But war had made a considerable difference alike to pantry and store-cupboard and larder, and we had to trust to the promise of Miss Jarvis, the lady at the village shop—and one of the most valuable members of the community—that we should not actually starve! As the stocks had been used, they had not been replenished. Cinnamon buns, lemon-curd cheese cakes, fruit cakes with a nice crack in the top, were no longer piled up in the larder. No home-cured ham, sewn up in white muslin, hung from the big hook in the kitchen ceiling. No large, dried, golden-coloured vegetable marrows hung up beside it for winter use.
We had plenty of potatoes, fortunately (and never had we valued potatoes as we did this year!), and we had the usual “remains” that are in the larder, when the butcher has not called for a few days and a family lives from hand to mouth, as one has had to do recently, lest one should be suspected of hoarding!
There was a tin of lunch biscuits, some cheese, and cereals; but the rest of the store cupboard seemed exasperatingly useless when it came to sustaining life in a snow-bound household. What good was a tin of linseed, for instance, or a bottle of cayenne, or a bottle of evaporated horse-radish (with the sirloin presumably still gambolling about somewhere in the valley)? Why had I ever laid in a bottle of tarragon vinegar, a bottle of salad dressing, a box of rennet tablets, a tin of curry powder, desiccated cocoanut, a bottle of chutney? Even the tin of baking powder and the nutmegs and capers seemed extravagant and superfluous. Oh, for a simple glass of tongue—but we had opened our only one the day we arrived!
One thing was certain: while the snow remained at its present depth, to say nothing of an increase, no provisions could be got up from the village. The steep roads were like glass the last time we were out; now they would be impassable for horses or vehicles, even though a man might manage to get over them somehow. Milk we could obtain from a neighbouring farm, perhaps a few eggs, possibly a fowl as a very special favour, now that our path was cleared; but that was the utmost we could hope to raise locally. The point to be considered was: How long could we hold out?