McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  We trundled in with the mutton, my mouth watering. Someone, most likely Caro, had set up the table with such precision that every cup and dish was in absolute line, not a hair's breadth out. No pewter today; instead, the plate glittered. At one end of this perfection sat My Lady, her hair like string and face flaky with white lead; at the other, Sir John, bloated and purplish. To his mother's right Mervyn sprawled like a schoolboy in a sulk, tipping the chair back and forth on two of its four legs. He was far gone in drink. I silently thanked

  Godfrey, grate on me as he might, for keeping Caro away. Only men and whores should serve Mervyn Roche.

  When he saw us he shifted in the seat with annoyance and almost fell backwards.

  'Mother!'

  'Yes, my darling?'

  'Mother, why don't you get a proper butler? Here's the steward serving the wine - what does he know of it? - and none but that boo­by to help him. If there be any wine.'

  'It is decanted, Sir, and I am going back for it directly,' Godfrey soothed.

  'I saw a man at Bridgwater carve in a new way entirely,' Mervyn announced. 'It was a wonder to see how he did it - here—'

  To my amazement he leapt from his seat and held out his hands for the carving knife and fork.

  Godfrey kept his hands on the trolley but dared do no more; he looked helplessly at My Lady. Sir John, seemingly oblivious, stared at the ceiling.

  'Do you think you should, my sweet?' Lady Roche implored. On receiving no reply she tried for help elsewhere. 'Husband, if I may speak a word? Husband?'

  'Might a man eat in peace?' the husband grunted.

  Mervyn glared at his mother, then snapped his fingers to me. 'You, Jacob. Give it over here. Christ's arse, if I can't carve a joint of meat—!'

  The Mistress winced at her son's foul tongue. I took the roast to him and laid the knife and fork ready. Godfrey disappeared through the door leading to the kitchen. I stood back, arms by my sides as I had been taught. He made a fearful butchery of it, hacking in chunks the sweet, crisp flesh which the cook had so lovingly tended. I saw his mother sigh. When the best part of the meat was ruined I brought forward the plates and shared out the tough lumps between the diners. Why, O God, I was thinking, do You not let slip his knife?

  'A butler, I say,' he persisted, cutting into the pigeon pie with rather more finesse than he had displayed in carving the mutton.

  'Where is the need?' asked his mother. 'We live in a very small way here.'

  'Aye, I'll say you do!' He pushed off with his legs from the table, almost dropped backwards onto the floor, but retrieved the balance of the chair just in time. 'Where is Patty?' This was his name for Pa­tience.

  'Patty is no longer with us,' came the reply.

  'What! Dead!'

  'No.' My Lady began crying.

  'What, then?'

  'Run away. Or—' She shook her head.

  Mervyn glanced at her, took a gobbet of flesh and chewed on it. 'If she's run away she's a fool. You,' he again snapped his fingers at me, so that I itched to twist them off, 'tell that Frenchified capon I've had better mutton in taverns.'

  I bowed and took my chance to escape him a while. Going out of the door I met Godfrey returning with the wine and I hoped it might find better favour than the meat. Best of all would be if it were poisoned. One thing was cheering: Sir Bastard might scorn me but I had beaten him to the woman he desired. Setting aside his sulks and his drink-stained eyes, Mervyn was handsome, especially round the mouth, with its fierce scarlet lips hemming in very, white teeth. In him a man might see what his father had been when young, just as in Sir John his son's fate was laid out plain - if the son were fortunate, for his whoring was proverbial and a lucky pox or clap might yet shorten his days. He had always had a thirst for Caro. If I could think at all on my wedding night, I should take a minute to exult over him.

  In the kitchen the cook, used to madness in his masters, shrugged when I told him the insults heaped on the roast.

  'I have a syllabub for that lad,' he told me. 'A special one. Don't you go tasting, Jacob. Barring Godfrey, everyone's helped with it.'

  'Not me,' I said. I took my turn and spat in the thing too, stirring in the spittle. A voice like Father's somewhere in my head said, Sweetly done, my boy. I carried in the syllabubs, placed the defiled one before Mervyn and stood the picture of submission, watching him eat it.

  The man who had joined with us servants in taking this small but choice revenge was called Mister, or Mounseer, Daskin. Between him and Mervyn was deadly hatred. We were out of the ordinary in having a foreign cook. Margett, who had told me of my father's debt to Sir John, dropped dead one day while arranging a goose on the spit, and the Mistress, who clung still to some pretence of elegance, tormented Sir John for a French cook, such as were just then starting to be known in London.

  'I will have my, meat done in the good old English way,' said the husband, who had no hankerings after hautgousts, hachees or dishes dressed a-la-doode. 'There will be no French cooks at Beaurepair while I am master.'

  His next dinner taught him better: the meat was bloody, and the sauces full of grit. Sir John glared about him. 'Is the wine spoilt?' he asked.

  'Not at all,' his wife replied.

  'Then why have we none on the table?'

  'The cellar key is lost.'

  Sir John knew when he was beaten, and bade the Mistress do what she would.

  His wife let him down gently. Letters of enquiry to her friends in Town brought forth a number of likely men, but she settled on Mister Daskin who was but half French, could speak our language and cook in the English way beside. He arrived in the coach one wet October afternoon, a small dapper man in London clothes, looking about him with pleasure. It was said that fashionable life had hurt his health.

  'Up all night, and then working again all day,' he told me. 'Never, Jacob, never go to London!'

  'You will find it very dull here,' I answered.

  'Now that is exactly what I like.'

  It seemed he found promise of saner living in our old stone house with its surrounding fields and trees. The first meal he cooked for the household was served to Mervyn, and I guess he was never so pleased with his bargain since.

  Daskin was not bad for someone half French. He was a Protes­tant, and he gave good food to the servants as well as the masters. Peter sometimes assisted him in the kitchen, but more often it was

  either Caro or Patience, and Caro told me she had picked up a great deal of knowledge concerning preserves and puddings from Mounseer, who was not jealous of others seeing what he did. Most of what was cooked was done in the English style, for after a week or so dur­ing which her pride would not let her speak, the Mistress was forced to admit that she did not care for French feeding, and Sir John's roasts were restored to him.

  When Mervyn had given his final belch and strewn bread about the table, the Mistress joined her hands and offered up thanks. Her son rattled off the words through force of habit, so that by happy accident I was able to hear him thank God for what he had just received.

  After they had got down from the board Peter came to help me clear away.

  'Look at that.' I pointed out the roast, now stiffening as it cooled. 'That's how he carves.'

  'Still alive, was it? Kept running about?'

  The room felt cleaner with Mervyn gone. Daskin came in and wheeled off the meat, muttering words in French that any man could translate only by studying his face. We returned the plate to the side­board and carried the slipware to the scullery to be washed along with ours.

  In the room where we had our own food there was a smell of onions and cider. Caro was laying out the dishes; Daskin bent over the mutton, trying to save what he could. I was suddenly very hungry. The syllabub could not be spoken of before Godfrey, who was there examining a fork which Mervyn had bent out of shape, but it hung in the air between us all, a secret pleasure to set against the gloom of that morning's discovery.

  'There's nothing wrong with this meat,'
said the cook. 'If I myself carve what's left you'll find it as tender a roast as you've had.'

  'We never thought otherwise,' Izzy assured him.

  'I have made onions in white sauce,' added Caro, looking sweetly on me because she knew how I relished this dish. I sat on the end of the bench next to the place she would take when she left off serving.

  The meal was set before us and Godfrey led us in asking God's blessing. As soon as folk began spooning up onions and handing about the bread, the talk turned to Chris Walshe, and to Patience.

  'Is Zeb back from Champains yet?' I asked.

  'No,' said Peter. 'I guess they'll keep him there awhile.'

  'What for? All he did was drag the pond.'

  'This is fine mutton, Mounseer,' said one of the dairymaids, who seemed to have got the sheep's eyes into her own head to judge by her glances at him.

  'Did Chris — was Chris hurt, Jacob?' asked Caro.

  'He was,' I answered. 'Has nobody been to look?'

  'I locked the laundry after you laid him out,' said Godfrey. 'It is neither seemly nor respectful for everyone to go goggling at the lad.'

  'There's something in that,' said Izzy. 'But tell us, Godfrey, how was he wounded?'

  The steward hesitated.

  'Jacob knows already,' urged Peter.

  Godfrey said, 'Well. It was no accident.' He looked at me.

  'Stabbed,' I supplied.

  A general gasp and then a buzz, not unlike pleasure, rose from the company.

  'There are bad men about,' said Godfrey. 'Be watchful. The Mis­tress has instructed me to look over all the locks and bolts, and I should be obliged if you would bring me to any weak ones.'

  And still no sign of Patience,' said Caro.

  'Did she quarrel with one of you? Had she any trouble?' the stew­ard asked.

  'None,' Caro said. 'No trouble.'

  I turned to her and saw her face quite innocent. I pictured Zeb, how he would have answered, perhaps mopping up sauce on a bit of bread, and his eyelashes lying modest on his cheek like a girl's.

  TWO

  Beating

  After the mutton and cider I felt the need of fresh air. It was Peter's turn for scouring the dishes, so I went out into the rosemary maze. I loved this maze, its pungent scent, the blue blossoms which besprinkled the dark hedges in the summer and the fragrant knot garden at its heart, where one could sit on the bench and doze. Caro went along with me, stealing a few minutes before going back to the house and Mervyn's wine-stained shirt, for he no sooner fouled a shirt than he changed it, no sooner changed than he fouled. His laun­dry had often robbed me of courting time.

  We sat on the warm stone seat, carved with suns and hour-glasses, and twined ourselves in an embrace. My hat fell off onto the chamomile behind the bench and so that we should be equal I pulled off her cap and kissed her stiff yellow coil of hair. She laughed and put her face up to mine. There was cider on her breath. I touched my mouth to hers and she looked straight at me, then closed her eyes. Very slowly, softly, she nibbled my tongue as I slid it between her lips. I closed my eyes also, the better to feel the inside of her mouth. We stayed like that some time, tasting and toying, while bees droned up and down the rosemary hedges, until Caro broke away and kissed me on the nose. 'I should go, Jacob.'

  'A little longer—' I pulled her onto my lap. The skin of her breasts, as much as I could see and stroke, was like petals of the purest white roses. I wondered, not for the first time, how it must feel to embrace

  a woman without her stays, without even her shift. My breath came faster and I strained her to me.

  Caro whispered, "The Mistress may come out.'

  'She may indeed.'

  A tussle followed, with much laughter and tickling, but at last I let her go and she went back to sitting at my side. Holding hands, we contemplated the knot garden while I suffered the familiar pain which would only be eased upon our betrothal.

  Once, in that garden, I had put my hand right down her bodice while we kissed, and felt the tender bud of her breast swell and push greedily between my fingers. My own flesh had straightway begun to ache, and I caught such a look in her eyes as told me plainly what would happen next if I did not stop. I did stop; I withdrew my hand, and heard her moan with disappointment. I had passed up a chance, but gained a knowledge inexpressibly sweet. Many men are wed for their purses, the man being taken, oft grudgingly, along with the mon­ey. I knew with proud certitude that this was not my case. There was no need to hurry, to take her in that furtive way in which Zeb con­ducted his loves. We would wait until the appointed night. It might even be that something in me took pleasure in teasing her. Sometimes, as we worked together or sat decorously side by side, I recalled that pleading moan of hers, and smiled.

  'Poor Chris.' Caro interlaced her fingers with mine. 'A hideous death.'

  I had forgotten Walshe. The eager shoot that was my body shriveled as if she had thrown cold water on me.

  She frowned. ‘And yet—'

  'Yet?'

  'Now that I think on it - he was always strange. What was his business here? Wandering at night, on another's land?'

  'Perhaps he was stopped by someone from the house,' I said. My, stomach fluttered; I wondered would she notice the sweat which had begun squeezing from my hand.

  'Folk naturally defend their own,' Caro went on. 'Or a servant who kills a trespasser by chance, shall he be blamed?'

  My guts coiled within me for I thought I saw a way out of my gaol. 'So,' I put it to her, 'if it were one of us dispatched Chris, would you deem him guilty?'

  ‘’Twould depend why he did it.' She straightened suddenly. 'Why Jacob, do you suppose it is one of us?'

  I hesitated.

  'Yes! You have a man in mind,' she insisted.

  'For myself, none. But we are servants, we must look to be sus­pected.'

  Caro seemed satisfied with this. However, in speaking it, I had slammed the door of the gaol on myself, and now felt my courage begin to slip away.

  'I saw you from the window,' Caro went on, 'dragging the pond. I had made up my mind for Patience.'

  'Well, you knew what cause she had to despair,' I said. 'Her condi­tion.'

  Caro's hand stiffened in mine but she said nothing.

  'I am not Godfrey, that things should be kept from me,' I said.

  'Zeb asked me not to.'

  There was a thunderbolt! I had thought to receive some such an­swer as, I did but yesterday find out, or I do not like such talk. My love, the woman I had near entrusted with my secret, with my very life, was all the while in private conference with my own brother.

  I put Caro away from me and searched her face. 'Zeb told you—'

  'Asked.' She looked back frankly, without shame.

  'But why should I not know? He is my brother. I am the child's uncle!' I went on, growing more angry as the full sense of it came to me. Why, he had gone so far as to mock me for my ignorance.

  'He said he must tell you himself,' she said quietly. 'Do you not think that was right, Jacob?'

  'Aye! Would that he had told me before he told you!' I got up and retrieved my hat. Then, not wanting to sit down again, I put it on and stayed behind the bench, away from her.

  'It was Patience first broke it to me, not Zeb,' protested Caro. She twisted round to speak to me; there was a flush beginning in her cheeks.

  'I do not think he would ever have told me,' I brooded. 'Had we pulled her out of the pond, how happy he would be!'

  'No, Jacob! How can you say such things of him?'

  'Well, does he look miserable? Does he weep, is he unable to eat?'

  'Not while you are there. But I have seen him weep.'

  'Frightened he'd be made to marry her, most like.' I circled the bench. 'And had I known it, he would have been.'

  'Well, you know now,' Caro said. Her eyes were dry and not as soft as I had seen them when we came into the maze.

  'He has angered me. And so have you.'

  'You are too eas
ily angered.' She sat very straight with her fingers intertwined on her lap. "That is why you are not told things.'

  I was amazed. 'Is this how you speak to your future husband? So you have let Zeb give an account of my character!'

  'No indeed. I have eyes and ears of my own.' Caro stood up and arranged the top of her gown. 'It may be he would not marry her, but to say he wishes her dead! You are too fierce with your brother.'

  'Was it not you, yourself, told me of her filthy braggings? Said it sickened you? Would a man want to marry that?’ I grimaced in dis­gust.

  'Such women do marry. What would you have him do?' She re­placed her cap. 'But you are troubled, it is natural with Chris's death. Surely that's more terrible than—'

  'What has Chris to do with this?'

  'Jacob! Zebedee has lost both friend and love. Have some pity.' Caro turned and walked through the first gap in the maze.

  'He plays on the pity of silly maids and then he ruins them,' I shouted after her.

  It is a woman of all people who should see the danger in such a fellow, and a woman who never will. I sat arguing it out with her though she could no longer hear me. She was as obstinate as Izzy, who was forever telling me that Zeb was not really bad, for all the world as if he too were a wench dazzled by Zeb's eyes.

  They were both of them deluded. He would never be anything but fickle, tasting one love and flying on to another. There had been a

  tramping woman, older than himself and no innocent, when he was but fifteen: I had caught Peter letting him in late at night, flushed and exhilarated. Being once alerted by Izzy, I had observed Zeb's steady heating of Patience, who was only too hot already: his tickling her, putting the point of his tongue in her ear, and generally laying siege to that tottering fort, her virtue. Whenever I saw him at it, rage choked me. Had he been younger, and under my authority, I would have pre­scribed him a beating.

  Back indoors, I again took up the tray and went on with my scouring, pressing the grains of sand against the pewter until each dish would have passed, at a distance, for silver. Near me sat Izzy, scraping teasels over Sir Bastard's coat to raise the nap.

  'That will have to do.' He stood and held up the garment. 'What do you think?'