An Appetite for Violets (12 page)

‘How you, Miss Biddy?’ I wiped my hands on my apron and took his hand in mine, I was that happy to see him.

‘I’m ready for the off, Mr Loveday. Why in heaven’s name are we waiting here day after day? I thought we had a boat to catch at Dover.’

My friend pulled the door quietly shut behind him.

‘Listen, tomorrow everyone here go to royal parade. I go shops. You come with me, you not tell?’ I could have kissed him for thinking of me. And despite it being near midnight when I crept to my pallet in the kitchen boot hole, I could barely sleep for thinking of the morrow and my liberty.

*   *   *

‘Before we go,’ I pleaded next morning, when Mr Loveday came to fetch me after the others had all left, ‘please let me take a quick look at the house. I have seen nothing but dark passages since I came here. If anyone comes back we can say I’m helping you around the house.’

My friend hesitated but I knew he hadn’t the heart to deny me a thing. And what joy it was to climb the backstairs and find myself in Mr Tyrone’s high and airy hallway, admiring the gilded stairs, great lantern, and pretty tiled floor. Though the house was old, the decoration was much finer than Mawton, the walls painted sky blue and bearing decorations like moulded sugar work in pretty patterns.

We tiptoed upstairs to the dining room. On the long mahogany table stood a vast crystal punchbowl, and silverware that flashed in the morning light. I pictured that table properly laid, the candles dancing in the mirrors, the porcelain filled with my own best food. I swore that one day I would make a fancy dinner with all the care such a table deserved.

‘What room is that?’ I asked, seeing a further chamber hung with velvet curtains still drawn against the day. It was scattered with padded chairs that must have felt like clouds to sit upon, set around dainty leather card tables. ‘Is that the salon where Sir Geoffrey was entertained?’

My friend looked dismayed. ‘You come along, Miss Biddy. We go.’

I couldn’t stop myself; I passed into the room that smelt of stale tobacco and trapped dust. Lifting the heavy curtain, I saw no sign in the street below of anyone returning.

‘What was it happened when Sir Geoffrey was here? Were you in attendance that night?’

Mr Loveday reluctantly followed me inside.

‘We go now. Not allowed. I not remember.’

‘You do. I can see it in your face.’

Miserably, he looked about himself.

‘Go on, tell me,’ I urged.

Then, with great reluctance, he said, ‘Only because you my friend. I tell you.’

XIV

Loveday had wanted to talk to Biddy as freely as they had done on the road, to feel her touch upon his arm and to bask in the comfort of her kindly eyes. Now he felt trapped in the airless room; his spirit smothered by the heavy woven stuffs and glassed-in windows. He scarcely ever reflected on what he had seen or heard when carrying out his work, but now Biddy’s question troubled him. He blinked, remembering that the room had looked quite different when Sir Geoffrey had visited – candles had fluttered in their sconces and silver plate shone in the gloom. For many days the servants had prepared for his visit under the stern direction of the butler, Mr Tusler.

‘And not a word to anyone about tonight’s goings on, eh, darkie? Or you’ll wish you was never born. Understand?’ Mr Tusler had jabbed him hard on the chest. It had been soon after his first arrival in this chilly kingdom, when he was still waking up each morning in deep despair at finding himself to be the possession of Mr Quentin Tyrone. Loveday had not known anyone to talk to anyway, so he had nodded meekly at the butler and got on with his work. But that was before he knew Biddy. Now he wanted to please her so much that he let all his memories come tumbling out.

‘Sir Geoffrey come. I show him upstair. He sit there.’ He pointed to a maroon velvet armchair drawn up to the card table. ‘Mr Quentin, he sit there.’ The leather chair was drawn up opposite Sir Geoffrey’s.

Biddy nodded. Loveday could almost taste the smoke hanging in a blue haze, and hear the
chink
of glasses.

‘I serve drink. Mr Tusler say, give Sir Geoffrey from big bottle, give Mr Quentin from other bottle.’ Shame warmed his face. ‘I not think ’bout it, not that night. Only telling you now, I understand I got old man drunk.’

‘You weren’t to know,’ said Biddy gently. ‘It was their doing, not yours.’ She nodded at him to carry on.

‘They start play hazard.’ Loveday pointed to the dice shaker on the table. Biddy lifted it and tossed out two ivory dice. A six and a one. ‘Sir Geoffrey win and win. I keep pouring liquor from big bottle. Sir Geoffrey he got happy face. He got big winning.’

‘And Mr Quentin?’ Biddy asked, looking towards the smooth leather chair.

‘He sad face. He lose every game, so much desperate. Sir Geoffrey win all his money. Mr Quentin say, “I ruined man. I play again. I play again, again, I stake ten thousand pound.”’

‘So he lost? Did he have to pay up?’

‘He say not got so big money. He play last, very last game, try to win. He say if Sir Geoffrey win, he give Miss Carinna to Sir Geoffrey.’

Biddy was shaking her head slowly. ‘So let me be sure of this. Mr Quentin lost so badly that he offered his niece as the prize?’

‘She come that door.’ Loveday nodded, pointing towards a low inner door. He remembered now, that she had looked different that night. Her usually high-pinned hair hung down past her shoulders, and she wore a plain white gown. ‘I think – she make self look like young girl.’

‘And how did Lady Carinna seem to you?’

‘She not talk. Do what uncle say.’

‘Well,’ Biddy said, ‘maybe she was forced to do it. But Sir Geoffrey, what did he make of it?’

‘His eyes on fire. He like young girl, I think. Mr Quentin say Sir Geoffrey must marry her and he say yes. Old man so drunk he say anything. They play last game. Sir Geoffrey he keep play lucky seven. He win again.’

‘Oh aye? That was very lucky.’

Biddy gave the dice shaker a good long rattle. The dice scattered in a one and six again. ‘These dice always score the same.’

Loveday tried it, and it was true. He picked it up and looked closely at it. ‘So this magic dice?’

‘Loaded dice, more like, fixed to fall on those numbers.’

Loveday threw, and again it cast a perfect seven. Yet he remembered Mr Quentin’s sorry face as he kept on losing. ‘But Miss Biddy, how Mr Quentin not win seven too?’

‘I bet he’d got another dice up his sleeve. Was there a candle on the table?’

Loveday closed his eyes and remembered only the sconces lit on the wall and a candelabrum on the sideboard. He shook his head. Biddy sat down in Sir Geoffrey’s maroon chair and moved her head about, as if trying to get a view of her imagined opponent.

‘It looks like Mr Quentin was quite in the shadows, and his hands easily hidden by the table edge and arms of his chair. They went to a lot of—’

‘What that noise?’

Loveday was alert, listening to a noise in the hallway below. Silently, he motioned to Biddy and they crept back into the dining room. As the footsteps on the stairs grew louder, they both made a pretence of stacking plates.

Even with a few moments warning, Loveday gave a start as a deep male drawl asked, ‘Loveday, where
is
everybody?’

His mistress’s brother stood yawning at the door, dressed in a braided coat and tousled shirt. Loveday bowed very low, cringing at being caught with Biddy beside him.

‘Mr Kitt, sir. No one here. All gone to royal parade.’ He looked down at the floor, hoping the man would go away.

‘Even Carinna?’

‘Yes Mr Kitt, sir.’ He motioned at Biddy to carry on stacking crockery.

‘And who might you be?’

Biddy looked up, very startled. ‘Me, sir?’

Mr Kitt was quite fixed in the doorway. ‘Yes, you.’

‘Biddy Leigh, sir. Under-cook from Mawton Hall. Here with me mistress, Lady Carinna, if you please.’ She looked unnerved as she made a clumsy curtsey.

‘Loveday.’ Mr Kitt paused to yawn once more. ‘Run down and fetch me some coffee.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Biddy hissed, making to follow him.

But when she reached the doorway, the young gentleman let Mr Loveday pass and then stopped Biddy’s exit with his outstretched arm.

Loveday ran downstairs to the butler’s pantry where he slopped some lukewarm water over a spoonful of coffee. He was horribly alarmed to think of Biddy alone with his mistress’s brother.

Only the previous day he had been in Lady Carinna’s chamber as she nagged at Mr Kitt. She had sat at the mirror, dabbing stuff from all the pots and boxes spread about her; she had been in one of her lively, devilish moods.

‘Come along, surely even you can find new friends?’ she had teased Mr Kitt, who was lounging before the fire, dressed in a long black Chinese robe. He had been half-heartedly flicking crumbs into the flames.

‘Oh sis, I’ve told you before. I don’t choose to.’ Loveday had thought he whined like a lazy girl. ‘And it’s not a case merely of friends, is it?’

She had glared at him in the mirror. ‘Try, for my sake,’ she had insisted, less warmly. ‘There are prettier girls aplenty at the pleasure gardens.’

Loveday had glanced up from his polishing then. Prettier than whom? He wondered if they spoke of Biddy, for these last weeks he always fancied people were speaking of Biddy.

Next moment Lady Carinna had caught his eye, and he was told to take Bengo out into the yard.

As he took the squirming bundle of dog flesh into his arms, he wondered what they were going to talk about when alone. Then Bengo had nipped his hand with his sharp little teeth. The best place for Bengo, Loveday thought, as he clattered down the stairs, was roasted on a stick across a fire, though the meat would make mighty stringy eating.

*   *   *

Biddy was his friend, and he had to protect her from men like Mr Kitt. The tray of lukewarm coffee rattled in his hands as he ran back upstairs to the dining room. From the landing he heard murmuring voices.

‘Anything else you need, sir?’ Loveday challenged, brandishing the coffee tray.

Mr Kitt gave a great yawning groan. ‘Only my bed. See I am not disturbed until dinner, my good fellow.’

Loveday watched him climb the stairs with resentment in his heart, still clutching the coffee tray very tight.

*   *   *

At last they were outside in the cold air that tasted of smut and early frost.

‘Who was that?’ Biddy asked.

‘That Lady Carinna brother, Mr Kitt. What he say to you, Miss Biddy?’

She shook her head as if it was of no importance. ‘He asked about the journey. Why Lady Carinna was taking me with her. I couldn’t help him.’

Loveday suspected Mr Kitt of far more than that. All the way down the Strand Loveday hung back unhappily behind Biddy as she peered about, captivated by all the stuff in windows, her eyes glazed with wanting. Compared to rich, high-ranking Mr Kitt, Loveday felt like a no-good nobody.

‘That so old and dry and shrunk,’ he retorted, when Biddy praised the market sellers’ fruit. He longed to tempt her with sweet-tasting mango, banana, and guava.

‘But they are beautiful,’ Biddy protested, admiring a great pyramid of oranges upon a stall.

‘In my island we pick fruit the day it ripe.’ He was straining to be heard above the yells, the wheels grinding on cobbles, and the bells ringing out at the church on the square.

At last they reached the quiet edge of the Piazza and strolled past parked sedan chairs and gentlemen gathered beneath theatre notices. She grasped his hand tightly as they approached the shop.

‘Here it is at last, Mr Loveday.
The Cocoa-Nut Tree
itself.’

Once inside the confectioners, she was spellbound by sugared fruits hung in garlands and glass bottles sparkling with morsels of sugar. While Loveday spoke to the shop girl, Biddy trailed the shelves slowly, looking inside glass jars, mouthing the words on the Bill of Fare.

‘Look Mr Loveday, “Macaroons – As Made In Paris”,’ she sighed, staring at a heap of biscuits made in every colour from blue to shiny gold.

Carefully he ordered his goods from the jars of herbs behind the counter. First, there was Mr Pars’ packet of coltsfoot that he smoked to ease his chest. Then a bag of comfrey tea for his mistress’s stomach. Finally, boxes of the usual violet pastilles.

Biddy came up behind him while the girl tied the parcel with ribbon.

‘Begging your pardon, miss. Is it right you’re selling that Royal Ice Cream?’

The girl shrugged. ‘That’s what it says on the board if you can read it.’

‘Aye, I’ve been studying it all right. I’ve only ever read of ices before. So I’ll have a try of it.’

When the girl reappeared Biddy sniffed at the little glass bowl, and then cautiously licked the ice cream from the tiny spoon.

‘Why, it is orange flowers.’ She looked happy enough to burst. ‘And something else, some fragrant nut – do you put pistachio in it too?’

While she asked a hundred questions of the shop girl, Loveday paced up and down, fretful to get on their way. He had longed for a day out with Biddy, but something was wrong.

A sudden distinct smell stopped him as still as a stone. The air was heavy with flower syrup, but he knew that musky undertone at once. Beside him was a bowl on a tiny silver table, and inside it, unmistakeably, were lumps of the grey stone found deep inside the whales of his homeland.