Work Text:
Benedict was looking for someone.
Not Sophie. Certainly not. He absolutely had not risen with any particular desire to converse with her. He simply found the house unusually empty in the morning and thought, quite reasonably, conversation with anyone would be agreeable.
By complete chance, he'd overheard Mr. Crabtree farewell Miss Baek as she departed on her customary morning walk hours ago. Since then, the September sunshine which drenched them yesterday in the garden as they flew Gregory's kite vanished beneath a blanket of pale grey cloud. Now a fine rain tapped steadily against the windows, turning the lawns beyond into a blur of green and silver.
Surely she would have returned.
He assured himself the only explanation for him wandering through every blessed room of My Cottage under the pretence of occupying himself and not to make sure Sophie was out of the rain, safe and warm.
Though was it not customary for a host to check in on a guest, especially one who might be stranded in the rain? He would not want a guest becoming ill.
Benedict's pace slowed as he approached the kitchens. Beneath his boots, the stone floor was polished almost to glass by generations of servants hurrying between kitchen and hall, the constant passage of busy feet wearing smooth over centuries. Benedict never quite mastered crossing this particular stretch without feeling the slightest loss of footing beneath him.
The floor dipped as well, ever so slightly, the Wiltshire earth beneath the foundations making a patient claim upon the building with each passing year. Two summers earlier he suggested to Mr. Crabtree someone ought to relay the stone before a either if them broke an ankle.
"What the heavens for?" the old man replied with complete sincerity. "No one's fallen yet. Give it another hundred years."
Benedict remained convinced the suggestion was quietly abandoned for one reason alone. Mrs. Crabtree's kitchen lay beyond this passage, and both he and her husband understood perfectly well the housekeeper ruled My Cottage with unquestioned authority. She would never have referred to it as her kitchen, not aloud, but if Mrs. Crabtree had found the uneven floor perfectly acceptable, then no workman would ever be summoned to disturb it.
He rounded the corner and came to an abrupt halt. Sophie stood at the kitchen workbench. She looked up as he entered. For the briefest moment neither of them moved.
"What are you doing here?" they asked together.
The question hung between them before Sophie gave a small, surprised laugh.
"I found bilberries on my walk," she said. "I thought they might make a fine pie."
Only then did Benedict properly take her in. Streaks of flour dusted the apron tied neatly over her gown, while her walk home through the rain left her hair escaping its careful arrangement. Damp tendrils sprung into soft waves about her temples, with one piece falling along the the curve of her neck. It was a look of complete unselfconsciousness, as though she forgot anyone might see her this way, and Benedict thought he'd never seen anyone look lovelier.
His gaze lingered a moment longer than courtesy permitted
"And you?" she asked.
I was looking for you.
He cleared his throat.
I wanted to make sure you were not caught in the rain during your walk.
"I was..." He cleared his throat again. "I was also looking for Mrs. Crabtree." The words sounded hollow even to his own ears. His eyes drifted once more to the flour upon her fingertips. "Do you not know the difference between leisure and work?"
"Did Mrs. Crabtree not instruct you to remain in bed?"
He gave a reluctant hum of acknowledgement. "It would appear that we are equally incapable of following sensible instruction."
"I am not working."
"You are my guest, Sophie, and guests do not cook," Benedict replied, folding his arms with an air of certainty he did not entirely feel. "You are, it seems, quite incapable of leisure."
She arched a brow. "Have you ever tried baking?"
"No."
"Then how," she asked, tilting her head ever so slightly and eye narrowing in challenge, "can you possibly know whether it is a leisurely activity?"
He opened his mouth with every intention of producing a convincing answer. None came. Sophie smiled, entirely satisfied by his silence. "Would you consider painting a leisurely activity," she asks after a moment.
Benedict nodded. "Yes, I should agree with that.”
"Then they are rather alike then, painting and baking. They can be both relaxing yet labours work too?
"I confess," he replied, with a faint smile, "I struggle to see the resemblance."
“Can work and leisure not go hand in hand? Tell me, why do you love painting?”
“I suppose I enjoy the observation, chemistry, and understanding how one thing alters another."
She leaned across the long kitchen bench where the bowl of bilberries sat. Picking the bowl up she held it out for him to see. "Suppose you wished to recreate this exact shade of these bilberries upon your canvas. You could not simply dip your brush into purple paint and hope for the best."
His eyes settled upon the berries.
"You would begin with ultramarine and alizarin crimson," she continued, "before adding the smallest touch of titanium white. Too much, and the colour would become pale. Too little, and it would lose its freshness. I'm guessing you find pleasure in getting the colour just right.”
“Yes, of course.”
“but it's also laborious, perhaps a little tiring.”
“Yes, it can be.”
"Baking is no different," she said, setting the berry bowl back down. "I measure and weigh every ingredient because each serves a purpose. A little more butter, and the pastry softens. A little less, and it becomes dry and lack a balance of flavour. The flour, the water, the temperature of the room, even how long the dough is handled before it rests. They all alter the result."
She rested one flour-dusted hand lightly upon the pastry before her.
"And for a pie, the crust must be sturdy enough to carry the filling without becoming heavy. Too delicate, and the juices will seep through, leaving a soggy base. Too dry, and it will crack the moment one attempts to lift a slice from the dish. Like you I enjoy observation, chemistry, and understanding how one thing alters another. That is why I find it leisurely to bake. It brings me pleasure.”
Benedict regarded the pastry with fresh curiosity.
"I had never imagined there was so much chemistry involved."
"There is rather more science in a kitchen than those who have never worked within one are willing to understand," Sophie replied, brushing the last dusting of flour from her fingertips.
She paused then, her fingers lingering against the edge of the pastry, her mouth going to say something then closing quickly.
Benedict studied her with growing curiosity. He noticed this habit of hers over the past few days. She would speak with complete confidence until she arrived at the thought she truly wished to express, only to retreat from it at the very last moment. "And?" he prompted gently.
Sophie lowered her eyes to the pastry, smoothing an edge that required no further attention. "It is nothing."
"I suspect it is not nothing. Come, you may speak plainly. Are we not friends, Sophie?"
The word settled unexpectedly between them.
Her gaze wandered to the comfortable chair near the hearth where Sophie sat three days ago, as Mrs. Crabtree offered her unsolicited observations on life with such certainty that disagreement seemed almost impossible. The memory brought the faintest smile to her lips before another followed close behind. The moonlit terrace, a dance lesson she never expected to accept, and every conversation she and Benedict shared since arriving at My Cottage. The ease and trust wove so easily between them.
Drawing a steadying breath, she replied.
"I think you see what I am doing as a chore because it is work a maid is expected to perform. The duties themselves are not always enjoyable, but that does not mean we cannot find pleasure within them. Those who work downstairs observe, experiment and learn every day, much as you do in your studio. We understand how one thing alters another. We discover what succeeds and what fails. A little more butter changes a pastry just as surely as another touch of yellow ochre changes a field beneath the afternoon sun. Your paintings bring happiness to those who look upon them, just as a well-made meal can bring happiness to those who gather around a table."
She manoeuvred the pastry into the pie dish as she spoke, her expression thoughtful rather than defensive.
Benedict found himself without an immediate reply.
It was not simply that she had defended her argument well. She had quietly overturned an assumption he blindly possessed. He'd never considered the work carried out below stairs might contain the same moments of curiosity, creativity and fulfilment that he treasured in his own studio.
At length, a reluctant smile found him. "I believe you have won this particular debate,” he admitted.
Sophie's answering smile was small, but no less triumphant for its restraint, before she returned to the pastry. He leaned against the counter watching as Sophie continued her work, his eyes watching her hands move with care and precision.
"And who taught you to mix colours so well?"
There was no disguising the admiration in his voice. He found himself watching her with renewed curiosity, recalling the hesitation that crossed her face the previous afternoon as they had sat together upon the old stone bench in the garden, when he asked about her life.
"The Governess in the household where I worked noticed my interest," she said. "She began leaving books where she knew I would find them. Volumes on painting, history, geography, science. Anything she thought I might enjoy."
A warmth settled across Benedict's features. "She sounds kind."
Sophie smiled, though there was something wistful in it. "She was a very dear friend."
Silence lingered for a moment, broken only by the rhythmic tapping of rain against the windows.
"It sounds also," Benedict said thoughtfully, "as though you might have made an excellent governess yourself."
Sophie gave the smallest shrug, never lifting her eyes from her work. "It was an ambition once."
"Was?"
"The families who employ governesses expect them to be gently born." She folded the pastry over the tin with practised precision, her flour-dusted fingertips pressing the edges together. "However well educated a servant may become, society seldom forgets where she began."
Benedict's expression softened into a frown.
"Society can be hopelessly archaic in its expectations and rules."
A smile found Sophie then. It was small, tinged with sadness. "On that point," she said quietly, "I believe we are in complete agreement."
Their eyes met. For a long moment, neither of them thought to look away.
It was an odd thing, Benedict reflected, how quickly the rest of the world seemed to recede whenever she looked at him. There was only Sophie, her cheeks flushed from kneading pastry and the warm kitchen, a stray hair escaping beside her temple, and the thoughtful kindness in her eyes drawing him in with quiet insistence.
He realised with a certainty he wanted to know everything about her.
The distant thud of a closing door echoed through the passage, followed by the familiar murmur of Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree making their way back towards the kitchen.
The moment slipped from between them. Sophie lowered her eyes to the pastry, though not before one last lingering glance, while Benedict drew a slow breath and smiled to himself, wondering how a conversation about pie crusts had somehow become the finest part of his day.
Later that night, Benedict took his first bite of the bilberry pie and paused. It was, he decided as he reached for a second mouthful, quite possibly the finest pudding he had ever tasted.
Obviously this was not because of Sophie's excellent skill or because every bite reminded him of the moment they spent together in the kitchen. The one he returned to throughout the remainder of the day and when he woke up the next morning. No, not either of these at all.
He just really, really liked bilberries. At least this is what he would tell himself.
For now.