An Almond for a Parrot

by Dray Wray

  ‘Can you dance?’ he asked.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Have you had any education in etiquette at all?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Can you read and write?’

  ‘A little, sir. Not much.’

  He thought for a long while and then said, ‘Hmm. She has an interesting face,’ as if this wasn’t quite what he was searching for. ‘Pretty it is not.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Mrs Truegood. ‘But I believe she may have something more than just the passing cloud of youth. I think she may have beauty. As I am sure you are aware, Mr Quibble, I have only recently married and I find my husband has somewhat neglected his daughter.’

  ‘So she has no education?’

  ‘A little.’

  These two seemed to be playing a game of tennis and I the ball. Mr Quibble’s tongue flicked across his top lip again.

  Mr Quibble stood and, by the buttoning of his coat, disciplined his ungainly shape.

  ‘In her present state,’ he said, ‘she is far from suitable and needs to be brought on quite considerably.’

  ‘It can be done, Mr Quibble,’ said my stepmother. ‘She is a bright girl and has a compliant nature.’

  He gave a quick bow and left.

  Mrs Truegood took my hands and pulled me down beside her.

  ‘Tully,’ she said, ‘on the day of the wedding, a gentleman called at the house. Do you remember?’

  How did she know about the gentleman? Did I say something unguarded in my fever?

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember but I don’t know who he was. He didn’t leave a name.’

  ‘Did anything happen, Tully, when he was here?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ I lied, not knowing the lanes and alleys by which such a lie is lost. I feared I had given myself away for my cheeks had gone to fire.

  ‘Come now,’ said Mrs Truegood. ‘Did he make any proposals to you? He took no advantage of finding you here alone?’

  My silence was an insufficient answer.

  ‘Tully, I am asking if you are still a virgin.’

  Chapter Six

  Virgin Eggs, from Being White, Un-soiled

  Boil half a pint of cream and as much milk with a bit of lemon peel, sugar and a pinch of coriander seed, and reduce it to half; when it is almost cold, mix some sweet pounded almonds with it, two or three bitter ones, and five or six yolks of eggs. Sieve it into the table dish and bake it between two slow fires as a cream.

  The new Mrs Truegood not only knew her mind but spoke it to such great effect that the house became well run and my father’s days took on an order that before they had lacked. The main meal of the day we ate together, and for the first time I was allowed to sit at the table rather than wait upon it. I stood in awe of my stepmother, never suspecting that all was but a masquerade and that the play had purpose: the conclusion of the drama would be my marriage. Her designs for Hope were further on, for Hope was already engaged to Mr Sitton. He was a jolly, portly gentleman who by all appearances was besotted with Hope. Unfortunately, his widowed mother did not share in his affections. She let it be known that she would rather be dead than see her son married to what she called ‘that woman’. I could not see any objection to the match and believed Hope to be far too young to be called ‘that woman’. I thought it a harsh way to describe my stepsister.

  Mr Sitton was so incensed by his mother’s pious opinions of his fiancée that for a time he seemed quite downcast. He announced at one supper that he was at his wits’ end to know how to bring his mother round and proposed that he and Hope should be married in secret and let the rest go hang.

  ‘My dear Mr Sitton,’ said Mrs Truegood, ‘I strongly disagree. The marriage will take place with your mother’s blessing or not at all for love isn’t food enough to keep one alive. And if you were cut off from your money, why, what would become of your table?’

  Now there was one thing Mr Sitton loved perhaps a little inch more than Hope and that was food, and even in the height of his argument he could see that it would be hard to survive without vittles, no matter what Mr Shakespeare had to say on the matter of love being a hearty meal.

  ‘I promise, madam, I will do nothing in haste.’ He looked imploringly at Mrs Truegood and said, ‘But I cannot wait – we cannot wait – longer than six months to be married.’

  And by the longing smile he gave Hope it struck me that he really was in earnest.

  ‘Six months?’ said Mrs Truegood. ‘That is far too long. Three and you will have Hope as your wife, sir, with your mother’s blessing.’

  Generals, I am told, prepare for battle, but I doubt if any general had taken as much pain planning a campaign as did Mrs Truegood. Every detail was considered for she was a formidable enemy.

  We started to go to church on Sundays. My father had a pew which gathered more spiders than worshippers and had remained empty for more Sundays than ever it had been full. When we arrived, there wasn’t a person in the congregation who didn’t turn and look at Mr Truegood, his new wife and his very handsome stepdaughters. Our presence encouraged much whispering and I heard some unkind words. I could not think why such things should be said.

  The parson was an exceptionally dull man who spoke not plainly. His sermons were long and the point, if there was one, was often tangled in a knot of coughs and splutters. I think he was trying to cure everyone of their sins by boredom. He seemed to dwell a lot upon the weakness of the flesh and the ruination of morals by wanton lust. By the look of his six squashed-nosed children, I could well imagine little joy to be had in the conception. Every Sunday his poor vase of a wife sat trying to pacify her screaming infant and I felt that I too might scream if I had been born into such a family. Whenever the infant fell quiet the parson would raise his fist and bring it down with such thunderous effect on the pulpit that the baby would start up all over again. In short, a more miserable-looking family would be hard to imagine and I didn’t bother to try.

  Instead, in the hour and a half of the unmitigated sludge of his sermon, my mind would wander free of restraint back to the moment I had met the gentleman in the blue chamber. I delighted in thinking what might have happened if he hadn’t left so abruptly. The thought of those sweet fingers and what further pleasures they might have brought me started a fever without a cure so that by the time the sermon was over my cheeks would be apple-red. The foolish parson, who always smiled at me, his eyes glancing down at my kerchief in hope of seeing my breasts, would inform Mr Truegood that I was a devout daughter. My father was not at all certain what kind of daughter he had. He made no comment, usually because he was put out of sorts by all the preaching and furious at any man keeping him from his dinner and a good port wine.

  Fortunately, Mrs Truegood was far too particular to allow any holy spirit to make a dent in her plans. She was only there to be seen, not to be moved. I will confess to being very naive. I was not brought up in a Christian way and wasn’t much impressed by all I heard. If God was the head of the family, I thought he was a dull man indeed and, like my father, appeared to have a morose sense of justice ruling under the reign of chaos. It seemed unfair that we were all born in sin for how on earth were we to get out of it? And was there really much point? For according to this parson, and the one who had married me, life was but a flickering flame blown out by no more than a draught. If that was so, I was determined to enjoy all such a fragile existence had to offer.

  Two tutors were employed to educate me, or as Mrs Truegood said, ‘To bring me on.’

  I had no idea what that meant and Mrs Truegood would not elaborate on the subject except to say it was essential that I was brought on if I was to amount to anything. She had used the word ‘essential’ about the spit-roast dog, telling Cook that a spit-roast dog was essential if her cooking was to amount to anything half decent.

  Mrs Coker, my elocution tutor, was a fine lady, exceptionally tall and made taller still by her wig. She floated, or so it seemed to me, rather than walked through the house. Her skin
was remarkably smooth and she told me she kept wrinkles at bay by pulling certain threads of her hair tight and pinning them to her scalp before she put on her wig. She wore many patches on her white face and Mercy said she looked like a ghost.

  When I told Mrs Coker that I had never been out of the house and barely knew how Milk Street connected with the rest of London, she was genuinely shocked. She questioned me about my life and how I had retained my humour when confined to the house. She concluded that the only way I had managed was by the gift of a vivid imagination. Every word she used was an island in its own sound; her words never ran carelessly into another, each was protected by a moat of silence.

  ‘Language is music,’ she declared.

  I was lucky then to have a good ear for a tune.

  The turnabout in my fortune was so sudden and so giddying that I could not fathom what my stepmother must have said to my father that he had become generous in his care of me.

  Chapter Seven

  Hodgepodge of All Sorts of Meat

  Take an earthen pot, well scalded, and put into it four pounds of the loin of mutton, two pounds of filleted veal, one partridge, two large onions, two heads of cloves, one carrot and a quart of water; put a paste made of flour and water round the cover to keep in the steam; place this pot within another somewhat larger, and fill up the vacancies between the two pots with water; let them simmer or stew for seven or eight hours, taking care to supply the outer pot with boiling water so that the meat in the inner pot may be constantly stewing; when done, sift the broth through a sieve, let it settle, and then sift a second time through a napkin; serve the meat and the broth together in a terrine.

  My other tutor, Mr Smollett, was an earthbound weasel of a man whose nose caused him no end of trouble, as did his pious beliefs, all being equally irksome. He arrived every morning clutching a prayer book to his pinched-in body. No doubt, as a boy, he had been told how tall a man should grow and when finding himself beyond the mark, felt obliged to shrink the difference into his shoulders.

  He seemed to be only concerned with the vices that were to be discovered at the theatre and the coffee house, so that as well as being pinched in body, he was pinched in mind. By degrees it became clear to me that Mr Smollett was nothing more than a hypocrite, for, behind all his condemnation of the city of sin, I could tell the level of excitement the subject brought him to by the dribbles that fell from the end of his troublesome nose.

  After a while I could read fluently. Books I liked, but I was bored with all that dull Mr Smollett had to say and I wasn’t paying much heed when one day he announced he was going to talk on the cause of all evil in the world. I think this may have been brought about by my exceedingly low-cut bodice. Mrs Truegood had told the dressmaker to accentuate my natural assets and the effect of my assets on Mr Smollett resulted in a lecture on the electrical influence of the female root on the male root. For the first time Mr Smollett had my undivided attention.

  ‘I will endeavour to explain,’ he said, ‘but I am sure it is beyond your comprehension.’ Seeing that his speech wasn’t received with the usual posy of yawns he carried on. ‘The male root can grow to between seven and twelve inches long. The top is carnation in colour, softer than a petal to touch. At the base there are two globes, bound to the stem of the root. The outside of the bags is wrinkly and covered with a kind of down, much resembling the hair on a beard of corn.’ He paused, then with his chest puffed out, said, ‘But as soon as this magnificent root is under the influence of the female root, it rises itself to become as stiff as a poker and remains so until the electrical fire is spent, which is known by a plentiful eruption of glutinous matter.’

  ‘What about the female… root?’ I asked.

  Sweat salted his forehead and his cheeks went claret. He took out his kerchief and blew his nose so hard that his wig became somewhat lopsided.

  ‘The mouth and the whole appearance of the female root is often covered with a bushy kind of hair,’ he said, his eyes never leaving my assets. ‘It is a broad root within which a hole is perforated. The hole contracts or dilates like the mouth of a purse. To look at it you would never imagine that you could put anything into it at all, let alone a male root. But upon travail, it will dilate so much as to receive a rolling pin.’

  After this pretty speech, Mr Smollett suddenly excused himself from the chamber. He came back adjusting his breeches, somewhat calmer.

  I hoped he might talk further on the matter. He didn’t, though henceforth his attitude towards me became more familiar. He would insist that I sat on his lap while I read to him. That way, he said, it would be easier for us both to see the words. Being a good girl I did as I was told. I could feel the root of him go poker hard. I didn’t find it without interest and would have been more engaged if its owner hadn’t repulsed me quite as much Mr Smollett did.

  There had been many sea changes in the house since my father had remarried, and he grew to doubt that he was still the captain of his ship. Mrs Truegood insisted that new linen mattresses were bought and the old, moth-worn, flea-ridden mattresses be burned. My father almost choked at the very notion, but one look from my stepmother shipwrecked any complaints he might have harboured. She also stated that wives and husbands who slept in separate beds had healthier nerves and stronger spirits than those who slept together. My father roared like bedlam and fell to swearing, but all for naught. His new wife remained unmoved and, deaf to his pleas, ordered a drink be made for him of sage, rosemary and sarsaparilla, which she said was good for a troubled temperament.

  So it was that Mrs Truegood kept to her own set of rooms and my father reluctantly to his, and never the two did meet so it seemed to me, for I would have heard the floorboards creak and I never did.

  My lessons with Mr Smollett continued and my curiosity – nay, I will call it hunger – to know more about roots would have led me into ruin if Mercy hadn’t taken it upon herself to save me.

  I had slept so long with Cook, and was so used to her snores and farts and the smell of the sheets, that I found my new bed a little cold and was delighted when Mercy asked me to share hers. She said it was too wide, and Hope had her own bedchamber as she was to be married and consequently needed time alone.

  The first night, I found her half undressed while her maid folded her clothes. Mercy’s bedchamber smelled of oranges and had a bookcase full of novels. She was not in the least bit shy to be seen half naked. She had next to no bubbies at all on her boyish figure.

  ‘I sleep on the right,’ she said, ‘with a pistol under my pillow.’ I must have looked truly alarmed, for she burst out laughing. ‘No, no, of course I don’t, you noodle.’

  She kissed me on the cheek and said she was pleased to have my company. In the nights that followed we often talked, or she would read to me. Before she blew out the candle she would turn and kiss me goodnight.

  No one had ever shown such tenderness to me before and, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, with each of her kisses not so much an ache but more a curious itch began to trouble me. I lay in the dark and wished my body wasn’t such a riddle to me. One night everything changed.

  I remember waking from a nightmare. I dreamed that a man whose face I couldn’t see was trying to push me into a chamber. He threw the door open and inside were three women, tied by their hair to three metal rings that hung from the ceiling. I pulled away from him and I found myself falling down an endless stairwell.

  I must have shouted out in my sleep for I woke to find the candle alight and Mercy looking down at me.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘It’s a nightmare, nothing more.’

  She put her arms round me and held me to her, rocking me. I found myself returning her kisses and with each peck the ache became stronger until I was desperate for relief from it. Mercy asked if I felt calmer and all I could do was nod. She blew out the candle, turned over, and promptly fell to sleep. I lay wide awake, certain I must be ill for the surely the ache shouldn’t have r
eturned at Mercy’s kiss. A terrible thought occurred to me that I was truly sick and there was no cure. I stared into the darkness, sobbing, as lost as midnight. Mercy stirred once more and asked sleepily what was wrong.

  ‘Mercy, I think I have a fever,’ I blurted out.

  ‘Oh, no, my dear,’ said Mercy, hurriedly relighting the candle. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘I have a terrible ache!’

  ‘Where?’ Mercy asked.

  I couldn’t tell her, I was too embarrassed.

  ‘Where?’ she asked again.

  ‘In between my legs.’

  ‘Show me,’ she said.

  I bunched up my nightdress so it was above my waist and pointed to my Venus mound.

  Mercy fell back on the pillows in a fit of giggles. ‘My dear Tully. That is quality, so it is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When did this ache of yours start?’ she said, struggling to compose her face.

  With eyes half closed and pulling my nightgown up further so that it hid my face, I made her promise not to whisper a word to any soul as to what I was about to tell her.

  ‘It started with the gentleman visitor.’

  ‘Oh sweet Lord. What gentleman?’ said Mercy.

  I peeled back the nightgown from my eyes, for her voice had lost all its humour. I told her how the gentleman had found me as naked as the day I was born and how he had kissed me and how his fingers had the effect of making my body flame.

  ‘I thought it must be love. It seemed the only rational reason for the ache. But when you kissed me just now on the lips the same ache came back, so you see I think I must be ill.’

  Mercy tried to stifle a laugh.

  ‘It’s not amusing,’ I said.

  ‘You are a noodle,’ she said. ‘You’re not ill. You’re as healthy as any other full-blooded female. Perhaps more so than others.’ She pulled the nightgown from my burning cheeks. ‘Shall I show you the remedy for your ache?’