Free An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey Page A

Pamela, too.’
    ‘And your favourite?’
    ‘Well, Mrs Haywood is my favourite lady writer. Fantomina, ’ I said in a low voice.
    Her Ladyship chuckled. ‘Is she not the lady who pursues Mr Beauplaisir in a variety of intrigues?’
    ‘It is, Me Lady.’ We shared a sudden smile of knowingness, for it is a right saucy tale. ‘But best of all I like Mrs Haywood’s Present for a Servant-Maid. It has some excellent advice on all the ways of dressing foodstuffs. It is a marvel what that lady knows.’
    Then my mistress laughed, but it was not so cruel-sounding as before. ‘You are well formed for your rank in life, Obedience. But why did you leave the estimable widow?’
    I told her how Widow Trotter’s son had married and how she wanted to move to the town and let him have her cottage – and how I grew downcast, for at twelve years old I had dodged joining my ma and Charity picking coal for a living for long enough. It was like the answer to a fairy wish when Widow Trotter said they needed a girl at Mawton Hall.
    ‘So I got away from the coal fields and my family,’ I said at the end, coming finally to my senses and remembering how I had meant to keep my tongue still.
    ‘To find yourself at that rotting old pile?’ she snorted.
    I made no answer to that, for I didn’t agree, not one whit. When first I saw that jumble of towers and mullioned windows it looked to me like the happy end of a storybook. Only now, as I spoke out loud of all my learning and pushing myself forward, what I’d done with my life so far seemed a trifling thing. My mistress was much the same age as me, yet she had all those gowns and London manners besides. And, like Goody Two Shoes, she’d trapped a rich old man. The nub of it was, I was nowt beside her. But Goody Two Shoes she was not. Of that I was already very sure.
    *   *   *
    Voices woke us. Lamps glimmered at the windows, ostlers saw to the horses, and servants gathered to carry our trunks. ‘Come along inside, good people,’ harried the innkeeper, and all in a bustle we were led to the roaring fire where tankards of hot ale steamed for all but me and the other low servants.
    That night my mistress said I must wait at table in the private parlour. I was all fingers and thumbs while my stomach growled from smelling the lamb, brisket, and duck. No sooner had my lady, Jesmire and Mr Pars gone away, than me and Mr Loveday attacked the broken food. The leavings were even tastier for being half-cold; the lamb was sweet and pink and studded with salty capers.
    ‘Where is it you are coming from, Mr Loveday?’ I asked between mouthfuls. ‘China or Africa?’
    He licked his gleaming teeth. ‘You never travel, Miss Biddy, that for sure. I come from island past Batavia, white people got no name my place. Island of fire.’
    Later, when he was sharing out the last of the cheese, he looked at me all sheepish. ‘Miss Biddy, you say we servant be friends?’
    I told him that was true.
    ‘I go back home one day,’ he said, raising his sloe-black eyes. ‘I go back my wife and son.’
    ‘You must take care what you say,’ I said in a hushed tone, ‘for Lady Carinna owns you now.’
    ‘She own me,’ he said, looking truly miserable. ‘But maybe she lose me, Miss Biddy? You think a man ever get lost and be forgot?’
    ‘Maybe. But it would be a crime to purposely lose yourself. It would be stealing valuable property. You could be hung for it.’
    ‘What that mean?’
    So I told the poor lad of the gallows, and how the crowds flock to see a body twitch and die. He looked so afeared to hear of it, I squeezed his arm.
    ‘You take care now, Mr Loveday,’ I said, ‘and confide your notions to me before you carry out any daft nonsense.’
    He nodded and we left it at that, for Mr Loveday was my only friend now, and we had to look out for each other.
    *   *   *
    Later, I saw an old waiter make a brandy posset by the parlour fire and made a memory of the whole receipt, for Her