An Appetite for Violets (7 page)

Being All Hallows to Martinmas, November 1772
Biddy Leigh, her journal

A Portable Soup for Travellers

Take three legs of veal, one of venison, two pig’s feet or whatsoever other good meats are at hand. Lay in a boiler with butter, four ounces of anchovies, two ounces of mace, five or six celery, three carrots, a faggot of herbs, put water in to cover it close and set it on the fire for four hours. Strain it through a hair sieve and set it on the fire another day to boil till it be thick like glue. Pour it on flat earthen dishes and let it stand till the next day. Cut it out like a crown piece and set out in the sun. Put them in a tin box with writing paper betwixt every cake. This is a very useful soup for travellers for by adding boiling water it will make a good basin of broth or mix readily with pottages, stews or gravies.

Martha Garland, 1750, a most useful receipt given me by Mistress Salter of Chester

On Souling Night I kept looking out for Mr Pars, so I could send Jem over with news of our wedding. But when at last he did come back he clambered quickly onto the Mummers’ stage.

‘It is with deep regret I must address you,’ he said, raising his hands to quiet the crowd. ‘For I have just learned that neither our master nor mistress will be home next year. Consequently, the estate will not require such a great number of you to be employed. Firstly, there are those persons who might remain at Mawton on reduced pay. These are the stablemen and others needed to tend the stock.’ This met with cries that they must all have full wages to live. ‘The second list,’ he boomed above the racket, ‘are those persons to be laid off at the month’s end.’

‘So it’s the poorhouse for us,’ wailed a shrill voice, to a chorus of jeers. I looked over to Jem, but he still had his head in a pot. ‘Finally, there is the list of those who are to accompany Her Ladyship to the continent.’ At that, silence. ‘And that list being so short, I can instantly give it,’ he said.

‘Firstly, myself. I will be travelling to Europe as Lady Carinna’s guide and protector.’

So that is it, I thought. He is all puffed up at being chosen to travel abroad.

‘And Miss Jesmire, of course, being Her Ladyship’s personal maid. And also Loveday, Her Ladyship’s footman.’ I glanced at my new friend, who nodded his head slowly. ‘Next, so far as to Dover with His Lordship’s carriage, George Stapleforth.’ That caused a roar, for old George had never been outside the county.

Then Mr Pars looked into the crowd, and to my surprise, his gaze lit on me.

‘And lastly, so we need not eat these foreign kickshaws, Her Ladyship will take Biddy Leigh.’

It was all too outlandish. I was no London servant able to smooth the way of a lady in foreign parts. ‘No, sir!’ I cried out without thinking. ‘I in’t going nowhere.’

‘You shall go, miss,’ Mr Pars commanded. ‘And show proper gratitude to your generous mistress.’

To my own astonishment I answered back, before the whole company.

‘I will not go, sir, begging your pardon. For I am to marry Jem Burdett and cannot and will not go.’

That left all the company jabbering like geese. A great hubbub broke out, for this was news even to my kitchen maids, who shrieked to hear I had ensnared their favourite. Jem attempted to stand, though nearly legless with ale, but did agree that ‘Biddy will have me for a husband and I durst not refuse.’ I could have brained the lummocks, and all those who roared with laughter.

‘Both of you come to my office. Eight o’clock,’ Mr Pars commanded.

*   *   *

Next morning we stood uneasily in Mr Pars’ office, as our steward sat at his desk beneath costly maps and leather books. Jem was still lushy and held a cloth to his mouth.

‘So, are you forced to marry?’ Mr Pars began, then blew a plume of blue pipe smoke towards the ceiling. ‘If so, the rules state you must both lose your positions.’ Not receiving a reply for I was too amazed, he demanded of me, ‘Have you been playing the wanton with this young fellow?’

Jem spluttered into his kerchief. I had caught my breath at last. ‘That is not true at all, sir. Such talk is slander.’

‘Slander is the ruling of a judge,’ Mr Pars mocked, ‘and not the whim of a kitchen maid.’

‘I never granted Jem that freedom, I do swear it,’ I said earnestly. ‘Mr Pars, sir. Do hear me when I say I cannot go, sir.’

Setting down his pipe he clasped his hands across his round stomach. ‘Now listen, my dear. Consider. It would be a shame to put a newly married man out of work.’

‘Oh, you would not,’ I wailed.

He shrugged. ‘He is an outdoor man and may not be needed.’

‘Then we will leave together and find other work.’ I grasped Jem’s hand and made to get up.

‘Hold! I have not finished.’

Reluctantly, we bumped back together like skittles.

‘There is your bonus of five guineas to consider.’

At this Jem finally seemed to wake. ‘Five guineas, Mr Pars, sir?’

‘Aye, lad. I will pay your betrothed her full wage and another five guineas bonus on condition she takes her year abroad. What better foundation could there be for your marriage, lad?’

He pulled out a golden coin from his strongbox and set it standing on the mantel. How Jem gawped at King George’s fat face, which beamed like a great lardy woman. Then my sweetheart tugged his cap and said, ‘Thank’ee, Mr Pars, sir. Say thank’ee, Biddy.’

‘We could find other work, Jem,’ I begged, but I knew Mr Pars had won. For five guineas that lad would send me away with less sorrow than a pet pig to slaughter.

*   *   *

I hate boiling bones. Day after day I made Portable Soup, throwing dead creatures into the cauldron, till the mass of boiled sinew smelled like a renderer’s yard. To add to my misery, it seemed that Mrs Garland was punishing me, as well she might, for she knew that butchery was the one branch of cookery I hated.

As I stirred the cauldron I recalled a day when the master and his hunting cronies had galloped into our yard, the horses steaming and blowing from a dawn hunt. The stablemen ran to them, but whilst the others dismounted, Sir Geoffrey sat victorious on his jittering mount, downing a tankard of liquor. With raw satisfaction he watched the gamekeepers unload his bounty. Then his eye fixed on me where I stood at the door.

‘You, kitchen maid! Do I pay you to stand idle?’ he shouted like a deaf man. ‘That doe that was brought to bay by the thicket, I’ll have her liver for breakfast.’

I looked about myself – there was no one else watching but me.

I waited at a distance as the men unloaded the creature, and Sir Geoffrey dismounted to slap the doe’s haunch with all the pride of a conqueror. I saw then that all his skin was plaguey, even his crooked fingers looked scalded. There was something of the slaughterman about the master, especially in his way of measuring antlers and hooves. As I recollected that his lordship was the true centre of all the bustle and carry-on of Mawton, suddenly everything seemed tainted, even its wondrous mullions and towers.

Reluctantly, I followed a pair of gamekeepers, who lugged the beast down to our cold larder. But either the hunt or the liquor had left them in a harum scarum mood.

‘Get along then, Biddy Leigh,’ said the chief of them. ‘We was up riding hard, afore you even thought of rising. You can gut the quarry for a change. His Lordship’s waiting for his breakfast mind.’ And off they went, leaving me to it.

I looked at the poor creature slung on a hook, her head lolling, her china-eyes staring, her wounds still red and claggy. I was keen to learn and give it a try, though I’d only watched the bloody business once before. As I made ready to butcher the creature, her warm fur stank of terror and half-stomached grass. It took me a while to decide where to make the first rip with my knife. Then with a few tugs I got the front of her parted, like two grisly doors opening up from throat to tail. The stinking guts had just dropped steaming to the floor when my eye was caught by an odd little thing.

At first I thought it was a twisted gut or raddled spleen. I peered more closely and found a long-snouted face the size of my thumbnail. What I saw near had me fainting to the ground. A perfect tiny fawn lay curled in the sack of its mother’s womb. I reached out to tug it away and suddenly, through the womb-sack, it kicked at me with its tiny cloven hoof. Lord, I screamed all the way to the yard until the stablemen came and sorted it. I knew it couldn’t live, poor baby, all slimy and soft with the cord from its mother sliced off like a squirting purple pipe. But long after I’d sent the master his liver fried in butter, I wept for the blind waxy-legged creature that twitched and then mercifully stiffened on the larder floor. Since that day I’d always left the butchery to those who have a stomach for it.

*   *   *

Of those last dark weeks at Mawton only two memories shine to me now. One is of my dear Mrs Garland. We had stayed on poor terms, and then two days before my leaving, she called me to the stillroom. Pacing through the murk of a winter’s afternoon I picked up a switch and hit out at the spiky brambles that crowded the path. Everything about me was dying. The golden year, my wedding hopes, all my familiar ways. I had a mighty strong wish to hit someone hard with my fist.

There my old cook sat by the fire, much as she had done the night we attempted those violet pastilles. And she said to me, ‘Biddy, I cannot let you go without making my peace.’

For a moment I heard only the fire crack, then a whimper broke from my lips and we grasped each other’s hands. Tears fell down my cheeks and I wiped them away fast.

‘I cannot forgive myself. You have treated me better than my own mother. And you will be left here all alone.’

She shook her head and sighed. ‘God willing, me and Teg will make do till you get back safely.’

Then she sat up straight and passed me a clean rag to wipe my face, and said some words I will never forget.

‘Now listen to me, Biddy. If you only listen once, do it now. I’ve been puzzling, and it seems to me you have two ways ahead of you.’ Her eyes shone as bright as a young girl’s as they met mine. ‘You can suffer all this as a trial and waste a whole year complaining.’ I lifted my head sharpish at that, but she would not be interrupted. ‘Or you can learn to be more than a plain cook like me. Learn how to make those fancy French bomboons and dishes à la mode. What a chance, girl,’ she said, shaking my captive hand. ‘I have seen advertisements for cooks with the French Style and do you know what they offer? Twenty guineas a year. You shall be a cook to nobility.’

‘But I am marrying Jem when I get back.’ I spoke it like an article of faith that only I believed in. She sighed, her solid bosom heaving.

‘Then cook at this alehouse Jem boasts of. I’ve heard there are taverns that sell spanking fine food in London. Oh, if I had my youth again I should dearly love to try what they offer. And as for Paris! This could be the making of you, with the talents God has given you. You shall taste food I never even dreamed of.’

‘I think not.’ I was quite fixed on being miserable. ‘I am only the pan-tosser, taken along so Her Ladyship needn’t eat foreign stuff. Maybe I’ll only be cooking for that rat-dog of hers.’

I did not tell her that the previous day I had been summoned by Lady Carinna for a few chilly moments. She told me to pack a chest with linen, glass and plate, and store cold victuals in the well of the coach. But before she dismissed me, she said, ‘And you will bring the rose gown.’ My heart thumped to hear her words. Why, I wondered, did that dress make me so uneasy?

Mrs Garland’s voice interrupted my worries. ‘But you will go marketing in all these foreign parts?’ she insisted.

‘Aye. Perhaps,’ I said wearily. ‘Though to hear Old Ned, we’ll be eating only frogs and snakes. Just this morning I told him I’d been practising the frogs’ legs and had put one in his pottage. You should’ve seen his face. And I will do it too, if he doesn’t shut his trap.’

Mrs Garland’s lips fell open and then gathered in a hoot of laughter.

‘Oh, that is more like the old Biddy,’ she wheezed. She squeezed my hand tight and I returned her smile. ‘But do mind that tongue of yours. I’m thinking of Lady Carinna. She’s a queer one, but she is your mistress. My advice is to do her bidding as quick as you can and then stay well away. Jesmire too—’

‘Lord, I cannot abide her.’

‘You need not abide her. Only be quick and quiet about her.’

Reluctantly, I nodded.

‘And if you have any troubles, Mr Pars is a good sort of Christian gentleman under all his grim manner. Well lettered he is, and well trusted by the master. If you look to anyone for help, have a word with Mr Pars.’

If only she knew what a conniver he is, I thought. Yet what she said was true, that my life would be easier if I did not rile him.

‘Enough of all this,’ she said. ‘I want to give you something.’

She offered me the silver knife that she always kept at her waist on a chain. It had been Lady Maria’s, till my old friend found it blackened and blunt behind an old chest.

‘It’s the finest knife I’ve ever used. I should like to think of it chopping all those garlics and fruits of paradise.’

‘And skinning them frogs?’ I teased.

‘Aye, even those. For Lady Maria’s sake.’

I took it, and it did fit sweetly in my palm.

Then she sat back and folded her arms, giving me a long stare.

‘Now you may reckon me an old maid, but I have seen more years of life than you, Biddy, so take heed of what I say next. First, I’m right pleased you’ve kept your virtue. Now don’t look at me like that. I know you’ve let Jem court you, but all the house is repeating what you told Mr Pars – that you never granted him that freedom.’

Lord! I buried my face in my hands to think of all those tongues wagging over my private concerns. ‘Stop it. You’re shaming me to death,’ I said, peeping through my fingers.

‘All I’m saying, girl, is when you’re in these inns, sleeping by these tapsters and grooms and suchlike fellows, you must keep your prize safe beneath your skirts.’