She pushed past Emer and made her way to the scullery. A blast of steamy air from the boiling water used to clean the pots and pans hit Emer full in the face for a brief second and then disappeared when the maid shut the door behind her. Emer followed the stairs down, and they opened up into the huge kitchen.
The ceiling was so lofty and floors so wide that if the stovetops, ovens, and fire pits had been replaced by pews, the area could have very easily been used as a cathedral instead. On a long wooden workbench in the middle of the room stood Davinia.
She did not immediately look up as Emer entered, being hard at work kneading bread. Occasionally, she would stop what she was doing and wipe her forehead with her wrist on the back of her hand. Then she would continue kneading.
“Can I help ye, lass?” another kitchen maid asked Emer when she saw her standing at the foot of the stairs.
Hearing this, Davinia looked up from her task. She gave a high-pitched shriek, dropped the dough onto the workbench, and ran to hug her sister.
“Emer! How lovely to see ye, and what a surprise!”
Emer allowed her sister to hug her hard and then gave Davinia a soft pat on the back.
Sensing something was wrong, Davinia stepped back and gave her sister a long, keen look. It was only then that she noticed Emer’s drab black clothes, badly fitting and made of cheap worsted fabric, and a look of consternation descended on her face.
“Where’s Mither and Faither? Did ye leave them well? What’s going on, and why are ye here?”
Emer had cried all the tears she had to weep while riding to Maclachlan Castle. Now, empty and drained of all grief, she muttered, “There was a fire in the village, Davi. Only a few of us survived...Mither and Faither...,” she did not know what else to say.
Davinia sat down on the floor and covered her face with her apron. Two of the kitchen maids ran to help her up. The spit-turn boy rushed to the stovetop to pour boiling water over a pot of tea leaves and, after doing that, changed his mind and ran to the alehouse to fetch mugs of ale.
A pageboy ran to fetch cook from the servants’ parlor.
Cook, a kind, hard-working woman, bustled into the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, took control of the scene at once.
“Ruthie, Dorcas, escort Davinia upstairs to the turret and put her to bed. Oscar, prepare a basin of warm water for Davi’s sister to wash,” she turned to Emer after saying this, “ye’ll feel better for wiping the road off yer face and hands, lass.”
Emer, too fatigued to do anything except say faintly, “Aye...,” tried to get her knees to bend in a curtsey, but her legs would not obey the command.
Cook saw her sway and caught her around the waist, “Up to the turret bedchamber with ye, lass, I’ll send the water, and some food and drink up to ye in a trice.”
The next thing Emer knew, she was lying on a soft bed in a dark circular room, the drapes were drawn over the windows, and the only sounds were those of her sister weeping softly into the bed next to hers. The room seemed to blur and turn in circles, and then Emer fell into an exhausted sleep.
* * *
“Ye are a gift sent to me from the heavens, Emer,” Cook said with a smile, “Much comfort and commiserations for yer recent sorrows, but I will need all the help I can get in the next few days to prepare for the feast. Ye are such an accomplished young lass, ‘tis nae wonder Mistress Burroughs, the housekeeper, wants ye to become her assistant.”
Davinia gave a wan smile from the workbench as she kneaded pastry for the dozens of pigeon pies that had to be made and baked for the feast, “Mistress Burroughs will love Emer like her own daughter..., that is until Emer breaks her favorite vase or drops a candle lighter pole onto an antique plate all the way from China!”
Everyone in the kitchen laughed at Davinia’s little joke. Emer worked hard and knew how to run a household perfectly, except for one thing: she was so clumsy and heavy-handed it was touch and go to see if she would or could make it from one side of a room to the other without tripping up or dropping something.
“Dinnae be in such a hurry!” “Watch out for the broom handle!” “Look out for that step!”
Emer heard these words said to her all day. She blamed her blundering progress on the fact her father had allowed her to ride everywhere since she was a wee bairn. She was happiest when out in the fields and riding her pony. Indoors had always seemed to be too tight and small. Digging the vegetables and tending to her goats and chickens had been Emer’s tasks around the farm. Her mother and father had agreed she was to receive a good education too. Not just the general accounts and letter writing any good future farmer’s housewife would need to learn, but more serious works.
Mistress Françoise Wylie, their mother, had taught her daughters French and Latin, and the local pastor had lectured them in English works and even some Philosophy. Grandpère Bourgine had brought them books from France and London to read. Davinia had lost interest in her studies once she turned three and ten summers, preferring baking and sewing to sitting with her head in a book. But Emer had never lost her love of reading.
“I suppose sitting at a table studying all day or tending the vegetables has made me body less adaptable,” Emer mused out loud, “and kitchen work is nae like farm work!”
Davinia, darting from one side of the kitchen to the other, replied aloud, “Ye’ll pick it up as ye go on, sister, dinnae fash.”
Both Wylie girls had woken at dawn on the day of the feast and set to work the minute they entered the kitchen. They had finished their mourning and were practical enough to realize it was time to make their own way in the world as best they could. Emer had put off the cheap black clothes she had bought along her journey to the castle and settled for tying a black riband around her arm instead, as had Davinia.
A few dozen bannocks had been sent up to the servants’ dining table, and guards’ room and porridge carried up to the morning room for the Laird and his family, but everyone understood the kitchen would be busy until midnight preparing the feast.
Cook and the other kitchen hirelings had come to trust Emer’s sense of taste and smell only a few days after her arrival at the castle and beginning her work there. Her unique talent had been discovered when a haunch of venison was roasting on the spit, attended by a sleepy spit boy. Emer had brought the young boy a mug of weak ale and stood by the vast firepit with her eyes closed, inhaling the delicious aroma of roasting meat.
“The meat is roasting too dry and lacks relish,” Emer said after opening her eyes. She turned to Cook, who was busy making pie crust at the other side of the room, “Mistress Drummond, can I baste the venison with a sauce made of red wine and spices, please? The meat needs a layer of something to protect and flavor it.”
