The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Hard Bread and White Sauce

While she made lunch with Marie, who had returned from shopping, she asked the porters Ed, Cliff, and Rad to carry the beds out to the garden to air them in the sun.

"The place has been shut up for so long that mold is a worry, and airing the beds in the sun shakes off the dead mites and fleas."

The three, who seemed puzzled about why such a thing was necessary, listened to her brief explanation and readily agreed. Being professional porters, they worked efficiently.

This came partly from her sense of hygiene from her previous life, but since mold and the remains of mites and fleas cause allergies, bedding should be sunned regularly.

"Now then, shall we get started on lunch?"

She went into the kitchen and checked the groceries that Marie and Ed had bought. Vegetables in a wooden crate, milk in a jar, and eggs in a small box packed with sawdust. The meat, to her surprise, was wrapped in a large leaf.

When she tried "Appraisal," one of the few powers Melfina could use, it came back as Moon Rabbit leaves, the foliage of a plant by that name. A smell like pepper rose from it, and the information surfaced in her mind that these leaves absorbed moisture to just the right degree and also improved how well food kept.

—It's like memories I don't remember coming back to me.

For the daughter of a high-ranking noble, "Appraisal" was a not very useful magic. Everything, whether items she kept near her or things she put in her mouth, was always checked by servants assigned to the task, and the merchants who came and went in particular used appraisal many times more accurate than Melfina's, so the opportunities for her to use it herself were rare.

"There is an anecdote that a traveler wrapped meat in these leaves, and as he went on his way it became dried meat. In truth, unless salt is rubbed into it, it just becomes dry, hard meat."

"They absorb moisture that well, do they? It seems like they could be used for all sorts of things. Do they grow wild?"

"They say they grow everywhere in the forest. They're sold in bundles at shops, and it's quite normal for commoners to carry their lunch wrapped in them."

They apparently doubled as lunch boxes. The meat was chicken, a clean pink that looked fresh.

The bread in the basket was a dark color, like chocolate. The crust was rock hard, and the inside was dense and packed tight. Commoners' bread in this world was generally like this; baking it hard all the way through to improve its keeping was the norm.

"I'm sorry. White bread wasn't available in the village."

White, relatively soft bread did appear on the tables of high nobles close to royalty, but those were the secret recipes of the individual cooks in the nobles' employ. They weren't the sort of thing obtainable in towns or villages.

Whether a noble could serve soft white bread at dinner even bore on the standing of his house. Naturally, a cook able to bake such bread was hired by nobles on generous terms, and it almost never reached commoners' mouths.

"Don't worry about it. But shall we try baking soft bread sometime?"

"Madam, do you know the recipe for white bread?"

"Yes, well, more or less?"

There were no precision measuring tools here, and no convenient thing like dry yeast, but she remembered how to bake bread with natural yeast. She had actually baked it a few times, so it should not be impossible.

"Um, you seem able to cook as well. Where did you learn?"

"Hehe, I've only dabbled, as an accomplishment."

She could hardly explain that she'd lived alone in her previous life, so she laughed it off vaguely, sautéed chopped vegetables and meat, and moved them to a pot to simmer. To dip the hard bread, soup was a must on the table.

She would have liked granulated consommé, but there was no helping what she lacked, so she decided to season rather strongly with salt, and while the meat and vegetables simmered, she dropped butter into a frying pan on the neighboring stove.

"Oh!"

"Oh, what is it?"

"No... I just thought, you use butter in cooking?"

Adding a generous amount of butter to a frying pan was evidently not a use Marie had imagined.

Come to think of it, butter in this world was a luxury, something nobles spread thinly on their bread. Because white bread hadn't been available, she must have bought it at least for that.

"It's all right, I'll make it taste good."

"Yes..."

As she fried thinly sliced onion in the butter, she thought idly.

Marie hardly changed expression and said little, but she was probably a kind girl. Even though she was also the duke's watcher, she was at least gentler in her manner than Cedric, and had not only followed Melfina, who had left the castle the day after her wedding night, but also looked after her attentively.

—Marie's employer is Alexis, and it may be difficult for us to become friends given our positions, but while we're here, I hope we can get along.

When the onion turned translucent, she tapped flour through a coarse cloth into the frying pan and fried it further. Kneading it carefully while adding milk little by little so it wouldn't clump gave her white sauce. When she put that into the bubbling pot, Marie gasped "Oh!" again.

She stirred it in carefully and tasted it. Without consommé or bouillon cubes, it was still rather mild, but it seemed the chicken that had been wrapped in the Moon Rabbit leaves gave a good broth, and it came out passably.

"Would you like to try it?"

"...Yes, thank you."

She looked nervous, but when she put her lips to the small dish held out to her, Marie's eyes opened wide.

"It's delicious."

"Good. Then let's make one more dish and have lunch."

While Melfina quickly finished a stir-fry of thinly sliced chicken and vegetables, Marie ladled the stew and carried it to the dining room.

"Thank you all for your work today. Ed, Cliff, and Rad, thank you too for taking on unplanned work."

When they got to the table, everyone seemed puzzled and would not sit.

"What's the matter? Let's eat while it's hot."

"No, um... to sit with you would be presumptuous."

Rad, the eldest of the porters, said so, and she finally realized. As a rule, nobles do not sit at the table with commoners. During the journey so far, she had eaten alone in her room at inns, or finished meals inside the carriage while even Marie waited outside.

Even so, it didn't feel right to eat alone while everyone watched, or to drive everyone out of the dining room and eat alone.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think. I'll eat in my bedroom, so the rest of you eat here."

"No! That's wrong!"

"We'll eat after Madam has finished."

Cliff followed Rad's words. Marie and Cedric said nothing, but they seemed bewildered as well.

"Well, this isn't a noble's castle, and though it's nominally the lord's manor, it's more modest than the house of a somewhat wealthy merchant, isn't it? I have no intention of putting on airs as a noble lady here, and since I made this food myself, I'd like to eat together and hear what you think of it..."

"But..."

"Even so..."

"I know. Would you help me practice, for living here from now on?"

"Practice?"

Rad asked back, puzzled, and she nodded firmly.

"I know it goes against custom, but I intend to live here from now on, and clinging to noble habits forever would be counterproductive. When I eat at a restaurant in the village, I can't exactly drive out all the other customers, and I have no intention of doing so. So I want to practice sitting down at a table with lots of people."

While everyone exchanged glances, it was Marie who moved first. Among ten chairs, she sat down one seat away from Melfina.

"Marie."

"I cannot have my mistress say the same thing three times."

She answered primly to Cedric, who had called her name in reproach. Ed, Cliff, and Rad then each sat down across from Marie. At this point, perhaps thinking that being stubborn alone was pointless, Cedric also sat, one chair's width from Marie.

"Everyone, thank you so much for today. It's humble fare, but please, help yourselves."

So saying, she took the first spoonful of stew herself, so that no one would feel intimidated.

The meat and vegetables were tender, and for someone cooking for the first time in what felt like sixteen years, it was quite tasty, she thought.

"White... soup?"

"Wow, it's good!"

"Huh, whoa, it really is good!"

She couldn't help smiling when she heard the three porters gripping their spoons cry out. Marie had been surprised too, but it seemed stew made with white sauce was rare in this world.

Since butter itself was a luxury, it couldn't be helped. She hoped it would become something commoners could use casually, a little more easily.

"It's truly delicious. I've never eaten anything this good."

"I'm glad you like it, but isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?"

"No, it is truly very good."

Marie tore her bread, dipped it into the stew, and chewed with a rapt expression. She seemed to have truly taken to it.

"This stir-fry is good too."

"Better than the famous restaurants in the ducal capital."

"I still think the soup is the best."

Whatever the case, if everyone said it was delicious, nothing could be better.

Having a meal with people for the first time in so long, and at such a lively table, Melfina too ended up eating more than usual.