Page 55 of A Winter’s Romance
M eanwhile, Elisabeth had angrily turned away from the door, ripping out the ribbon from her hair. She immediately went upstairs and brushed it out, redoing her habitual bands around her head. She considered changing her gown, but really couldn’t waste any more time. She needed to start making dinner. Her father became confused if he didn’t have his meals on time, and it was already gone eleven. They hadn’t been able to afford a goose, and she had planned to make a pie with the small amount of beef left over from Christmas Eve. That would have to do, the Earl of Northney or no Earl of Northney. She’d bake it while she was getting the potatoes and cabbage ready. And the curate had said he’d be there at two! She’d forgotten about him. Well, if the dinner was still on the table when he got there, he’d just have to wait.
She ran downstairs, pulled on her big white apron and in a temper, began making the piecrust. She pummeled at the flour and lard on the wooden board until realizing, too late, that she had worked it too hard and too long. It was almost grey. That made her angrier; it would be heavy and unappetizing. And it was all his fault! The Earl of Northney! She whacked the ball of pastry onto the table and rolled it out with angry, heavy strokes. Why hadn’t he introduced himself properly from the start? She plopped half of the pastry in the bottom of the pie plate. Was she so far beneath him he didn’t think her worthy? She fiercely minced the beef and onion, threw it into the pie plate, doused it with gravy, slapped the top over it, and angrily pricked it with a fork. Of course, he only let important people know his real name . That must be it. She rammed the pie into the cast iron baker, slammed on the lid and kicked it into the coals.
“Get off there!” she said to the cat, who was sleeping on top of the sack of potatoes and who, unaccustomed to her tone, leaped off with a hiss. Never have potatoes been peeled with more speed and lack of attention. Eyes were left in and peel hacked off at different depths, resulting in a pile of misshapen, ill-favored objects that only vaguely resembled the familiar vegetable.
“Oh dammit!” she said, and was mortified to hear the astonished voice of her father say from the kitchen door, “What’s that dear? What did you say?”
That brought her to her senses. “Oh! nothing, father,” she said. “I said ‘oh, the darning!’ I was just remembering I’d forgotten to do it yesterday afternoon. With Mr. Fortescue arriving as he did, it went out of my head.” She couldn’t help the scorn in her voice when she said the name.
But her father, for all his vagueness, was sometimes very acute. He came into the kitchen. “Why did you say his name like that?” he asked. “I thought you liked him. He seems a nice enough fellow to me. ”
“Well, since you ask, Papa,” she replied, allowing her wrath to build again, “allow me to inform you that he isn’t Mr. Fortescue at all, but My Lord the Earl of Northney. So I have been reliably informed by that Anthea Brookstone who was in church last night. She came looking for him.”
“I don’t see why that’s anything to get so cross about, Elisabeth. The fellow can’t help his name.”
“CAN’T HELP HIS NAME?” For the first time in her life, Elisabeth raised her voice to her father. “No, he can’t, but he can at least tell people what it is, so people don’t think he’s just a well-mannered and rather attractive ordinary person. So people don’t start liking him without even knowing who he is. So people don’t begin having false hopes,” she ended, dropping her voice to a whisper.
Her father looked at her oddly. “He must have had his reasons. He probably didn’t want to puff off his consequence to strangers he met by chance in the country.”
Elisabeth had thrown the misshapen potatoes into a pot of water and hung them over the fire. She now took a cabbage and cut it in half with one blow from her sharp kitchen knife. She then proceeded to hack it into small pieces, raising her voice with each movement.
“Because we’re too far below him? Thwack! Is that it? Smack! He doesn’t want us to become encroaching? Chop! Chop! Chop! ”
“Don’t be silly, Elisabeth! You are reading too much into it. What does it matter? If we know and like a man as James Fortescue, why should we not know and like him as Earl of Whatever you say he is?”
“Yes, why shouldn’t you?” came a well-modulated voice from behind them. There stood the Earl in his long, caped coat and curly-brimmed beaver. Elisabeth gave such a start, she almost cut off a finger, and the knife clattered to the flag-stoned floor.