Though she wasn’t listening, Pru nodded and wiped both hands on her trousers. Already her sartorial standards had fallen into grand disrepair. Not that there was anyone around to notice.
“What do you think, then?” Mrs. Spencer pressed. “A homemade Christmas?”
“Really?” Pru said as the pup nipped at her hand, breaking the skin. “You’re serious about it?”
“Of course I’m serious!”
“A dinner seems like a lot of effort.”
And unsanitary besides, what with the stove used for foot warming and home heating and the dead cats in the fridge.
“You think I can’t cook?” Mrs. Spencer said. “Is that the problem?”
“Heavens no,” Pru said, though that was exactly what she thought. “I truly believe you can do anything you set your mind to.”
And this was equally true. The woman was old, frail, her mind forever careening into faraway places and long-ago years. Yet through the cobwebbed stories of Proust and Paris and grand literary salons, Mrs. Spencer remained formidable somehow. She was made of strength, a rare metal perhaps, available only to the elite.
“It’s the kitchen,” Mrs. Spencer guessed. “You think the kitchen is in poor shape.”
She couldn’t help it: Pru laughed.
“Is something funny, Miss Valentine?”
“Mrs. Spencer, I don’t think the kitchen is in poor shape. I know it is. There’s only one working appliance and you use it to warm your toes.”
On top of that there were at best three and a half plates plus a dodgy spattering of pots, most of them filthy black. Forks were used for dog grooming, and just that morning Pru had watched Mrs. Spencer scrape calluses from her heels with a silver spatula.
“You think I can’t make do?” Mrs. Spencer said with a hip-jut and a humph. “I was in Paris during the Great War. The first German shells hit in 1918 and not a week later I made Easter dinner in my very quaint kitchen. We were under ration!”
“Mrs. Spencer…”
There was no way to hear the word “Easter” without Pru’s brain tacking “Offensive” on the end of it. A holiday, forever ruined. Of course, for Pru, most things ambled back to Charlie eventually.
“And it wasn’t merely the limited ingredients I was dealing with,” Mrs. Spencer continued. “When I ventured out for provisions a shell landed thirty yards before me.”
“Mrs. Spencer, please.”
“My skirt was blown straight over my head! I was saved from flying shrapnel, and certain death, by my fur shawl. Miss Valentine, you’re so pale. You weren’t even there.”
“I don’t like talking about wars.”
She’d not told Mrs. Spencer the details of her so-called broken engagement. While the much-maligned “Edith Junior” was apprised of the situation, the two didn’t speak. Or if Edith spoke, Mrs. Spencer didn’t listen. For now, Charlie’s death was a fact Pru kept for herself. She didn’t know how Mrs. Spencer might use the information against her. Pru only sensed that she would.
“You don’t like wars? What do you even know of wars? Pretty girl locked safely in a house? Miss Valentine, right before me.” Mrs. Spencer tightened her jaw. She aggressively wiped away tears that were not even there. “Right before me four people were blown to atoms. For ten days I was constantly seasick from the memory of the sight.”
“Blown to atoms.” Pru cringed. “Wonderful. Many thanks for such a detailed description.”
“You are so weak-livered! My only point is that in a kitchen much smaller than ours and with bombs exploding around me, I devised a gourmet spread for a group of twelve.”
“I’m sure you impressed everyone with your talents,” Pru said as the dog hurtled down from her lap and took to relieving himself on a nearby rug. “But we’re not in Paris and there’s no war. At least not here. We have other options for a holiday feast. Plus you hate Christmas. What did you tell me? It is more…”
“More a day of sad recording of changes come than of satisfied banter. But no matter. I’m doing this! We’re doing this!”
The old woman sprang to her feet, dogs and eyedroppers flying. Without putting away the supplies or even changing out of her bedclothes, Mrs. Spencer grabbed a pair of boots and her old straw hat, and set out to town in her little black Austin.
“Dare I eat the feast?” Pru griped as she lifted herself from the ground. “Four medium cats, cooked in a red wine reduction sauce. Ouch! Damn it!”
She nearly tripped over a dog.
“So … many … animals…,” she said wearily and paused at the window.
Gazing out across the orchard, Pru placed both hands at her back, which ached from hunching over dogs. As she stretched, Pru noted how beautiful the property was that time of day. The sky was flat, the light draping across the frosted vines and branches. It hadn’t snowed but they promised it soon would. Moments like these, the Grange was not so bad.