A Taste for Nightshade

by Martine Bailey

  An accident. Peg took a deep breath. ‘At the tower?’

  Mrs Croxon’s red-rimmed eyes looked away and her face crumpled. ‘Yes, you may as well know. I was looking for my husband.’ She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. Her genteel voice wavered. ‘I have decided to leave him. Make a sensible parting between the two of us. Live a quiet life somewhere else. Alone.’

  Peg’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What? You’d leave here? But what of your position?’

  Mrs Croxon’s eyes burned with resolve. ‘I know it’s shocking, Peg. Perhaps I am not as mindful of propriety as you imagine. So long as I have my paints, a few books, I may live a peaceful life. He cares not a jot for me. And the humiliation —’ Again, she covered her face.

  Peg appraised her through narrowed eyes. My, the worm was in danger of turning. This called for quick wits and, thankfully, she was never short of those. What did the mistress still desire? Her fool of a husband, perhaps? Under all those brave words, surely she still moped after him.

  ‘Desert your fine husband?’ She gave a little laugh. ‘You would be known as the worst sort of female – selfish, and a heathen besides, to break your vows. You’d be an outcast amongst respectable folk. Now, I know it’s not my place, but might I speak to you more like – well, as a friend?’

  Her mistress lifted her bleary face. ‘Oh, Peg.’ She grasped Peg’s hand, her fingers unpleasantly clammy. ‘How good you are. Go ahead.’

  ‘Do you not know marriage can take a good while to flourish? You’ve scarcely given it a chance, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  Mrs Croxon shook her head slowly. ‘It’s more than that. Something is wrong. I know it in my bones. You see, I love him – but he is repelled by me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s common enough,’ Peg said, in a voice like balm. ‘Marry first and love will follow, they say. The most amiable couples, with a dozen children – even they have difficult beginnings. I’ve learned many a lesson about relations between the sexes, living in different households. And I believe I can finally answer that great question, “What does a husband truly want?”’

  Her mistress appeared to be waking up at last. ‘So, what does he want?’

  ‘Well, the trouble is, it’s not generally what his wife wants.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, if I was to tell you that a husband wants to be lodged at home as comfortably as at his favourite inn, and his wife to be as compliant as the doxy he dallied with in his youth, you might think me rather simple.’

  Mrs Croxon gave a grumpy little snort. ‘No. I would think it was only the hard truth. And I have wanted a great deal more from him, have I not?’

  ‘It is only my opinion, Mrs Croxon; but wise women do cosset their husbands. Give the gentleman the top hand in business, and so forth. Men do have their pride, you know.’

  ‘But there is more to it,’ her mistress said bitterly. ‘You see, he has – betrayed me with another woman.’

  With great effort Peg kept her face pleasant and pliant. ‘Who?’

  ‘I think I know, Peg. It is who I suspected from the first.’

  She knew? What did she know? Well there was that incident with the black hair. ‘Mrs Harper you mean? Why, the arrant slut,’ she answered hotly. Then more smoothly, ‘Yet who is she but an old habit. That is just his bachelor ways, mistress. A handsome fellow like him needs time to settle to married life. Why is it he goes to the George? For companionship, warmth, good brandy, and food. Why not make him a comfortable home here?’

  Her mistress’s lips pressed mean and tight. ‘Why should I waste money on all that?’

  Because money makes the pot boil, madam, she thought privately. Outwardly she looked most sympathetically at her mistress. ‘What is money compared to keeping your husband? You got off on the wrong footing; that is all. What is there to lose in trying again?’

  Her mistress blinked and gave a brave smile. ‘You mean I should try to please him, and not myself? I know he finds the Hall oppressive.’

  ‘Now take that dining room. It will always be wretched. Why not move to the Oak Room? It needs only a new fireplace, and work to the chimney. The windows look over the park.’

  Her mistress frowned. ‘That room is too imposing. And the carpet is in tatters.’

  ‘Get a new one,’ she answered pleasantly. ‘And the room next to it would make a better drawing room. You might furnish it in style. Cosset your husband.’

  Her mistress was still frowning, but something was shifting behind her expression. ‘I did have hopes, when I first married, that I might rise to such elegance.’

  ‘Mrs Croxon, nothing is too grand for you. You are the lady now, the lady of Delafosse Hall. I’ll have a go at such dishes as they serve at the George. You wouldn’t be the first wife to entice her husband through his stomach. The George’s beef pudding, I know he likes that, and the best brandy wine from York. And as for the house, I’ll get the cleaning women to clear the path, while you hire the tradesmen and order the furniture.’

  She clamped her mouth shut tight. She had that many notions it was hard to keep them all stoppered up inside her head.

  ‘Perhaps I could. Only—’ Lord no, Mrs Croxon’s eyes were brimming again. She picked up a mirror and grimaced at her own reflection. ‘What of me? I cannot send for a pattern book to refurbish myself. It is better I leave.’

  Peg firmly removed the mirror. ‘Some say I have an eye for such beautification. I could transform you into such a vision that Mr Croxon could not resist you.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ She tutted and shook her head, but there was a twitch at the corners of her mouth. Ah, so this was the tender spot. If her mistress could only believe she was worthy of the master, much would be achieved, not least the loosening of her purse.

  ‘I’ll wash your hair today. Why not let me pin it in a new style?’

  In ten minutes Peg had returned with a bundle of stuff. She washed her mistress’s rat-tails at the stand, and then tucked her back into freshly laundered sheets. Enticing pattern books and journals lay across the coverlet. To Peg’s satisfaction, her mistress began to leaf through The Lady’s Magazine.

  ‘Your hair has a natural wave.’ Peg snipped at the ends with the scissors from her chatelaine, curling them into charming spirals. ‘Would you care for this style?’ She held up an illustration of the ‘Grecian Manner’, and deftly wound a bandeau of blue ribbon around her mistress’s crown and temple. When Mrs Croxon lifted the mirror, her face softened. She turned her head from left to right, admiring her reflection.

  ‘Now see that ribbon. That is the colour you must have for your new gowns. Forget-me-not, and that pistachio colour, they are all the fashion. Forget those puces and daffodils.’ Mrs Croxon had begun to leaf through Mr Fanshawe’s Repository of Fashion, which Peg had obtained for her own entertainment. It was brim full of the spankingest things. She pointed to a simple walking dress with a drawstring waist and deep lace. ‘Now that is the style for you.’

  ‘Do you think so? I do like that.’

  ‘Mrs Gillies the seamstress has got in the very muslin for it. Shall I ask her to call?’

  Her mistress nodded.

  ‘Now mistress, what of your skin? A daily dose of Virgin’s Milk to calm your complexion?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She was stroking the best pictures with her fingertips as if she might raise them from the paper. On the page was a picture of twirly glassware, a vast dining table, a collection of plate in all the modern shapes. Oh, Peg thought, are not new things the most handsome? When would she get her fingers in her mistress’s purse?

  ‘Ah, here are Mr Fanshawe’s terms. Peg, wait here, I shall fetch my writing box. I believe a little extravagance will do me no harm.’

  Peg stood abruptly. ‘I shall fetch it. You must stay in bed.’

  ‘No, no, Peg. You wait here.’ The damned woman rose from her bed, refusing to be told. Peg had to stand back as her mistress pulled on a wrapper and slippers and trotted off to the landing. Stealthily, she f
ollowed her, and heard her climbing up to the attic. Ah, so the box was up there with her painting stuff, after all.

  A few minutes later she returned with the box and opened the lid with a flourish. As for the key, that was nowhere to be seen.

  Peg glimpsed the contents: a heap of her mistress’s letters – and mighty interesting letters they looked too, both from her bank and that notary Mr Tully who supplied her with funds. Mrs Croxon directed her to top up the ink pot. No doubt there would soon be plenty of new suppliers to come to terms with.

  Two days later, when Peg had given the mistress a glass of port wine laced with a little Hystericon and Mrs Croxon was fast asleep, Peg climbed up to her mistress’s studio and read the letter where it lay quite openly on the table:

  Dear Mrs Croxon,

  I thank you for your recent communication and pray this letter finds you and your husband in good health and spirits. Regarding your request, if I might be permitted an opinion, I am somewhat surprised at a further application for funds being made so quickly. Land values are volatile at present, madam, and though such a useful acreage as Whitelow is now at a premium, such circumstances may always change.

  Peg hissed through her teeth. What business was it of his, the old skinflint? You would have thought it was his own damned chink. Then she caught sight of the final sentence and felt unbridled pleasure.

  However, as your instructions are most lucidly communicated, I enclose a letter of credit to the sum of £1000 to be drawn on your account at Hoare’s Bank.

  Your obedient servant,

  Edward Tully Esquire

  Once the money was secured, her mistress was bolder, excited, even giddy. A new regime began. Each morning she and her mistress planned their campaign. Peg wrote down everything that must be ordered or purchased. Within a week Mrs Croxon’s first new costume was delivered – a blue gown and velvet spencer jacket that greatly flattered her, just as Peg knew it would. Immediately she ordered further ensembles of the same style in purple, along with ribbons, wide-brimmed hats, strings of jet beads, kid gloves, undergarments, and shoes. Whenever a parcel arrived Mrs Croxon ripped it open as if it were Christmas. Admittedly her spirits still sank at the slightest setback, but Peg took it upon herself to raise them with saucy jests. ‘Oh, the master will never resist you in that lace chemise,’ she teased, ‘for it’s as thin as nothing at all.’ Her mistress turned flame-red at that, but she was careful not to tease too hard, especially not close to that most sensitive spot: the Croxons’ bedroom arrangements.

  Her only vexation was that the writing box had disappeared again. Mrs Croxon had a knack of keeping it close; even when she fetched it down to her chamber; she kept it constantly locked with a hidden key. Peg made a rapid, but futile search of the painting room: under papers, in the cabinet, behind her mistress’s trunk. She was determined to find that box.

  Next, the mistress’s attention turned to the Hall. While the master was away in Manchester, she engaged a Mr Delahunty as architect, who persuaded her to improve all four of the vast antique reception rooms at once. Mrs Croxon rose from her sickbed and threw her heart into the plans, making sketches of how they might be refashioned, cutting out pictures, pasting them on boards. To make purchases more easily, she bought herself a pony cart that she could drive herself, whenever the master used the carriage. Off she went, bowling along down the drive, handling the reins and the pony’s moods in a surprisingly able manner. An impressive collection of room plans quickly gathered in the old library; elegant drawings that promised the entire transformation of those ponderous suites. Peg studied them and thought them simply grand. ‘Mr Croxon will be mightily impressed,’ she told her mistress. ‘Any man would be brim full of gratitude for a wife who gave him all of this.’

  One wintry afternoon they both awaited Michael’s return from a three nights’ stay in Manchester. ‘We’ll have beef pudding all in the George style,’ Peg announced, not caring to mention that, as even Nan could not make it, she had ordered it to be delivered cooked from the inn, and hang the expense. She herself made the most excellent apple pie from Mother Eve’s Secrets, licking fingers sweet with muscovado and cinnamon. Still, she could not prevent Mrs Croxon’s flusteriness from spreading like a contagion, so that even Peg’s systems faltered. When she dropped a dish of her mistress’s favourite almonds in the muck of the yard she carelessly gathered them up again. What did she care if Mrs Croxon ate a peck of dirt like common folk? In the kitchen, she struggled to reheat the vast beef pudding as the day’s post lay unopened in her apron. She told herself there would be plenty of time to catch up once dinner had accomplished its purpose.

  When the master at last made an appearance, Peg was hovering on the landing, polishing the glassware. Bathed and changed, he sauntered into the old library, brandy glass in hand.

  ‘What on earth are all these?’ she heard him ask his wife through the half-open door. Mrs Croxon murmured something in her soft voice.

  Their conversation dropped to a level too low to comprehend, but there was harmony to their speech. She heard him say, ‘—remarkable, Grace.’ Then a little later, ‘Well, I could eat a horse. Do I hear dinner being served?’

  Both of the Croxons admired her feast. A tureen of Nan’s hare soup sent up a savoury steam, and around it was laid roasted pheasant and buttered cabbage. At the centre of the table was the buttery pudding, packed drum-tight with beef and kidney. Even the mistress ate and drank bravely, while the master pounced upon his food. Yet more dishes arrived for the second course: the master’s favourite, her own hunting pudding of fruit and brandy, a bread-crumbed ham, the apple pie and syllabub, nuts and candied fruits. Outside, the rain needled the windows in stormy waves.

  ‘How is the kitchen fire tonight, Mrs Blissett?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Gone out completely in this rain, sir. I was lucky to get dinner finished.’

  Peg lit more candles, for the master had made no move away from his usual Usquebaugh, distilled with her own provocative additions.

  He drank it leaning back, hog-pink and sated. The mistress sat as stiff as pewter, playing with the fruit on her plate.

  Leaving the door ajar, Peg bustled out onto the landing and made pretence of being busy at a sideboard. She heard the glug of another glass of Usquebaugh being poured. She listened to them; knowing this feeling well, when a carefully-laid racket came to ripeness. Pride was in it, but there was scorn too. Gulls, bleaters, flats: whatever you called them, they were sugarpaste figurines performing on a glass stage. Mrs Croxon had shown a peck of spirit, but all it needed was a flick of her husband’s little finger for her to melt like sugar in the rain. Hearing nothing, she returned to the half-open door and hid just behind it.

  A chair was shoved back and footsteps marched towards her across the dining room. Peg sprang away like a cat from a bonfire. No one emerged. Instead, the door was banged violently shut in her face. What was this, a private meeting? Someone had denied her the satisfaction of hearing her plan ripen to fruition.

  17

  Dealfosse Hall

  November 1792

  ∼ To Make a Hedgehog ∼

  Take two pounds of blanched almonds, beat them well in a mortar, with a little canary wine and orange-flower water, to keep them from oiling. Make them into a stiff paste, then beat in the yolks of twelve eggs, put to it a pint of cream sweetened with sugar, put in a half pound of sweet butter melted, set it on a slow fire, and keep it constantly stirring, till it is stiff enough to be made in the form of a hedgehog. Stick it full of blanched almonds, arranged like bristles and make two eyes of currants. Pour about it a custard and let it stand till it is cold, and serve it up. It makes a pretty neat dish in the middle of a table for supper.

  Mother Eve’s Secrets

  Michael had drunk a great deal from the green bottle, but had not fallen into his usual after-dinner fug. He glanced at me often, rose to slam the door, and returned to his chair to make stabbing motions with his fork at the scraps on his plate.

&n
bsp; ‘Your plans for the Hall,’ he said at last in a low husky voice, ‘are very remarkable.’ He looked up at me then through a curl of falling hair, and I knew from his expression that something was wrong. ‘The trouble is, I cannot live here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I poured myself another glass of wine, filled with foreboding.

  He sighed and twisted painfully in his chair. I tried to see past the pink flush of his skin, and wondered if Michael might be ill, not in body, but of some agony of mind.

  ‘I hate it here. You know I do.’

  ‘Even once it is refurbished?’

  ‘I am sorry, Grace. After all your endeavours.’ His sad blue eyes met mine with unfamiliar candour. I believe he truly was sorry: he acknowledged my hours of industry to prepare the plans; my passion to improve our home. ‘The bones of the place will always remain the same.’

  He stood then, and I stiffened, expecting him to leave me and retire. Instead, he stumbled towards me and slumped sideways on an empty chair. His knees touched mine; he was directly facing me.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked gently.

  He was maudlin drunk, but his usual artifice had vanished. He stared into space. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what we can do.’ I had seen Michael despondent before, but then he had been petulant, even affected. Tonight he was neither.

  His hand slid onto mine, hot and heavy. ‘I am tired of not knowing what to do.’ Still hunched and staring at the floor, he mumbled, ‘Hold me, Grace.’

  I was astonished, even suspicious, but he crumpled towards me, overwhelmingly needful and solid. Clumsily, I put my arms around his neck and rocked him. He buried his head on my shoulder; I stroked his springy hair. For a long while we stayed like that, myself bewildered, Michael thinking I knew not what.

  With sighing breaths he moved his face against my neck. The wet touch of his lips against my throat shot a dart of pleasure through my body. Kisses began, fast and light, up my throat towards my mouth. ‘Grace,’ he mumbled, his large hands pulling me closer to him. Looking down at his face I saw smudged tears around his closed eyes. Part of me revelled in Michael’s advances. Yet it was not how I wanted our marriage to be celebrated – with Michael pursuing drunken oblivion in my arms. I pulled away, though his hands still ran up and down my back, pulling me into the shelter of his body.