Nurse Trent's Children by Joyce Dingwell

was a little English prude.
    He was even bigger than she had remembered. Perhaps it was because she was now in a world of little people. Elvira was barely higher than the children, and Mrs. Ferguson, too, was short—but had he always been such a towering giant? He seemed to fill the kitchen with his great hard bulk.
    “They tell me you are cook today,” he said teasingly. “The meat fritters and jam tart went off with high marks. Any left over for a peckish M.O.?”
    “None at all.”
    “Good for you, Aunty Cathy.”
    “And you, too?”
    “I can’t give you a decision, not having sampled wares. What’s for tonight? Thirty eggs broken into a pan of water and brought to the boil a la Malcolm?”
    Cathy shuddered. “Just a simple meal. Tinned soup, toast ... ”
    “Ah, yes, toast. We were experts on that, weren’t we?” Suddenly her eyes were meeting his. She was thinking unwillingly of that night. The cutting of the bread, the buttering, the serving, and all in that companionable silence. Then later the bathing of little bodies and the carrying them into bed.
    She was aware she was flushing warmly, and aware, too, of what he must be thinking. He must be thinking again of Catherine Trent, the prude, who had stuttered like a schoolgirl in her agitation to have him promptly and correctly out of the house.
    Hurriedly, and uncomfortably conscious of the quizzical light in his eyes and the one tilted eyebrow, she said, “After that ... after the soup and toast, I thought—”
    He raised a hand. “Walt, Mrs. Beeton. Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”
    Before she could protest he had crossed to the stove. Instead of coming to the opposite side, he leaned over her and peered down. As he did he rested each large palm on either side of the range. It imprisoned her within the circle of his arms, her face only a few inches from his. For a moment he looked at Cathy, not at the saucepan. His eyes were inscrutable. One moment they were speculative, the next searching, the next gentle as they had been the night she had taken Christabel in her arms and fondled her, and then they were mocking. He leaned closer. Cathy edged back and he laughed. “Don’t be alarmed, my little one. It is broad daylight, not dangerous night as it was that other time. Also, my intentions are strictly culinary. I am sure I am not mistaken when I pronounce that glutinous mess to be none other than gelatin.”
    “It is blancmange.”
    “Correction, please, gelatin. I have not supped in a London boardinghouse for two hundred nights in succession for nothing. Every evening of those two hundred nights my landlady served me gelatin. Tell m e, are English people so addicted to gelatin?”
    “It will be better,” stammered Cathy unhappily, “when I top it with butterscotch.”
    “But to my memory still gelatin.”
    “It is blancmange,” she said quite angrily, “and I’m sure the children will like it.” Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. “It’s simple and nourishing, and it took me a great deal of time to select something suitable.”
    Suddenly the palms of his hands had left the stove, but she was not released. Instead he was cupping her chin and looking into her eyes. “Foolish child, I was only teasing. I’m sure it is a most delectable gelatin—a thousand pardons, blancmange, but I’m sure, too, you will infinitely prefer a peach Melba.”
    “A what?”
    “Haven’t you ever experienced the pleasures of a peach Melba ... or a cr e me Chantilly ... or a—”
    “Stop. Stop it at once. I must get this dessert done or there’ll be nothing for our tea.”
    “For their tea. For the girls’. You, Miss Trent, are dining with me.”
    She turned her blue eyes on him and his brown ones looked steadily back. He nodded as though to affirm his statement.
    “I can’t dine with you,” she declined. “Both Elvira and Mrs. Ferguson are off. Of course”—hastily—“you are welcome to stay ... ”
    He bowed derisively at that. “So long