An Appetite for Violets (25 page)

‘Look, look. Here, at the window.’ And he reached out to lead me from my bed. Starting back, I pulled my arms right down under the sheets to hide the pink weals that scarred them. Lord, could he not leave me be?

‘Carlo,’ I said coyly, ‘the weariness of travel is still upon me. I am not yet dressed.’

‘Just a quick peep at my gift, dear one.’ He gripped my arm as tightly as a blood-starved leech. There was nothing for it, if I stood up he would see my drabs right under the silks. I racked my brain as to what my lady would do, then took a deep breath. It was time to throw a lady-fit.

‘How dare you!’ I cried in my huffiest manner. The poor fellow’s head swung around like a chimney crane. ‘I am still abed, sir. You have no manners! I am not fit to be seen by a gentleman.’

‘But my dear Carinna—’

‘You presume too far with a married lady, Carlo. Leave me a moment, for modesty’s sake.’ I affected a whimper and a wipe of tears. That did the trick, for with a mumbled apology and multitude of bows he backed off to the door and I was left alone. Cursing, I skipped out of bed and peered out of the window. What was this bothersome gift that was too large to bring into the house? There before the villa stood the count’s carriage, a ridiculous equipage all covered in shields and gold work, and before it six costly horses. God’s gallopers, I should say there were seven horses, for beside them stood a solitary white mare held fast by a stable boy.

‘Oh no,’ I groaned. What the devil was I to do with that animal? I could only ride after country fashion, in other words straddle a steady farm horse – and as for all your crops and pommels I had not a notion.

Just then an even greater calamity dragged my attention from that confounded horse. A right how-row had started up outside my door, and to my horror I recognised the two voices making the racket – Count Carlo and my mistress. Sick to my stomach, I burrowed back into bed and had only just lifted the blanket to my chin when the count burst in. Behind him stood poor Carinna, who looked very shock-faced in his wake.

‘Is this the slut you protect?’ said he, pointing at her vast belly. ‘It is quite a common sickness I should say. Was it caught from a rake in London or a tapster in Paris?’ he added very spitefully.

Thank my stars Carinna stood as mute as a great fat barrel while he insulted her. She was as white as a sheet, poor thing, what with the shock of it all.

‘Please Carlo,’ I begged. ‘Biddy –’ I used the name though I cringed ‘– is an innocent.’

‘Innocent! I caught the hussy listening at your keyhole. Carinna, it is you who are innocent. Do you not know that servants are the scourge of the earth? They will beg, steal and bleed you to death if you let them. Why, look at her. Her villainy is written all across her low-bred face.’

Behind him Carinna silently implored me.

‘Leave her be, Carlo.’ And so he shrugged and gave a conceited little shake to his head. But she was still in our hearing when he ran to my side and clasped my hand, saying, ‘Carinna. You are too good, my darling. Too good. Your heart is too tender.’

Then, over his shoulder the count shouted, ‘Girl! Fetch some English tea.’ She looked mutely at me from the landing, her shoulders lifted in a bewildered shrug. That girl did not know a kettle from a crimping iron.

It was Mr Loveday who appeared ten long minutes later carrying a tea tray properly laden with milk, sugar and china cups. At the sight of him the count broke off from dandling my fingers and making sugary speeches.

‘Now this youth is worth ten times your other one,’ he said, eyeing Mr Loveday as my friend skilfully poured the tea. ‘If you ever wish to sell him I will give you a good price.’

‘I couldn’t part from him.’

‘Carinna, you are too fond-hearted. I suppose his dark skin flatters your own complexion. It is said that lilies look best in a blackamoor’s hand. I know about these things.’

‘He is more to me than a decoration,’ I protested, downing my tea as fast as I could so I might be rid of him.

‘Yes, yes, I understand his brain is nearly as useful as a white man’s.’ I could see Mr Loveday rolling his eyes behind the count’s back. So stretched were my nerves that I nearly laughed.

‘It is time you got off. I have had enough of you now,’ I said, setting my cup down.

‘Ah, that accent, I love it! Is that the Hibernian brogue of your ancestors?’

‘Oh aye,’ I yawned. I no longer gave a toss what the nincompoop thought of me.

Before he left, he insisted I kept my appointment to appear before his brother and play the coquette the following Saturday.

‘And you will wear your husband’s famous ruby? Quentin boasts of it so outrageously. I must see it upon your fair throat.’

I frowned, but I had to agree, didn’t I? Though it was a strange request and even I wondered how it was the old fop knew of Lady Maria’s jewel.

*   *   *

At last I heard the carriage roll away, and groaned out loud with relief, for I felt like I’d just performed top billing on the London stage. Yet there was pity in it too, for my poor lady had been right shown up before us all. Now that she needn’t show herself in public she no longer cared to have her hair dressed neatly or keep her pretty face painted. And the look she gave me as the count slavered over me had none of her old fire in it. She was mortified, I saw that. I reckon that day was the turning point of this tale. Me and my mistress had played at changing places, and somehow our false characters had fixed and could not be reversed.

Later that afternoon the sound of a knock at the door alarmed us all again. After I gave him the nod, Mr Loveday answered and found a footman sent from the count with another gift. Mr Pars called down, and hearing it was a package, came and goggled at the string of lustrous pearls I found inside a box.

‘Those must be put in my strongbox for safekeeping,’ he said, feeling their weight.

I fair slammed the broom I had been sweeping with down on the floor. Mr Pars wound the shining globes through his fingers that were so tobacco-yellow he might have dipped them in turmeric. Then he stuffed them quickly in his pocket.

*   *   *

I dare say my mistress never even saw those pearls, but she happened to be down in the parlour when the next gift arrived. It was becoming rare that she even left her bed, for she was shaky on her legs, and often leaned on my arm as she looked about herself with a startled air. This time the count sent me a riding habit of the most glorious fashion, made of forest green velvet, with buttons as shiny as sovereigns and thick gold frogging. My mistress stroked it as it lay on the sofa, and I thought she looked the most regretful I ever saw her.

We were alone together downstairs, so I said in a low voice, ‘Don’t fret My Lady. You will soon have your figure back to wear it.’

To tell the honest truth, it was hard to believe it. In that last cumbersome month of breeding she was in a right sorry state. Her legs had puffed up like bolsters, and her features looked lost in the swelled flesh of her face. There had been a time when she would have slapped me right down for suggesting we might share the same costume. Now, while she slummocked around in a stained shift and wrapper, it was I who kept myself neat in case visitors might arrive.

‘And is he expecting you to ride out with him?’

‘Lord, I hope not, My Lady. Though he sent over one of them side saddle thingumabobs with the horse.’

She picked up the jaunty tricorne hat and might have tried it on, only she caught her forlorn reflection in the mirror and flung it down again.

‘I am sure you can pretend my uncle overlooked the equestrian arts in my education. Besides, you clearly have him eating from your hand.’ She shot me a hard glance. ‘You are lucky he is such an incorrigible idiot.’

‘Yes I am, My Lady.’ I cleared my throat and began to fold up the different parts of the costume: the beautiful tailored coat, wide skirts, pearly camisole, and stock.

She flopped down on a chair and began to chew her ragged nails.

‘I suppose this horror will end one day?’ She patted her stomach and cast me a questioning look. ‘When in God’s name will it be over?’

‘You do not know the date?’

‘I cannot calculate it.’ On saying this, her face blushed hot, and I dropped my eyes. I fussed over the costume awhile, but she stayed silent.

‘I should rightly say weeks, My Lady. Not a month. Should I call on a doctor? Or a midwife?’

‘God, no.’ She flung a strip of bleeding fingernail down on my nice polished floor. ‘It’s a natural enough act isn’t it? Indeed, I wish to know – have you ever been present?’

‘At a birthing? Aye, my own mother’s, many a time. It were no trouble for her, mind. She would just take a rare day in bed and it were over in a blink. But she were no lady like you, mistress. Now don’t take this wrong, but I could call on a doctor, pretending it were for my – Biddy, so to speak.’

Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, to call attention to her passing herself as me. She swept her greasy hair back off her brow and said with an echo of the old firecracker Carinna, ‘I just told you, didn’t I? There is no need. God, when will it be over?’

She hauled herself up and slopped back to her bed.

*   *   *

As for Jesmire, she pursed her vinegar lips when she saw the new riding dress.

‘What on earth will you do with that? Pawn it, I suppose?’

I might have pawned it once, given half the chance. Only now I decided to try it on instead. That night when they were all asleep, I got up and did my best to tie the laces and button it up. And I must say, it was a spanking fine costume, most beautifully stitched and well-fitting once I’d got inside it. As I paraded before the glass, I saw it reflected my own green eyes and also, caught in its swaggering cut, something of my character.

But it was the count’s next gift that truly put the spark in the thatch. The others cared not a jot for it, for it could not be pawned or sold. But what the count sent to me that next day, changed my life for ever.

XXVII

Whenever the others did not need him, Loveday slipped away through the courtyard and crept through itchy, spiky trees to a mud bank beside a stream. Just upstream, hidden in the trees, was the Stone Garden. It was a humming, alive sort of place. The day he first went there, he found a green grasshopper with stick-like elbows and grass-thin feelers basking on one of the tumbled stones. All around him gnats and mosquitoes danced in flittering spirals; tiny pinpricks that he had to blink away or spit from his mouth. The grass was as high as his knees, but he could see that someone had once tended the place. The scattering of stone slabs, some upright and others fallen, reminded him of the bloodstained sacred rocks at his village. When the sun shone hard on the stones the power and thrum of it made it feel like a holy place, too.

Then, rummaging in the overgrowth, he found a stone hut. All that was left of the pointed roof was a criss-cross of struts and a few drunken tiles. Great waves of smothering greenery had grown over it, hanging inside in leafy bell cords. In a cobweb-matted corner he found a blind-eyed stone Mary, her pink cheeks flaking like a grim disease. It took a few days to make a neat shelter, to weave twigs across the roof holes, and sweep out the spiders and mouse droppings. Finally, with his lair clean and calm around him, Loveday began to prepare for the right day of leaving, when the mystical pattern of stars, winds and currents, intersected in time.

It was to this secret place that Loveday took the letters he was given, before delivering them to the post house. Jesmire was the first. As soon as she had turned her back, he had slipped off to the coolness of his shaded hut.

‘Dear Captain William Dodsley, Retd,
’ he read in puzzlement.

It is with inestimable pleasure I write in reply to your inquiry for a reliable housekeeper made of the landlady of the Albergo Duomo, Pisa. I must declare myself a sober Protestant spinster of Suffolk, England, and a most diligent and, if I might say so in my own regard, a most genteel lady in search of a position in life. My talents lie in the needle, in knotting and a little light laundry. Also hairdressing (of ladies’ hair, but I might attempt a peruke) and other personal duties, as you may require. I can assure you I am ready to take up a position at the earliest opportunity. Please address your reply most speedily to,

Your humble servant,

Signorina Amelia Jesmire, The Post House, Ombrosa

Loveday laughed out loud and wondered if the fellow would bother to reply. How many times had she written to obtain a position since they left England – seven, maybe eight? She had received only one answer, and that was to say that the lady she had addressed had long since departed.

Once he had returned from the post house, he had the rest of the long day to fill. His first instinct was to make an object of power; something that followed the potent designs of his ancestors. While clearing the floor he had found mouldy Jesus books and other useless stuff. Then, like a miracle, he found a wooden shaft polished dark by time. At its tip was a thin cross made of some metal that had turned grey and crusty. He recognised the shape of it from his days with Bapa Cornelius, the cross that was the favourite sign of the Catholics. But when Loveday ran his fingers over it he saw another shape. He spent many hours hammering, grinding and shaping it, until it curled into a crescent-shaped barb. When it was completed, he lifted the harpoon and felt pleasure at its weighty balance on his arm. When he threw it at a twisted tree trunk it left his palm faster than his eye could follow. It was a good harpoon; the hidden power he had worked into its being was fierce and true.