An Appetite for Violets (26 page)

*   *   *

The day after Loveday finished his harpoon, Mr Pars had summoned him to take a letter. The old man’s chamber had its shutters closed and smelled of stale tobacco smoke and sweaty linen. The narrow yellow look in the steward’s eye as he pushed the letter across his table unsettled Loveday. He picked the letter up, trying not to touch the bad man’s skin.

‘Has there been any post for me?’ Mr Pars shouted suddenly.

‘No, sir, no post,’ he said, backing away and darting quickly out of the door. Glad to be out of the steward’s presence, he called in at his mistress, then slowly took the path back to the Stone Garden to read the letter in peace. He was just singing quietly under his breath as he followed the leafy path, when Mr Pars suddenly appeared right before him. The steward was standing at the edge of the Stone Garden, leaning on his stick.

‘So this is where you are hiding, is it?’ he bawled. ‘What are you doing here when I told you to make speed to the post house?’

Loveday fixed his eyes on the ground, making sure he didn’t betray his secret hideaway by glancing towards the hut hidden in the trees.

‘Miss Biddy,’ he said slowly, knowing she would back his lie, ‘told me look fruit.’ He pointed towards a clump of early lemon trees.

‘Let me understand this rightly. I tell you to go to the post house. And you –’ and here he jabbed the end of his stout stick towards Loveday’s chest ‘– run about for that trull of a cook maid. I suppose she’s got you sniffing after her skirts as well, you black dog. Explain yourself!’

Loveday stumbled over his reply. Then to his horror, Mr Pars grasped his sleeve, wrenched him closer and tried to give him the evil eye.

‘I not know why,’ Loveday gabbled, raising his palm to shield his own face from the old man’s malevolence.

‘You don’t know why? Is that what you are trying to say, you ape? Can you not speak the King’s English?’

‘Yes sir, I does,’ Loveday said, breaking away. Just as he backed out of reach, Mr Pars swiped out to hit him with his long wooden stick. Loveday was too agile for the blow to do any more than glance against his leg, but as he scampered away it left him shaking. The steward was certainly possessed by evil
nitu-
spirits. Even Biddy agreed that poor spirits afflicted Mr Pars, so there was no doubt about it. Loveday had heard them pace Mr Pars’ chamber at night; they were blood-hungry spirits that would not let him sleep.

Once he had hurried down the white road to Ombrosa and crept into the back room of a tavern he stared at the letter, not sure whether he wanted to know Mr Pars’ inner thinkings. The writing on the outside was scrawled and untidy; quite unlike the steward’s usual script. Yet I must get news, Loveday told himself. So, bravely slicing through the wax, he pulled the letter open.

Ozias,

Brother – if you still deserve that blood-given name – why do you not write? I ask you expressly for news and yet you withhold it. God help me man, can you not understand I am at the edge of desperation? Picture for yourself, if you have not suffcient imagination: that I am near to one thousand miles from England and quite unable to comprehend my affairs at home and want only a few words to free myself of incessant anxieties. Does Strutt still question you? Has any enquiry come from Ireland? Does Sir Geoffrey still live? For understand this: I am here in Italy in body, brother, but so troubled in my mind I scarce know where I am.

As for Italy, let it only be said that the heat, the stinks, the damned hubbub of it all would unsettle the soundest of natures. As for the company in this house – I have fallen in with traitors all. I alone see their duplicity. Why brother, I tremble to write of it but I know that together they plot to cheat me of all my master’s money. Every day I expect some high-handed brute of a lover to join the thieving whore – and how will I keep the purse strings secure from him? How long will it be till she gathers Sir Geoffrey’s fortune and is off? What then of my stewardship? What then of Sir Geoffrey’s trust? Where then goes the money?

I had once believed that the others would stand with me against her, but even Jesmire writes secretly I know not where, for often she scratches with her quill and furtively sends letters off to the post. That heathen blackamoor is of course no more than a foul beast, no more human than a trained dog. Yet it is fair Biddy Leigh who truly hurts me. She pretends to my face to be still that simple girl of Mawton, but I have discovered she is in league with her mistress and plays a wicked game. The Jezebel has taught her to say ‘Your Excellency’ and practise each day before the glass and dream of greatness beyond her birth. Then she is sent out like a bawd to dupe a wealthy fop from whom they extract all manner of gowns and baubles. Extortion, Plots and Intrigues brother, that is the web that surrounds me.

I am fatigued now, and must lay down.

Pray for me brother – and write!

Humphrey

Loveday threw down the letter. Mr Pars was beset by most dangerous spirits, there was no doubt of it. Back home there were ways of dealing with such matters – Mr Pars could have had the
nitu
-spirits cast out by a Spirit Man. It would have been a serious matter treated with brotherly care. A moment of sadness squeezed his heart to think of the old fellow stranded here with no help and no comfort from his family.

Then Loveday re-read Mr Pars’ harsh words about himself. A foul beast. As the cruel words burned in his eyes his pity waned. Mr Pars was an evil-thinker who spoke ill of Biddy and had tried to give him the evil eye. So, swearing to keep the steward’s words secret from Biddy, he walked up to the post house and handed the letter over.

Biddy. As he walked through the golden afternoon back to the villa he knew he would soon have to leave her. He was going to feel pain, he knew it, for his liking for her had caught him like a sharp hook in his heart. Alone of everyone he had met in this strange kingdom, she had carried within her a spark of Lamahonan warmth. He would miss the way her face creased suddenly with laughter, her friendly digs in his arm with her elbow, the funny faces she pulled as she told him of her daft thinkings by the kitchen fire.

When he thought of Bulan these days, she was little more than a sun-bleached memory. No longer did he wallow in dreams in which his little family’s faces were just as he had left them, a tender-eyed young mother and her helpless infant. As he worked on his harpoon he had dared to picture them as slaves of the Damong, or maybe, like him, tossed by life’s tide to another unknown place. Or perhaps – he could finally think it with his potent harpoon nestled in his lap – his wife and child had gone to live with Bapa Fela in the sky. Perhaps. He did not know. Yet still he battled to keep the flame of hope alive. If any of his people had escaped from the Damong they would return to the deserted village. And once a few of them gathered, they might silently sail under night’s disguise to Damong island in a raiding party. There was still a chance, whether Bulan and Barut lived or not, to return with courage and live once more with pride as a hunter of Lamahona.

*   *   *

When he returned to the Stone Garden that evening, the late sun bathed his body as he cradled the harpoon to his breast. ‘My brother,’ he said shyly, caressing its razor-sharp edge with a gentle fingertip. The harpoon was alive with all the power of its making, and urged him to test it. Clambering down into the ice-melted stream his toes gripped the weed-draped rocks like hands. Raising the harpoon, Loveday shook off all his weight of troubles. The old wound from the white man’s gun had slowly been healed by sunshine and rest, his courage had conquered the snow-covered mountain: soon he would be riding the waves again on his way back home. The right day of leaving was getting closer, he could feel its spell getting stronger.

He saw a flash of brown in the fast water. He took aim and the blade shot true at the first throw. The trout, pierced through its gaping middle, instantly gave his life up to him. After offering a sprinkle of the fish’s blood to the gods, Loveday gutted it and roasted it on a hot stone just outside the hut. The flesh was coral pink and as sweet as honey to his lips, and the two round eyes, as they popped deliciously between his teeth, promised far sight and fair omens for his journey.

XXVIII

Villa Ombrosa

Being Fig Sunday, Lent, 1773
Biddy Leigh, her journal

Fig Pie

To make a crisp pastry take one pound of fine flour with one ounce of sifted loaf sugar. Mix with a gill of boiling cream and three ounces of butter; work it well, then roll it thin. Put your figs in a pan with just enough water and stew until tender, mix in sweet spice as you like, a few currants and treacle. When you have made your pie rub over with a feather dipped in white of egg and sift your sugar over. Bake in a moderate oven for a quick oven will catch and burn.

As made by Biddy Leigh to remember Fig Sunday, Lent, 1773

I started to sicken for home, for that villa was no home to anyone. The kitchen never satisfied me, and even the fire was parlous. I wasted hours tempting it with morsels of kindling – while the others idled upstairs I would be down on my knees feeding it mossy twigs, getting smoke in my hair and soot on my face. My kitchen courtyard was large enough, but a bare, sweltering place, a favourite of flies and midges. As for the rest of the estate, it was a wilderness. The only good things to eat were some lemons ripening down by a ruined old graveyard. The whole place had been empty so long that it had a melancholy mildewed air, however much I scrubbed it.

So I got to thinking that it was Fig Sunday, the time folk at home went visiting their mothers. The pie I was making would have pleased even my crotchety old ma, for the figs from the market were the fragrantest globes, laced with liquorice-bursting aniseeds. I was up and away with the larks that day, scattering flour and crimping pastry, when Mr Loveday stuck his head in the door and told me there was a horseman coming up the drive.

‘Lord, it’s not that wretched count again, is it?’ My claggy fingers went straight to my head to yank off the grubby kerchief covering my hair. Glancing down I decided my blue wincey gown would have to do. It was tatty and travel worn, but clean enough once I’d unpinned my sacking apron.

‘No. It some big fellow riding alone.’

I told him to run up and tell our mistress to beware, and that I would see the visitor in the front parlour. It was a damned nuisance, for I’d just put the first of my pies in to bake, and was in no mood to talk hoity with a stranger.

But before I could make my way to the parlour a loud knock at the kitchen door made me jump out of my skin. Then bless me, none other than Signor Renzo, the count’s bullish cook, strode right inside my kitchen like he owned it. When he saw me standing at the table, he stopped in his tracks and started in surprise.

‘My Lady Carinna.’ He made a stiff bow, and when he lifted his head he stared at me and all around the kitchen, bewildered. ‘I am sorry I surprise you, My Lady. I came to the servants’ door. I think to cook— I— His Excellency offers my services while your cook is ill. I am at your service.’

He was too smartly dressed for that I reckoned, for he was all buffed up in a blue frock coat and white linen. He bowed again very low and then straightened, waiting for my reply, his dark brows gathered in bafflement. He had an odd judging sort of manner; tilting his heavy head backwards a little to look at me through low-lidded eyes.

Honest to God my brainbox ground to a halt. I stared from his questioning face to the pastry cuttings on the table and back again.

‘Tell your master I have no need of your services, signore.’

He tried another small bow. ‘I will do so. If you would permit me a question. It is an English lady’s habit to – bake?’ He waved his hand at the evidence on the table. He spoke mighty good English in a rumbling bass tone, but there was an edge of impudence to the question.

I was right flustered and started to jabber any old nonsense. ‘Yes, signore. The English love to bake. Have you not heard of their eccentric way? Only the best of ladies, mind you, entertain themselves so.’

He lifted his head and sniffed with his broad nose. ‘I fear you burn your pastry, My Lady. I will rescue it.’

And before I could get to the oven he was there, slipping a cloth over his hands and sliding my first Fig Pie out. It had caught the fire a little around the crimped crust, but it smelled like a hot breeze from Jamaica.

‘I find it not usual,’ he said, placing my humble pie on the table as delicately as if it were the crown jewels, ‘especially you are English?’ Then he looked up fast to meet my eye. ‘Why, you bake quite well. This could be sold in a village market for a few coins, certainly.’

A few coins? There he went again, the blaggart. I had forgotten what an over-puffed pumpkin he was.

‘At a common market perhaps, but I could never be such a grand cook such as you, could I, signore? Did you not say the English always burn their food?’

He had at least the manners to look ashamed at that.

‘Perhaps you do not understand? Such talent should – should flourish. It is just so – strange for an English to show such gifts. You must agree they have no notion of eating well. Indeed, I should be honoured if you give me the receipt.’

The sauce-box! I had not forgotten how close he was with his own receipts. I recollected his very words. ‘But
signor
e,’ I mocked, ‘a lady’s best treasure is her secrets.’

This time he did redden quite powerfully, right from the black curls at his brow to where his thick neck disappeared in crisp white linen.