An Appetite for Violets (5 page)

Lady Maria Grice, given to her by her grandmother the Countess of Tilsworth, from a receipt well favoured in the days of Good Queen Bess

Later that evening I marched to my dear Mrs Garland for help, leaving the servants singing over their cider, and the kitchen scrubbed clean. To Lady Carinna I’d sent what I could conjure from the larder: white soup, a little hock of ham, jugged hare, medlar jelly, and the speedy whipping of a plum fool. Still, I felt wretched as I trod the sodden paths through the Old Plantation with my lantern held high. Tonight I had finally to choose between life as a cook with Mrs Garland or as Jem’s sworn wife. To prick my guilt further I knew my old cook was ailing, and feared she would not bless our union. As the dusk gathered and the ravens’ mournful cries split the air, I shivered to think of her all alone, for the stillroom was no place for an invalid. In the time of old King Charles it had been a fine brick-built distilling house, with twin pillars at the door and glass panes in the metalled windows. But it was now many years since Lady Maria had made her fashionable cordials there. Some of the more foolish maidservants avoided that dark avenue and talked of glimpsing a thin white lady in the twilight. Her ill-luck was a warning, they said, against meddling in herblore. Mr Pars called them empty-headed minxes, for he still came by and helped himself to bundles of herbs to ease his lungs. For myself, I saw no ghostly shade in the dark trees. As for Lady Maria’s uneasy rest, I now wonder if that wronged lady was indeed stirring in her barren grave.

Inside the stillroom I tiptoed between teetering rows of bottles and flasks, and skirted around chests heaped harum-scarum with spices. Dipping my head, I knocked against bunches of herbs that scattered powdered dust. It was a worse mess than I remembered. It was here that Mrs G had given me my education, in this kingdom of smells and flavours. Now apparatus stood furred with mould on the tiled floor. The air was sour with mildew.

It pains me to think how I found my dear old friend asleep on the couch, her breath wheezing, and the grey fuzz of her hair escaping its cap. It is cruel to see what a life of hard labour can bring: I’d seen her knees, back, and hands failing day by day.

Then her eyes opened and I saw joy in them. ‘Biddy dear,’ she sighed.

For a while we chattered on about the kitchen and Her Ladyship’s arrival. Then I made an effort to revive her in the best way I knew – by challenging her clever wits.

‘I wonder, did you ever make these?’ I dropped the violet sweetmeat into her swollen fingers. She pressed it, squeezed it, sniffed it. Finally, she nibbled the edge and licked her dry lips.

‘Lady Maria made many such sweetmeats. Long ago.’

‘But what is that to us now?’ I said. ‘For she is not here to show us.’

My friend stayed silent, which was strange. I met her eyes and the shine in them was aguey, I thought.

‘I have found something, Biddy. But first, you must swear not to tell.’

‘On God’s blood.’

‘It’s a book,’ she burst out. ‘I saw a mouse run out from a loose brick, or I should never have found it. It was hidden, Biddy. By Lady Maria herself.’

And there it was, tucked away beneath her bolster. As she pulled it out, I saw it was leather-bound, and bore on its cover the words:
The Cook’s Jewel, being the Household Book of Lady Maria Grice, given to her by her mother Lady Margaret Grice, being a Treasury of the whole Art of the noble Grice Family of York.
I craned to see inside it and turned a handful of pages. There were close scribbled sheets on every sort of fruit, fowl, and fish, all the pages copied in different long-stemmed scripts. On a sudden I, too, began to grasp our good fortune. It was a marvel.

‘It is
her
book,’ I said in wonder. ‘Is it everything she made?’

‘It is more,’ she said, her eyes flashing bright. ‘Her own mother’s art, their housekeeper’s, and friends’. Perhaps a hundred years of women’s stuff, all written clear as day.’

‘Hidden away. Of course it would be here.’ I reached and stroked its dusty cover.

I didn’t truly understand, yet, what it was. As well as Lady Maria’s receipts, I glimpsed Remedies and Physick for Diverse Ailments and parts copied out on many interesting matters: The Art of Dining Genteely, The Right Behaviour of a Gentlewoman, How to Judge a Proposal of Marriage, and many more.

‘You have started adding your own receipts? You are not so ill, then?’ I noticed my old cook’s box of scraps standing at her bedside, and felt a spark of hope. If she was not so ill, I was not so great a traitor.

‘It is because I am ill I write.’ She sighed. ‘It is time to preserve my work here. You don’t think it too high-handed to add my own stuff, Biddy? A plain old cook like me?’

I stroked her soft cheek, sprinkled with moles like furry velvet.

‘It’s the right thing to do. Your receipts may not be noble, but are the best I ever tasted. But are there violet pastilles?’ Slowly she licked her finger and began to turn the pages. They were all in a jumble, written on whatever day the dish appeared in Lady Maria’s life.

‘Violets,’ I insisted, and grappled to turn the pages faster. ‘Ah, there it is,’ I squealed, reading upside-down. It was an old receipt in the elegant hand of Lady Maria herself. ‘How to distill violets, to preserve, to candy and – here, to make violet pastilles.’

Mrs G gave me the list of items and we found we had all the makings about us. As for the news of my marriage to Jem, that would just have to wait. First I set out rows of tallow flickering along the shelves, till the room glowed like a fire-lit cave. Then I set a flame beneath a trivet, that soon danced as crimson as the devil’s smithy.

Mrs G had risen from her couch and sat quietly with the book on her lap, tracing the writing with her finger and slowly nodding her white-capped head.

‘First, take one pound of gum dragon and steep it in rosewater,’ she began. I found a jar of hard gum and tried my best to rid it of twigs and dust. Next, I made a sugar syrup and added violet essence till it was rich purple. All looked well, we agreed.

‘It must be boiled to Candy Height,’ she said.

Soon the sugar frothed and pulled away from the pan’s sides. It was a rare skill of Mrs Garland’s, this transformation of sugar. In her box of scraps lay all The Six Tests for Sugar, from making syrup to forging hard crack toffee.

‘Yet now I would give all my knowledge to have but one sweetmeat,’ she said. ‘I read in this book today of the Manus Christi, a sweetmeat like Jesus’s own hand made of sugar, gold and pearls. No better cure is known for any ailment.’

Then, remembering the mixture, she called out, ‘Try the test for Thread.’ I lifted a drop of purple syrup on my thumb nail. When I pulled it apart with my forefinger the tiny thread of sugar soon broke.

She shuffled forward to watch and announced, ‘It is now one “Our Father” till it is done.’ And so we recited the Lord’s Prayer together until at our shared Amen I tried again and the thread stretched a full span from finger to thumb without breaking.

Rapidly, I added the gum dragon to the syrup. It was too hard. So I began again and fearing the gum dragon was too old, made another mixture with hartsfoot, but that turned brittle. Finally I added lemon juice and kept the mix much cooler. Maybe it was the late hour or maybe it truly was a better confection, but this last mixture had to do.

Only when it was all pressed into wooden moulds, like rows of violet buttons, did I slump down and stretch my aching legs.

‘You have the touch, Biddy,’ my old friend smiled. ‘It steadies me, to think you will stay on here at Mawton when my old bones fail.’

The heat rose in my face despite the cooling fire. ‘Do not say that. You will soon be banging about again.’

Her face was as serene as the moon. ‘Next year I’ll ask Mr Pars to give you better wages. With you beside me, I can last another year.’

There could be no more of this. Tomorrow was Souling Night and my wedding would be announced to everyone. So at last I told her my news, that I would marry Jem, and could not stay.

My dear friend’s mouth sagged and her blue eyes glazed with bewilderment. Then, when I’d finished, some spark of the old kitchen tyrant awoke. Her chin lifted and she called me a fool.

‘A fool?’ I answered. ‘Do I not have a right,’ I said, with my voice suddenly trembling, ‘to have a natural woman’s life?’

By now she had recovered her strength. ‘You have God-given talents. To marry Jem Burdett would be the saddest fall I ever heard tell of. You would be naught but – oh, poor cottagers at best. Poor cottagers with a brood of wailing babies. You would be right back where you came from.’

Shame sent anger rushing through my veins.

‘A sad fall?’ I mocked. ‘Why, all the maids yearn for Jem. Would you yourself not have married given any chance? Why should I always be alone? Why should I wear myself out for ungrateful masters the whole of my life? At least
I
will have children to keep me when I’m worked to death.’

The flush of surprise on her face was as dark as if I’d slapped her with my own hand. I buried my face in my hands and prayed time might turn backwards, that I might eat my cruel words.

‘Biddy.’ Her voice was knife-sharp. ‘I cannot bear you by me.’ She stared past me, as if at a terrible vision; with a wave of her marbled arms she dismissed me.

VI

The Blue Chamber, Mawton Hall

Being this day Souling Night, October 1772
Biddy Leigh, her journal

A Plum Fool

Take a pint of plums and scald them till tender, strain through a hair sieve leaving the skins. Add to the pulp orange-flower water and five ounces of fine sugar. When cold, mix it with a little cream till it is smooth, then add thick cream, mix it well, and send it to table.

Given to me, Martha Garland by my granny Anne Garland of Tarvin who had it from her Granny Haggitt before her

Next morning the pastilles were as hard as rocks. I tried one and had to spit it back into my palm. There was no disguising that they were shocking poor copies of the originals. Yet I determined to deliver them myself, for to me the worst humiliation was to be thought a coward.

‘Name and business?’ a strange voice said.

In my temper I almost barged past Lady Carinna’s footman. I snapped my name back at him, wishing only to have the whole ordeal over and done with.

‘Your business, Biddy Leigh?’

I shook my head with impatience. ‘Her Ladyship was after me making some sweets. Yesterday, when you scarpered off and disappeared.’ The footman looked surprised and a little frightened.

‘You come here yesterday?’

I nodded. He was a pretty creature close up: a slender youth with smooth caramel skin, a flat nose, and the sloe-black eyes of a Chinaman.

‘I sorry Miss Biddy. I should a’ been here. It first time ever—’

‘Oh, don’t fret yourself. I won’t tell on you.’

‘You not tell?’

‘Course I won’t. I don’t know about you Londoners, but up here we stick together – against them.’ I gestured towards Lady Carinna’s door with a tilt of my head. I could see he was trying to catch my meaning. ‘We’re loyal. Friendly-like,’ I explained. ‘To each other.’ Well, I had used to think that true before I broke Mrs Garland’s heart.

Finally he got my meaning. ‘That very kind, Miss Biddy. You good woman.’

‘I don’t know about that. I’m a banging idiot to tell the truth. Look at these.’

I held up the dish of sweetmeats and groaned. ‘I was trying me hardest to please Her Ladyship, but they’re nowt like they should be. Don’t!’ I snapped as he reached out to sample one. ‘You won’t look so fancy with those teeth of yours all broke into splinters.’

He laughed out loud.

‘Aye, you may laugh, for it’s not you who’s going to lose a quarter year’s wages.’

‘For making Her Ladyship’s pastilles too hard?’

Ashamed, I nodded miserably.

‘You could have stayed away,’ he said kindly. ‘Perhaps she forget?’

‘I could never do that,’ I protested. ‘It would be like I was afeared of her.’

‘Or maybe you clever woman. The mistress want everything jus’ such a way, yes sir.’ He shook his head. ‘Listen,’ he whispered conspiratorially. ‘Miss Jesmire fetch many those same pastilles last night. She give guinea-piece to lady from Bath city. How say I go pinch handful for you? No one see.’

‘You would do that?’

He gave me another grin and a nod of his white-wigged head.

‘Like you says, we friend.’

He knocked at Her Ladyship’s door, and I heard him mumble something about changing the cloths. In a few moments he returned with an armful of linen hiding a dozen plump little gems of violet and sugar. I stuffed the old ones in my pockets and arranged the Bath-bought beauties in their place. I could have kissed that footman. Instead I asked his name and smiled at its aptness.

‘Mr Loveday, you are a godsend. I promise I’ll pay you back one day.’

He hushed me and ushered me inside.

Today her chamber was an even worse mess. The chamber walls were all hung about with gowns of red, green, yellow, and blue; it looked like a haberdasher’s shop spun by a gale. On the floor were bundles of lace, single shoes, and mismatched gloves. A feather with a broken spine was being chased by that ratty dog. Lady Carinna herself was up and out of bed, sitting at a writing desk, scratching away at the far end of the room. Not dressed, though. A loose morning gown of silk lay open at her white breast. Her copper-coloured hair showed through her powder like beefsteak seeping through a dredge of flour. I tiptoed around the mess and held out the tray of sweets.

‘Me Lady.’ I curtseyed.

‘Ah, Biddy Leigh.’ Her spirit was up today, glittering behind bright eyes. The thin fingers with their red-bitten quicks stole out of her lace to take a pastille. She chewed it thoughtfully. The recollection that she might have chewed one of those jaw-crackers made my mouth turn dry.