An Appetite for Violets (11 page)

‘You mean—’ There was a hearkening look to her upraised face; an expression I do not care to remember. She twisted the Mawton Rose that hung upon her breast, that grew suddenly flushed with agitation.

I could not answer, for I truly did not know how low my master had sunk.

‘Tell me at once if there is further news.’

‘And should I alter our plans, My Lady?’ I fixed upon her brazen countenance.

She returned a challenge. ‘I am sure it is of little consequence. I will continue to Italy as before.’

Hark brother, at the jade’s callous nature. I swore then that I would no longer be her protector. Aye, I would do my duty, I would command my little band. But she is unworthy to bear my master’s name.

The next day being Sunday, I gathered my little regiment of servants and told them most gravely of their master’s distress. Together we made haste to the city’s ancient cathedral, where a proper Anglican service was decently performed, and we prayed most heartily for Sir Geoffrey’s recovery (even the blackamoor did decently shut his eyes).

Yet as I wait here in Stony Stratford and ponder Sir Geoffrey’s ailment, grave reflections plague me. Reading the letter again, I understand that my master was smitten the very day he departed from his bride. God forgive her if she has harmed my innocent old master. Have you ever heard of such a sorry tale?

I pray you do keep these true accounts of mine safe in your box, Ozias, for I mightily fear the trouble that may yet be brewing. Indeed, the account of an innocent witness may one day be called for and you must keep my correspondence safe under lock and key.

I will write once more from the great metropolis.

I remain your resolute and stoic brother,

Humphrey Pars

XIII

Stony Stratford to London

Being Stir-up Sunday to Advent, 1772
Biddy Leigh, her journal

Sassafras Oil

Distilled from the bark of the Sassafras root it must be kept in a well-stoppered bottle away from the light of day. It is a sovereign remedy for Wens and much applied as a rub for Rheumatics and other pains. Given as a dose of five drops on sugar it has proved advantageous in cases of the pox and gleets therefrom and to ease childbed and menstrual obstruction. One teaspoonful of the oil produced vomiting, stupor and collapse in a young man.

A Remedy prescribed by Dr Trampleasure for which I paid 5 shillings, Lady Maria Grice, 1744

At a place called Stony Stratford me and Mr Loveday slipped off to a fair; it was nothing to Chester Fair, but a merry gathering still. There was gilded gingerbread, a turnabout ride for the children, and buffoons crying out for all to see their counting pigs and Amazon queens and whatnots. Using a few coppers Mr Loveday found in his pocket we then took a look at a Ghost Show. It was horribly dark in the tent and the air stank of coal smoke disguised by incense. The buffoon gave us a long hogwash talk about how we must all be mighty careful not to look in the eyes of the spirits or we might fall down dead. Then at last, with a flash of light the figure of a devil came wavering out of the smoke. It was all quite cleverly done. Poor Mr Loveday buried his face in his hands and would not look at it. He was not alone, for many other people cried out in terror and some rushed pell-mell to escape. Though I told him there was a lantern contraption making shadows, Mr Loveday couldn’t make sense of the trick at all.

‘I very sorry think bad things,’ he said with chattering teeth. ‘Now devil come chase me.’

Sometimes that lad was scared of his own shadow, so I stood him a drink, and once he’d knocked back some ale he settled down. All day I’d been fretting over Mr Pars’ news, that Sir Geoffrey had lost all power of speech and movement. Mighty strange that sounded to me. Naturally, George scoffed at his illness and said it was only what old men should expect if they marry young ladies. For myself, I thought it rum that my mistress spoke not a word of it and carried on just as before. As for Mr Loveday, he was sure some spirit had got inside the master, but I was having none of it. I’d read a great list of Remedies in
The Cook’s Jewel
and found that apoplexy was caused by an excess of blood in the neck. Purging and bleeding were what he needed.

Then I asked Mr Loveday about when he first worked for our mistress.

‘First I work as footman in Mr Quentin house. Then Lady Carinna want own footman now she married an’ all that.’

‘So were you there on her wedding day?’

‘I go on carriage. I stand at church door.’

‘On her wedding day, what did she look like?’

‘What she look like? Like she look.’

Lord, it was like pulling teeth. ‘I mean, was she happy?’

‘Before – she look like crying. Then after she quiet face.’

‘And Sir Geoffrey, was he happy?’

Loveday’s face creased into a white-toothed grin. ‘He drunk much liquor,’ he laughed. ‘Mr Quentin, he dress him, he heavy as old stone. His head hurt mighty bad.’

Just then a shower of hailstones sent us pelting back to the inn with spattered clothes and ratty hair. There I had the misfortune to walk right into my mistress and Jesmire in the hallway of the inn.

‘Where have you been hiding? And what in heaven’s name do you look like?’

Jesmire shook her grey head slowly. It was true my face was red raw from the icy hail.

‘Your complexion will be ruined,’ complained my mistress, as I shivered before her in my soaking gown. ‘I thought country servants had fresh faces. That’s what all the ballads say. Girl, I have some cowslip water in my travelling case, most esteemed to improve the face. I give you permission to go to my chamber and take a cupful to dowse your face. What do you say to that?’

I curtseyed and mumbled my thanks. As for Jesmire, she looked so affronted at my mistress’s kindness that it cheered me up no end.

Once I was dry, I made my way to my lady’s chamber while she was still downstairs at cards. The cowslip water was in my lady’s travelling box, an ingenious cabinet filled with every sort of brush, powder puffer, and bottles of perfume and pomade. Admiring all her pretty things, I poured myself a cupful of the cowslip water. Then, dawdling before the lovely bright fire, I dabbed a little Cologne water on my bodice. Next, my hand fell on a little amber bottle and I lifted it to take a sniff. It was somewhat like an apothecary’s bottle, tight stoppered with a label that said ‘
Sassafras Oil
’. Inside was a sweet heavy oil that reeked like no ordinary scent. Then suddenly a cold draught from the doorway started me sneezing, which try as I might to stop it, exploded like a flurry of gunfire. Quickly closing the portmanteau, I jumped up just in time to see a figure at the door. It was Mr Pars.

‘My Lady,’ he called, as I turned. I curtseyed and told him my mistress had told me to come up and dress my face. ‘Very well, Biddy. That will be all,’ he replied, which was kindness itself from that curmudgeon. Then I found my own closet under the eaves and had a very pleasant spell dressing my face with the complexion water.

I thought no more of the Sassafras Oil until the next night when I lay on my pallet reading
The Cook’s Jewel.
I pored through the quivery old writing with my fingertip. There it was, amongst a great list of Remedies for fearful contagions:
Sassafras Oil.
I yawned, but read on and tried to guess what Lady Carinna might want with such stuff. Five to ten drops on sugar for the pox and gleets. Surely not, for I would have seen any sores if she had them. Praised for application to wens and rheumatics, it continued, and after childbed and menstrual obstruction. None of those were likely, and as for being recently at childbed, her bosom had no signs of milk. Then I read the final line. ‘One teaspoon of the oil produced vomiting, stupor and collapse in a young man.’

I shut the book fast. So she did have the means if she wished it, to strike down her husband. Maybe her giddiness was all an act? After all, we all knew she was merrily spending Sir Geoffrey’s money with not a shred of conscience. Was it possible that she had stirred a teaspoon of oil into the old man’s drink?

*   *   *

Next morning I peered closely at my mistress as she dozed beside Jesmire. In the fresh light of day I could never believe she had poisoned my master. She was young and wilful, but I did not count those as crimes. Faultless is lifeless, was my opinion. And she was generous too, even if I did feel uneasy about that rose-red gown. Young and wilful and odd. Well, that made two of us amongst those canting codgers. Yet neither was she much like the noble folk we saw at inns, for she had slummery ways and was sometimes ill-tempered. When she let her airs drop I thought her a plain enough girl, being out to make her fortune certainly, but not at all wicked.

Suddenly her eyes opened so I quickly turned to stare out of the window.

‘Dreaming of home?’ she asked.

I nodded, for it seemed the safest way.

‘My true home is far away,’ she sighed, raising herself up. ‘A beautiful place in Ireland, where I was born. But when I was four, my mother died. I remember her as a delicate lady, robed in white, laying on a large canopied bed. My dear father died a year later, of the drink, at Crumlin races.’

I kept my mouth shut, wondering why in hell’s name she was telling me all this stuff.

Then all of a sudden she sat forward in her seat and looked at me like she could eat me alive.

‘Do you have a good memory, girl? Can you repeat what I just told you? It’s a little game I like to play.’

What kind of a game was that? Only to pander to her, I had a go.

‘You was born in Ireland. Your lady mother is dead, now that is a sad story, for she died when you were only four. She were a beauty but delicate, like.’

‘And my father?’ she asked keenly, as if she did not know herself.

‘Why he died of the drink at the Crumlin races.’

Just then Jesmire began to stir and wipe her hand against her dribbling mouth.

‘Very good,’ said my lady to herself and sat back to play with Bengo. Then the two of them began nattering, and as for me, I let myself dream awhile of Jem.

*   *   *

I smelt London before I saw it. It travelled on the breeze, the stink of night soil and coal smoke. As we got closer we reached a great hill and halted at the crest. Jumping down, I drank in the view so I might never forget it. Before us lay England’s great capital, spread like a hundred cities tacked together from end to end, studded with spires that pierced the sooty drifts of smoke. Here, I repeated to myself, is our Capital, the seat of the Quality and of Britain’s own King George and Queen Charlotte. I reckoned I would never see a finer sight, not in France nor Italy nor all the world.

It was slow work getting on the London road, what with the crush of carts, wagons, carriages and horses. Above us hung a hundred signs across the fronts of the buildings:
Foreign Liquors Sold Here
or
Tea Dealer & Grocer
or
Oilman, Italian Wares and Pickles.
Coffee houses, tavern signs, shop signs – everywhere painted words spoke of food and drink.

Old George had to perform miracles to squeeze our carriage between the loaded carts and street barrows jammed up against the roadside. At last we entered a broad road named the Strand and saw bookshops, mercers, mapmakers, milliners, and every kind of seller, all showing goods off behind glass windows like cabinets of treasure.

Lady Carinna’s uncle’s house was at Devereaux Court, and was nowhere near as large as Mawton, for it was only a townhouse with everything piled up in six lofty storeys. I was ordered to the kitchen by Mr Pars, and was right sorry to see Mr Loveday disappear upstairs with Her Ladyship.

The fug of old grease and blocked drains rising up the stairs told me all I needed to know about the kitchen. Being a man of fashion, Mr Tyrone had a man cook of course, so it gave me some satisfaction to see him suffer for it. Mr Meeks was an idling, cheating blubber-guts who took whatever he could from his master. Whenever Mr Tyrone wished to entertain, the kitchen was filled with baskets and parcels of goods all delivered from pastry cooks and taverns. All he did was primp the food with his black-rinded fingers and lay it on Mr Tyrone’s plates as if he’d cooked it all himself. As for the silver that passed into that rogue’s palm, it was like the fellow was minting the stuff. Yet if Meeks would not cook, I at least learned what his suppliers could concoct. One night I saw a vast transparent pudding all arrayed with playing cards made of solid blancmange, a most marvellous conceit. The lad who brought it told me how it was done, and thus I obtained a fine London receipt. Meeks overheard us and waddled over to admire the prettily painted playing cards.

‘Why I ain’t seen that confection since the gaming night we had for that tosspot, Sir Geoffrey,’ boasted Meeks, laughing to see my head shoot around at my master’s name. ‘We done up the salon like a right tip-top club,’ he scoffed. ‘The old man fell for the trick like a dead bird from a tree. You heard that story, eh, young Biddy? How your master got landed with Miss Carinna?’

I never gave him the satisfaction of a reply, but to think of my old master in that den of thieves made me ashamed, though I knew not why.

*   *   *

At last, one evening Mr Loveday stuck his head around the scullery door, where I was washing a heap of plates as high as a mountain.