Lavender Morning p.28 Read online

  “What does that mean?”

  “He had me in the barn this morning…” He looked away, and Edi thought maybe his face was red.

  “In the barn doing what?”

  “Remember the cow?”

  “I will go to my grave remembering that cow,” Edi said. “What about her?”

  “‘Her’ is the key word.”

  “Oh,” Edi said, smiling. “He had you milking.”

  “And mucking. I think that’s the proper term for using a pitchfork to remove manure.”

  She looked at him. “How did you do that with an arm in a sling and your leg like that? Can you move it?”

  “Not at all. I think the hinge rusted.”

  “We’ll have to get it off you,” Edi said. “Maybe this man has an Allen wrench.”

  “No,” David said sadly. “No Allen wrench that will fit, no anything that will fit. I was in the barn at four A.M. this morning because it seems that that’s when cows want to be milked and horses have to have their floors swabbed. I tried every tool the old man has, but nothing worked. The screws are set deep into the steel, they’re rusted, and nothing will touch them. You didn’t by chance…you know…”

  “Know what?”

  “Hold on to the little Allen wrench after you…”

  “Saved your life? No,” Edi said, “I didn’t think to hold on to it. I guess I was a bit busy with the window and the water and all that.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  From outside the room came a loud voice. “Clare! You in there?”

  David rolled his eyes. “I’d rather go back to the front lines than deal with that old man. I’m telling you that Austin is a sweetheart compared to him.”

  “I’ll get up and see what I can do to help,” Edi said.

  “I better warn you that I think he expects you to cook.”

  At that Edi’s face turned pale, and she put the cover back over her. “I don’t know how to cook.”

  “You don’t know how to cook?”

  “Don’t give me that!” she snapped. “I grew up in a house with a cook. I don’t know anything about it. Food was served to me on a plate. I can’t even make a pot of tea.”

  “Really?” David said, his smile becoming broader by the minute.

  “What is so very amusing about that, Sergeant Clare?”

  “Because I can cook.”

  “You can cook?” she said in astonishment.

  “So now who’s stereotyping? My mother is Italian. I can cook. Look, why don’t we tell him that you’re injured and have to stay in bed so I’ll do the cooking?”

  “And who will milk the cow?”

  “Let ol’ Hamish do it. He does it when we’re not here.”

  “So you’re saying that I’m just a poor, feeble woman who can’t pull her own weight. Is that it? I’m to stay in bed and do nothing?”

  “Unless you can milk a cow and clean up after horses, I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

  “As it so happens, I nearly grew up on a horse.”

  “Of course,” David said. “Rich girl. The kitchen is beneath you, but you’re a stable lad in the barn.”

  “You really are the most obnoxious man I have ever met in my life,” Edi said.

  He stood up and looked down at her as he walked to the door. “And you, Miss Edilean Harcourt, are the most beautiful, intelligent, resourceful, courageous woman I have ever met. And, by the way, I plan to marry you.” He left the room, leaving Edi with her mouth open in astonishment.

  “You’re a mess, you know that?” David said as he pried Edi’s hands open and looked at the blisters. “What got into you to do all that work?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “It felt good. I get so tired of being inside and listening to typewriters all day. I liked being outside.”

  They were in the kitchen of Hamish Trumbull’s house and there was a night-and-day difference between the way it was now and how it had looked that morning. For all his complaining that Edi had worked too hard, David had spent the day scrubbing the kitchen, inside every cabinet and every pan. He’d filled the wood box and kept the old stove going all day as he cooked. The room was warm and smelled wonderful.

  “You haven’t exactly sat around,” she said, wincing as he examined her hands.

  “No, but I had help,” he said without a smile, and the absurdity of that made them both start to laugh, then they quietened.

  “Where is he?” Edi asked, referring to Hamish.

  “I wore him out with churning butter,” David said as he got some and slathered it on her blisters.

  “Butter? You can make butter?”

  “Of course. How did you think you got it?”

  “By pumping the cow’s tail up and down,” she said.

  David laughed. “Okay, so I’m no farmer, but I know what to do once the stuff’s in the kitchen. Taste this.” He dipped a wooden spoon into a pan bubbling on the stove and held it to her lips. When she started to take it from him, he pulled back.

  “Delicious,” she said. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. What is it?”

  “Alfredo sauce to go on the pasta.”

  “The what?”

  “Spaghetti,” he said. “You Americans call all pasta spaghetti. Are you ready to eat?”

  She stood up slowly. This morning she’d raided the wardrobe in the bedroom they shared and found a pair of men’s trousers that almost fit her. They were long enough, but they were so big around the waist that she’d had to make a new hole in an old leather belt to hold the pants up. She and David had shared a laugh over both of them wearing trousers that were too big.

  Edi had spent the day outside, and David had stayed in. Both of them had soon seen that the little farm was nearly falling down. With all the young, strong men at war, most of the farms were neglected, but this one seemed worse than usual.

  That morning, Edi had met Hamish for the first time, and instead of seeing a gruff old man as David described, she saw sadness. “Don’t ask him anything,” she whispered to David. “I can’t bear to hear the answer.” So many people had horror stories about the loss of loved ones that Edi couldn’t take any more.

  “Agreed,” David said.

  She found the falling-down old shed that served as a henhouse and got a few eggs. After breakfast, she started on cleaning up the outside. As David said, she’d not had much to do with the kitchen when she was growing up, but she loved the barn and the henhouse and all the things that had made Edilean Manor nearly self-sufficient.

  When she went into the house for lunch, the kitchen was sparkling, and David had just pulled bread out of the oven. That he’d done all that with one arm in a sling and his unbending leg made her smile in appreciation.

  After lunch, she tackled the chicken coop. One of the fence posts around the yard had fallen over, pulling the fence down with it. If any foxes decided to enter, nothing would stop them. The wind was picking up, and Edi wanted to get the post back up before it started to rain again.

  She was digging the hole and trying to hold the post at the same time when David came running, with his odd gait, and took over. She held the post while he stamped it in. Then, together, they put stones around the edge of the fence.

  “I have to get back,” he said loudly over the wind that was getting stronger. “Don’t stay out here too long.”

  “I won’t,” she called back, but once he was inside, she got a pitchfork and started cleaning out the inside of the henhouse. From the look of it, it hadn’t been cleaned in a couple of years. It wasn’t good for the chickens or the people eating them.

  She didn’t realize her hands were blistered until she’d finished. She had a tall pile of manure outside the fence, and she’d dragged two fresh bales of straw from the barn into the chicken coop. She looked in the barn for some gloves but couldn’t find any, so she went on with the chores barehanded. By sundown, she’d made headway on the barn, both in repairing and mucking out.

  S