bride and groom in icing, and edge the tiers with daisies, it was a doddle.’
‘Why daisies?’ Noah said.
‘The bride’s name is Marguerite. They’re all over the tablecloth they ordered from the Graces, too.’
‘Has that got dogs on?’ asked Tim with interest.
‘One or two, among the daisies and the more traditional wedding symbols. That’s nothing, Tim. They have had to embroider bats and spiders on the Goth one, and Pansy’s crocheting a special black border in a cobweb pattern.’
‘Well, let’s not worry about the Goth wedding yet,’ Libby said wearily. ‘We’ve still got another four receptions to go before we have to get ready for the Elizabethan one next Monday.’
‘Yes, let’s take them one at a time,’ I agreed. ‘Have you got the rose petal confetti from Hebe Winter for tomorrow, Libby?’
‘Yes, that’s here already, and Dorrie’s got the flowers for the table decorations in her outhouse. In fact, tomorrow’s reception might prove to be easier than today’s—I suppose because we’re more in control.’
‘And much nicer people,’ I agreed. ‘But by this time next week we will be old hands and take even the oddest reception parties in our stride!’
Chapter Twenty-nine
Good Reception
The best thing about April is early asparagus. Oh, the joy of eating fresh, tender little green spears dipped in melted butter! Uncle and I usually pig out on the first bunch and this year the Photographer, who has rented the Artist’s empty studio, joined us.
Aggie, my favourite hen, seemed to be under the impression
I had invited her to the asparagus feast too, because she followed him in through the garden door and was very reluctant to leave.
‘Cakes and Ale’
By the end of the first week we were getting the hang of things a bit, and there had been no major incidents since the bouncing cake, other than Lily having to be called in urgently, in her Stitch in Time sewing repairs persona, to hastily reattach the ripped bodice of a wedding dress when the groom had clumsily stood on the hem while dancing.
Harry and I celebrated my first day off by having our annual asparagus feast, when we greedily devoured the first tiny, tenderly nurtured shoots with melted butter, and since Noah had again, entirely unasked, resumed his wood-chopping duties, I invited him too, as a thank you.
I don’t know why Harry liked Noah so much, yet was always warning me against Rob Rafferty! It seemed to me they were much the same…but anyway, it was unfortunate that Rob turned up just as we were finishing off our lunch with plum ice cream and coffee.
He swept me off my feet and planted one of his smacking kisses full on my lips before he actually noticed Harry and Noah sitting at the table in the kitchen.
‘Oh, sorry, didn’t know you had company,’ he said easily, putting me back down again, slightly rumpled.
Harry grabbed his stick and levered himself to his feet, jamming his hat back over his eyes. ‘If you mean me, I’m off,’ he said tersely. Mac uncurled himself from under the table and followed him out, but Noah didn’t look like he was about to move any time soon. ‘Hi, Rob,’ he said. ‘If you came for the asparagus, you’re too late.’
‘Asparagus?’ Rob echoed. ‘No, actually, I came to see if Josie wanted to come to a birthday party tonight for one of the Cotton Common cast: Viola Stewart—you met her when I took you to the wine bar. It’ll be fun.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, acutely aware of Noah’s sharpened gaze on me, ‘only I’m really tired! Libby’s wedding receptions began this week and this is the first day off we’ve had. I’ve loads to catch up on.’
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