Work Text:
William sliced apples in the kitchen, taking advantage of the last rays of the pale autumn afternoon, until he was forced to light a lamp to see perfectly. A cool, but clear October embraced London, and William enjoyed one of the rare, rainless days. He half opened the window so that the heat beside the hot stove would lessen inside. The wind carried toward him the sweet, stale scent of leaves, mingling with the fragrance of the asters blooming beneath the window.
It was a beautiful day, yet William did not mind that he spent it in the kitchen, which he otherwise did quite rarely. His younger brother mostly did not even give him a chance, yet now he seemed happy when he suggested that they prepare a pastry together for afternoon tea.
In truth, they both were striving for Albert’s good mood, because their elder brother had returned home every day in the past week with an increasingly burdened expression from the House of Lords. The sessions exhausted and wore him down, and following the political intrigues occupied a large part of his mind. His body longed for rest, which in the end would have helped his mind relax as well, and William and Louis knew what he needed without exchanging a single word aloud.
Food was a remedy for the soul, the scents soothed the senses. Albert had always been used to good food, but heart and love were missing from them. What William and Louis prepared together contained this little extra as well.
Louis left it to him what to do, because despite how many household and cookery books had come into his hands among other books, William had never needed to use the knowledge in practice. He sliced apples, therefore, as his younger brother asked, while Louis went out to the pantry to gather the missing ingredients for the pie. He even set a suitable pot there for William, so that when he returned to him, he could cook the apples together with butter, sugar, and cinnamon, while he assembled the dough, yet Louis still did not return. William progressed more quickly than he had expected, thus while chopping he had time to put down the knife for a little while and think.
He considered the well-being of both his brothers as primary. To this belonged Louis’s joy when William, setting aside his usual, but not urgent tasks, joined him in the kitchen, as well as the expected, gentle smile he could count on later on Albert’s face. All were small things, but they formed the foundations of their family life, to which they had never devoted sufficient attention. Their higher goals mostly took away the focus from that which William himself was often capable of forgetting: they too were only human, with their own desires and limitations.
They could not burden themselves endlessly, and he could not regard any of them, including himself, as if they had been soulless and entirely goal-oriented. If he thought of being together with his two brothers simply, without constraints, warmth ignited in William’s chest.
He went to the window, and closed it when the rising wind threatened with extinguishing the stove, and returned to the cutting board. He hummed quietly, while he pushed the apples into the pot, and wiped his hands.
William did not only feign happiness. He honestly felt well, and as the colours and scents of autumn surrounded him, he became excited.
Autumn usually meant tasks and increasing darkness, yet then for nearly a week and a half no real duty arose. He could stay at home together with Louis in London, and only their well-composed plans, as well as his own research, occupied his attention. He had to allow himself some rest, so that his mind would calm, and with a slight, confused smile on his lips he noticed how much he had already grown unaccustomed to such calm.
In truth, there had been quite few such periods in their lives, and William would have liked their number to increase.
He left the counter and went over to the other side of the kitchen; he peeked through the door where Louis had disappeared into the pantry.
Louis did not light the lamps inside, he only took a candle with him, thus William squinted in vain into the room that had been dim all day. He could still see the first two shelves clearly, but after that he had no idea where to find his younger brother. Louis was somewhere in the depths of the room, only faint noises came from him.
William went in after him, because he was curious why he remained for so long. At the second row he collided with Louis emerging from the half-darkness, who held the candle in one hand and the basket full of ingredients in the other.
“Oh, brother,” he exclaimed when they bumped into each other, and several things happened between them at once.
The candlestick tilted in his hand, covering the floor between their feet with a portion of melted wax, and the bag at the very top of the basket fell, covering the pantry with suffocating, fine powder. Louis could not continue speaking and William could not answer either, because both began to cough and tear up in the cloud of cinnamon. Blindly, covering their mouths and noses, they tried to escape.
Louis set the basket and the candle down on the table, which went out in the meantime. Wiping his tears, he first looked at his brother, then at the accident left behind them; part of the cinnamon cloud had also covered the kitchen.
“I am sorry, Louis,” said William with difficulty, when his coughing calmed for a short time. “Did it all spill?”
“I hope not.” Louis opened the window so that they could get some air, then, when the brown cloud began to disperse, he slipped back into the pantry. “Some remained,” he lifted the paper bag, two thirds of which had spread across the floor. “We can bake from this, but first I must clean.”
He handed the bag to William, and he searched for the broom and the dustpan in the nearest corner of the pantry.
“Please, brother, will you begin as I said? Everything is there beside you. The recipe is also somewhere on the table, if needed,” he said, while he went back for the candle so that he could also see what he was doing inside, as he tried to tidy up among the shelves.
Louis was forced to hold a handkerchief before his face, because the powder stirred up again. He also had to stop sweeping to wipe up the remainder with water.
William, who truly regretted that he had knocked over the bag, agreed without a word. If he tried to help, perhaps he would only have caused even greater trouble; he had already realised that the kitchen was Louis’s domain, and that he did not have much talent for the tasks there.
Still, he could manage with a recipe. He only had to follow the description and the measurements, and Louis had also explained quite clearly what they would do. William smiled. He was not very skilled, but he still tried to make his younger brother proud by the time he finished clearing the mess behind him.
It became cold, thus William closed the window again, shutting the beginning dusk out of the house. Warm, homely scents embraced them; the apple, the sugar, and the cinnamon mingled with the smell of the dying logs.
While William cooked the filling, Louis assembled the pie dough with quick movements, then he asked his brother to set aside what he was doing and help him roll it out. He would have managed perfectly well alone, but Louis liked that they could finally do something together, without it becoming a matter of life and death. They rarely spent time like this, and it pleased him that William was beside him while they prepared the afternoon meal. They did not have to concern themselves with dinner: some cold roasted meat remained from the previous meal, from which they could make sandwiches, but the tea and the pastry they intended for Albert excited them both.
For a long time they had not needed to worry whether they would be cold on a cool night once they had said farewell to summer. There was a roof above their heads, there were warm, suitable clothes, and their stomachs were mostly filled with warm food before going to bed, but what was even more important could hardly have been described simply, in a few words. The quietness, the being at home, the everyday activities were pleasant; all things they could have experienced every day in a peaceful, different life.
William did not let himself be lulled into such dreams, but then he half closed his eyes and looked away from reality. That afternoon the Lord of Crime was not present, and none of them thought about saving the world. Only a few pleasant hours spent together awaited them, which all of them would have needed.
Louis and William assembled the pastry together. William rolled out the dough, and his younger brother cut around it at the edge of the form, before they also placed the thick, apple filling into it.
Louis gave a few worn, flower-shaped metal cutters to William, with which he usually cut pastry, and from the remaining dough they cut out a few flowers, which formed the top of the pie. He entrusted William with arranging them, who, with a surprisingly refined sense of beauty, formed a small garden from the layered petals, similar to the bed of asters beneath the window. Louis was quite captivated. It pleased him to see his brother’s initially uncertain activity, and he could not stop smiling since a faint smile had also appeared on William’s face alongside his concentration.
While the pie baked, they assembled a few sandwiches for dinner, after that they only waited for Albert. He was expected to arrive home a little after tea time, thus Louis did not hurry to prepare everything. William nevertheless did that much for him, that apart from the tea he carried everything else into the drawing room, where they most often used to settle down.
William sat down in one of the armchairs, with his back to the door. The sun was already setting, casting a bluish dimness over the drawing room, but for the time being he did not rise to light the lamps. He loved the light, but then he also enjoyed the dusk, which little by little faded every colour around him.
William adjusted his rolled-up shirt sleeve and brushed a little cinnamon from his waistcoat, when he felt fine powder on its lapel.
Albert arrived within ten minutes, and they came into the drawing room together with Louis. There they found William, still enjoying the last, pale rays of light, but Louis finally lit the lamps so that he could pour the tea for the afternoon meal.
Albert was tired, but the warmth of the room, the blend of sweet scents, and the kindness of his brothers soon softened him, and the worried crease resting on his forehead quickly disappeared. He accepted the cup filled with hot tea with gratitude. He held his fingers over it for a long time, which even the gloves could not protect from the biting wind, and he looked with disbelieving admiration at the perfect, temptingly golden slice of pastry which Louis set before him on the table.
Since they had all sat down, the fire was already blazing in the fireplace, which gradually drove the cold out of the room. Warm glances and conversation also joined this, which completely suppressed the sound of the rising wind.
William stood up and drew the curtain when it grew dark. They did not see and did not hear when later the rain began and quietly struck against the window.