Being Candlemas, February 1773
Biddy Leigh, her journal
Farcement Pudding
Grate a score of potatoes and let them ooze their water one hour then dry in a cloth. Render a quarter flitch of bacon chopped in pieces till golden. Line a tall pan with scollops of thin bacon hanging over the edges and meantime beat half a dozen eggs with a half pint of good milk, add a quarter pound of cornmeal, the bacon, two handfuls currants, chopped dried pears and the potatoes and salt and caraway seeds and nutmeg as you wish. Pack it tight down and lay two dozen prunes upon it and then close the bacon over the top. Boil in your pot for seven hours and serve with a ham and a shoulder of pork.
A dish for a wedding made from the memories of old women in the mountains of Savoy, Biddy Leigh, 1773
From Lyons we were all stuffed into one hired carriage, for the way over the Alps mountains was too dangerous for even Mr Pars to ride outside. So our steward was squashed all vast and sweat-sour beside me, keeping his eyes half shut beneath his shaggy brows, and his thoughts as close as a coffin. Mr Loveday was brought inside too, and for that I was grateful, for he might have frozen to death against the carriage rear. I never saw him more tormented by the cold; all day he crouched in a corner of the floor with his head in his hands, suffering violently. My lady had said she would not have us all freeze for want of spending, so Mr Pars reluctantly furnished us all with bearskins. Yet even wrapped in a fur poor Mr Loveday shivered and shook, his teeth all a-chatter whenever he opened his mouth.
We now came to a new place named Savoy, a savage land of high rocks that reached right through the clouds. It was truly the most fearsome sight I ever saw in my life. We ventured up a narrow road barely six foot wide, that was on one side a steep mountain covered in curious pointed trees and the other a plummeting gorge falling down to a crashing river. Inside the carriage all our nerves were at a great stretch, for we had seen vast boulders fall from the mountaintops into the hellish chasm below. Hour after hour we were jostled and jolted, all of us queasy and fearful of our lives. Then, to make matters worse, we entered a land of blinding white snow. The carriage started to swerve and swing across the road in a fearful manner, and I cursed the day I ever left my kitchen at Mawton Hall.
* * *
It was sunset before our mournful procession found the inn, perched so high on the mountain that it looked certain to slide down the snowy cliff into the valley below. Just as we drew up, the snow began to fall in a great tumble of flakes looking so pretty that I laughed to feel it tickle my face. Before us stood the remarkablest scene: the windows of the carved wooden houses peeped gold in the dusk; and the trees, the ground, and low roofs were all iced with snow like sugared cakes. Above, the welkin glowed pink and lilac, the pretty hues reflected on the glassy slopes of the mountain. I never saw a place more astonishing and strange.
The inn-folk crept out of their smothered homes like bundled moles to haul our goods indoors. It was like a gloomy cave inside, furnished with few comforts save a good fire around which we huddled and steamed. This was the parlour, where hung a great wooden cross and a mass of popish relics; pictures of every sort of Madonna, saint, and nun, like an army of poppet-dolls. The furniture was crudely carved wood and the only finery some flower-painted pots. From the backroom came the stink and ceaseless lowing of cattle, for in that desperate place a house had also to serve as a shippon. It being the feast of Candlemas, which is like our Shrovetide, our landlady fried up a supper of pancakes, first with cheese and then with honey. It was poor peasant stuff, but was all we had, for our fancy Lyons pies and cakes had all been eaten. Then there was naught else to do but fumble our way up the ladder to our straw pallets in the loft.
The next day the coachman called to say storm clouds presaged a violent blizzard. There was much griping at the news, for the inn offered little escape from each other’s moping faces. For two days we waited for the weather to stop blizzarding so we might go on our way. It was an odd time, for I never felt so far from England; the quiet was so uncanny you might hear a bird drop a twig. The mountain-tops crowded the sky like jagged teeth of ice, and at night the stars glittered as hard as diamonds. I should have loved to send home a picture of that prospect, but I think no painter ever travelled there. I will never in all my life forget that curious place.
Perhaps the reason we tarried was that the coachman knew that Cécile, the landlady’s daughter, was to marry that Sunday. Her betrothed was a soldier who had been much delayed in returning home for the wedding. I watched Cécile being dressed on her wedding morn, and like any spinster it brought a shine to my eye to see her plain face so wondrously beautified. Damn that Jem Burdett, thought I. My spirit shivered to think of my own bride cake mouldering to dust in the larder at Mawton, and all the ill luck that might bring me. To see Cécile’s face shining when her handsome soldier called made my heart sore, to think that my bed would always be a cold one.
Cécile’s bridal gown was the work of many years’ needlework; her bodice embroidered with a thousand careful stitches showing all the flowers of a meadow. Her bonnet and apron were finest white lace, worked with her own bobbins. I lent Cécile my lady’s large silver mirror so she could see herself all decked in her finery. She giggled into her hands and turned away, the simple creature.
Like a blessing, the snowfall stopped for the marriage procession, and a watery sun shone down as we tramped behind a crowd of villagers all in their holiday best, the women wearing those same figured clothes and lace bonnets. In truth I cared little for the Wedding Mass, for the church was a nasty place decorated with leering skulls and bones. Mr Pars made long complaints of the superstition of the Catholic people, and when I saw such horrors I took his side. Only Mr Loveday was curiously drawn to them, making me fearful that the tales of black men hunting their victims’ heads might indeed be true.
When we got back to the warmth of the inn, me and Mr Loveday were ordered to help out with serving the food. The farcement pudding was the main fussing point of the womenfolk. It had no receipt, for it was made to old women’s memories, being a sort of vast pudding wrapped tight in a steaming cartwheel of bacon.
After the wedding feast the dancing began, and it was good to watch the young folk: the boys in white stockings and girls in their lace-capped best.
‘You hear that?’ asked Mr Loveday, joining me and pointing up to the ceiling. I could barely hear the yapping above the screech of the fiddles.
‘Bengo?’
‘You want me go, Miss Biddy? Jes’ I got them cups to wash.’
I looked about the room. Mr Pars was well fuddled, his head bowed over his tankard. Jesmire too, was nodding open-mouthed in a corner, but there was no sign of my lady. It was a shame to leave the warm parlour, but if the wretched creature needed the yard, someone had to take him out.
I clambered up the rough stair to the lofts and found Bengo scratching behind the door. There was no sign of my mistress. I carried him outside and let him sniff and piddle while I gazed at the delicate tracks of birds, as dainty as fork prints in the snow. Then I noticed different tracks; the mark of a lady’s heel hollowed deeper than the front sole. The Savoy women wore only stout leather boots, so where had my mistress gone? I returned Bengo to the upper chamber, picked up my cloak, and set off after her into the snow.
The sun had dropped and the shadows were long and purple against the white sheets of snow. What the devil was my mistress doing? I only knew the beaten track to the village, and not this solitary way. Soon I found myself on a narrow path beside a stream, the bushes spangled with shards of ice. I didn’t care to be out there at all, and wondered if I should have fetched Mr Loveday or even roused Mr Pars. Yet all the time the footprints lured me onwards, for they looked so fresh, as if I might come upon my lady just around the next corner. By now I was perished with cold, especially my fingers that were crabbed red. If she had gone off on some dangerous jaunt, what did I care if ill luck befell her? I could not forget she was breeding, that was my worry. She needed only to slip on this snow and I would never forgive myself. Then, with a sudden whip of wind, the snow began to fall again. Or I should say, it blasted straightwise into my face. It was like a plague of white bees, quite alive, and swarming so thick through the air I could scarce see a pace ahead of me. With a little scream I felt my foot slide away and I lurched to grab the high bank at my side. My heart thumping, I held tight onto a frozen tree stump and tried to blink the snow from my eyes.
The path ahead of me ended at a cliff edge that dropped over a fearsome ledge to the valley below. And there, just a few paces away, my mistress stood as still as a statue, all rimed with snow.
‘My Lady.’ The wind stole my words. I slithered a few steps towards her and held out my hand. ‘Here I am, My Lady!’
Her face was wet, though whether with tears or snow I could not tell. Then the notion came to me like a thunderbolt, that she had come to this godforsaken place to take her own life. A gust of wind cleared the view below her feet for a moment. The chasm was so deep that trees were scattered like specks of moss, and the road was a mere thread. My heart thumped. I inched slowly towards her.
‘I have news,’ I shouted. ‘We leave tomorrow. I heard them say it. The coachman only held back for the wedding.’
I edged my way another inch towards her and grasped her hand. It was as cold as bones, but I felt a weak grip press my fingers. Urgently I tried to chafe her hand, then pulled her towards me.
‘We will be in Italy soon. A few days,’ I bawled. ‘Soon all will be well.’
Her hair was whipping unpinned in the air, her cloak ribbons flapping like darting snakes. Slowly, life returned to her face. With a nod she turned towards me and let me slowly lead her back.
As we reached a sheltered bank she said in a lifeless tone, ‘I suffer such fits of dread.’
I knew how women suffer at their time of danger, and I put it down to that. It seemed to me, too, that she was not of the strongest mettle. She had a dropsied, swollen look, and her chest rasped as she walked. My own ma had birthed with barely a squeal, picking coal right up to the last hour before her labours. My lady was more delicate – she looked that tender, as the saying goes, that she’d break her finger in a posset curd. I supposed it was only the fear that was turning her mind, that and being alone here with no one but us for company.
We reached the inn but she wouldn’t follow me inside. In the lea of the wall she said, ‘I cannot face that rabble. Come with me, Biddy. Please.’
Fool that I was, I followed her, like a gormless lamb that follows the wolf from its pen. She held my arm and we took the beaten track back to the church. What with the cold and my wet feet I could have cursed her, but I thought on what she had said about not facing the wedding mob. Like me, she must have tasted bitter gall to see Cécile’s happiness. My poor mistress could scarcely have felt much joy at marrying Sir Geoffrey, and now she’d got this bellyful to hide away, too. We came to the church and there she halted with a pleading look. ‘I must speak with you alone, Biddy.’
Inside, the heat from the big black stove still lingered and we both huddled over it, stretching red fingers towards the embers. I glanced at her and saw she was pondering deep, picking at her flaky lips. I looked about at the church, so gaudily painted with saints, and yet flitting amongst them were all those leering bones. I shivered and thought of the merry room I had left. By now Cécile would have set off with her husband for a good night’s bedding. I longed to get back amongst warm lively bodies, to sup a little leftover brandy and pick at the leavings.
At last she spoke. ‘I need your help, Biddy.’ She halted, then swallowed and continued. ‘Fortune has dealt me a vicious blow. Will you help me?’ She turned straight to face me then. What could I say? I felt right sorry for her, even though common sense told me I was probably going to be put upon something rotten.
‘Yes, My Lady. I told you I would help you.’
I saw her wince.
‘I mean more than what – your position obliges.’
‘What then?’ The babe was getting close to full size; now she had loosened her stays it showed clear enough. ‘You don’t mean to cast it out, do you? For I don’t believe—’
‘Oh, no. No, not that Biddy. Do you think I would kill my own child?’ Her sharp look shamed me.
‘It was only the sassafras oil, My Lady,’ I mumbled.
‘Sassafras?’ She was truly surprised. ‘That is Jesmire’s, for her rheumatics. No, you are a clever girl. You know you are, of course. And given the right costume could pass for—’ She dropped her chin into her hand, covering her mouth as if it might betray her. She had raised my curiosity all right. I racked my brainbox. Did she want me to dress up and fetch her something from a fancy shop?
‘No. It’s too stupid. I once thought you could help me.’ Her head shook quickly, as if to rid herself of a fancy. ‘It’s too ridiculous.’
‘Tell me,’ I demanded. I laid my hand on her sleeve. She was sopping wet and I knew she should be back at the inn tucked up in bed. But I had to know.
‘I’ll help you,’ I said rashly. I was thinking of her brother, of how I had passed as a better sort in Paris. If I had to go and buy some perfume or a new gown, it would at least be entertaining. ‘I’ll do it. If it’s some sort of mimicry you’re after, I’m your girl.’
‘You are remarkably quick. Yes, it is mimicry I want of you, Biddy.’
Then she told me my task. ‘When we arrive in Italy I want you to call on a certain fellow and fetch the key to the villa. That is all. To pass yourself off as me to this Count Carlo. He never met me in his life. And we do both, of course, bear a resemblance to each other.’
‘Do we?’ I was flabbergasted. Me, pass myself off as her in noble company? I was trying to turn it over in my mind but all I could make out was a jumble of notions darting about just like that blizzarding snow.
‘So you will do it? You did say you would do it.’ There was a finger-poke of command in her tone then. The way she said it, it sounded such a slight thing, to call for a key.
‘He has truly never met you?’ I asked slowly.
‘Never. And knows very little of me. He may ask after his friend, my uncle, so I’ll school you on that.’
A queasy spasm gripped my gut. How would I sit, how would I address him, what if he laughed at my stupid attempt?
‘In truth, My Lady, I don’t rightly know if – if I can keep it up.’
‘Listen. You have nothing to do but call on him. Then at last I can be easy.’ She was watching me hard. Two patches of red glowed like fever on her cheeks. ‘You did promise.’
I pressed my chilblained fingers to my lips and wished all our words had never been spoken. Yet they had been, and fool that I was, I had agreed to this pantomime.
I tried out my best, most ladylike, affected tone. ‘Why if it should please you, yes my dear lady.’
‘That’s it Biddy. That’s all you need to do. Very good.’ She patted me on the arm like I was Bengo and had just performed a trick. Then she rose and left and I traipsed mournfully after her, following her snow-blurred footprints back to the inn.