by Alice Duncan
Billy has a point about how ridiculous it seems for people to ask the same things over and over and expect to get different answers.
After our session, I decided to see if I could find Edie, so I tiptoed up the back stairs and started looking through the chambers. I felt kind of like I’d broken into a royal castle or something, because there were so many rooms so beautifully furnished, but sure enough, I discovered Edie tidying up Mrs. Kincaid’s brushes and combs in a perfectly gorgeous dressing room that led off a sitting room. Mrs. K’s bedroom occupied another end of the suite of rooms dedicated to her sleeping and reading pleasure. She also had her own bathroom. I know for a fact, because Harold has told me as much, that there were two other suites of rooms in the upstairs of that house, I guess for Stacy and Harold himself before he moved out.
I’m not sure I’d like to live in a huge house like that. I’d feel like I should invite another family or four to live with me.
I peeked around the corner and said, “My goodness, Edie, this place is fantastic.”
She turned and spied me. “Ain’t it grand?” she said with a broad grin. “I wouldn’t mind living here.”
“I thought you did live here.”
“Well, we do, but we have quarters downstairs off the kitchen. Still, they’re nice quarters, so I don’t mind.”
“I remember those quarters. They’re like a little apartment, aren’t they, with a sitting room and a bathroom and a bedroom. Very nice.” I’ve often wondered why some people have so much and other people, some quite deserving, have so little, but I’m no philosopher and haven’t come up with an answer that’s satisfied me yet.
“They are very nice, and they’re perfect for us. One of these days, Quincy and I want to start a family, but we’re going to wait until he’s saved up enough money to buy a house.”
A family. That sounded so nice. I mean, I had a wonderful family, but it didn’t include any children of my own. I had to settle for my siblings’ children when they came to visit for holidays—which meant I’d see them the following Thursday. I looked forward to it.
I gave Edie a brief hug. “Is everything crazy around here, what with wedding preparations and everything?”
Edie rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.” She hesitated, frowning, and then said, “Actually, you probably do, since she calls you all the time. I’ll just be glad when it’s all over.”
“Are they going anywhere fancy on a honeymoon or something like that?”
“You betcha. They’re going to Paris, France, and then they aim to go to Egypt, believe it or not, and take a trip down the Nile. Or maybe it’s up the Nile. She told me, but I can’t remember. But they’re going to see all those old pyramids and stuff. She’s bought more clothes than you can ever imagine, and I’ve hemmed and fitted all of them at least twice. Still, I don’t mind. She’s very nice to Quincy and me, even if she is a little . . . well, you know.”
I did know. That reminded me of something I’d been meaning to ask Edie for a long time. “I thought Quincy was supposed to become a horse trainer for some racing stable or other.” Edie’s husband, Quincy Applewood, had been born in Nevada and worked on a real, live ranch before he moved to California. He even acted in a cowboy picture, but he broke his leg, which pretty much ended his picture career. He still loved working with horses, however, and Edie’d told me before that he was set to go to work training racehorses.
Edie shook her head. “He decided not to do that after all, when Mr. Pinkerton hired him to tend to his polo ponies.”
I’m sure my eyes bulged. “Mr. Pinkerton plays polo?” I couldn’t quite feature the plump, pleasant, pink Algernon Pinkerton swinging a mallet, or whatever those polo stick things are called, from the back of a galloping horse.
“He doesn’t, but his sons do.”
“He has sons?” Goodness gracious, I hadn’t known that! Talk about wonders never ceasing!
“Two of ’em. They’re kind of nice, like him, only taller and not so round.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. I didn’t even know he’d been married before.”
“Oh, sure. Mrs. Kincaid told me all about it. His wife died young, and he didn’t remarry because he was so crushed at her passing. Well, until now, I mean.”
“I’ll be darned. How long will this trip to France and Egypt take, do you know?”
“A couple of months. She’s putting me on board wages, but Quincy will keep getting paid his usual salary because he’ll still tend Mr. Pinkerton’s horses.”
I’d read about board wages in detective novels set in England, but I didn’t know we had them here in the United States, which is probably stupid of me. “It’s good that you won’t be without an income.”
“Yeah, it is. Not that it matters a whole lot. We eat here and your aunt prepares the meals, so we won’t starve, even if the meals won’t be quite as elaborate during those two months as they are now.” Edie grinned at me. “I’m trying to learn how to cook from your aunt, Daisy.”
“You are? Me, too.”
It was Edie’s turn to have bulged-out eyeballs. “You? Good heavens, Daisy, I remember when you almost flunked that home-economics class because your hard-boiled eggs burned.”
“So do I,” I admitted glumly. “It’s even worse than that, unfortunately, because Johnny Buckingham has me teaching a cooking class at the Salvation Army.”
Edie’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way until she started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. I finally got sick of her amusement at my expense, so I said, “Well, I’m going down to see Vi. Maybe she’ll have another hot cooking tip for me.”
By this time, Edie’s eyes had begun to drip with the power of her hilarity and she could only give me a feeble wave, so I hotfooted it down the back stairs, the same way I’d come up—the servants’ stairs, that is to say—and on into the kitchen. My aunt was there, all right, patting some kind of dough around a big slab of what looked like roasted beef.
“Whatcha doing, Aunt Vi?”
“Good afternoon, Daisy. I’m preparing beef Wellington for dinner tonight.”
Gee, she’d never prepared beef Wellington for us. “Oh? How come it’s called beef Wellington?”
“I have no idea. I think it’s named after some famous English statesmen or soldier or something like that.”
“The Duke of Wellington? I remember reading about him in a history class. Isn’t he the one who defeated Napoleon?”
“I have no idea whom he defeated, but it sounds like he’s probably the one.”
“What exactly makes up a beef Wellington, Vi?” I eyed her preparations with misgiving. “It looks like it might be too complicated for my cooking class.”
Chuckling, she said, “It definitely is. And it’s far too expensive for your cooking class, too. It’s a sirloin of beef, roasted and smeared with liver pate, mushrooms and onions, then wrapped in a puff pastry crust, baked until the crust is done and served with horseradish sauce. I’m fixing asparagus to go with it, along with a clear soup, tomato aspic and roasted potatoes.”
“Sounds yummy.”
“Oh, it is.” She shaped her dough some more and frowned. “Perhaps I should make it for the family one of these days. Perhaps at Easter.”
That notion perked me right up. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”
She gave me a small, ironic smile. “Anything you don’t have to cook sounds good to you, Daisy Majesty.”
“I sure can’t deny that, although I haven’t erred too terribly in my cooking class so far, thanks to you.”
“I’m happy to help, dear. I think you’d be a good cook if you concentrated more.”
That was what I loved best about my family. They were always happy to help anyone who needed help, and they always thought the best of everyone, even when it was me. “Thanks, Vi,” I said humbly and meant it sincerely.
She frowned down at her dough. “I don’t know, though. Beef Wellington is pretty expensive. I don’t think we could afford to feed the entire fami
ly, including Daphne and Walter and their spouses and children, if I served beef Wellington.”
I had what I considered a brilliant idea. “You could make it for my birthday.” Then I grinned slyly at her.
She laughed again. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
“I’ll pay for the sirloin of beef,” I told her as an encouragement.
“You shouldn’t have to pay for your own birthday dinner, Daisy Majesty.”
“Heck, I don’t mind. It’ll be my birthday present to myself.”
Vi smiled, although I noticed a little sadness lurking around the edges of the smile. Because her only son had been killed in the war, she’d be alone in the world if it weren’t for the fact that she had us. That war had done so much damage to so many people. But I didn’t want to dwell on it. Instead, I watched my aunt.
She’d finished wrapping the roast in the pastry and picked up her rolling pin. She rolled out another hunk of dough and began cutting leafy shapes from the rolled dough with a sharp little knife and setting them aside.
“What are those for?”
“I’m going to decorate the roast with a vine pattern. It’ll look pretty that way.”
“Oh, my, that sounds very fancy.” I squinted at the dough leaves and back at the rolled roast. “Do they stick all by themselves?”
“With a little help from a dab of water. Then I’m going to brush an egg wash over the whole thing right before I bake it.”
“An egg wash? What’s an egg wash?”
“An egg beaten with a little water and brushed over the pastry. Cooks use egg washes on lots of pastries.”
Good grief. That sounded like a whole lot of work for something that was going to be carved up and eaten in probably a matter of minutes. This demonstrates yet one more way in which rich folks are different from the rest of us. I mean, I don’t mind spending a lot of time sewing for my family and myself, but when you sew something, it lasts for more than a single wearing. I aimed to make Christmas shirts for all of us beginning as soon as Thanksgiving was over. It was fun, when we got together on Christmas Eve, to have everyone wearing the same patterned shirt. At least it was fun for me, and the family didn’t complain. Well, Billy did, but he always complained about everything, so his opinion didn’t count.
“Did you get a call from Mrs. Kincaid to do a reading today?” Aunt Vi asked as she started pasting leaves onto the dough clinging to the beef.
“Yes.” I sighed. “She’s sure in a state about her wedding, isn’t she?”
“She is indeed. Marriage is a big step for her. You know how her first one ended.”
Boy, did I ever. “I remember all too well.”
Aunt Vi shook her head. “Once bitten, twice shy, I guess is the expression to describe poor Mrs. Kincaid’s nerves these days.”
“But Mr. Pinkerton is nothing at all like Mr. Kincaid.”
“And thank the good Lord for that,” said Vi firmly.
I added my own “Amen” to her sentiment and moseyed out the back door to climb into our Chevrolet and head to the library to return my family’s crop of last week’s books and check out some more.
Because I was wildly curious about Gertrude Minneke and her brother, even though I wasn’t longing to see her again anytime soon because I’d have to disappoint her about the money and train-ticket thing, I set out to search for her after I’d selected my books—Dark Hollow and The House of Whispering Pines, by Anna Katharine Green and The Sleuth of St. James’s Square, by Melville Davisson Post. I actually wanted to pick up some more books before I left the library. Billy had asked me to look for some more Westerns, even if they weren’t by Zane Grey, and Pa was finished with The Beautiful and the Damned. With a grimace of distaste, he had given it to me to return to the library and asked me to pick up something more compatible with his view of the world.
Which brings up an interesting point. Well, I think it’s interesting. Probably other people won’t, but I’m going to say it here anyway. We Gumms stick together on our dislike of shallow people with more money than sense and no awareness of social responsibility. I can stand working for Mrs. Kincaid and Mrs. Bissell, both of whom probably had more money than was good for them, because they were good-hearted people who did their best to help other people, even if they didn’t quite understand how the rest of the world actually got on. For instance, Mrs. Bissell was a big supporter of the Humane Society in Pasadena, and Mrs. Kincaid gave lots of money and other stuff to the poor, even if she didn’t understand how anyone could be poor.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s people, who are well set up in the world as a rule, all seemed to be suffering from massive cases of ennui for no good reason that I could discern. Heck, our next-door neighbors’ boy, Pudge Wilson, had a bigger sense of responsibility to his fellow beings than the people in Fitzgerald’s books. At least he did a good deed every day for the sake of his scouting group. Generally he tried to get it out of the way early so he didn’t have to worry about being good for the rest of the day, but at least he tried.
Where was I? Oh, yes. I aimed to pick up some more books, in other words, but the ones I already had were heavy enough to be lugging all over the library, so I decided to look for Westerns and stuff after I’d found Gertrude.
But I didn’t find her. Because I was still curious, I asked Miss Petrie if she knew where Gertrude was.
“Gertrude Minneke?” Miss Petrie said, looking a little startled that anyone would be asking her about a library page. “I believe Miss Minneke is out for the day. Someone said she telephoned to say she was sick.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What’s your interest in Miss Minneke, Mrs. Majesty? Do you know her from somewhere?”
Was it my imagination, or did Miss Petrie have a certain look on her face? I couldn’t quite place it, but it seemed to me that it was a combination of suspicion and dislike. It was, as usual, probably my imagination. “No, I don’t really know her well. I’m helping out a friend on Saturdays at the Salvation Army, and Miss Minneke is one of my . . . er, she’s one of the people who joins in the effort.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t take one more person laughing at me for telling her I taught a cooking class. And Miss Petrie didn’t even know what a terror I was in the kitchen.
I swear, her expression cleared. “Ah. I see. Yes, I understand Miss Minneke has taken advantage of a program offered by the Salvation Army. The library has hired, I believe, three people through their auspices.”
“The Salvation Army is a great organization,” I said loyally.
“Indeed.”
Miss Petrie didn’t seem as thrilled with the Salvation Army’s good works as I. Curious, I asked, “You don’t seem to care much for Miss Minneke, Miss Petrie. Or am I wrong about that?”
She hesitated for a moment or two, then said slowly, “It’s not so much that I don’t care for her. I . . . just get a funny feeling from her.”
A funny feeling? “Um, I’m not sure I understand.”
Miss Petrie heaved a sigh. “I’m not sure I do, either. Miss Minneke is always polite, and she does her work well. Perhaps it’s that brother of hers. He comes in to fetch her after work sometimes, and he doesn’t appear to be an upright individual to me. Although, really, I suppose I shouldn’t say that, since I don’t know the young man at all, and it’s not right to judge people if you don’t know them.”
“I suppose it isn’t, although I understand what you mean.” Perhaps Eugene wasn’t as innocent as Gertrude wanted to believe him. Miss Petrie had always seemed a logical, eminently sane person to me; I doubt that she made unfavorable snap judgments about people very often.
Since I couldn’t very well tell her about Gertrude and Eugene’s problems, I toddled off to search out more books and tried to forget about Gertrude.
Such blessed forgetfulness was not to be mine. I kept picturing Gertrude in my mind’s eye, sneaking in disguise to the train station on South Raymond Avenue and being captured, tied up and flung into the re
ar seat of a big black car by a bunch of big, burly thugs from back East. Shoot.
As I was running through that, and similar scenarios in my mind’s eye, all having to do with Gertrude being punished for her brother’s sins, I managed to get my hands on Main Street by Sinclair Lewis—which I suspected Pa wouldn’t like much, either—Tarzan the Untamed, A Princess of Mars and The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs for Billy. Then, because I didn’t think Pa was going to care for the Sinclair Lewis book, I poked around on the shelves until I found The Path of the King and The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. For myself, I added The Man in Grey by Baroness Orczy, and The Devil’s Paw by E. Phillips Oppenheim, and I left the library burdened, but happy with my choices.
Chapter Thirteen
I was right about Pa and Main Street, but he really liked The Thirty-Nine Steps. Billy was pleased with the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, too. He loved Tarzan in particular, probably because Tarzan could do all sorts of things Billy couldn’t do any longer. Poor Billy. Then there was my cooking class. I honestly don’t think I had an easy moment for the entire seven weeks that class lasted. But there were only two classes left, thank God.
For next Saturday’s lesson, I decided to prepare a dessert. We hadn’t made a dessert before. Unfortunately, most of the recipes in Sixty-Five Delicious Dishes required that the desserts, mainly puddings, be steamed for hours, and we didn’t have hours to use the Salvation Army’s stove. We had one hour, and I sure as anything didn’t want to prolong my own agony. I don’t know if my students felt the same way.
Anyhow, I decided on a recipe even though I didn’t know how to pronounce it, and still don’t: Arme Ritter. I decided, for no particular reason, that it was French, so I pronounced it with a French accent. It was basically French toast—which I knew about because Aunt Vi served it for breakfast every now and then—but spiced up with cinnamon and sugar, and served with fruit preserves. I thought I probably couldn’t kill that one, even with a stick. Vi agreed with me.
