But Ellen had used the same word: husbandry. She saw the children (he had realised this at once) as his father, and he himself, had learnt to see their trees: those that needed pruning, those that grew aslant, those that required only light and air.
She was like those girls one sees in genre paintings: girls labelled Lacemaker or Water Carrier or Seamstress. Quiet girls to whom the artists had not bothered to give names, for it was clear that without them the essentials of life would cease.
Oh damn, he thought, having promised storks, having opened the door to a place he had never meant to leave and that was lost to him until his wearisome task was done. For it was strange how easily, had things been different, he could have taken her to Pettelsdorf. She would precede him up the verandah steps; the wolfhound would nuzzle her skirt; his mother would give the little nod she gave when she found the right word for one of her translations and his father would put down the gun he was cleaning and take out the 1904 Imperial Tokay he kept for special guests. While in the brook behind the house, the storks she craved would solemnly perambulate, searching for frogs…
Which was nonsense, of course, for the work he had to do must involve no one, and even if he did what he set out to do he would still not be free, for incredible as it seemed, it looked as though there was going to be another war.
It was not till the beginning of her second week that Ellen was able to devote herself to the kitchen and its staff.
The kitchens, which had once supplied the Hapsburg counts with roast venison and casseroles of grouse, and had sent sucking pigs and flagons of Napoleon Brandy upstairs, had not changed substantially since the days when the last of Hallendorf’s owners had feted Franz Joseph after a week of hunting. An electric cooker had replaced the huge bread ovens and the range, and there was a frigidaire stuck with revolutionary slogans proclaiming the need for the overthrow of the Costa Rican government. But the vast wooden kitchen table was the same, the long passages which separated kitchen and larder and the stone steps down to the cellars.
Nevertheless, Ellen, entering to begin her supervisory duties, looked at the room with pleasure. It was not dark; the windows at the back looked on to the courtyard and the catalpa tree, and everything was solid and clean.
The cleanliness surprised her because the food which had hitherto been served up was dire. Lumpy brown rice risottos to which spikes of bony fish adhered; strange salads devoid of dressing but rich in small pieces of gravel and slimy tropical fruits which had come from far away in tins.
Ellen’s arrival, in her crispest apron, was not greeted with enthusiasm either by the persecuted Costa Rican, Juan, or by Fräulein Waaltraut Nussbaum-Eisenberg, an impoverished aristocrat whose nephew was mayor of Klagenfurt.
Juan cooked for his keep and a vestigial salary and expected any day, he said, to hear a knock at the door and to be taken away by the secret police of his country, and Fräulein Waaltraut disapproved of meat, eggs and fish and would have fed the school entirely on borage and bilberries if Bennet had let her.
“Well, of course we must have salads,” said Ellen, “but not with gravel, and stinging nettles must be picked young. Also these children are growing so we must make sure that there is plenty of protein.”
She laid her cookery books on the table and asked if she could see the larder. This went down badly, Fräulein Waaltraut pointing out that she wasn’t used to being inspected and Juan waving his arms and declaring that it was a Thursday, and it was on Friday that the boat came with fresh supplies.
Since it was obvious that both Juan and Fräulein Waaltraut, like the tinned mango shards from impoverished African countries, belonged to Hallendorf’s tradition of succoring the needy irrespective of worth, Ellen continued to be surprised by the wooden table scrubbed to whiteness and the pots and pans scoured and neatly stacked. Clearly there was someone else working down here and presently she found her; not in the kitchen itself but in the scullery, washing up the breakfast things.
Ellen came on her unobserved and as she watched, her spirits rose. The girl was very young-not more than eighteen-and dressed in a spotless dirndclass="underline" a blue sprigged skirt, a pink bodice, a white blouse. Her blonde hair was pinned neatly round her head, she was small and sturdy and she worked with a steady rhythm and concentration, as though what she was doing was… what she was doing, and nothing else.
“Grass Gott,” said Ellen, holding out her hand. “I’m the new supervisor — my name is Ellen.”
The girl turned, wiped her hands. “I’m Lieselotte,” she said-but as she dropped a curtsy Ellen had to restrain herself from rushing forward and taking the girl into her arms. For this might have been Henny, come back from the dead: Henny as she had been in her own country, wholesome, giving and good.
“Tell me, Lieselotte, was it you who boiled the eggs and made the poppy seed rolls on Sunday?”’
Lieselotte nodded. “Yes. I am not supposed to cook, I’m just here to clean and wash up, but on Sundays Fräulein Waaltraut isn’t here and—”’ She flushed. “It’s difficult. I am thinking of giving in my notice.”
“Oh no!” Ellen shook her head with vehemence. “You can’t possibly do that. Don’t even think of it. From now on it is you and I who are going to do the cooking.”
The girl’s face lit up. “Oh, I love to cook. Everyone thinks Austrian food is heavy and greasy, but that’s only bad Austrian cooking. My mother’s omelettes are like feathers and her buttermilk is so fresh and good.”
“Your mother taught you to cook, then?”’ “Yes.”
“And do you have any brothers and sisters? We shall need some help because I have to work upstairs as well.”
“I have two sisters. They wanted to come but my mother thought it wouldn’t be good… they’re young-and sometimes the children behave so badly.”
“Well, anyone would behave badly if they had to eat fishbone risotto,” said Ellen. “I tell you, Lieselotte, we’re going to transform this place.”
“But,” the girl looked towards the kitchens where an altercation was beginning between Juan and Fräulein Waaltraut, “how will you…? He has nowhere to go and she is related to the mayor.”
“I think perhaps Juan could teach pottery. And — well, I shall think of something. Now, here are the menus I thought offor next week-but I’d like to use as much local produce as possible. I expect you know people who would supply us?”’
“Oh yes. Yes.” She smiled.
“But they do not live in Abyssinia.”
In Gowan Terrace, Ellen’s mother and her aunts missed her more than they could possibly have believed. The house without her seemed empty, silent and cold. If Dr Carr had scarcely noticed, in her busy life, the flowers Ellen had brought in and arranged, she noticed their absence. Below stairs, the cook reverted to boiled fish and virulently coloured table jellies, and the man who came to help in the garden dug up Ellen’s peonies and destroyed the clematis.