An Appetite for Violets

by Martine Bailey

  ‘I couldn’t part from him.’

  ‘Carinna, you are too fond-hearted. I suppose his dark skin flatters your own complexion. It is said that lilies look best in a blackamoor’s hand. I know about these things.’

  ‘He is more to me than a decoration,’ I protested, downing my tea as fast as I could so I might be rid of him.

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand his brain is nearly as useful as a white man’s.’ I could see Mr Loveday rolling his eyes behind the count’s back. So stretched were my nerves that I nearly laughed.

  ‘It is time you got off. I have had enough of you now,’ I said, setting my cup down.

  ‘Ah, that accent, I love it! Is that the Hibernian brogue of your ancestors?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ I yawned. I no longer gave a toss what the nincompoop thought of me.

  Before he left, he insisted I kept my appointment to appear before his brother and play the coquette the following Saturday.

  ‘And you will wear your husband’s famous ruby? Quentin boasts of it so outrageously. I must see it upon your fair throat.’

  I frowned, but I had to agree, didn’t I? Though it was a strange request and even I wondered how it was the old fop knew of Lady Maria’s jewel.

  * * *

  At last I heard the carriage roll away, and groaned out loud with relief, for I felt like I’d just performed top billing on the London stage. Yet there was pity in it too, for my poor lady had been right shown up before us all. Now that she needn’t show herself in public she no longer cared to have her hair dressed neatly or keep her pretty face painted. And the look she gave me as the count slavered over me had none of her old fire in it. She was mortified, I saw that. I reckon that day was the turning point of this tale. Me and my mistress had played at changing places, and somehow our false characters had fixed and could not be reversed.

  Later that afternoon the sound of a knock at the door alarmed us all again. After I gave him the nod, Mr Loveday answered and found a footman sent from the count with another gift. Mr Pars called down, and hearing it was a package, came and goggled at the string of lustrous pearls I found inside a box.

  ‘Those must be put in my strongbox for safekeeping,’ he said, feeling their weight.

  I fair slammed the broom I had been sweeping with down on the floor. Mr Pars wound the shining globes through his fingers that were so tobacco-yellow he might have dipped them in turmeric. Then he stuffed them quickly in his pocket.

  * * *

  I dare say my mistress never even saw those pearls, but she happened to be down in the parlour when the next gift arrived. It was becoming rare that she even left her bed, for she was shaky on her legs, and often leaned on my arm as she looked about herself with a startled air. This time the count sent me a riding habit of the most glorious fashion, made of forest green velvet, with buttons as shiny as sovereigns and thick gold frogging. My mistress stroked it as it lay on the sofa, and I thought she looked the most regretful I ever saw her.

  We were alone together downstairs, so I said in a low voice, ‘Don’t fret My Lady. You will soon have your figure back to wear it.’

  To tell the honest truth, it was hard to believe it. In that last cumbersome month of breeding she was in a right sorry state. Her legs had puffed up like bolsters, and her features looked lost in the swelled flesh of her face. There had been a time when she would have slapped me right down for suggesting we might share the same costume. Now, while she slummocked around in a stained shift and wrapper, it was I who kept myself neat in case visitors might arrive.

  ‘And is he expecting you to ride out with him?’

  ‘Lord, I hope not, My Lady. Though he sent over one of them side saddle thingumabobs with the horse.’

  She picked up the jaunty tricorne hat and might have tried it on, only she caught her forlorn reflection in the mirror and flung it down again.

  ‘I am sure you can pretend my uncle overlooked the equestrian arts in my education. Besides, you clearly have him eating from your hand.’ She shot me a hard glance. ‘You are lucky he is such an incorrigible idiot.’

  ‘Yes I am, My Lady.’ I cleared my throat and began to fold up the different parts of the costume: the beautiful tailored coat, wide skirts, pearly camisole, and stock.

  She flopped down on a chair and began to chew her ragged nails.

  ‘I suppose this horror will end one day?’ She patted her stomach and cast me a questioning look. ‘When in God’s name will it be over?’

  ‘You do not know the date?’

  ‘I cannot calculate it.’ On saying this, her face blushed hot, and I dropped my eyes. I fussed over the costume awhile, but she stayed silent.

  ‘I should rightly say weeks, My Lady. Not a month. Should I call on a doctor? Or a midwife?’

  ‘God, no.’ She flung a strip of bleeding fingernail down on my nice polished floor. ‘It’s a natural enough act isn’t it? Indeed, I wish to know – have you ever been present?’

  ‘At a birthing? Aye, my own mother’s, many a time. It were no trouble for her, mind. She would just take a rare day in bed and it were over in a blink. But she were no lady like you, mistress. Now don’t take this wrong, but I could call on a doctor, pretending it were for my – Biddy, so to speak.’

  Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, to call attention to her passing herself as me. She swept her greasy hair back off her brow and said with an echo of the old firecracker Carinna, ‘I just told you, didn’t I? There is no need. God, when will it be over?’

  She hauled herself up and slopped back to her bed.

  * * *

  As for Jesmire, she pursed her vinegar lips when she saw the new riding dress.

  ‘What on earth will you do with that? Pawn it, I suppose?’

  I might have pawned it once, given half the chance. Only now I decided to try it on instead. That night when they were all asleep, I got up and did my best to tie the laces and button it up. And I must say, it was a spanking fine costume, most beautifully stitched and well-fitting once I’d got inside it. As I paraded before the glass, I saw it reflected my own green eyes and also, caught in its swaggering cut, something of my character.

  But it was the count’s next gift that truly put the spark in the thatch. The others cared not a jot for it, for it could not be pawned or sold. But what the count sent to me that next day, changed my life for ever.

  XXVII

  Whenever the others did not need him, Loveday slipped away through the courtyard and crept through itchy, spiky trees to a mud bank beside a stream. Just upstream, hidden in the trees, was the Stone Garden. It was a humming, alive sort of place. The day he first went there, he found a green grasshopper with stick-like elbows and grass-thin feelers basking on one of the tumbled stones. All around him gnats and mosquitoes danced in flittering spirals; tiny pinpricks that he had to blink away or spit from his mouth. The grass was as high as his knees, but he could see that someone had once tended the place. The scattering of stone slabs, some upright and others fallen, reminded him of the bloodstained sacred rocks at his village. When the sun shone hard on the stones the power and thrum of it made it feel like a holy place, too.

  Then, rummaging in the overgrowth, he found a stone hut. All that was left of the pointed roof was a criss-cross of struts and a few drunken tiles. Great waves of smothering greenery had grown over it, hanging inside in leafy bell cords. In a cobweb-matted corner he found a blind-eyed stone Mary, her pink cheeks flaking like a grim disease. It took a few days to make a neat shelter, to weave twigs across the roof holes, and sweep out the spiders and mouse droppings. Finally, with his lair clean and calm around him, Loveday began to prepare for the right day of leaving, when the mystical pattern of stars, winds and currents, intersected in time.

  It was to this secret place that Loveday took the letters he was given, before delivering them to the post house. Jesmire was the first. As soon as she had turned her back, he had slipped off to the coolness of his shaded hut.

  ‘Dear Captain William Dodsley,
Retd,’ he read in puzzlement.

  It is with inestimable pleasure I write in reply to your inquiry for a reliable housekeeper made of the landlady of the Albergo Duomo, Pisa. I must declare myself a sober Protestant spinster of Suffolk, England, and a most diligent and, if I might say so in my own regard, a most genteel lady in search of a position in life. My talents lie in the needle, in knotting and a little light laundry. Also hairdressing (of ladies’ hair, but I might attempt a peruke) and other personal duties, as you may require. I can assure you I am ready to take up a position at the earliest opportunity. Please address your reply most speedily to,

  Your humble servant,

  Signorina Amelia Jesmire, The Post House, Ombrosa

  Loveday laughed out loud and wondered if the fellow would bother to reply. How many times had she written to obtain a position since they left England – seven, maybe eight? She had received only one answer, and that was to say that the lady she had addressed had long since departed.

  Once he had returned from the post house, he had the rest of the long day to fill. His first instinct was to make an object of power; something that followed the potent designs of his ancestors. While clearing the floor he had found mouldy Jesus books and other useless stuff. Then, like a miracle, he found a wooden shaft polished dark by time. At its tip was a thin cross made of some metal that had turned grey and crusty. He recognised the shape of it from his days with Bapa Cornelius, the cross that was the favourite sign of the Catholics. But when Loveday ran his fingers over it he saw another shape. He spent many hours hammering, grinding and shaping it, until it curled into a crescent-shaped barb. When it was completed, he lifted the harpoon and felt pleasure at its weighty balance on his arm. When he threw it at a twisted tree trunk it left his palm faster than his eye could follow. It was a good harpoon; the hidden power he had worked into its being was fierce and true.

  * * *

  The day after Loveday finished his harpoon, Mr Pars had summoned him to take a letter. The old man’s chamber had its shutters closed and smelled of stale tobacco smoke and sweaty linen. The narrow yellow look in the steward’s eye as he pushed the letter across his table unsettled Loveday. He picked the letter up, trying not to touch the bad man’s skin.

  ‘Has there been any post for me?’ Mr Pars shouted suddenly.

  ‘No, sir, no post,’ he said, backing away and darting quickly out of the door. Glad to be out of the steward’s presence, he called in at his mistress, then slowly took the path back to the Stone Garden to read the letter in peace. He was just singing quietly under his breath as he followed the leafy path, when Mr Pars suddenly appeared right before him. The steward was standing at the edge of the Stone Garden, leaning on his stick.

  ‘So this is where you are hiding, is it?’ he bawled. ‘What are you doing here when I told you to make speed to the post house?’

  Loveday fixed his eyes on the ground, making sure he didn’t betray his secret hideaway by glancing towards the hut hidden in the trees.

  ‘Miss Biddy,’ he said slowly, knowing she would back his lie, ‘told me look fruit.’ He pointed towards a clump of early lemon trees.

  ‘Let me understand this rightly. I tell you to go to the post house. And you –’ and here he jabbed the end of his stout stick towards Loveday’s chest ‘– run about for that trull of a cook maid. I suppose she’s got you sniffing after her skirts as well, you black dog. Explain yourself!’

  Loveday stumbled over his reply. Then to his horror, Mr Pars grasped his sleeve, wrenched him closer and tried to give him the evil eye.

  ‘I not know why,’ Loveday gabbled, raising his palm to shield his own face from the old man’s malevolence.

  ‘You don’t know why? Is that what you are trying to say, you ape? Can you not speak the King’s English?’

  ‘Yes sir, I does,’ Loveday said, breaking away. Just as he backed out of reach, Mr Pars swiped out to hit him with his long wooden stick. Loveday was too agile for the blow to do any more than glance against his leg, but as he scampered away it left him shaking. The steward was certainly possessed by evil nitu-spirits. Even Biddy agreed that poor spirits afflicted Mr Pars, so there was no doubt about it. Loveday had heard them pace Mr Pars’ chamber at night; they were blood-hungry spirits that would not let him sleep.

  Once he had hurried down the white road to Ombrosa and crept into the back room of a tavern he stared at the letter, not sure whether he wanted to know Mr Pars’ inner thinkings. The writing on the outside was scrawled and untidy; quite unlike the steward’s usual script. Yet I must get news, Loveday told himself. So, bravely slicing through the wax, he pulled the letter open.

  Ozias,

  Brother – if you still deserve that blood-given name – why do you not write? I ask you expressly for news and yet you withhold it. God help me man, can you not understand I am at the edge of desperation? Picture for yourself, if you have not suffcient imagination: that I am near to one thousand miles from England and quite unable to comprehend my affairs at home and want only a few words to free myself of incessant anxieties. Does Strutt still question you? Has any enquiry come from Ireland? Does Sir Geoffrey still live? For understand this: I am here in Italy in body, brother, but so troubled in my mind I scarce know where I am.

  As for Italy, let it only be said that the heat, the stinks, the damned hubbub of it all would unsettle the soundest of natures. As for the company in this house – I have fallen in with traitors all. I alone see their duplicity. Why brother, I tremble to write of it but I know that together they plot to cheat me of all my master’s money. Every day I expect some high-handed brute of a lover to join the thieving whore – and how will I keep the purse strings secure from him? How long will it be till she gathers Sir Geoffrey’s fortune and is off? What then of my stewardship? What then of Sir Geoffrey’s trust? Where then goes the money?

  I had once believed that the others would stand with me against her, but even Jesmire writes secretly I know not where, for often she scratches with her quill and furtively sends letters off to the post. That heathen blackamoor is of course no more than a foul beast, no more human than a trained dog. Yet it is fair Biddy Leigh who truly hurts me. She pretends to my face to be still that simple girl of Mawton, but I have discovered she is in league with her mistress and plays a wicked game. The Jezebel has taught her to say ‘Your Excellency’ and practise each day before the glass and dream of greatness beyond her birth. Then she is sent out like a bawd to dupe a wealthy fop from whom they extract all manner of gowns and baubles. Extortion, Plots and Intrigues brother, that is the web that surrounds me.

  I am fatigued now, and must lay down.

  Pray for me brother – and write!

  Humphrey

  Loveday threw down the letter. Mr Pars was beset by most dangerous spirits, there was no doubt of it. Back home there were ways of dealing with such matters – Mr Pars could have had the nitu-spirits cast out by a Spirit Man. It would have been a serious matter treated with brotherly care. A moment of sadness squeezed his heart to think of the old fellow stranded here with no help and no comfort from his family.

  Then Loveday re-read Mr Pars’ harsh words about himself. A foul beast. As the cruel words burned in his eyes his pity waned. Mr Pars was an evil-thinker who spoke ill of Biddy and had tried to give him the evil eye. So, swearing to keep the steward’s words secret from Biddy, he walked up to the post house and handed the letter over.

  Biddy. As he walked through the golden afternoon back to the villa he knew he would soon have to leave her. He was going to feel pain, he knew it, for his liking for her had caught him like a sharp hook in his heart. Alone of everyone he had met in this strange kingdom, she had carried within her a spark of Lamahonan warmth. He would miss the way her face creased suddenly with laughter, her friendly digs in his arm with her elbow, the funny faces she pulled as she told him of her daft thinkings by the kitchen fire.

  When he thought of Bulan these days, she was little more than a sun-bleached memory. No longe
r did he wallow in dreams in which his little family’s faces were just as he had left them, a tender-eyed young mother and her helpless infant. As he worked on his harpoon he had dared to picture them as slaves of the Damong, or maybe, like him, tossed by life’s tide to another unknown place. Or perhaps – he could finally think it with his potent harpoon nestled in his lap – his wife and child had gone to live with Bapa Fela in the sky. Perhaps. He did not know. Yet still he battled to keep the flame of hope alive. If any of his people had escaped from the Damong they would return to the deserted village. And once a few of them gathered, they might silently sail under night’s disguise to Damong island in a raiding party. There was still a chance, whether Bulan and Barut lived or not, to return with courage and live once more with pride as a hunter of Lamahona.

  * * *

  When he returned to the Stone Garden that evening, the late sun bathed his body as he cradled the harpoon to his breast. ‘My brother,’ he said shyly, caressing its razor-sharp edge with a gentle fingertip. The harpoon was alive with all the power of its making, and urged him to test it. Clambering down into the ice-melted stream his toes gripped the weed-draped rocks like hands. Raising the harpoon, Loveday shook off all his weight of troubles. The old wound from the white man’s gun had slowly been healed by sunshine and rest, his courage had conquered the snow-covered mountain: soon he would be riding the waves again on his way back home. The right day of leaving was getting closer, he could feel its spell getting stronger.

  He saw a flash of brown in the fast water. He took aim and the blade shot true at the first throw. The trout, pierced through its gaping middle, instantly gave his life up to him. After offering a sprinkle of the fish’s blood to the gods, Loveday gutted it and roasted it on a hot stone just outside the hut. The flesh was coral pink and as sweet as honey to his lips, and the two round eyes, as they popped deliciously between his teeth, promised far sight and fair omens for his journey.