Haunted Dreams

‘Oh, that’s all arranged—there’s no problem, Grandpa, don’t worry. I’ll make the soup in advance. The salmon is easy, it will only take me a quarter of an hour to cook it and make the sauce. The omelettes will take longer, but they aren’t difficult. I shall cook them at the table on a spirit-stove—people always enjoy watching!’

‘Watching other people work is always fun,’ George grunted, smiling. He loved to watch her do anything; she endlessly fascinated him. ‘I’ve never heard of omelettes filled with fruit.’

‘It’s really easy. I’ll have prepared the fruit beforehand, it will be reheated in the microwave and brought to the table in a jug, so that I can pour it into the omelette just before I fold and serve it.’

‘You’re a marvel!’ George Rendell said, and Emilie gave him a glowing look. Knowing he loved her made her feel she could do anything.

They drove to work at the paper-mill in Kent together, and that evening they drove home again, leaving on the dot of five o’clock. Her grandfather no longer worked the long hours he once had, she gathered. He had been a workaholic; now he preferred to be home with her.

It took them an hour to reach the house in Chelsea, and Emilie went straight into the kitchen. Their guests were not due for an hour and a half, which gave her just enough time to prepare most of the food before she went upstairs to dress for dinner.

The woman who came in every day to clean the house always helped with dinner parties. Emilie had left her instructions and Mary had already done some of the work—the vegetables were all prepared, the table laid, the ingredients ready.

Emilie rapidly made the broccoli soup and then puréed, separately, the raspberries and oranges she had decided on for the omelette-filling, then she went upstairs to shower and change. She couldn’t make up her mind what to wear and wasted time putting on first one dress then another, hating herself in all of them. She wanted to look different. Older, more sophisticated. In the end she despairingly settled on a simple black dress her stepmother had bought her. Marie-Claude’s taste was always perfect.

She did her hair and make-up and looked at herself in the mirror, and was startled by her reflection. The black dress certainly made her look different.

She dithered—should she wear it? Would it make Ambrose notice her, realise she wasn’t the little girl he had seemed to think she was?

She looked again, making a face. Notice me? Not a chance. He was kind to me the other night because I was crying, but a man like him isn’t interested in girls my age!

Should she change again, into something familiar? She looked at her watch and gave a cry of panic—there was no time! She had to hurry downstairs. Her grandfather met her at the foot of the stairs, his jaw dropping at the sight of her.

‘Where did that dress come from? Bit old for you, isn’t it?’ His voice was dubious.

Her colour rose. ‘Marie-Claude gave it to me,’ she whispered.

‘Who? Oh, your stepmother. Ah. French, is it?’ Again that doubtful glance. ‘Yes. Looks it.’

He hates it, she thought. If I rush I might have time to change; we can have dinner a few minutes late. But just then the doorbell went and the first of the guests arrived, and after that she had no chance to go and change.

They were all middle-aged or older, George Rendell’s friends, kind to Emilie but way out of her age-group. She took their coats, with Mary hovering to take them away, poured them drinks, handed round plates of horsd’oeuvres: sausages or prunes wrapped in crisp bacon, her own home-made cheese straws dipped in paprika, triangles of toast on which she had arranged caviare.

Ambrose was the last to arrive. At Emilie’s first glimpse of him, her heart gave such a heavy thud that she felt almost sick.

‘I’m sorry, I got caught in a traffic jam in Trafalgar Square,’ he said as she opened the door to him, and then his eyes moved down over her and he frowned.

Shaken by that look, Emilie huskily asked, ‘May I take your coat?’ He hates my dress too, she thought, her heart sinking. Grandpa didn’t like it, neither does Ambrose! Oh, why did I put it on?

Still staring, he shouldered out of the black cashmere, which was lined with dark red silk. Emilie reverently took it over her arm, unable to resist stroking it with one hand, thinking how soft and smooth it was—it must have cost a bomb!—and yet absorbing at the same time the fact that under the coat he was wearing a dark grey suit which was equally elegant and expensive. Made by the same tailor, no doubt; his clothes had an exclusive gloss. Her grandfather said that a man was judged by other men from how he dressed; Ambrose Kerr probably bought his clothes to impress his bank’s clients. Did he always dress so formally? she wondered.

Tonight there was a gold watch-chain gleaming across his waistcoat, gold cufflinks in the cuffs of his white shirt, and he wore a dove-grey silk tie.

On any other man she would have thought the clothes stuffy and boring, but he made them sexy and exciting.

As if aware of her staring, he said, ‘I came straight from work.’ Then, abruptly, he said, ‘You look different tonight—older, somehow. It’s that dress.’

Tears prickled stupidly in her eyes, and she lowered them, gesturing to the open door nearby, from which came the sound of talking, laughter. ‘Do go in,’ she muttered. ‘I must hang up your coat.’

As she turned stumblingly away Ambrose caught her shoulder to stop her, put a hand under her chin and lifted her face towards him, his grey eyes searching hers.

‘You aren’t upset, are you? The dress is very chic, and you’re lovely in it. It’s just that I had this idea of you from the other night—you were wearing a blue dress that made you look like Alice in Wonderland. Black makes you look much older, that’s all.’

He hated her dress, he thought she was a little girl… Alice in Wonderland! She broke away without a word and fled, taking his coat with her, and heard her grandfather greeting him behind her.

‘Come and meet some people…What will you have to drink, Ambrose?’

It was a relief to have work to do, an excuse for not returning to the others yet. She went to the kitchen to reheat the broccoli soup, poured it into a tureen, and got Mary to take it to the dining-room.

Emilie put the vegetables on to cook, made the sauce to accompany the poached salmon, and slid the fish into the water, then she hurried through into the dining-room after setting the timer so that Mary would have a warning when the salmon was ready.

Mary had served the soup by the time Emilie took her seat; Ambrose was sitting opposite her.

‘Your grandfather tells me you cooked the entire meal,’ he said, his spoon poised.

Faces turned to smile at her. ‘She’s a wonderful cook,’ one of the other guests, a frequent visitor, assured him.

‘I’ve asked her to come and cook for me when I have dinner parties; she’s wasted working at the mill,’ another woman said. ‘But she refuses to turn professional, says she’s just an amateur. But I can’t get any so-called professionals who can cook as well as Emilie.’

‘It’s just a hobby,’ Emilie said, shyly pink.

Ambrose tasted the soup; everyone watched him, smiling.

He lowered his spoon. ‘Delicious. They’re right, you are good.’

Her blush deepened. Everyone laughed and began to eat, the tide of conversation rising along the table.

‘If I invited you to cook for me, would you turn me down too?’ he murmured, and she laughed but didn’t answer.

Her grandfather spoke to him and Emilie was able to concentrate on her soup, her head lowered. She listened to everything they said, though, absorbing the sound of Ambrose’s voice through every pore, memorising every intonation, the warm sound of his laughter when Grandpa told him a joke.

When she began cooking the omelettes at the table he insisted on helping her, adjusting the spirit-stove, holding the jug of fruit she would pour into the omelettes before serving.

Feeling his stare riveted on her made her very nervous, which was silly. She had cooked at the table beforemade crepes Suzette with Grand Marnier—but this time she was shaking a little and breathless, because Ambrose Kerr was standing beside her, watching her.

Somehow, though, she got through without making a mistake. Ambrose held out a warmed plate on to which she slid the finished omelette.

When he tasted the golden semicircle he sat with eyes half closed for a moment while the other guests all watched him, then said, ‘Magnificent!’ and everyone laughed.

‘You are an amazing cook,’ he told her over coffee. ‘Your grandfather tells me you’re working in the paper-mill. It seems a waste for someone who can cook as well as you can!’

Seriously, she said, ‘Cooking is fun, but I love working in the mill far more. Our family have owned it for a century, you know, and it is a fascinating process, making paper.’ She paused. ‘Sorry, I mustn’t bore you.’

‘If you bored me I wouldn’t be here,’ he said, and Emilie drew a sharp, shaken breath. What did he mean by that?

Their eyes met across the table; her skin was burning, she was trembling. Was he flirting with her? If only she understood more about men!

‘How is paper made?’ Ambrose said, after a pause that seemed to last forever.