The coffin was already in the church. At the sight of it—her old friend lying lifeless in a wooden box—Nell began to cry, turning her face into Audrey’s shoulder.

“Death is just not fair,” Audrey murmured, half to herself. “The most painful part of living is the fact that little by little, our family and friends leave us, and then, in the end, it is our turn. We all have to say goodbye to everything we’ve ever known.”

The vicar began. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the memory of our dear friend, colleague, and cook, Mrs. Eileen Quince. She was born in London’s East End, the second youngest of five. When her father, a docker, was killed in a work accident, his children had to go to work. Eileen arrived here in Fenley at the age of ten years old. At first she was a scullery maid, but her talent for cooking quickly enabled her to move up to the position of kitchen girl and subsequently kitchen maid. The death of her predecessor, Mrs. Newton, led to her becoming the new head cook of Fenley Hall, under the late earl.”

Audrey couldn’t help thinking about Mrs. Quince’s life. Just ten when she had been sent away from home to work in a big house—she must have known that she’d barely be able to see her family in London. Once, Mrs. Quince had told Audrey that she had a sister with whom she kept in touch, writing letters when they could. Her sister had become a housekeeper in another big house, and every five or ten years they would meet for tea in a Lyons Corner House in London.

How sad to be so far away from the people and place where you grew up. She must have missed her mother a great deal, although apparently Mrs. Quince’s mother had been strict, part of the reason why she herself was always so calm and soft-spoken. She was always so bright-eyed, so content with her lot. Her internal flame flickered on regardless of the challenges she faced, taking the rough with the smooth, determined to see the joy in life, always the joy.

    Her grave was to be situated beside that of Mrs. Newton, as she had requested when the vicar visited her in hospital. Gwendoline had arranged for the headstone.

“It’s up to her employer to settle these things, and as I used to be her employer, I decided that we should do it.” She’d asked Nell what to put on the gravestone, and together they agreed on it, making a guess at her birthdate.

MRS. EILEEN QUINCE

January 1867—September 1942

She fed us with her wisdom

Nourished us with her joy

Strengthened us with her love

As they stood beside the grave, Nell seemed to hold her breath while the coffin was lowered down into the ground.

“It feels so wrong, as if the world has gone off course and no one’s doing anything to stop it.” She looked at Audrey beseechingly.

Audrey put an arm around her. “I know you want her to be alive—you feel like you need her to carry on. But the body in the coffin is just that: a body, the shell of the person you love. The essence of Mrs. Quince, the one you know and love, is all around us, in nature and the stars, in every recipe of hers that you cook, and deep inside your heart.”

She turned her head into Audrey’s shoulder.

Audrey stared into the ground, tears coming to her own eyes again. “No matter how many times we say that someone is dead, the fact is we simply can’t imagine a world without them.”

“Every kitchen I shall ever enter, she will be there.” Nell sobbed. “She will be in every pantry, at every stove, and seated at every kitchen table.” She paused. “She will be there, drinking hot tea and scouring her recipe book, discussing what to cook for the week or making fun at Ambrose talking nonsense about cooking on The Kitchen Front. She will be everywhere, and everywhere will be brimming over with her kindness and love.”

    The funeral reception was held in Audrey’s drawing room, a capacious and rather austere room at the front of the house. In its heyday, when Matthew had been there, it had been his artist’s studio. Before he left, he put his good artworks away—most of which Audrey had been able to sell—and the room became a playground for the boys. Gwendoline and Zelda had tidied it up. In one of the bedrooms, they’d found a worn maroon rug, as well as a few small tables that now acted as occasional tables.

On the far wall over the mantlepiece was Audrey’s favorite of Matthew’s paintings, and as she walked in to be greeted by it, her heart seemed to fall. It was a portrait of her, just after they’d been married. She was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, smiling as she looked directly at him. That afternoon was a memory she would never forget, the warmth of the room, the yeasty smell of fresh bread she’d only just baked, the soft, gentle feeling of his presence, like a wash of satin petals tumbling over her. In her face, she saw a young woman in love, at ease with the world, captivated with life.

Suddenly, like a knife into her stomach, she was aware of how different she had grown to be, how pain, hardship, and loneliness had become part of her. How she longed to be that young woman again. She wanted to smile in that way, to delight in the scent of the fresh bread, to enjoy her friends and family, to feel blessed by them. She wanted to feel the exuberance of life.

“I need to change,” she murmured to herself. “I need to be more like the person I used to be—not the person that I have become.” She pulled the pins out of her hair and let it down, her fingers loosening it so that it fell over her shoulders. And slowly, she smiled. “I need to remember all the good things I have: my family, a roof over our heads, a garden full of food, a kitchen full of love, and my dear, dear friends.”

She rejoined the others, greeting the mourners and organizing the food, making sure that every dish was well stocked.

Ambrose was there, of course, to give his condolences to Nell and the others. “The world will be bereft without her. Her food was legendary, but also her warm heart and her humor.” He looked from one to the others of his four contestants. “I didn’t realize you all knew her so very well.”

    Audrey stepped forward. “It’s a long story, Ambrose, but it appears that we now live under the same roof.”

He grimaced. “Oh goodness, Aude. How ghastly for you!”

She smiled. “Actually, it couldn’t be better. If you’d have asked me a month ago, I would have balked at the idea, but now”—she looked from one to another—“now it seems that we were always friends in the making. After all, we have the same love: cooking.”

“And winning a certain contest. How are you going to get through that, eh?”

She chuckled. “You’d be surprised what the power of friendship can do.”

After the last guests had said their sad farewells, the women retired to the kitchen.

“Mrs. Quince would have been happy with that feast,” Gwendoline said, pouring a little sherry for everyone. “Well done, Nell. I know it must have been dreadful to get through it, but you did the old lady proud.”

“She’d have loved it,” Nell said sadly. “It would have delighted her to hear how much everyone enjoyed the food from her recipes. To her, food symbolizes the exchange of love. We nourish who we love.”

And with that, she asked them to raise their glasses.

“To Mrs. Quince, whose recipes and spirit live on through us.”

Zelda

Zelda’s bump was getting bigger by the day, and she tried not to think about the birth. A local midwife looked after deliveries in the area, as was the case in most rural places, Middleton Hospital only dealing with emergencies. Zelda could only hope that the midwife was a good one, and ardently prayed that the baby wouldn’t be born before the final round of the cooking contest, forcing her to withdraw.

That said, she was lagging three points behind Nell, the current leader, and would have to make her showstopping dessert truly excellent in order to win. Things had become so busy now that she was organizing a production system in the kitchen and clearing the outbuilding for the much-needed expansion. She’d hardly had time to think about the contest, let alone her pregnancy and what lay beyond.

In the back of her mind lurked London, a frenzied and muddied place, awaiting her return once the baby had been born and off-loaded. She bit her lip as she thought of it. Hopefully, she would win the contest, but she couldn’t bank on that. She needed to be ready to do battle, pull connections, charm, bribe, and seduce her way back in. Part of her longed for her old life, the normality of it, the challenge. But part of her felt an exhaustion, a boredom. She imagined returning to her old flat, a one-bedroom place off Holloway Road, back to the venue of her love affair with Jim. The other people in the flats came and went—either married, moved back home, or just vanished. She always felt like the winner, the survivor, for remaining there for so long, but it suddenly struck her that her life in London could be viewed in a different light.