Maggie had made various contacts since they arrived in this new land several years ago, and she quietly and cautiously inquired about a place for unwed mothers to retire while with child and yesterday she had been given the address of a place several towns away. She had sent word to Lady Elizabeth letting her know that things were progressing as hoped through her personal servant Eleanor who had been with Lady Elizabeth since her birth and was completely loyal and trustworthy, and had awaited word on what to do next. Eleanor had secretly given her a sign from the hallway, so she had Sophie finish up using the excuse that she had to use the bathroom and went instead to her room where she located a note under her pillow from Lady Elizabeth which simply read, “Proceed at once with caution” and was unsigned, but she knew her mistress’s handwriting well enough. As always, she burned the note in the fire of her lamp and let it burn out in the basin until nothing was left but ashes which she dumped into the toilet. Now that she had the go ahead, Maggie was anxious to get things rolling and she sent for Edward, the gardener, who was the usual person to run her errands and pick up any orders in town. She took him down to the cold storage and gave him a note and told him where to deliver it, and to wait for an answer and bring it back to her as soon as possible. She also handed him a list of things she needed done in town and he left.
Since then Lady Elizabeth had sailed to England taking Eleanor with her to visit her family and gather the needed furniture and layette items for the new baby. They wouldn’t return for four months, in which time Lady Elizabeth would start wearing maternity clothes to mask her non-growing belly and appear to be pregnant. It seemed risky but the Lady had a great deal of experience in deception and with Eleanor’s assistance they were sure to come through the ordeal unscathed, and it was nothing to create an illusion that the men would believe since they paid no attention in the first place. Not to mention that Elizabeth had already made plans for them to be gone when she ‘gave birth’, at which time Sophie would be rewarded well for the child she was carrying, including going back to her home in England where she wouldn’t run into anyone they knew.
With all that it was time to dry tomatoes and this years harvest was better than ever - so much so that she was selling the excess to the grocer - thanks to adding compost which included chicken feces that she had the gardener start when they got here; it took two full years to create the best fertilizer and it was worth the wait, but now they had to set up tables outside to let the sun dry them naturally, she only added salt as they were getting close to help preserve the color and flavor. Well, she may as well go ahead and start breakfast so she went out to the kitchen and made some bread dough, lit fires in her stove and ovens and went into the cold pantry down in the basement and brought up a big ham, potatoes and onions. She carved thick slices with the fat attached off of the outside of the ham to fry up for breakfast and put the rest into a roasting pan and set it into the small oven that would cook it slowly throughout the day and she would serve that for supper. By then Sophie had come in and peeled the potatoes and onions and sliced them and put them in a bowl of salted water which she covered with a large plate and set aside to make a casserole for supper. They finished cooking breakfast together, which consisted of the ham, fresh eggs and french toast from the leftover loaf of bread she’d baked yesterday, and afterwards Sophie washed the pots and dishes, setting them on a large towel to drip dry and she put them up when she was done, wiping some of them that hadn’t dried completely. In the meantime Maggie was getting a head start on lunch and had taken the bread from the oven, popped it out of the pans and rolled the loaves up into towels to cool, laying them on a windowsill and was now working on several pies. The gardener had brought in strawberries, and she had some lemons from the last order so she was making lemon meringue pies with a strawberry sauce for supper, and making strawberry creme crepes for lunch with a thick soup of chicken and noodles with spring onions, carrots and celery with fresh baked bread and butter. She sent Sophie out for a few chickens, which she plucked and washed before putting them into a big pot to cook. While it was cooking Maggie made a large batch of noodles and set them aside to dry out and together with Sophie cleaned and chopped the vegetables which they put into a bowl with salt water until time to add them to the soup.
By then it was time for lunch, which was served to the men and then the ‘house’ servants, those who either worked or had rooms in the house and came in at their leisure and ate the leftovers, so she made sure there was enough for all of them when she cooked. Some of them ate here in the kitchen at her little planning table, some ate in the dining nook off the kitchen but they all got their fill of whatever she served the Burgesses once they were done. She did her best to keep everyone happy and healthy and was rewarded with a robust family and servants who could perform their duties with vigor, and who rarely got sick and needed doctoring, which was also one of the hats she wore and she believed in preventive medicine which included a wide variety of herbs that she incorporated into her everyday cooking. Edward gathered many wild herbs and she grew others in the garden, such as thyme, dill and rosemary with seeds that she had been gathering from her harvests since her mother gave her the seeds that got it all started many years ago, when she about fourteen years old and realized she was a green witch.
She had kept that a secret since her family were practicing Orthodox Catholics and would have fallen over in shock had they known, but to this day her ‘religion’ was far down on her list of priorities, and one she had no time for regardless. Maggie much preferred to practice the ancient pagan ways of spirituality and found solace in nature rather than a cathedral which was decorated in carvings seeped in paganism, but spouted only words of judgment and executed those who believed differently. She found Christianity in general abhorrent because of their bloody history and refusal to let people follow other religions and her own country was an example of what happens; the younger people are the first to accept and believe the new concepts because they are separated from the older ones and force fed a new way of life, which is then taught to their young until it takes over like a disease. She had resisted only because she married early to an older man who felt as she did, and they had a good life together until he died peacefully in his sleep one night, leaving her with a small estate which her niece, her only brother’s only child, and her family lived in and cared for it in her absence. They put money into her bank account for the use of her property and it had amounted to quite a bit over the years because she never touched it except for needed repairs and the like. Having no children of her own, she intended to leave it all to her niece and had a will drawn up, which was also in the same bank in a safety deposit box that was part of her account, with instructions to provide it to her attorney at the appropriate time. Most people let a lawyer hold their documents and paid dearly for the service, but she refused to give them any more of her money than she had to, even after she died.
Now that her pies were out of the oven and cooling, it was time to clean the cooked chicken off of the bones and discard them along with the skins, which went to the hogs in their slop bucket that she kept out back, along with any other food scraps and peelings. While she was doing that the vegetables had been added to the stock to cook until tender, then she put the cleaned chicken in and let it boil before putting in the noodles in a few at a time and stirring them in carefully to keep them intact and let each little batch cook a bit until the pot was full and she put it at the back of the stove where it would stay warm, but stop cooking. The potatoes were done boiling and she had Sophie drain and mash them with butter and milk, seasoned with some fresh herbs while she went to her room after Edward returned with the packages he’s been sent for and more importantly, an answer to her note. She nearly fainted in relief as she read the instructions for getting Sophie away to have her baby, and took the girl aside to explain the details to her, which made her break out in tears and Maggie had to quiet her down by reminding her to be discreet. In a moment the young girl had straightened herself and wiped the tears away on a napkin, which Maggie told herself mentally to put in the wash, and sent Sophie to her room to pack and get ready for the journey while she packed her some food to eat on the way.
It wasn’t long before Edward returned and ushered the girl to his wagon and let her get as comfortable as possible in the back, where he had made her a nest of sorts using old blankets and then they were gone. Maggie went back into her domain and decided it felt empty and called in one of the new maids, Alice, who was the oldest in a large family and knew her way around a kitchen, albeit a much smaller one than she was used to. She had no trouble falling in, so to speak and tended to know what needed to be done next, which Maggie found comforting and they worked quietly together for the rest of the day and finished up in record time. Telling her new partner when to report in the morning, she thanked her for her help and when Alice had gone she sat down in a clean kitchen far earlier than ever before and she smiled to herself and thanked the Universe for her help finding a place for Sophie and an able replacement.
After about five minutes sitting thus, she decided there was no point in staying and she made her way to the bathroom, and then to her rooms. Having some time on her hands, Maggie got her mending out and repaired several items, then put them in the wash basket with her other dirty laundry, another chore that needed doing soon. Now that she had some decent kitchen help, heating up the great pans of water would be much easier to get done early before it got hot outside, and then it could be hung out to dry in the sunshine, which made it smell nice. She had a soap recipe that she had created; it combined lanolin from the sheep for softness with lavender and other floral essences and she used it for everything from washing the clothes to her face, hair and body. With that thought, Maggie went to her wash stand and poured the tepid water from the pitcher into the bowl and washed herself up with said soap, and felt greatly refreshed. Taking out her journal, she wrote for about half an hour about the day's events, and noted the abundant harvest and her new helper, using a kind of self-made code to discuss Sophie’s departure and where she was going to stay, but making certain that Edward wasn’t indicated in any way with anything, then she read over her notes and corrected some small errors before she dusted the ink and closed the book. What a day it had been, after all, and she gratefully got undressed and got into bed, stretching out and letting her body fully extend and relax for nearly fifteen minutes while letting everything play out again in her mind, satisfied that all had gone well before she rolled over and tucked the sheet under her chin, and fell into a deep sleep which she woke from next morning in the same position in which she’d fallen asleep, her pillow wet with drool and crusty gunk around her eyes. She was stiff when she got out of bed but after getting washed up and changing her pillowcase, it worked itself out and she felt better than she had in weeks.