An Appetite for Violets (21 page)

The fire-flash punched him again, throwing him hard against the wall. To his amazement he was lying in the dirt again, slumped over Chief Korohama’s corpse. His shame was such that he did not ever want to wake again and live. He gave his spirit permission to leave his body and seek his ancestors. Bulan and Barut were alive and suffering and he had not saved them. He wanted never to face another human again.

*   *   *

His heartfelt wish was refused by the gods. He had woken in a Damong boat, tied by knotted grasses to a wailing old man. He learned that the white men had sold all the village men to their most vicious enemies. The women and children were nowhere to be seen. He caught a glimpse of his home over the boat rail. His island was emerging in the dawn light, the cone of the volcano piercing a crown of fluffy clouds. The water was blue and glittering, the beach a curve of pearl white sand. But from the direction of his village grey smoke rose in streamers. It hung above the trees like a storm cloud, very ugly, very wrong.

Later they came to Damong island, where timber poles paraded the horned skulls of their sacrificial beasts. His insides quailed with fear. Beside him the old man whimpered and lost control of his guts in a hot stink. Courage, he discovered, was not a loyal companion who came at his bidding. It was a fair-weather friend who that day left him stranded and witless.

*   *   *

Loveday’s mouth was pressed hard against the wooden edge of the chair. He rose to find he had reached a flat plain of snow. Pulling off his hat he felt the thin sun stroke his naked cheek. Above, a huge brown bird hovered gracefully in the sky, its pointed wings spread wide to float on a rising breeze. The great bird, so noble and sleek, its wings as wide as a devil ray, was surely an omen of good? He looked to where they would travel next. There, barely a league below, lay a shore of fertile green where the snowline ended. He had never before understood that green was such a beautiful life-giving colour.

When they set off again, Loveday watched in wonder as the nimble-footed mountaineers carried him down the looping path. He passed a cascade of water frozen like a blink in time, its crystal splashes sparkling like diamonds. Twisting off a knobbly icicle, he let it melt in his palm until all that was left was a pebble of ice enclosing a perfect leaf the size of a fingernail. Turning a corner they faced a mass of twisted ice like a frozen river, tumbling hundreds of feet into blue-green caverns. He would never see such wonders again. One day, he prayed, he might tell his children of where their Bapa had journeyed when he strayed off the edge of the world.

Finally, he saw green blades of grass sprouting bravely through lacy ice. Soon the greenness stretched ahead of him, and he motioned to the men to halt and let him dismount. Taking his last dozen steps on the snow he felt the ground soften into grass beneath his feet. Here was a valley bordered by round grassy hills, and in its midst a stone village of artful towers and red roofs. Throwing off his heavy fur he plucked a scented white blossom from a passing tree. The fragile petals smelled of life and blossoming hope.

XXIV

Piedmont to Montechino

Being St Valentine’s to Ash Wednesday, February 1773
Biddy Leigh, her journal

Manus Christi

First take your sugar clarified and melt it in water of roses. Seethe these two till the water be consumed and the sugar hard, put in four grains of crushed pearls and precious stones, made in fine powder, then lay it in cakes on a marble stone anointed with oil of roses and lay on your gold.

An unsurpassed defence against all the sickness, soreness and wounds that do daily assault mankind, written in The Cook’s Jewel, in a very old scriven hand, 1523

From the day I promised to help my mistress, everything felt tainted. It was like I’d baked a cake with salt instead of sugar; everything looked well enough, but no meddling in the world could ever set it right again. And the shame of it was, that now we were past those fearsome Alps, there never was a lovelier place than Piedmont. Green meadows rose before us like the land of milk and honey, the hills thick with grapevines and the sky china blue and jewel bright. I should have been as happy as a lark, being free to walk outside the carriage with the sun warming my back, but it had all turned sour to me.

‘Do you think that’s why she’s dragged me all this way, just to use me?’ I harped on to Mr Loveday. All this time I had flattered myself that my mistress maybe liked me for myself. But no, she had picked me out to play a part in some trickery. I felt as ill-used as a ten-year-old dishclout.

‘You just go this fellow, fetch the key and then it done, my friend.’

Puffed out from climbing the hill I grasped his arm and stood before him, staring fiercely. ‘She said we look alike. Is that true?’

He stuck out his broad lower lip and looked into my face. ‘You both women, both brown hair. This man never know you not my lady.’

I had to laugh. ‘That’s what you think! I only need open my mouth and he’ll know me for a right clodhopper.’ We carried on walking and I picked a dull blackish berry from a branch, a sort of hard grape. ‘It’s one thing parroting the mistress, but another to talk mannerly with this count fellow.’

‘When my lady meet high-ranking fellow she just talk any old thing.’

I shook my head. I was supposed to be Lady Carinna, wife to Sir Geoffrey, niece to that Mr Quentin Tyrone. I bit into the berry and it was so bitter I spat it out on the dusty road.

‘She says she will write to him when we get there. What I’d give to read his reply.’

Mr Loveday was silent for a while, kicking up the dust with his boots. He turned to me and said softly, ‘If I tell you secret, you not tell others?’

I looked up fast. ‘What do you mean?’

In a moment I had it all out of him. That he opened the post then sealed it up again. He told me it was only to practise his reading, but I reckoned it was his way to meddle a little in the affairs of those who bullied him. I glanced back at the carriage, but it was far behind us, the horses straining to climb the twisting hill. I did my best to find out what was written in those letters, but it was like digging coal from the earth with my bare hands. Mostly it seemed, our mistress complained in her letters no differently from how she complained every day to any who would listen.

‘And have you looked in any of Mr Pars’ letters?’ I asked breathlessly.

‘Mr Pars only write his brother. Mostly I seen him write many many number, but never send in letter.’

‘Aye, so have I. They are only his accounts, Mr Loveday. And what of Jesmire?’

‘She only write for new position. But no reply, not one time,’ he added, suddenly laughing.

‘Mr Loveday,’ I said, ‘would you do me a very great favour and let me see any letters that pass between my lady and this Count Carlo?’

The lad blew out his cheeks and shook his head slowly. ‘It not allowed, Miss Biddy. Better me my own.’

‘Please,’ I begged.

He looked up, his expression pained. ‘You promise my friend always? You not tell them I open letter?’

‘I promise never to tell. On my mother’s life. We servants stick together, eh?’ I touched his arm and glanced at the carriage as it reached the crest of the hill and the horses started trotting towards us. Very softly I whispered, ‘When the right time comes, I’ll see you get away safely.’

He still hesitated, rubbing his mouth with his fingers. Finally he nodded and grinned. ‘I believe you, Miss Biddy. You only one who make promise that true. I feel my spirit free of bad thinking now. But you be careful, my friend.’

‘I’ll do me best. I’ll just go and fetch that key. I’ll have nothing to do with any of them.’

It just goes to show how wrong you can be.

*   *   *

We reached Turin very late, for my lady complained much about the rocking carriage and made us stop every few miles so she could dose herself and take the fresh air. When we finally got through the city gates, the roads were massed with a great procession of soldiers, all rigged out like Cécile’s husband in frogged blue coats and white knee breeches. The scene was that lively it roused my lady to a giddy mood and she pulled the carriage glass down to see better. ‘Wait! I heard at the inn we might see King Charles Emmanuel survey his troops. He’s grandson to our own King Charles that lost his head. Stop! Damn you, I want to see,’ she said, thumping on the ceiling. The view being poor from the carriage, she then got a fancy to join the crowd and called for Mr Loveday to hand her down. He and Mr Pars made way for her through the townsfolk, and soon afterwards Jesmire tottered after them with Bengo straining on his ribbon. Having the carriage quite to myself, I hung from the door, enjoying the rousing drums and the cheers of the townsfolk.

The procession had scarcely begun when a great hubbub started up and, to my astonishment, I next saw my mistress had swooned and fallen to the ground. I sprang down and soon met Mr Loveday and Mr Pars struggling to carry her. By the time they reached the carriage, thank God she had started to recover her senses. Yet still she was as pale as a sheet and shiny with sweat. Mr Pars said that it must be the heat, and told Jesmire to dab at her mistress’s face with Cologne water. Only I had the gumption to loosen her stays and fan her face once we got moving again. Even when we got to the inn, my lady was right out of sorts, and had trouble walking without an arm to lean on. She had just the breath to tell Mr Pars to call a physician, which I thought very brave in such a foreign place. So a medical man was sent for, though Mr Pars all the while scoffed that my lady was affecting a fashionable ague, and would no doubt waste a vast amount of money.

*   *   *

I did not see the doctor when he came, but being the best with the lingo it was me who was sent to fetch my lady’s medicine that evening. By then it was just before sunset, by which time all the local folk had swaggered out for a stroll. Turin was a mighty city, very modern built with fancy arcades and grand flagged squares. I let myself wander amongst the black-haired girls rolling their hips, and prim families ambling in groups, all of us watched by wrinkled crones scowling from their doorsteps. I listened hard to the chatter in the streets, for I’d been doing my best to practise my Italian with anyone who would talk to me, from our gruff driver to the maids at the inns. It was true that it was not so different from French – where good day had been
bonjor
it was
bonjorno,
and it was
parnay
for bread and
carnay
for meat.

At the doctor’s house I was shown into what he called the
farmacia.
It was a dark, wood-panelled room that held a vast collection of bottles and pots all neatly labelled with queer names. While a servant mixed a concoction for my mistress, I fixed on buying rare ambergris, rosewater, and musk from my household money. Even better, as I lingered at a glass cabinet, my eye lit on an old familiar name:
Manus Christi.
The confection was not in the shape of Christ’s hand at all, as me and Mrs Garland had once fancied, but a jar of transparent lozenges flecked with gold and crushed pearls. Now that confection was not cheap and I had to offer one of Mr Harbird’s golden guineas to buy a small portion, but it was the greatest of pleasures to post a parcel off to Mrs Garland in England. Our journeying meant I’d not hear from her until we got to the villa, but by then I prayed the cure-all might have eased my friend.

*   *   *

Back at the inn I handed my lady the doctor’s medicine. He had bled her beforehand, and her waxy arm was still bound with a cloth. After her first set of drops she let her head drop back on the pillow and fixed me with dull eyes.

‘Lord, this is so unfair. I had so looked forward to the opera.’

I nodded but did not risk a word, for I was still in a flaming fit at her for setting me up to visit the count. I was queasy too, with fear at not being able to pull it off right.

‘In a few weeks we should arrive at the villa, yet you still behave like a country hoyden,’ she said, yawning so wide I could almost see her breakfast. ‘You still know almost nothing of a lady’s behaviour. Do try to pay more attention, Biddy. Look at me. One has to be brazen to survive. I barely had a year at a lady’s academy and then I had to use my looks and my wits. In this world you must take what you need. No one else will fight your battles.’

Then she fell fast asleep and I was left alone with this task she had set me. ‘A Lady’s Behaviour’, now that chimed like a bell with me. So for long leisurely days while she was laid up in Turin, I studied those parts of
The Cook’s Jewel
that addressed ‘The Behaviour of a True Lady’. There was much advice on the holding of the tongue, what they called that ‘slippery member that led to vice’. That did at least make me laugh out loud, for the quaint old writer certainly knew nowt of tavern wit if that’s what she called a mere tongue. Then I learned of all a lady must not do: that she must not be a wild girl and laugh out loud, or gape at a well-laden table, or make tomboy jests. Why, that was as much like me as if we were spit from the same mouth, I thought. Then I recollected that was how a gentlewoman must not be, and despaired a little.

I let my eyes wander to ‘A Ladies’ Guide to Love and Fancy’, and was disgusted to find that our milk-sop lady must always be struck mute in the face of compliments, and stunned to stock stillness by every suitor. There was some good sense, mind, in advising her to Look Well Before She Likes, for I knew with the wisdom of hindsight that I had not looked too closely at Jem Burdett. The book said a lady should examine the compartments of a man’s heart before she gave herself in marriage, for that was a great step in the Labyrinth of Life. Virtue, Kindness and Companionship in a man were much lauded, which were mighty odd notions to me. I puzzled over ever having heard of such a man in all my life.