“I quite understand, Mrs. Rouan. And I’d like to apologize for the times I might have upset you or been insensitive.”
The cook smiled back and patted Miss Prim’s hand with one of her own plump, time-worn hands.
“Oh, we’ve both been rather pigheaded, miss. I’m not an easy woman; I never have been. I’m used to things running my way. Take the master’s mother—we had our ups and downs at first, too.”
“Really?” said the librarian, trying unsuccessfully to picture her employer’s mother brooking any argument from the cook.
“Of course she’s an older lady, and she’s used to domestic staff. She realizes that the cook is the heart of a house and that it’s best to get on with her. But she is definitely not an easy woman.” And, lowering her voice to a whisper, she added: “Did you know she’s half German?”
“Austrian.”
“Same thing. The first time I met her she asked me to make a strudel. I said very good, no problem. I’d always made it for the children. Ah, but it wasn’t anormalstrudel she wanted. She wanted aTopfenstrudel. Do you by any chance know what that is?”
Miss Prim assured her she’d never heard of such a thing.
“That’s what I said. Madam was very considerate, of course, and she wrote out the recipe. But no one likes having a lady come into her kitchen on the very first day and ask for aTopfenstrudeland, to cap it all, give you the recipe. Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded sympathetically.
“So what is aTopfenstrudel?”
“It’s just a strudel with a cream-cheese filling,” grumbled the cook. “Theycall cream cheeseTopfen. Well, anyway, it’s not difficult to make, not at all. So I took the recipe and I made it, of course. What else could I do?”
“And did she like it?”
Mrs. Rouan got up and returned to the range. She lifted the lid of the stewpot, leaned her old head over to inhale the smell, picked up a wooden spoon, and tasted the contents with an air of satisfaction.
“That was the problem,” she explained, sitting down at the table again. “I spent all morning on the wretched thing. I bought the best cheese I could find and I followed the recipe to the letter. And when it was ready and we took it to the table on a lovely Meissen platter decorated with leaves from the garden, do you know what she said?”
Miss Prim declared that she couldn’t imagine.
“ ‘Mrs. Rouan,’ she said to me, ‘Mrs. Rouan, you haven’t brought theVanillesoβe. Where’s theVanillesoβe, Mrs. Rouan?’ ”
The librarian hid her smile in her consommé cup.
“ ‘I don’t know anything about aVanillesoβe, madam,’ I said to her in all seriousness. ‘In my entire life as a cook, and let me tell you I’ve worked in a lot of houses, I’ve never heard ofVanillesoβe.’ ”
“And what is it?” asked Miss Prim.
“Vanilla custard, no more, no less. How was I to know? And how was I to know thatTopfenstrudelwas served with it?”
Prudencia hastened to confirm that no one could have guessed such a thing.
“But I have to say, she is a lady,” continued the cook. “Of course she didn’t back down at the time. But the next day she turned up in the kitchen and she said to me: ‘Mrs. Rouan, theTopfenstrudelwas delicious yesterday. But I can see that the children are used to your strudel. So, if you wouldn’t mind, from now on we’ll give up on theTopfenstrudelandVanillesoβe, and go back to your strudel.’ ”
“And it all ended there,” sighed Miss Prim with a smile.
Mrs. Rouan got to her feet once more and lowered the heat under her stew.
“Now this has to be left to rest for two hours,” she muttered. “What were you saying?”
“I said it all ended there.”
The cook looked at her, eyes wide.
“End? Quite the opposite. It didn’t end there, miss. That’s really where it all started.”
Miss Prim nodded pensively and gazed out of the window. Thick flakes of snow had begun to fall on the garden.
