“Yes, they have. The Sunday school song says so. It says, ‘All things bright are beautiful.’ ”
“ ‘All things bright and beautiful, Leila.’ ”
Leila shook her head. “Not the song our class sings.”
Cathy did not press the correction. She recalled a housemother in England telling her how one of her children had the fixed idea that God’s name was Harold. “It says so, aunty. It says Harold be Thy Name.” Cathy did not think she would have much to worry about in Leila.
On Mrs. Ferguson’s day off Elvira took over the cooking. Cathy was pleased at this, for although she had undergone an invalid cooking course at St. Cloud, her thirty charges had robust appetites and probably would not have relished the steamed chops, gruels and junkets that had mainly comprised the dishes she had been called upon to serve. She had liked to dabble at home, but that had been only for mommy and daddy and herself, and then only on occasion, and she did not think her crepes suzette or special fruit curry would have evoked warm approval from the board.
Mrs. Ferguson was a gem. She had the rare talent of serving wholesome dishes so that they were even more wholesome, though in some magical manner appearing to the children as attractive as forbidden fruits.
Cathy had asked her the secret, and Mrs. Ferguson had smiled, “Five children, my dear, and then fourteen grandchildren. You’ll come to it.”
Cathy took notes in case she was called upon one day, but the scribbled hints in her little black book had not even filled one page when Elvira came from the telephone on Mrs. Ferguson’s day off to ask if it would be all right if she went off as well.
“It’s mother, Aunty Cathy. Poorly again. I’d like to have my Saturday off on Wednesday.”
Cathy said of course it was all right. Elvira asked if Aunty Cathy could manage the meals, and Cathy gave her the assurance that she would do it without any trouble. Elvira had a high opinion of Cathy’s ability, so did not give it another thought. If she had guessed how dubious the temporary cook was about her abilities, she might have delayed her Saturday-off-on-Wednesday.
It was a half-holiday, and the children were home for lunch. The meal went off well with the aid of a cookbook Cathy found in the cupboard and the hints she had written down in the little black book. The cold meat fritters, potato balls, and jam tart to follow were well received, and encouraged, Cathy sat down and studied the books for tea.
The few hints she had gleaned so far from Mrs. Ferguson were exhausted, and most of the recipes in the cookbook were too involved to be multiplied in time and material by thirty. Cathy decided on tinned soup and toast, and a butterscotch blancmange to follow.
She assembled the blancmange materials, lit the range, and began stirring. She was just up to the stage when the milk mixture was leaving the sides of the saucepan and demanding her close attention when the kitchen door opened behind her.
“No snacks between meals, girls,” she called. “You may each go out to the barn and take an apple.”
“Thank you, housemother,” said a voice, and wheeling around she faced Jeremy Malcolm.
It was the first time she had met him since the night of her arrival. She knew he had been here, for Elvira had told her so, and once she had seen his green convertible in the driveway, but either fate or her own curious reluctance to renew their acquaintance had kept them from a face-to-face encounter as they were now face to face. Cathy remembered to pull the blancmange aside; then she said a little stiffly, “Good afternoon, Dr. Malcolm.”
“The natives say Dr. Jerry. That will do just as nicely, Miss Trent.”
“You forget I am not a native, Dr. Malcolm.”
He bowed at the correction, growing oddly withdrawn as he had on the evening she had come here, when she had rushed too hastily into telling him that it would be wiser if he did not stay overnight. She supposed he was thinking again that she was a little English prude.
He was even bigger than she had remembered. Perhaps it was because she was now in a world of little people. Elvira was barely higher than the children, and Mrs. Ferguson, too, was short—but had he always been such a towering giant? He seemed to fill the kitchen with his great hard bulk.
“They tell me you are cook today,” he said teasingly. “The meat fritters and jam tart went off with high marks. Any left over for a peckish M.O.?”
“None at all.”
“Good for you, Aunty Cathy.”
“And you, too?”
“I can’t give you a decision, not having sampled wares. What’s for tonight? Thirty eggs broken into a pan of water and brought to the boil a la Malcolm?”
Cathy shuddered. “Just a simple meal. Tinned soup, toast...”
“Ah, yes, toast. We were experts on that, weren’t we?” Suddenly her eyes were meeting his. She was thinking unwillingly of that night. The cutting of the bread, the buttering, the serving, and all in that companionable silence. Then later the bathing of little bodies and the carrying them into bed.
She was aware she was flushing warmly, and aware, too, of what he must be thinking. He must be thinking again of Catherine Trent, the prude, who had stuttered like a schoolgirl in her agitation to have him promptly and correctly out of the house.
Hurriedly, and uncomfortably conscious of the quizzical light in his eyes and the one tilted eyebrow, she said, “After that ... after the soup and toast, I thought—”
He raised a hand. “Walt, Mrs. Beeton. Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”
Before she could protest he had crossed to the stove. Instead of coming to the opposite side, he leaned over her and peered down. As he did he rested each large palm on either side of the range. It imprisoned her within the circle of his arms, her face only a few inches from his. For a moment he looked at Cathy, not at the saucepan. His eyes were inscrutable. One moment they were speculative, the next searching, the next gentle as they had been the night she had taken Christabel in her arms and fondled her, and then they were mocking. He leaned closer. Cathy edged back and he laughed. “Don’t be alarmed, my little one. It is broad daylight, not dangerous night as it was that other time. Also, my intentions are strictly culinary. I am sure I am not mistaken when I pronounce that glutinous mess to be none other than gelatin.”
“It is blancmange.”
“Correction, please, gelatin. I have not supped in a London boardinghouse for two hundred nights in succession for nothing. Every evening of those two hundred nights my landlady served me gelatin. Tell me, are English people so addicted to gelatin?”
“It will be better,” stammered Cathy unhappily, “when I top it with butterscotch.”
“But to my memory still gelatin.”
“It is blancmange,” she said quite angrily, “and I’m sure the children will like it.” Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. “It’s simple and nourishing, and it took me a great deal of time to select something suitable.”
Suddenly the palms of his hands had left the stove, but she was not released. Instead he was cupping her chin and looking into her eyes. “Foolish child, I was only teasing. I’m sure it is a most delectable gelatin—a thousand pardons, blancmange, but I’m sure, too, you will infinitely prefer a peach Melba.”
“A what?”
“Haven’t you ever experienced the pleasures of a peach Melba ... or a creme Chantilly ... or a—”
“Stop. Stop it at once. I must get this dessert done or there’ll be nothing for our tea.”
“For their tea. For the girls’. You, Miss Trent, are dining with me.”
She turned her blue eyes on him and his brown ones looked steadily back. He nodded as though to affirm his statement.
“I can’t dine with you,” she declined. “Both Elvira and Mrs. Ferguson are off. Of course”—hastily—“you are welcome to stay...”
He bowed derisively at that. “So long as I leave at sunset?” he asked.
She reddened and ignored him. “Though, disliking blancmange as you do, perhaps it would be wiser to wait for a more experienced cook.”
“I do not dislike it as much as you think. I am prepared to believe that with a butterscotch topping it would be moderately successful. However, not tonight. Tonight we have a Bombe Alaska or a...”
If you mean you are inviting me to dine with you...”
“I did mean that.”
“Then it is impossible. The rest of the staff, as I just said, is out.”
“Quite true, but Elvira will be back by seven, and by then the children will be fed and thinking—or being persuaded to think—of bed. And you, Miss Trent, will be taking off this becoming but housewifely overall and putting on a party dress. Have you a party dress?”
“Of course,” murmured Cathy unwillingly, “only...”
“Only?”
“Only Elvira won’t be back till eleven tonight. She never is on her day off, and I couldn’t leave the children.”
“Quite creditable of you, though incorrect. You see, Elvira will be back. I called around and instructed her. Not that she needed any instruction. She was delighted for her darling ‘Aunty Cathy’ to have a night out. I might state you’ve made a hit there.”
Cathy did not answer. She wriggled her chin away from the cupped palms, returned the saucepan to the range and began to stir. After a while, when the mixture had thickened sufficiently, she took it to the table and poured it into a series of molds. “The butterscotch topping goes on when they come out,” she explained elaborately.
“Cooking class, stage two,” he said dryly. Then he asked, “Well?”
She knew what he meant and answered, “It’s very kind of you, Dr. Malcolm, but...”
“But you won’t come.”
“Not unless it is an order. Not unless it is something the board expects me to do. To cooperate with their medical officer, I mean.”
She had not intended to be so rude. It amazed her that she had spoken in such a forthright way. She had never been like this before. There must be something about this man that brought out the worst in her.
His face had darkened. Bronzed at any time, he looked almost like an American Indian. Christabel had asked him once if he was one, and he had said, “Yes, I am Big Chief Grizzly Bear, so all you children had better watch out.” Christabel would not have laughed delightedly now, she would have believed him.
Cathy waited for the withdrawn look, the haughty elevation of brows, the angry exit, but he did not move. Instead he said leisurely and deliberately, “Yes, it is an order. It is something the board expects of you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No? Then let me inform you that I happen to be one of the board—quite an important member, indeed—and that I expect you to do as I have just asked. Well, Miss Trent, are you convinced?”
She had not known he was so closely associated with the foundation; she had believed he only served in an honorary medical capacity and then simply because it was obligatory.
Quietly she said, “If you have anything to discuss with me couldn’t we do it here?”
“Wouldn’t that be ... safe?” His brow had risen, reminding her once again of that first evening.
Before she could reply he said briskly, “Enough of these preliminaries. I never was one for preliminaries. When I fall in love it will be at once and for all time, and there will be no time wasted on any dillydally.”
“Were we discussing falling in love?” Cathy asked it too innocently.
He looked at her quickly, saw the rebellious light in her blue eyes and answered forcibly, “Good Lord, no.”
“You needn’t be so unnecessarily downright about it.”
“What about yourself? Weren’t you unnecessarily downright just now when you declined my invitation?”
She had the grace to apologize. “I was, and I’m sorry. There’s something about you, Dr. Malcolm...”
He bowed a gracious acknowledgment, but she waved the gesture away impatiently.
“I didn’t mean that as a compliment. There is something about you that makes me say the ... the sort of thing I just said.”
“And don’t mean?”
“Oh, I mean them.”
“So?” He regarded her quizzically and at length. After a while he said, “Thank heaven, anyway, I have some effect on you. I’d hate to leave you quite indifferent. ”
“What does it matter how you leave me?”
He shrugged. “Nothing at all. I’m just vain and dislike leaving anyone without an impression, good or bad. The matter is settled then, is it? Although you don’t want to, you’ll dine with me because you have to. I’ll be around at half-past seven. Good afternoon, Aunty Cathy.”
He was gone, and immediately the room seemed to grow bigger again. Cathy washed the saucepan and hung it up, and as she did so she found herself actually looking forward to the evening that lay before her. However enthusiastic one was over children, one could not absorb oneself completely in the wholesome food that went to nourish them—not, anyway, to the extent of not relishing a meal designed solely to pander to the palate instead of the building of firm flesh.
Besides, it would be nice to dress up again.
She ran upstairs and opened her wardrobe. There was quite an array to select from, and none of them was more than a few months old. The week before the finals a party of the trainees had celebrated the end of their studies with a shopping binge, and the gold brocade and the Ming blue lace were the result of an hour in a fitting room in Bond Street surrounded by advising friends.
For a moment Cathy halted her selection, her hands on a tea rose silk. Daddy and mommy had sent this for her twentieth birthday with slippers to match.
She pushed back the silk rather blindly, passed over several more dresses thinking, I’m rather well supplied, but then I used to spend every penny on rags because I never thought of the future. I never thought I’d have to ... to...
She recalled sitting in the solicitor’s dull brown room and the solicitor telling her how little there was to come to her. “It costs much more to die than to be born, Miss Trent,” he had finished with feeling. “Taking that into consideration, as well as the fact that your late parents lived in probably the most expensive times one could live in, you will realize why you are left practically unsupported.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cathy had answered dully, “nothing matters.”
She looked at the dresses now and smiled ruefully. All the same, she thought, less for my back and more for the bank would have been wiser of you, Aunty Cathy.
A flick of the dress hangers, and her eye fell on the black taffeta. It was a plain two-piece creation. It had a slim, almost clinging, skirt and a high, concealing little jacket to wear over it. But the bodice of the gown itself was almost daringly décolleté, so much so that after her fellow trainees had teased and called her the tragedy queen, she had never worn it. She knew it was not her dress and never would be. She knew it was one of those shopping errors all women make at least once in their lives. She was not the décolleté type—well, not as décolleté as was this gown. She was not the slinky, clinging, revealing sort of person to wear such a dress. Yet as she fingered the smooth material she felt the challenge—Dr. Malcolm’s challenge. English prude, was she? With flaming cheeks she laid out the gown, the plain gabardine shoes to match, and the plain grosgrain bag. Then she went downstairs and out to the grounds, joined some of the girls in their gardening, played a round of basketball, helped the little ones down the slippery slide—and all the time thought with a certain misgiving, coupled with a stubborn determination, of a tight black décolleté gown.
CHAPTER FIVE
The children were helping with the dishes when Elvira arrived back. She had cycled from her home and was a little breathless. “Go and have your bath, Aunty Cathy,” she implored, “or you’ll have Dr. Jerry here before you’re ready. What are you wearing? Mother and I think it should be the pink silk.”
Cathy told her and saw the plain pleasant face cloud over. “Oh, no, Aunty Cathy, not that. What about the lace? Or the brocade
? Or...”
“I’m wearing the black, Elvira. Why not? I can assure you it was more expensive than any of the others.”
Elvira did not argue, but she looked disappointed. When the children clamored around her asking, “Can we stay up and see Aunty Cathy go to the party?” she said crossly, “No, in half an hour you’ll all be in bed and lights out.”
She was not usually so insistent on keeping the rules, and Cathy had a suspicion that if she were going to wear the pink or the blue or the brocade Elvira would have permitted, even encouraged, the girls to stay up. She found herself sympathizing, though unwillingly, with Elvira. She remembered her own childhood days and how mommy in the resplendency of an evening gown had always seemed something out of a fairy tale. There would be no resplendency, she admitted, in the slinky black, and for a moment she almost weakened just for the sake of Elvira and the girls, but “English prude” reminded a little voice within her, and she ran upstairs, filled the bath, went through the accepted pre-party procedure of careful makeup and discreet dabbing of French perfume, then slipped into the sheath.
It fitted her even closer than a glove, and the neckline was more daring than she had thought. Again she hesitated, but time had run out, as Jeremy Malcolm’s car was pulling up the driveway, and there was nothing for her to do but button on the concealing jacket and take up her bag. She stood in front of the mirror. The black suited her English fairness, but that was all one could say. The high collar of the little coat gave the outfit anything but a festive air. She hoped none of the children was watching from the window. She realized now she had not been so clever. They had little enough in their small lives without her depriving them of a moment of glamour. She peered along the corridor. It was in darkness, and Elvira was standing guard. “Have a good time, Aunty Cathy,” she said dubiously.
Cathy said, “Yes,” in a meek little voice. It’s ridiculous really, she tried to tell herself. I can wear what I like, and it was a very expensive gown.
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