Free An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey

copper glow of sunset filled the carriage. Jesmire was still asleep, her chin hanging slack towards her bony chest. But my lady was awake all right. I could just see her in the reddish gloom, watching me with her eyes shining.
    ‘So, Biddy,’ she said, ‘where is it you are from?’
    ‘Me, miss? I mean, Me Ladyship.’ I was fair startled at her talking to me. ‘Nowhere special.’
    Her face was just a creamy oval, but those glassy eyes stayed bright.
    ‘You must be from somewhere, I should think.’
    ‘A place called Scarth, Me Lady. There ain’t nowt there.’
    She huffed very loudly. ‘There is nothing of note, is how you might say it.’
    ‘There ain’t nothin’ of nowt, as you might say it.’
    She laughed at me then, but I wasn’t sure it was a nice laugh.
    ‘You must have a family? Tell me about them.’
    This time I did more than rack my brain, I positively scoured it.
    ‘Well, there ain’t much to tell, miss – Me Lady. Jus’ me old ma, that’s me mother, and me sister Charity.’
    ‘Charity is a very peculiar name.’
    ‘Aye, Me Lady. Me father had strange notions when it come to names.’
    ‘Biddy. That is Bridget?’
    Oh Lord, here we go, I thought. ‘Obedience,’ I mumbled too soft for her to hear.
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘Obedience, Me Lady.’ And she laughed that husky laugh and said, ‘Very apt, I am sure. Obedience, you have a very small family. What of your father?’
    ‘He calls himself a cow leech. Mends cattle. But he rambles off as he likes, Me Lady.’
    She was quiet for a minute and I was glad, because I never liked to tell of my old da. It was him who named me after his Bible-bawling mother. He fancied himself a roaring dissenter, but all I ever saw him dissent from was a hard day’s work. He’d come home and sponge off my ma, leave another baby on the way, and then get back on the road. A lady like Carinna woudn’t have a notion of such a tosspot.
    ‘And brothers?’ she asked suddenly.
    ‘I did have once. They’re all gone now.’ I counted on my fingers to check the number. ‘Brothers and sisters. Seven gone to God.’
    ‘Death casts a long shadow, does it not?’ she said. ‘I have a brother. On my mother’s deathbed I promised her I’d love and provide for him all my life.’ She fell silent then, and all I could see was the blurry bobbing of her face in the twilight.
    ‘So you can count,’ she said suddenly. ‘And can you read at all?’
    How could I make a dinner for thirty if I couldn’t count? Or read, come to that. Where to begin? I told her of the Widow Trotter, who had lived in the fine end cottage at Scarth. From a young scrap of a child I’d carried her bundle the four miles to market each week in return for a few hot mouthfuls. The first time I tasted her herb-stewed rabbit I near swooned away with pleasure. After that, I traipsed to her cottage every day to help her scrub and cook and brew. My ma said I plotted to steal the widow’s hidden money, but her son would chase me off.
    ‘And did you not make eyes at the son?’ my mistress suddenly interrupted.
    ‘Why, I was nowt but a clod of a child,’ I said. And why should I want to betray the good widow? I nearly added. For a husband was not what I was after at all. Most afternoons, once the pewter was shining and the son’s dinner simmered on the fire, Widow Trotter would draw out her book of letters.
    ‘What wage could better that? The chance to read,’ I said, and my mistress was quiet again.
    ‘And what was it you read?’ my mistress asked.
    ‘I read Goody Two Shoes. ’
    ‘Oh, that ghastly morality. What was your opinion?’
    ‘Well, I thought Margery Meanwell a right crafty minx.’ Then I stole a quick glance at my mistress but couldn’t see her expression.
    ‘Indeed. She certainly had the good sense to find a rich husband to raise her up from the gutter. And what other treasures did this noble widow possess?’
    ‘Well I read Robinson Crusoe – now that is a tale. And