A Secret Ambition

VIII

"My goodness, you girls are very far removed from how your mother and I grew up," Claire murmured to herself. "But what will your parents say to this? Your father will skin us alive when he learns about this, Lily."

"It was nobody's fault but my own," Lily replied. "I will write Papa and Mama and tell them myself." In a footnote. In tiny writing. And then she would smudge it with her finger.

"Maria, do you know how to light a stove?" Claire suddenly asked her daughter.

Maria shook her head as she clamped her lips together.

Claire appeared quite shocked at the confession, and she placed her hands on her hips. "Every day of my life, until I married your father, I rose out of bed before dawn, baked bread, made tea, laundered clothing ... and now my own flesh and blood do not even know how to boil water.

"When Jackie returns home, the three of you are to go straight down to the kitchen with me and I am going to teach you how to light the stove and make tea. I am certain there is a law written somewhere that you are not allowed to live in this country if you cannot brew tea."

A smile spread across Lily's face. This was exactly what she needed, and she thought that she was going to have to invent a reason to ask her uncle's cook for guidance. But her aunt, instead, was going to teach the three girls herself.

It was a simple skill, to be sure. But it was one that she lacked because she had lived so sheltered a life. She was anxious and eager for new.

***

After bathing, soaking the smoke from her hair, and scrubbing every inch of her soot covered skin, Lily felt clean. Her aunt had kept to her word, and her uncle had joined them in the kitchen out of amusement.

Claire had waited until after dinner, when the servants had finished in the kitchen and they were not in the way, before she began her lesson. Jack had seated himself at the servants' dining table and watched as though he was viewing a show at the theatre.

"Don't you sit over there with a wicked grin on your face!" Claire chastised Jack as she waved him over. "You ought to learn, too! People ought to be able to boil water. We have been doing it for centuries and now we have modern contraptions that allow us to do it in an indoor kitchen."

Jack snickered, but he obliged Claire and joined his two daughters and his niece before Claire. Claire motioned to the large stove, and said, "This is a stove."

"What?" exclaimed Jack, smacking his hand over his mouth. "All these years, I thought it was an armoire. I hate to think how many pairs of socks I have lost to this contraption over the years."

Jackie, Maria, and Lily all giggled at their uncle's teasing. Claire managed a small smirk as her blue eyes narrowed. "You be careful now, dear. I would hate for you to get lost inside of it." Claire shook her head and took a breath. "As I was saying. Stove. The first thing you must do is check the firebox for any remnants of the previous fire. It must be clean." Claire opened a small door on the front of the stove and checked inside, before she allowed the three girls and Jack to peek inside. "As you can see, our kitchen maids are excellent at their craft, and it is perfectly prepared for a new fire."

Above the stove was a pipe that reminded Lily of a chimney. This was what her aunt reached for next when she pulled a small lever from the pipe.

"This is called a damper," she explained. "The damper lets in air, and you need it fully open to begin your fire, and once it has begun, you use the damper to control the fire."

"It certainly doesn't put a dampener on how hot and bothered –"

"Hush!" snapped Claire with a flare of her eyes. Jack seemed mightily amused, and Lily felt as though a joke had flown by her and she'd missed it. She had certainly been hot and bothered earlier that day as that was what happened when one was around a fire. "Make yourself useful and collect some wood for me."