by Rona Randall
At the end of his reading Martin was deeply disturbed. He forgot that Jessica was waiting and that his mother would be concerned if he arrived home late. She had come to accept his Sunday jaunts and ceased to question him about them, but her anxiety might be aroused if he failed to return at the usual time. It could lead to questioning he did not want, but none of this bothered him now. He was driven by curiosity and a nameless dread, and in the hope of assuaging both he turned to the books on pharmacology and the action of drugs, which had caught his attention on his earlier visit.
Within half an hour his worst fears were confirmed. Many of the symptoms were allied to cases of poisoning in earlier ages, and many were those his father had endured before his sudden collapse — and all were associated with lead, sometimes through penetration of the skin, sometimes through inhaled fumes or dust, and sometimes through the mouth. The information haunted Martin throughout his homeward journey.
After more than two weeks of inspecting the length and breadth of the canal, there was no further excuse for Simon to linger. The journey had been unnecessary, but had enabled him to escape from a home which was unbearable without Jessica. Following his last meeting with her he had spent a sleepless night in which thought had revolved incessantly around Acland’s visit to Ashburton, for without doubt the man had headed that way. To Simon, there could be only one inevitable result, but to wait to hear it from Jessica herself was something he could not face. He had therefore risen early, packed at random, and ridden away from Cooperfield, automatically heading for the canal.
Passing the blacksmith’s forge he had seen the man’s wife at her kitchen window, the smell of sizzling pork reminding him that he had given no thought to breakfast.
To ignore the woman’s greeting had been impossible. Such a breach of good manners was unacceptable by country standards. It was equally impossible to avoid her spate of questions — to where was he bound at this hour of the morning, how was Mistress Kendall, was Sarah Blake looking after him good’n proper whilst t’mistress were at Ashburton, and did Sarah know he was off on a journey, and if not would he like her to pass the message on?
He had given no thought to the village woman who was tending the cottage whilst he was alone, so yes, he said, he would be greatly obliged. “And please tell her the cottage door is on the latch, as always.” He did not add that he had left it unlocked in the wild hope that Jessica would walk in, though he was certain she would do so only in his absence and certainly not to remain. He was even more certain that she would now be in Bristol with Acland.
Two weeks of looking for faults in the canal’s construction, and finding none, had partially filled two weeks of tortuous doubts, but had done nothing to alleviate his depression. Without Jessica, life would be as empty as his home had now become, and to return to it, knowing that his hope of finding her there was more than forlorn, was something he was reluctant to face. So he prolonged his homeward journey by a further four days, dreading the end of them.
He finally arrived long after nightfall, and as he expected, the place was in darkness. Also as he expected, Sarah Blake had left the door on the latch and a fire flickering in the hearth. She had also left a pot simmering on the hob. He set it aside indifferently, lit a candle, and slowly climbed the stairs to his room.
To his surprise, the woman had drawn the curtains. Never before had she troubled to prepare his room for him. He placed the candle on a chest by the door, stripped himself naked and washed his travel-weary body from the water ewer on the wash stand. Then he picked up the candle and turned to the bed — and stood stock still, for in the flickering light it looked for all the world as if Jessica’s head lay on his pillow.
For a breathless moment he stared. Shortly his eyes must focus properly, confirming that his imagination was running riot. Then her head was turning, her dark hair was falling back, and her face was looking at him.
“At last you have come — “ she sighed. “I have been home and waiting these past four days.”
He took a stumbling step toward her, still unbelieving, still doubting his senses, and then he was on his knees beside her and her arms reached out, drawing him close, and the dream became reality.
In silence they clung. In silence their minds and bodies sought and found each other — a long and delirious silence until finally all senses merged, and there were no more divisions, no more doubts, but only this incredible reality.
Chapter Twenty-five
The Christmas Eve reception at Carrion House was lavish, though Agatha Drayton referred to it as ‘an intimate little soiree with a few intimate friends’. The guest list was weighted with names known to her family, plus industrialists whom Joseph wished either to impress or to cultivate. It took time for a married couple to establish their niche in society, but there was surely no one better equipped to do this than themselves. Of that, Agatha was as confident as her husband, for their ambitions ran along the same lines. On her part, she planned to become one of the county’s leading hostesses — if not the one — and, on his, he aimed to be the most prominent Master Potter, with an establishment outshining every pot bank in the neighbourhood. The number of sheds, the range of ovens, the fleet of drays to replace pack ponies, the mass production churned out by one of the largest teams of workers in Staffordshire — all would bear testimony to his success.
“But do you not think, my love, that the name should be changed?” Seeing her husband’s surprise, Agatha had hastened to add, “Not from Drayton, oh dear me no!, but from the common ‘pot bank’, which puts one in mind of those dumping grounds on which early potters used to throw their broken or faulty ware, a bank of rejected pots waiting to be dug back into the earth. They do say that horrible marlpit is the burial place for many rejected vessels. You must not be linked with inferior competitors, nor by such a plebeian term. We must think of a new one, hitherto unused.”
Joseph was surprised and impressed by his wife’s observation. Agatha could be quite intelligent at times. ‘Pot bank’ did link his name with all the rest of Burslem’s potters, but what could be substituted?
Agatha had a suggestion on that point, too.
“Do you not think The Drayton Pottery sounds more distinctive, more individual? No other firm in the whole of Staffordshire is known as such. The name ‘Pottery’ when used in the singular would be new; hitherto it has been used only in the plural and as a general term, but out of ‘the potteries’ emerges one above all — The Drayton Pottery.” She repeated the name musingly. “Yes — I like it. I have no doubt your rivals would follow suit eventually, but you would be the first to set the fashion and therefore steal a march on them. And there is another thing — oh dear, you must not think it presumptuous of your little wife to comment on a world about which she knows nothing, a man’s world in which frail womanhood has no place — but you must understand that I am prompted solely by pride in my clever and successful husband.”
He smiled indulgently. With her money to bolster the expansion he planned, he was more than ready to be indulgent, even encouraging, so he said, “And what is this other thing, my dear?”
“Do you not think it would be a good idea to cease using the word ‘ovens’, a word associated with kitchens and servants? Only the other day, when I was visiting Mamma and Lord Ashford was present — it was his first visit to the Midlands and he was seeing Burslem’s smoking chimneys for the first time — he said he had never seen such gigantic kilns before, and I much preferred the term, being one not used by all and sundry.”
“The function is the same,” he answered, amused.
“Yes, but the word is not. Nor is it a word used by lesser folk. We — you — are not lesser folk. Let them talk about ‘ovens’.”
He actually kissed her, voluntarily and without thought. It expressed his appreciation of her interest and his approval of her suggestions, but she put her own interpretation on the spontaneous gesture and was well pleased.
The name was changed above the main gates within twe
nty-four hours, and caused a stir. Workers stood still, staring up at it and questioning the reason for it, for even people who could not read could see that ‘pottery’ looked nothing like ‘pot bank’.
They stared even more, and in bewilderment, when another notice went up within the walls of the pottery — one on the side of every oven. Oven Number One became Kiln Number One, and a funny word that looked. Folk would never get their tongues round it. And what did it mean, for land’s sakes? And when told by their respective foremen that it meant the same as oven, that seemed even more daft. If it meant the same thing, why change it?
“Master Potter’s orders.’Tis a word’e likes better, so t’aint for the likes of us to say nay.”
The reception was held on the eve of Christmas Day and the great hall at Carrion House looked splendid. Massed candles banished its normal gloom, a gigantic log fire roared in the gothic hearth, and the mistress herself had arranged huge baskets of foliage for suspension from the rafters. One man had broken a leg and another injured an arm whilst hanging them, for two ladders had to be clamped together to reach so high and the baskets, made of plaited wicker and filled with moist earth and hewn branches, were so heavy they had to be hauled up by ropes.
The accidents were a tiresome setback, but Mistress Drayton sent for Doctor Wotherspoon, who bound the broken leg between two wooden splints and warned the man not to walk on it too much, at which the patient looked puzzled since he could not walk on it at all. The injured arm was supported by a sling, which proved equally tiresome since the mistress did not care overmuch for the final arrangement and wanted all the baskets brought down again. She was pettish when thwarted. Since the only other male servant was the chef, who was in an impregnable position and knew it and therefore refused to step outside his normal duties, the baskets had to remain.
The chef was French and the prestige of having a cook of his nationality meant so much to his employers that neither would risk offending him. The man could also fail to understand the English language when it suited him — or so thought Hannah Walker, no longer reigning supreme in the kitchen. She privately believed that he knew full well what was said, if and when he wanted to.
The master had brought the man home with him from London, taking his housekeeper completely by surprise. From that distance it had been difficult to send any warning, but even so, springing the man on her like that, placing him above her and even expecting her to call him ‘Sir’, was almost too much. She took an instant dislike to the fellow — and what was a man doing, taking on women’s work? — but had no choice other than to resign herself to the situation. As for his cooking, she had never seen such extravagance or such wanton waste. No half measures for him, and if a dish was not to his liking, it would be thrown away!
Nor was his fancy name — Pierre — any recommendation to Mrs Walker’s way of thinking. Gradually she became suspicious of him too, for every now and then his accent seemed to disappear and he sounded like any other foreign Londoner, but that only happened down in the kitchens. Rose was tremendously impressed by him. He quickly replaced Parker, the footman, in her esteem, and she soon knew all about the great London houses in which he had reigned over his own culinary staff and cooked for titled folk. And the people he had met! Famous ladies from Drury Lane and actors like David Garrick had personally congratulated him; even Royalty had partaken of his meals.
“So why does he have to come here?” Hannah Walker had scoffed, which made Rose quite indignant, and even more indignant when the housekeeper added, “If you ask me, the man’s a bit of an actor himself…”
But actor or no, the chef surpassed himself on the eve of Christmas Day, and preparations began almost as soon as he joined the household. Some of his fanciest recipes took many days to plan and prepare and some ingredients had to be stored for even longer before he deemed them ready for use. Ducks had to be salted for at least three days, smothered with butter melted in milk instead of water, boiled slowly in a cloth, then hashed in port wine; pigeons were pickled, packed in stone jars and tied down with bladders to keep out air, and some were stuffed with hard eggs mixed with marrow, sweet herbs and mace. More pigeons were jellied and several more were roasted on the night itself, and it fell to Hannah Walker to singe and clean the heads to make them look as well as possible when served, also to clip the nails close to the claws for the same reason and to place sprigs of myrtle in the bill of each.
Because larks were not around, other small birds were drawn and spitted. Woodcocks and teal, dun-birds and plovers, ruffs and reeves all met with the same fate, but apparently it was an insult to so fine a cook that quail and snipe were not available.
But quite the most distasteful, to a cook accustomed to producing only homely fare, was the man’s partiality to hare when in a state which anyone in their right mind would consider long past eating. He insisted that a freshly killed hare was not fit for human consumption; it must be hung, unopened, for a week or more, according to the weather. He seemed totally unaware of the stench except as an indication of its progress. He would sniff the creature’s body each day, from head to tail, finally pronouncing the right moment for the foul entrails to be removed and for cooking to begin.
Not for him a hare poached in the field, and if he had to accept one in such a condition it fell to Hannah to remove the heart and liver and to wipe the inside every day until finally rubbing in a mixture of pepper and ginger, then placing a large piece of charcoal within.
On the night of the Carrion House reception the various dishes of hare, cooked in manifold ways, went down very well indeed. He even knew how to make rabbit taste like hare by hanging it in the skin for three or four days, then, after skinning, to lay it unwashed in a seasoning of black pepper and spices, finally soaking in red wine and vinegar and roasting with the same sauce as a hare — and never, at any stage, cleaning it and thus robbing the resultant liquor of its flavour.
But the tables groaned with other succulent dishes as well. A neat’s tongue and half an ox’s head produced a splendid hessian soup, while the tastiest part of the head, with the kernels and root of the tongue, went into a ragout served with small eggs and balls of herb stuffing. There was soup maigre and eel soup and oyster soup, and a dish called China Chilo consisting of undressed neck of mutton with onions and rice seasoned with cayenne. There were mutton cutlets roasted in shallots and bay leaves. There were also mutton steaks served with mutton puddings which elegant people, the chef told Rose, were now calling ‘sausage’ like the French.
There was also boiled shoulder of mutton served with oysters, and five fourteen-pound legs of wether mutton, hung for three days before cooking, and several dressed haunches of mutton cooked in a paste of coarse flour which was finally removed to enable the meat to be frothed up like venison.
Indeed, there was seemingly no end to a feast which was crowned with pickles of English bamboo, red cabbage, cucumbers and walnuts, and melon mangoes made by cutting a small square out of the side and mixing the seeds with shredded garlic and mustard seeds, then stuffing it all back in again, and, as a finale, guests were able to gorge themselves on brandy cream, sack cream, burnt cinnamon cream, codlin cream and clotted cream. There were black caps with orange butter, pears baked in wine and honey, wine rolls dipped in brandy butter and, as a courtesy to the hosts and their guests, the chef condescended to produce a Staffordshire syllabub with which even Hannah Walker could find no fault. He even knew the trick of pouring onto the cider and brandy and sugar and nutmeg the essential warm milk from a large pitcher held high above.
And, of course, the wines were excellent, but his master was responsible for that, having restocked his cellar from London suppliers. The load had been stacked within the coach in which the new chef had uncomplainingly travelled, and that alone had made Hannah Walker wonder why the man had been so willing to abandon his prestigious London position for one in a remote country household, and to suffer days of uncomfortable travel to get there.
Not even Max Fre
eman could grumble about the quality ofjoseph’s cellar. After several glasses he even felt tolerably patient with Phoebe, who was fretting and pouting because such a crush of people placed her new Mantua in jeopardy. Made of pink silk damask exposing a white satin quilted petticoat, it had short robings and winged cuffs, with a stomacher of pink ribbon and silver lace. It had cost her husband a tidy sum, but no one seemed to notice how elegant it was. They were too busy stacking their plates with food, which had been placed on tables along three sides of the splendid hall. Supplies were constantly replenished as great gaps appeared.
Agatha was anxious to point out that this was a new and fashionable way of entertaining a large number of people, maintaining a constant flow of food throughout the evening rather than serving only one sitting. “Pierre tells us it is the done thing in Paris, Mamma,” she had said in answer to her mother’s comment on such extravagance, “and Joseph and I have no need to count the cost. I am resolved to be the most gracious hostess at the side of the most generous host in Staffordshire. Dear Papa — your glass is empty. I will see that it is refilled immediately — ” And promptly a flunkey appeared at his side, solemnly pouring.
“Of course, m’dear, it’s all very impressive,” said Ralph Freeman to his wife, “but personally I find it damned uncomfortable. Give me a good solid table to sit to and none of this pushing and shoving to get more…” and although his wife secretly agreed with him, she said indulgently that one should move with the times and that their new son-in-law was certainly doing that.
