An Appetite for Violets (29 page)

Outside, a bronze-coloured hound strained at a tether by the door, then rose on his hind legs to greet his master. ‘This is Ugo,’ Signor Renzo said, scratching the dog’s ears. ‘The best of hunting dogs.’ It was good to have the dog nosing forward to greet me, for it gave us something other than ourselves to look at. When Mr Loveday led my white horse around from the stable my stomach quailed.

‘You truly want go, my friend?’ Mr Loveday whispered. He was eyeing Signor Renzo with suspicion.

‘Yes,’ I said firmly, and my old friend stepped back.

‘I am more accustomed to a carriage than horseback,’ I explained to Signor Renzo. When he looked alarmed, I protested I would do my best. The cook stroked the white mare’s nose and held her very still. Then, with steady strength, he lifted me up on my side saddle and gave me instructions: to always sit at the centre of the horse’s back, and to press my whip gently against her right flank to replace the leg she expected to feel upon her. Mounting his own beast, he caught up my reins and slowly walked the horses side by side with Ugo scampering before us. I did take one backward glance at the house, seeing Mr Loveday had disappeared inside. Only one window showed a figure; my lady hung back behind the lace of her chamber. Then we were away, side by side between the rows of lime trees that bowed and rustled above us.

Once we’d passed through the iron gates I grew easier. The horse walked steadily along the flat road, and in time I plucked up courage to look about. We passed between dappled hedges, beyond which rose a gentle swell of fields marked out in green and yellow patchwork. In the distance stood clumps of trees around the rust-coloured roofs of farms and barns. Far away at the horizon was a distant smudge of green-blue hills. Everything about us was very still, save for a multitude of white butterflies darting amongst the bushes, and specks of birds wheeling high in the warm blue sky.

‘Is it far?’

Signor Renzo turned and said serenely. ‘Not so far.’ We trotted on, arriving at the ruined tower of the chapel and taking the road to the left. Soon after, the land began to rise, and we approached a great wood of oak and poplar trees. At the wood’s edge we left our horses to graze, and went onwards on foot. Soon we entered a glorious glade where sunlight fell in lattices of gold and green. Ugo ran ahead of us, hind legs kicking up leaves and dirt, his nose questing on the ground. Sauntering side by side, Signor Renzo and I followed in contented silence. As we walked together I felt oddly small, for my head reached only his chin. He was a great bear of a man, striding beside me, all dressed up in a white shirt and velvet coat.

Soon the dog gave a sharp bark, calling his master to admire his find. Poking through the moss was a clump of brain-like morel mushrooms, very pale and smelling of sweet nuts.

‘
Bene.
Good,’ said the cook, dropping the mushrooms gently in his bag. ‘But we will do better.’ I looked about myself, at the mass of leaves and flowers that spread around us like a garden. As the breeze rocked the branches, a rain of speckles, dots, and flickers of light danced over my emerald costume. An idea came to me like a thunderclap: that I was too much indoors with no other view than the inside of pots and pans. All about us were birds serenading in the trees, occasionally darting earthwards to peck and flutter. The air smelled of sap, and deep, rich earth. Though it was only Lady Day, the first day of Spring, here the season was so far advanced it was like midsummer in England.

‘What a beautiful place.’

He smiled shyly, with that half-mocking smile I was starting to know and like.

‘I come here when I can. Collect food, listen to the music of birds. Be a man of Nature. You have read Monsieur Rousseau?’

‘A little.’ My mistress had a copy of
Julie,
which I had rifled through. ‘He says we must live off berries and nuts. Not good for a cook,’ I chided. We smiled at each other.

‘Monsieur Rousseau says it is time for modern man to break with all the old ways. In every art – so why not cookery? He says that life educates us to truly live. It is a journey, an exploration. And I think – everything can change. These are exciting days. All the old rules can change because we can change.’

I thought of his words as we followed Ugo through the flickering green of the woodland. Frantically, the dog sniffed and yelped at the ground until Signor Renzo caught up.

‘A beauty,’ he said, and pulled out a root that looked like a lumpy potato. ‘Look, the colour is good. And the smell.’ He held the truffle below his nostrils, then offered it to me. ‘You like it? Smell it. Like garlic and mushroom and honey. Yes? You will allow me to cook it for you?’

‘Here?’

‘You will see.’

As we strolled on I thought of his notion that everything was changing. Was it not also my own life he described? Since I had impersonated Carinna, I had been forced to stretch my wits to snapping point. I had been addressed with words I would once have scarcely understood, but now I strove to answer back as smartly as any high-born woman. And these gowns that at first had seemed such a hawping nuisance, did they not also make me a very fine figure? A lady who garnered respect and attention? The food, the sights, the luxury – even this walk in the woods with Signor Renzo was changing me, like the barm that turns dough into risen bread. How could I ever go back to being plain pan-tosser Biddy after this? Life was educating me, too.

‘So which will you be? A man of nature or a cook?’

Rising from the earth with a fleshy amber mushroom in his hand, he slipped a slice in his mouth and made a little murmur at the flavour.

‘I am greedy, Lady Carinna. I want both. I want all I can have.’ His expression was no longer humorous. He lifted a slice to my mouth and I obediently opened my lips. It was meaty and almost sweet. But it was his feeding me, his fingers brushing my lips that unsettled me. I could scarcely swallow, and had to break away and stride ahead.

You must be strong, Biddy, I scolded myself, for dangerous notions had wormed their way inside my daydreams, every day and night of that long week. And now as I walked beside the man and felt his regard, I could no longer fool myself that the danger was all in my fancies. Jem was a dandelion clock in the wind, and Kitt Tyrone a mere pretty youth. Beside them, Signor Renzo had all the attractions of a deep-thinking man with marvellous gifts. Play your part, I urged myself, for Lady Carinna would never in a thousand years have got a hankering for this fellow. But I, Biddy Leigh, could scarce take my eyes from him. As we walked on I longed to tell him, ‘That is my wish, too.’

‘It is time to cook,’ he said when we reached a further path up the hillside, and fizzing with expectation I followed him through the trees.

*   *   *

Signor Renzo’s lodge stood on a grassy knoll near the crest of the hill. It was a modest place, just a low stone hut, before which stretched a woven ceiling of vines. My dinner was cooked on an open fire by the table. This was no banquet, but what the cook called a
pique-nique,
a meal for hunters to take outdoors. After Renzo had chosen two fat ducklings from his larder, he spitted them over the fire. Then he made a dish of buttery rice crowned with speckled discs of truffle that tasted powerfully of God’s own earth.

‘Come and sit with me,’ I begged, for I did not like him to wait on me. So together we sat beneath the vines as I savoured each morsel and guessed at the subtle flavourings. ‘Wild garlic?’ I asked, and he lifted his brows in surprise as he ate. ‘And a herb,’ I added, ‘sage?’

‘For a woman, you have excellent taste.’

For a woman, indeed! I made a play of stabbing him with my knife. It was most pleasant to eat our
pique-nique
and drink the red wine, which they make so strong in that region that they call it black or
nero.
I asked him to speak of himself, and between a trial of little dishes of wild leaves, chestnut fritters, and raisin cake, Signor Renzo told me he was born in the city and had worked at a pastry cook’s shop as a boy, where he soon discovered that good foods mixed with ingenious hands made people happy and free with their purses. I told him of
The Cook’s Jewel,
the constant companion on my travels. ‘It is the quintessence – that is a French word I learned in Paris – of what you say. All those receipts collected for maybe one hundred years, so carefully written down. It is my greatest treasure.’ We talked of new receipt books, and he praised Monsieur Gilliers’
French Confectioner,
which was like a bible to him. ‘It explains so many of the mysteries of sugar. Thanks to that, I have learned to cast figures as clear as crystal.’ Then suddenly he rose and reached out his hand to me. ‘Enough of talk. Come with me.’

He led me along, while all the time his hand locked neatly against mine, till we reached a fast-running stream that cascaded all the way down the hillside. Pulling on a rope, Signor Renzo lifted a pewter basin that at first baffled me. Only when he produced two glass bowls did I understand that the metal casket was a
sorbetière.
Inside was a chocolate ice as rich in colour as mahogany. I tasted it, rolling it around in my mouth. The coldness numbed my tongue and then the flavour burst out, rich and satisfying, as if the thickest pot of well-milled chocolate were made of snow.

*   *   *

There followed many hours of delightful conversation that seemed to pass mighty quickly, for when I next glanced up, the wood was deep in shadow and the sky glowed soft purple. Beneath the table Ugo slept, his twitching muzzle lodged across his master’s boots. I shivered and felt the hush of twilight upon us. A bird sang his lonely song as a breeze riffled the vines above our heads. Signor Renzo was but a shadow at my side. We both fell silent and my mind began to racket about uncertainly. He was a food-crazed cook like me, but he was also a man, and a very strong and vigorous man at that. As the silence lengthened a new certainty grew inside me, very solid and shining and strange. Our two characters did fit together as perfectly as any face and its reflection. Next, I could not stop myself turning slowly towards him. I lifted my chin and sought the gleam of his eyes. He would never have touched me unbidden, so I reached out to him. I sought his lips and we kissed, very long and very hungrily. When his arms reached hesitantly around me I felt a homecoming warmth and slid against his wide chest. Both of us were loath to stop once we had begun. His hands cupped my head, caressed my shoulders, and stroked my throat. And I grew near senseless with longing, exciting those kisses with murmurs and caresses of my own. Many delightful minutes passed till I felt his thigh upon mine and his weight pressing at my centre. Then my conscience struck and I came to my senses. I told him we must stop. I believe we were both quite startled at how the day had turned.

‘I must go,’ I said with a catch in my breath. There was my mistress to see to, but how could I tell him that? He nodded and went in search of a lantern. Standing alone outside his lodge I wondered if I had ruined my impersonation, for surely Lady Carinna would never have kissed the count’s cook? I pulled on my crumpled green coat against the chill. It was impossible to know if I had done some great wrong or whether instead, I had taken the best step of my life.

Then he returned and slipped his arm around my shoulders, and all was well again. We retraced our path to our horses by the light of his lantern. The forest had changed to a darkly mysterious place, alive with the cracking of twigs and cries of invisible creatures.

‘What are those lights?’ I asked, peering into the darkest shrubs where little fires floated and winked. For a moment he left me and clapped his fingers around a spark of fire. When he returned, a greenish glow flickered inside his hands.

‘See. A firefly.’

I peered between his fingers and saw a little fly with its belly made of winking light. I never saw anything more beautiful.

‘Can you keep it?’

He laughed. ‘Only a short time. As a boy I catch them in a jar and read at night from their light. But keep them too long and they die.’ When he released it, it was again a tongue of flame lighting up the night.

‘Even a common fly is magical here,’ I said. We walked on until the line of the white road stretched ahead of us back to the villa. At the sight of it my courage faltered as I remembered the old life that awaited me. I wanted to stay in Renzo’s arms for ever, under cover of the forest and the firefly-spangled night.

Suddenly Renzo blocked my way. ‘Carinna, I must see you again.’ He placed his hands on my shoulders and lowered his face, looking full square into my eyes. ‘I must see you tomorrow,’ he whispered. The lantern gleamed liquid gold in his eyes.

I had no restraint left. ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ I said. And we kissed each other farewell beside our restless horses. All the way back down the road to the Villa Ombrosa I railed hard against the truth. That any day now Carinna would bear her child. And that any day now, I would be cast back to my old life, as put upon, pan-tossing Biddy Leigh for the rest of my loveless days.

XXXI

Villa Ombrosa

Being this day, Good Friday, April 1773
Biddy Leigh, her journal

Ducklings in truffle sauce

Kill and draw your ducklings and tie up with leaves of sage tucked about the bodies. Spit them and dust with flour and set them with thick slices of bread between. Baste with the pan drippings using a feather. Your sauce is made of onion, garlic, oil and a little ham and celery shredded fine. Add the duck gizzards and pinions, cook till enough and add a spoonful of flour and two fingers of sweet marsala wine. When thickened add slices of truffle and send to your table with the ducklings.

A very fine dish cooked for Biddy Leigh, by Signor Renzo Cellini, Easter 1773

I saw Renzo every night for two giddy weeks after we first met in the forest. I lived for the sight of him; love ran like poppy juice through my veins. Once the others were settled for the night, I slipped out and made my way to meet him, sheltering in the hedges that lined the moonlit road. Then at last the ruined tower would shine before me, looking like a ghost’s lair, its ancient stones rising pale against the black tangle of undergrowth. There I waited by the broken walls, my heart like a caged bird, my skin dusted by moths’ wings. I hearkened at the sounds of the night, until the hooves of his horse sent lizards and frogs scurrying through the dry grass. Then he would dismount from his horse, and a blissful moment later we clung to each other, lost to time and place. Only when the bell of Ombrosa church tolled one o’clock did we part with reluctant whispers of farewell.