Hello and welcome to Restful Journeys.
I'm glad you're here.
Tonight.
We'll be continuing our story,
The Last Cozy Lantern of Briar Hollow.
With chapter 9.
And a second cup.
But before we begin.
.
.
Take a moment to make yourself comfortable,
Whether you're settling in for the night or simply taking a little time for yourself.
Allow the busyness of the day.
To gently fade away.
There's nothing you need to do right now,
Nowhere else you need to be.
Just relax,
Listen.
And let the story carry you somewhere peaceful.
And now,
Let's return to Briar Hollow.
Chapter 9.
Pie and a Second Cup Voss had one boot laced and the other in her hand when the first thump came up through the floorboards.
The flat,
Steady thump of a fist working dough on a board.
She laced the second boot,
Took her coat from its hook,
And went down the end stair with a hand on the wall.
The common room was empty and smelled of last night's ale and this morning's pastry.
A chair stood upside down on a table where the pot boy had left it.
She passed the long oak bar and the cold fireplace and pushed open the door to the back kitchen.
Heat met her at the threshold.
The oven was going.
The kettle on the stove ticked its lid against its rim,
And a flower hung in the air in a slow haze that the window turned gold.
Maud stood at the big table with her sleeves shoved above the elbow and a round of dough under a rolling pin the length of an oar.
There's tea in the brown pot.
Maud said without lifting her head.
Cups on the dresser.
Sit where you won't be in my road,
Love.
That stool by the wall.
Voss poured her tea,
Hung her coat on the chair,
And sat.
The wall behind her was warm through her sleeve.
Did you sleep?
I gave you the front room because the back takes the drought off the mill race,
But I'll own the square's no lullaby.
I slept.
It goes quiet once the last drinker is gone.
Somewhere past midnight,
It sounds like the whole building exhaling.
That's the whole trick of an inn.
Anyone can make a noise.
It's getting people to stop that takes years.
Maud gave the doe a quarter turn.
You're sitting there with nothing in your hands but a cup.
And I have a pie that wants salt.
Top shelf behind you.
There's a ladder.
A wooden stepladder leaned against the dresser.
Voss set her cup on the stool,
Opened the ladder,
Tested it with a shake,
And climbed.
The top shelf was crowded with jars and tins.
A glass jar of white crystals stood at the front.
Salt.
She said.
Is it?
What's it say on the lid?
Voss squinted.
The lid carried a paper label,
Brown at the edges,
In a looping hand.
Sugar Maud's laugh came off the walls.
Sugar,
Then I'll have a sweet crust and a sour customer.
Behind it,
Dear.
The blue jar.
Move the tens.
Voss moved the sugar aside,
Then two tins that rattled,
And found the blue glazed jar pushed back against the wall with a wooden spoon standing in it.
She brought both down,
One rung at a time,
And put them on the table.
Eldred have had the sugar for his tea.
Maud said,
Spooning a pinch of salt into a bowl of flour.
Four lumps and everything,
Like a boy,
And a peppermint on top to see it down.
I used to say he'd rot his teeth to the gums,
And he'd said he'd no teeth left to lose.
I kept the lumps in a dish by his chair at the end of the bar.
It's still there and I can't think who to give it to.
Four Vols said,
And drank some tea and climbed the ladder again with the sugar.
When she came down,
Folding the ladder against the dresser,
She found her cup had been moved from the stool to the windowsill,
Out of the flower.
She took it and asked the question she had come to the kitchen with,
As lightly as she could manage.
Mod.
With the audit on Monday fortnight,
Who keeps the penny counts in this village?
Somebody has everything by heart.
Maud took a round cutter from the hook by the range and pressed it into the dough,
Once,
Twice,
Three times,
Close enough that the circles barely left an edge between them.
If it's pennies and sums you're after,
You'll want Wren Halloway at the Square Shop.
That woman counts every farthing in the village,
And a few that haven't been spent yet.
Or will she talk to me?
She'll talk to a fence post holding a penny.
Maud lifted a crust on the flat of her palm,
Floured it on both sides,
And held up a finger for silence.
It was a fair way of closing a subject.
Voss had known gear trains that were easier to stop.
Forked.
I never trust a crimp.
Somebody always pinches it too thin.
Now that's sense.
Ma dropped the crust into a tin and passed her a fork.
Left to right,
Then across.
Not too deep.
You're not boring for a while.
Voss pricked a row of holes a quarter inch apart and was,
For the length of the row,
Content.
Maud watched her do too and nodded once,
As though that settled something.
A knock came at the back door.
Three taps and a pause.
The pause of someone who hoped nobody would hear.
That'll be Pruitt with the fruit.
Maude said,
Wiping her hands.
Right on time,
Which means late.
She crossed the flagstones and hauled the door open and the yard air came in over the step and went straight for Voss's ankles.
Agnes Pruitt stood on the step with a covered basket held in both hands.
She did not come in.
She shifted the basket onto one arm and only then looked up.
Morning,
Mrs.
Pinnock.
Plums,
And the late apples,
The spotted ones.
I think there's more plums than apples.
Then come in out of the yard,
Dear.
You're letting my heat out.
Set that down before it pulls your arm off.
Oh,
I can't stop.
I'm that behind.
Pruitt shifted the basket higher.
The cloth over it was tied and the knot had slipped to one side.
I came by the gleb wall.
It's all style.
Vos left her fork in the crust and turned on her stool.
There's room on the table,
Mrs.
Pruitt.
A basket's no lighter for being held.
" It's kind of you,
Miss,
But if I sit it down,
I shall sit down,
And if I sit,
I'm done for.
" Pruitt's chest rose and fell.
There's the doctor's luncheon at one,
And the grate in the back room,
And the sheets.
I've been behind since that week.
Since the morning after Mr.
Vance.
It's been a trying week for a house with a doctor in it,
" Voss said.
It's the rooms that suffer.
Pruitt tugged the cloth straight,
And it slid the other way.
Showing a purple curve of plum skin.
I do try.
The doctor never complains.
But there's only me.
And I'd two cups to wash from the tray in the consulting room that morning,
And then the little saucer,
The one with the chipped rim.
And it all went on from there.
I think it was that morning.
It might have been the next.
Voss said nothing about cups.
She had learned a long time ago that people on a doorstep fill a pause faster than any question can.
She took her own cup from the sill and drank.
The sugar bowl was an estate.
Pruitt went on,
Encouraged to the basket.
The lumps all out on the tray,
And one cup with a grit of sugar at the bottom that wouldn't rinse,
As if somebody had stirred it with a will.
The doctor takes his tea black.
Always has.
He says sugar rots the teeth.
So I thought,
Well,
It's not the doctor's cup.
Did he have a visitor then?
Volsask.
She kept her eyes on the bottom of her own cup.
That Evening Pruitt's hands tightened on the basket.
I couldn't say miss.
The vicar takes his three cups when he calls,
And half the village sits in that room one time or another.
The words came quickly,
Then slowed.
I'd have thought that it was his own.
Only,
I know it wasn't.
Well,
How do you know which was his?
He has the chip saucer,
Miss.
Small,
The rim's gone on the left side,
Where you'd put your thumb.
It was under the clean cup.
She seemed to hear herself and added quickly,
I think.
There's only the one with the chip.
Only the One.
Maud said to the doe.
That'll be a mercy in your house.
She slapped the pen down,
Lifted the round of pastry over the tin,
And trimmed the overhang with one swipe of the knife.
Agnes,
Give me that basket before you drop it.
Oh,
I couldn't stop.
But Pruitt crossed the flagstones in small,
Quick steps,
Going round the table rather than past Maud's elbow,
And set the basket on the pie shelf with both hands,
The way she might have set down a sleeping cat.
The plums are the Victoria ones.
The bottom layer's gone soft.
Use those first.
I always do,
Agnes.
Yes,
Of course you do.
" She gave a soft private chuckle and turned to Voss.
Good morning to you,
Miss.
Mind the tower stair.
It's said to be slippery.
Her face changed at once.
I didn't mean.
.
.
I'll mind it.
Both said.
Thank you.
Pruitt nodded several times and went out.
The latch dropped behind her,
And her steps crossed the cobbles quick and light,
And the yard gate clicked after them.
The kitchen seemed larger with two people in it.
The oven ticked as it heated.
Maud wiped her palms on her apron,
Which only moved the flour about,
And went to the stove.
The kettle was already on the back plate.
She lifted it,
Tested its weight with a small jerk of the wrist,
And set it on the hot ring.
She took the brown pot from the warming shelf,
Swilled it,
And tipped the water into the sink.
But I've had a cup.
Both said.
You've had one.
That was the cup to be getting on with.
This is the proper kind.
Maude spooned a leaf into the pot without measuring,
Filled it,
And set the cozy on it.
She stood a moment with her hands flat on the top,
As if holding it down.
She said nothing at all.
Which involves his short experience of her.
Was unusual enough to be remarked on.
Vos did not remark on it.
The pot sat its three minutes.
Maud took down a cup from the dresser,
Thin-walled with a rose on the side,
Poured and slid it in front of Vos with the saucer an inch closer under one flowery finger.
A white print of finger stayed on the rim of the saucer.
You look like you need it,
Love.
Voss drank half the cup before she spoke.
Thank you.
I think I needed it.
Maude tipped the fruit from Pruitt's basket into a bowl and sniffed it,
Which seemed to be her whole inspection.
You did!
Finish it.
Voss drained the cup.
She set the cup down.
Her coat hung on the back of the chair.
She shrugged it on and left it open.
Forked,
You said.
" Maude called after her,
Lifting a pastry lid over the fruit and pinching a ring of neat little ridges.
Forked it is!
You listened.
I always listen.
It's talking back that gets me into trouble.
She flapped a flowery spoon at the door as though driving hens.
Out.
I've an oven to mind and you're standing in my light.
I'm standing by the door.
You're standing in my light by the door.
BALLS WIN!
In the common room,
The fire had sunk to a red hump and the chairs stood upside down on the tables,
Legs in the air.
She walked between them,
Past the long bar and the pump handles,
Past the dish of sugar lumps by the stool at the far end,
Set out each morning for a man who would not come.
She took hold of the front door's iron ring and pulled.
The cold met her on the step,
Sharp after the kitchen,
And the cobbles were still dark with wet.
On the step,
She took out her pocketbook and wrote two lines,
One under the other.
Alara He came home from the doctors.
The Doctor.
In the surgery until nine,
Then to bed.
She drew a line between them and did not yet write what it meant.
Two doors along the frontage,
The lamp in the square shop window was already lit,
A small yellow square against the gray.
She buttoned her coat to the third button and crossed to it.
That concludes Chapter 9,
Pie and a Second Cup.
From the story The Last Cozy Lantern of Prior Hollow.
Thank you so much for continuing to listen to the story.
I hope that you have become relaxed,
Calm,
And possibly fallen asleep.
