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Cook comes upon Gil and Tomlin . . .
The two young men were wrapped up in their own conversation as Cook padded softly down the steps. Peaches were on her mind . . . the fat, ripe, juicy peaches from old Tolman’s orchard that she’d canned last summer. Today was the perfect day for a peach upside down cake. She’d already got out the butter and flour and leavening; the eggs and the dark brown sugar the trader from Bree had brought. The rich yellow cake batter was all set to pour over the peach slices . . . now all she had to do was find the shelf she’d put them on.
‘. . . we could put on a show,’ came Gil’s voice from the shadows. ‘I have an idea, but we’ll need someone to help us write it up.’ The sound of something tiny clack-clacking on wood drew Cook’s attention. She rounded the corner as she stepped off the stairs and made her way to where she had heard Gil.
In the soft light from the candle lantern Cook could see Gil holding up a little figure suspended from strings. It wore a long grey cloak and had a mop of curly hair. In its hands was a little wooden horn, and Gil moved the figure as if it were stalking something or someone. Its little wooden feet clacked along the top of a crate top. ‘Come, lads!’ Cook heard Gil say in a deep voice. ‘We’ll ambush those ruffians and do the blackguards in!’ ‘We’re with you, Merry!’ came Tomlin’s voice. Gil raised the instrument to the marionette’s lips and mimicked the notes of a horn being blown. Awake! Awake! Fire, foes, fear! Awake! he cried. ‘I think it’s “Fear! Fire! Foes!”,’ said Tomlin . . .
‘Tomlin’s right,’ said Cook, stepping out of the shadows. The two lads whipped around, the little puppets going slack at their feet as the dropped their arms. ‘Miz Bunce . . .’ Gil began, feeling guilty to have been found rooting through things that were not his.
‘Oh my,’ said Cook, drawing near to the opened chest. ‘I haven’t seen these in a very long time.’ She picked up the fallen puppet and turned it gently in her hands. ‘I’d quite forgotten these were down here.’
‘These are yours?’ asked Gil, seeing Cook in a new light.
‘No, but I did sew the clothes,’ she said, fingering the little brocaded vest the puppet wore, her eyes looking at it in a critical manner. ‘My dear husband carved these,’ she went on, laying the puppet down on the clothes in the trunk. ‘For his brother . . . he liked to put on little plays for folks at the Midsummer Festival.’ Cook’s eyes went all soft and she sighed as the memories flooded back of those old days. ‘They’re gone, now, the both of them.’
The two lads stood quietly, not knowing what to say. Cook recollected herself, focusing back on the scene before her. ‘You know,’ she said, her hand resting on the opened lid of the trunk. ‘I heard you two playing a little scene before I spoke.’ She patted the old trunk with affection. ‘It’s a shame that this should be hid away any longer in the shadows and the cobwebs. You two bring it on up . . . take it to that back room off the Common room . . . see what you can work up with it.’
Cook started back to the shelves where she’d stored the peaches. ‘There they are,’ she said reaching for one jar and then another. ‘You know,’ she called back over her shoulder to the two lads and motioning them forward to help her for a moment with several more jars of peaches. ‘Mister Bunce always thought there should be some music to accompany the little plays, he did. He always thought that would set them up just right . . .’
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