An Appetite for Violets (38 page)

‘No, no. You are a married woman also?’

A flutter rose in my chest like a new-released dove.

‘No. That is why,’ and I laughed for the first time in days, ‘you have not had your full liberty.’

‘So, Bibi—’

‘Mmm.’ I buried my face in his neck and felt his dark curls stroke my cheek.

‘You are free to wed?’

I looked up and nodded.

‘So, you will marry me? And come with me to my city?’

For a while my mouth hung quite empty with surprise.

‘But you do understand I am not Her Ladyship?’

‘Well in that case – I can always send you out to do an honest day’s work.’

I belted him for that and he laughed and grasped my hand.

‘It is you that I want. Not your rank or your money. So will you marry me?’

Then I said it with never a second thought. ‘Yes, I will. Yes, yes I will.’

*   *   *

There was no time for rejoicing, we had to set off like the wind. I hurried back to the villa with love spurring my heels. Renzo arrived with a carriage within the hour, for he had long been ready to leave the count’s household. There must be no more secrets, we agreed, so when I carried the strongbox down I told him it still contained the last of my lady’s fortune.

‘That is good,’ he said, ‘for I too have saved my wages and with our capital we can start a great trade in the city.’

Trade! I kissed him for joy and hugged him so hard that he pushed me away.

‘Ah, those strong arms of yours, Bibi,’ he mocked. ‘Now I understand why you can squeeze me like a python.’

‘I shall show you more than strong arms, signore.’ I batted his arm in play.

He laughed and raised his arms like a man about to fist-fight. ‘Oh, I am ready for you, signorina. We shall soon see who is the strongest.’ And then the rogue poked me gently in a most amusing place.

*   *   *

Bengo was a nuisance to the end. When we were waiting in the carriage, and all the candles snuffed and doors locked, that eternal botheration still would not come with us. He hid in the dining room – where to my eternal shame I had not had the spirit to clear up the Easter dinner. I knelt and did my best to entice him with a morsel, but he had a madcap fit upon him and led me a merry dance. One moment he crouched with his forelegs stretched, then when I came close he ran off in circles like a scalded piglet.

‘Bengo! You will be left behind,’ I snapped. For my lady’s sake I didn’t want to abandon him in that godless house, but when I tried to snatch him up he nipped my fingers. So I marched off and left him, for Bengo had never liked me, nor had I ever cared a beggar’s scrap for him.

XXXVII

Florence

Being 1773 to 1777
Signora Bibiana Cellini, her journal

I can’t say I took much heed of where we were headed. We piled into Renzo’s carriage with all our belongings creaking and groaning on the roof, and Carla and the baby squeezed in a corner with Ugo at their feet. As for me and Renzo, we had eyes, hands and lips only for each other. I could have driven off the edge of the world for all I cared if I had him beside me. All through the early hours we talked in whispers of our lives, our hopes, our dreams. Never were two persons better matched, for not only was my sweetheart the most well-made and lively-witted man, but we were also well matched in ambition, in a world that had equipped us both at birth with naught but rags and moonshine. I’d waited a lifetime to meet this man and had often thought lovers’ ballads the airy dreams of fools. But this man was flesh and hot blood. As dawn grew closer I was wary even of sleep, in case I woke and found I had dreamed him.

When we stopped at an inn the next morning, Renzo summoned a priest. Arm in arm we followed his shuffling figure through a shady wood; while all the time I marvelled at this great step I was taking. Had I lost my senses to find myself clinging to this man who I barely knew, in a wood I knew not where? Those advising words in
The Cook’s Jewel
echoed in my ears: that the best of husbands should be a man of Virtue, Kindness and Companionship. Renzo was that man of my dream, I was sure of it, and my very best partner in what that quaint writer called the Labyrinth of Life. As he squeezed my hand I felt his strong fingers fit around mine as if we had been born twin souls.

‘Do not be afraid,’ he whispered. ‘
Carissima,
I will always love and honour you.’ And in the dappled light of the wood he picked me a ring of white blossom and set it on my hair.

Inside the church we took our place at the altar steps, shivering in the dank morning air. I understood only part of my wedding vows, for the priest spoke fast and the words were strange. But I repeated the phrases as Renzo prompted me, then I kneeled and bowed my head in prayer. All the while, as Renzo spoke very low and tender, I engraved the scene most carefully in my memory. I wore no bride’s brocade nor even broke that blessed bride cake I had baked back at Mawton, yet to me my wedding was the great star in this story of my humble life. Feeling the hard stone beneath my knees, I recited silently, He is here, and he loves me and I love him. Then Renzo slipped the gold ring from his little finger onto mine and we were joined as man and wife.

*   *   *

Back at the inn we retired to our bedchamber. I stripped to my shift and waited, suddenly trembling in the cold bed. Meanwhile Renzo threw off his clothes and washed at a basin. All the while I still thought to myself – what dream have I tumbled into and when will I awake? And then I remembered the crimes of those last days, and I was suddenly as weak as a lamb, so when he came to me with flesh as hairy as a gentle beast, I clung to him all the tighter. What had I left but him? And he was all I needed, truly.

He warmed my cold body and was most tender in his caresses. So when the vital moment came, his face was above mine, watching me closely, his black hair damp and tangled over his brow.

‘My love,’ he whispered, his breath hot against my cheek. He kissed me lightly on my throat, my lips, my eyes. I traced his features, loving all I saw; and then we were man and wife and I was filled with joy to be a maid no more. And what appetites we had – for we had both been simmering all those weeks, and his every touch made my skin melt like gold in a fire. It took many lazy hours to satisfy our hunger, and dawn rose again before we slept.

*   *   *

Next day it was hard to shift from the heaven of our feather bed, but Renzo said, ‘We must make for the city. Tonight I will sleep at home with my bride beside me.’

By evening a vast city of glittering towers and domes lay before us.

‘Look,’ Renzo urged like a boy. ‘Santa Maria. The Duomo.’ High in the air stood a vast dome, the colour of apricot, with a globe set at its top. ‘See, Bibi. The grandest church in the world.’

Once through the city gateway I gazed on houses bearing marble fronts, and every kind of magnificent carving. As for the churches, I never saw such precious stones bedded into walls, most especially that great Duomo all dressed with redstone, blue lapis and jasper, all of it so vast and lofty it cricked your neck to see the roof.

‘So this is Florence,’ I said, suddenly recognising the name of that place where the arts were so rich that all the world flocked to see them. Everywhere, red and white flowers decorated the wayside, as if news of our wedding had been sent before us. There were banners, too, of crimson silk unfurled from high windows, and in the vast piazza stood tented pavilions embroidered with gold.

‘In Florence there is always a festival,’ my husband told me. ‘We have two carnival seasons, many saints’ days, celebrations. At any excuse the people don a costume and open their purses, which we shall help ourselves to, for our marriage box.’

‘So what do they eat, these festival folk?’ I asked as my husband handed me up the steps of his house. I was very satisfied with it; for it had a neat and respectable appearance.

‘Fritters, cakes, anything indulgent or exotic. They eat all they can.’

We smiled at each other in silent conspiracy. If people wished to eat, we were the pair to feed them.

*   *   *

Soon Renzo set up his workshop, employing workers to create his
pastillage
fancies. One night he made a great sugar paste temple for a nobleman’s banquet, as vast as a shepherd’s hut on its plinth. The Bill of Fare was lavish too: three courses of fifty-seven dishes assembled by four cooks, with my husband preparing the grand dessert. To help him decorate it, Renzo taught me to melt sugar and fling it back and forth on a knife tip until it formed a glassy thread. Moulded on upturned bowls it made half-spheres of sugar web as hard as crystal. Combined in pairs they formed globes of gold that we filled with bonbons and coloured flowers.

‘We make the finest dainties in the city,’ I murmured, ‘and the orders are piling high.’ I loved to tally our accounts nearly as much as I loved to make sweetmeats. Renzo was painting a sugar warrior, the tip of his tongue just pushed out as he gave it the face of the lord who commissioned the vast display.

‘
Si,
but we need more room,’ he grumbled. ‘The sugar work needs to be kept dry so we can hire it out again.’

‘Aye,’ I said, doing a quick calculation, ‘if we did that we could make many times more profits again.’

Then, as I passed into that happy state of contentedness as I worked, I thought, Ah, it would be like spinning gold. My heart began to race so fast I dropped a molten lump of sugar and spoiled it. A grand idea had formed inside my pushing mind. I told Renzo of how most of the travellers lodged at poor inns, or if they had deep pockets, paid rent on a
palazzo.
We knew why lodgings were few: to set up a hotel was expensive, risky, and a deal of hard work. Yet the benefits were many: we might easily give the best food to our guests, even English food should they wish it. And no one knew better than me the longing of travellers for cleanliness and neatness. In this same hotel we might also have a room for Renzo’s lavish sugar displays. From a single kitchen we might serve both guests and banquets. As for bedchambers, they would be the best in the city.

My husband slapped his knee. ‘We must hire a man at the city gates to guide them straight to our hotel, with a notice recommending our lodgings.’

‘And write an Advertisement in those books of Grand Tours they read,’ I cried. Our notions jumped as high and hot as nuts in a brazier.

Then it came to me, like a vision of heaven. ‘Oh, Renzo,’ I said, clutching his sleeve. ‘We must have a restaurant.’

‘Restaurant? What is that?’

‘Remember, I told you of the superior dining rooms where the weak and moping go for a pick-me-up? The
bouillon,
the creams, all those over-priced healthful foods?’

‘
Si,
and they will pay for it. As we say here, “If your mouth is full you cannot say no.”’

‘Yes, yes, they will pay even more for that – dandified way of dining. If we can do it, the business will succeed.’

*   *   *

We did it. Nothing venture, nothing have, they say, and there were never two people more hungry for success. With the coin from my strongbox and Renzo’s capital, we bought a five-storey house overlooking the Arno river. We paced the high musty rooms, ignoring the coats of arms and moth-eaten velvets. Rather, we peered up the chimneys and measured the kitchen. We called it
La Regina dell’Inghilterra,
or the good old Queen of England. So I was then that elegant
Restauratrice
I had so admired in Paris. Gone were my servant’s drabs; I was all busked up in French fashions to greet my guests like Lady Bountiful herself. ‘Good evening, Your Excellency,’ I mouthed like a perfect
magnifico.
By my stars, those at Mawton would never have known me. My hair was each morning piled high by my dresser, and pinned with flowers and jewels. My feet that never were the finest, were lifted on satin-heeled slippers. Even my poor fire-scorched arms were healed. Well, near to healed, for with fingerless mitts and a jangle of cameo bracelets, my maid said no one would ever see the scars.

The night we opened the restaurant the building near floated with light from crystal, mirrors and shimmering lamps: it was the
Maison de Santé
of all my dreams. We dazzled them with luxuries: a golden striking clock from Switzerland, and a wine cistern filled with snow in the shape of a galleon. At the room’s centre stood my husband’s tour de force, a sugar paste Temple of Circe decorated with sugar globes. In a city that looks always to fashion we were at its head.

As for food, the wonder was that so many of our guests had no appetite at all. The beau monde rose late in the afternoon, taking only a cup of chocolate, and fretting that they could not lace their dainty clothes if they had eaten but one morsel of food. But from us they might take a thimbleful of
bouillon
for their health, or a dish of aspic to restore their complexion. So our guests did not fill their bellies but their noses, eyes and minds; and if they had to, they sampled the scantest peck of exquisite food.