|
Buttercup had come up the stairs to the top room on the right, thinking to lend a hand to Zimzi. They were in the midst of cleaning the small pair of rooms just below the attic, in anticipation of the arrival of Zimzi’s parents. The Hobbit called out her name as she came to the landing, but heard no answer in return. Creeping to the doorway, she stood watching quietly as the woman looked at herself in the silvered mirror that hung above her dresser.
Zimzi had slipped on the dress that Aman had given her as soon as she’d gone to her room. The hem of it brushed the ground as she turned this way and that, the skirt twirling about her legs like a soft cloud of white appleblossoms.
‘Oh, that’s beautiful!’
Buttercup grinned as she wiped her hands on her apron and picked up the hem of the dress in the back. ‘Let me bear your train, m’Lady!’ Zimzi swirled about, laughing; Buttercup following in her wake.
‘I say,’ came the booming voice from the landing just outside the door. ‘What are you two doing up here?’ Cook’s eye caught the broom and dustpan leaning against the stair banister, and the mop sitting unused in its pail of soapy water in the corner. The sound of giggling met her as she neared the door to Zimzi’s room. And two grinning faces, stacked one above the other peered round the door frame.
Buttercup slipped behind Zimzi and pushed her out onto the landing. The woman came to a stop just outside the door, her cheeks reddening as Cook looked her over. The Hobbit peeked around Zimzi, whispering. ‘Doesn’t she look pretty! Miz Aman gave her the dress, she told me. Just today!’
An odd sound came from Cook, a quavery sort of ‘Oh, my!’ her eyes seemed a bit misty as she signaled for Zimzi to turn about. ‘Let me see the back, dear.’ There was silence as Zimzi twirled slowly, coming back at last to face Miz Bunce. ‘Lovely! Just lovely!’ She smiled up at Zimzi. ‘Miz Aman, you say. Well, I’ll be. Isn’t she a wonder!’ ‘And that despite her bent for those leather riding clothes,’ she muttered under her breath.
Cook shook her head, changing the mood as she pushed Zimzi back toward her room. ‘Enough of being stargazey, ladies! There’s work to be done.’ She fingered the soft material of the dress, her expression softening as she did so.’ With a sigh she pointed to the broom and mop. ‘The sooner the tasks are finished, the closer the day for wearing this will be.’ She turned back toward the steps, calling out over her shoulder as she started down them.
‘When you two are finished you can come down and help me with the apple tart. Someone’s left me a nice box of them . . . winesaps, I think. The fellows working on the cottage will be coming in for supper this evening. I was thinking a tart and custard would be nice for them . . . and ham, I think, with taters and some of those nice snap beans from the garden . . .’
Her voice trailed off as she turned down the next section of the stairs. Zimzi hurried out of her dress and hung it in the closet, a small bouquet of fragrant lavender dangling down from the hanger on a thin ribbon. Her every-day dress back on, she tied a scarf about her hair, and took the broom that Buttercup handed her. ‘You sweep,’ the Hobbit said, squishing the mop up and down in the sudsy water of the bucket. ‘I’ll follow after with the mop.’ She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out two small apples. ‘Not all of them need go in the tart,’ she said winking at Zimzi, as she threw one to her.
The swish and slosh of broom and mop were punctuated by the crunchy sounds of teeth meeting the crisp flesh of the sweet-tart apples . . .
|