Secrets of the Asylum by Linda Hughes

Author:Linda Hughes [Hughes, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944193997
Publisher: Deeds Publishing
Published: 2020-04-07T22:00:00+00:00

18

“Hello, my friends!” Abby announced her arrival as she entered the backdoor of the big house and went into the kitchen. “What a beautiful Sunday morning. And look at what I brought for you today! Fresh out of the woods yesterday.” She plopped a big basket of morel mushrooms on the kitchen table, with her usual flowers in a separate basket beside it. Today the flowers were dainty white trillium and bluebells.

“My-oh-my! Look at those fat babies!” Cook clapped her hands together when eyeing the morels. “You found so many! Thank you, thank you.” She used her apron to wipe flour off her hands and grabbed Abby for a hug that buried the much smaller woman in pillows of chest and arms. When Cook let go, Abby took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what,” Cook said, “we’ll fry up a big mess of them right now for breakfast. We’ll have scrambled eggs, too. Later I can fry the rest to go with the family’s dinner. They’ll be delighted!

“Peggy, dear, check the bread, would you please? Sarah’s out right now collecting the eggs. This will be a grand breakfast!” Cook got busy preparing the iron skillet for their feast, stoking the wood fire in the stove’s belly to increase the heat and using a wooden spoon to drop a large glob of lard from its jar by the stove into the skillet. The lard sizzled loudly, announcing the coming of good eats.

“Abby, don’t ya know we have a lot to tell ya?” Peggy interjected in her Irish way of turning a phrase. She opened the oven door to reveal three golden mounds of bread. Using the edges of her apron to cover her hands, she pulled them out one by one and set them on a towel on the table. “Meg brought a young man home yesterday! And what a looker he was. Could put that John Gilbert to shame, to be sure. Maybe even Rudolph hisself.”

“I want to hear all about it,” Abby reassured her, pouring herself a cup of tea and sitting down at the table. Kitty jumped up on her lap, rubbing her head on Abby’s chest. Abby stroked the cat’s back and received an appreciative purr in return. Then, as quickly as she’d come, Kitty jumped down as if she had an appointment somewhere else, and scampered out of the room.

Abby grabbed a paring knife that lay on the table and pulled over the basket of mushrooms, slicing each one once lengthwise for better frying.

Seeing that it was ten o’clock in the morning, Abby’s usual time for dropping by on a Sunday as the family would be at mass, she knew that Cook and the other servants had already come back from early service in order to prepare Sunday dinner to be served early in the afternoon. It was the most elaborate meal of the week, pot roast, baked chicken, rack of lamb, venison chops, or steaks with all the trimmings plus dessert. But Cook always had the preparations well in hand so the mood in the kitchen was relaxed and jovial.

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