The rest of the afternoon sped by. Zelda nominated herself as Nell’s sous-chef, chopping, greasing, and rolling as necessary, while Nell, a look of ferocious concentration on her face, blended, boiled, and baked.

They made sausage rolls (the sausage meat blended with mashed potato to make it go further), ginger buns (the ginger flavor masking the sour taste of the dried eggs), salmon loaf (tinned salmon blended with potato and bread, then baked), cold-pressed rabbit pie (using rabbits bred in the neighbor’s garden), bacon and potato pasties (with extra fried onions and mushrooms to make up for the small quantity of bacon), and lentil sausages (mashed with leek and potato and rolled in breadcrumbs).

Zelda made her special spinach, egg, and cheese lattice tartlets, using dried egg powder and adding a little bacon fat for extra taste—they didn’t have a lot of cheese. When she pulled them out of the oven, the golden, flaky pastry smelled so delicious that they had to cut one into small pieces to each try a little.

It was late in the evening by the time they’d finished. Zelda and Gwendoline had cleaned up and gone to bed, leaving Audrey to put on the kettle for a last pot of tea with Nell.

“Time for a well-deserved rest, I think,” she said as she began wiping the table down. “Tomorrow’s a big day. You need a good night’s sleep, Nell.”

But Nell was sitting at the table, her nose in the recipe book, a candle glowing beside her. “There’s one last thing I have to make.”

Audrey came and peered over her shoulder. “What is it?”

Nell looked up, biting her lip to stop herself from crying. “I need to make her Special Occasion Cake. It was her favorite. She knew that everyone adored it, and it was her gift to them, providing nourishment and pleasure.” Nell put her hands on the book. “And now it’s my gift to her and all who loved her.”

Audrey pulled out the chair beside her and sat down, putting an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “But she wouldn’t have wanted you to stay up all night cooking, would she?”

    Nell turned to her, her eyes large and glistening with tears. “I have to do it.”

Audrey sighed, looking around the tidy kitchen lit dimly by a lone bare bulb and a few flickering candles.

Nell got up and went to the pantry to collect the ingredients. There was none of the rushing of before. She was calm, measured, peaceful.

“I’ll stay and help,” Audrey said.

And there they stood, beside each other, silently measuring out flour and raisins, grating carrots to sweeten it, blending butter with oil, as if it were a religious ritual. This cake was to be an homage to the old woman, one of the best cooks in the country, and one of the very best people who ever walked the earth.

“It helps when I cook,” Nell said softly. “I feel her closest to me when I’m here in the kitchen, busy. It’s as if she’s just sitting over there, telling me what to do, smelling the air, the scent alone telling her how something would taste.”

“I think she’d be happy, seeing you here, cooking.”

Nell let out a little laugh. “Yes, she was always one for keeping busy. It seems she learned it from her predecessor, Mrs. Newton.” She looked wistfully into the flickering brightness of the candle flame. “Just as I will take it along with me, pass it on to whoever comes next.”

Audrey left her alone with her cooking, going to bed after a busy day.

The kitchen, now empty but for Nell, seemed still, silent.

And as she added the raisins, the flour, the honey, Nell felt the presence of the old woman behind her, murmuring, “that’s right, a few more raisins” and “that’s the perfect consistency—moist but firm.”

Then, as she reached the very end of the recipe, there was a final instruction.

    Leave it to bake until it feels ready.

“What does that mean?” she whispered, praying for a response. Mrs. Quince had a nuance with food. She had the kind of understanding one acquired only after years—decades—of cooking. “How will I know?”

But the voice behind her seemed to murmur, “You’ll know, Nell. Trust your instinct.”

A warmth seemed to pass through her, and then it was gone.

The kitchen was cold and empty. The gentle tick of the wooden clock faded in and out of her consciousness. She looked around at the dim space, tears coming to her eyes. “Where are you, Mrs. Quince? Where have you gone?”

But there was nothing.

She was alone.

Standing alone beneath the bare bulb, she bent her head into her hands and began to cry. But almost as soon as she had begun, the rich, warming smell of the baking cake stirred her back to the here and now.

She had to check the cake.

But how would she know it was cooked through?

She didn’t want to cut into it, and using a toothpick had limitations with a cake like this.

A wave of potent, spicy aromas enveloped her as she opened the oven, transporting her to another place, another time. She was back in the Fenley Hall kitchen, plump Mrs. Quince turning out the cakes for the Fenley Summer Fair just before the war—they hadn’t held it since the war began. The busy excitement. Would they win the cake contest again? Would Ambrose Hart be there, presenting the prize to the winner?

She’d been a different person then, a girl.

As she took the cake out of the oven, she smiled through her tears at her old friend, so real in her dream.

“This is the cake to win a thousand contests,” she murmured, remembering the fair.

There was a cooling rack on the table, and as she took it over, she wondered again how she would know if it was properly cooked. But as she set it down, she sensed the firmness of the texture as the succulent smell of the baked cake filled the air.

    Suddenly she was absolutely certain that it was perfectly cooked, not a moment too little or too much—just as Mrs. Quince had told her.

She had the nuance, the instinct—the power—to cook by herself.

And as she stood there, taking this in, feeling herself standing a little straighter, her hands deftly turning the cake onto the cooling rack, she knew.

She was ready.

Mrs. Quince’s Wartime

Special Occasion Cake

Serves 12

For the cake

2? cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder 2 tablespoons butter, margarine, or fat ? cup oatmeal

1 tablespoon sugar, or the equivalent in saccharin ? cup dried fruit

1? cups grated carrot 1 tablespoon syrup or honey 2 eggs, or 2 tablespoons dried egg powder, reconstituted

For the mock marzipan

? cup margarine

? cup sugar

2 teaspoons almond essence 1 cup soya flour

For the icing

4 tablespoons powdered milk 2 teaspoons sugar

2 tablespoons margarine or butter A little vanilla essence or other flavorings (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl, then rub in the butter, margarine, or fat. Add the oatmeal, sugar, dried fruit, and grated carrot and mix well. Add the syrup or honey and the reconstituted eggs and mix with a little water so that it’s relatively firm. Put it in a greased cake pan and bake for 1 hour. After taking it out of the oven, leave it to cool for at least an hour before removing it from the pan and applying marzipan.

      Make the marzipan. Blend all the ingredients together into a paste. Smooth it around the outside of the cake.

For the icing, mix the powdered milk and sugar in a bowl with a little water. Melt the margarine or butter and mix it in with the vanilla essence. Add water until you get the right consistency and smooth or pipe the icing over the cake.

Audrey

It was one of those clear, bright mornings, as if Mother Nature wanted to make the day match Mrs. Quince’s sparkling-eyed joy. Not a wisp of cloud broke the pale blue morning splendor, no breeze disturbed the tang of autumn in the air. There was a stillness, only the distant sound of cattle lowing in a nearby field. It was as if the world had polished itself up and was in very best form for the sad passing of the beloved old cook.

And beloved she was, Audrey thought as she stood beside the church door, watching the people pouring in. Most of them were from the village, people who remembered her generosity, how she donated cakes to raise money for the school, made pies and cakes for village events, baked her Special Occasion Cake for christenings and weddings. Her jam was legendary. She’d stopped entering the jam contest at the village fair, claiming she was too busy, although everyone knew it was to give the other cooks a chance of winning.

The church bell couldn’t be rung—it was only to be rung in the case of invasion—and so the old vicar checked the hour on his wristwatch and ushered them into the church himself. The four women filed into the front row with the boys, Gwendoline at the end, then Nell, Audrey and the boys, and Zelda at the far end. Together they huddled, as if the grief of one of them was to be shared out, each of them taking on some of the burden.