The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

by Karen Brooks

  She had learned that Sam had been tasked with modifying the rumours that spread in the wake of her nuptials, but it appeared his efforts had simply fuelled more. After all, why let the truth spoil a juicier tale? Understanding she could not change the way people saw her, Rosamund buried how much it hurt and pretended to see the funny side. Each night, she would regale Bianca with the latest version of her history as told by Mrs So-and-So to Mistress Whoever who then whispered it to Mr Prepared-to-Listen-and-Repeat before, like a will-o-the-wisp, it broke apart and scattered in all directions, bearing no resemblance to its source. Sometimes, as Rosamund had learned from long experience, if you laughed often enough, the pain dissipated, even if only briefly.

  If Sir Everard knew what was being said about her, he never mentioned it. Not that they encountered each other any more.

  Being left to her own devices at the chocolate house and Blithe Manor suited Rosamund. She was keen to learn all she could from Filip. Over the summer she worked hard to master the art of chocolate making. She sampled each additive he used and noted the changes it made to the drink. Rosamund questioned him thoroughly about his choices. It wasn’t long before he invited Rosamund to select a spice or floral supplement. Drawing on her own experiments, which she kept to herself, her options proved irresistible according to Thomas, Solomon and their enthusiastic tasting recruit, Ashe. Delighted with his talented protégée, Filip encouraged her to develop flavours they might serve when the chocolate house opened.

  The more she read of the treatise, the more she learned about the variety of additives at her disposal beyond those she’d already tried. Some were not only tasty, but beneficial for particular ailments or complaints — whether something as troublesome as a hacking cough or a dolorous mood.

  Giving thought to what to mix, such as an extra pinch of black pepper or the red root Filip asked Sir Everard to acquire called Tauasco, she included a little when she noted Thomas complaining of a sore throat. Not only were these ingredients medicinal, they altered the flavour, giving the chocolate a sharpness that took one’s breath away and made the tongue tingle. While not everyone would find this pleasant, it could be offset by adding more sugar or cinnamon. According to Colmenero that particular spice stopped urine, while annis-seed helped colds (she added that to Thomas’s next drink as well). Colmenero also referred to the work of a man called Galen who, she discovered, was a doctor in ancient Greece, a disciple of a man called Hippocrates.

  As she gained confidence, she brought some of her little pouches of herbs from home and mixed her own concoctions for Filip. He thoroughly enjoyed the mint and fennel she included but felt the gladwin root was bitter and that the hyssop didn’t combine well with the chocolate. After referring to the treatise, the next day she persuaded a reluctant Filip to include ground hazelnut to thicken the drink, which added a nutty, wholesome flavour they agreed was very palatable. When some hours passed before Rosamund desired another bowl, she made a note to herself that hazelnut might not be good for profits. One didn’t want patrons to be satisfied with merely one drink, not when they could linger beneath the roof for hours, as she’d been told they often did in the increasingly popular coffee houses sprouting about the city.

  Hazelnut might not have found favour with her, but orange-flower water did, proving a better addition than orange juice, allowing the drink to acquire subtle floral notes. Each time she added something Filip hadn’t tried before, she explained what she’d learned to him — not only from the apothecary whose premises she was frequenting, but from her own observations. Cloves sweetened the breath and stoppered up the bowel. A drop of musk or ambergris was likely to inspire passions by firing the lower regions. Rosamund was a little hesitant with these last two lest she unleash something beyond anyone’s control. Filip had chuckled when she confessed her fears to him and threatened to advertise these when the place opened.

  The varieties of what could be added were endless, as was the transformation even a small sprinkle of something like vanilla or milk could lend the dark fluid. It changed from being a little bitter to luscious. Likewise, a few extra twists with the molinillo and the consistency altered from gritty to frothy, to smooth as silk, leaving a fine coating on the tongue and throat that could be revisited for hours after. Including a small quantity of chilli made the drink hot and spicy; cinnamon made it sweet and even heady. Each night, Rosamund would lie awake, deliberating what she would combine the following day, what sensation she sought to achieve, what mood to alter, cure to facilitate. She and Bianca had recently read the pamphlet The Indian Nectar, or a Discourse Concerning Chocolata by a doctor named Henry Stubbes, which suggested adding milk and eggs. She began to think of other types of accompaniments.

  It was from Filip she first learned that, just as supplements could be added to enhance the flavour and be a physick for a person, so too additives that were not beneficial could be included.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked him as he patiently taught her to master the action of the molinillo.

  ‘I am referring to poison,’ said Filip.

  Rosamund stopped agitating the molinillo and stared at him in horror.

  Filip quickly tried to reassure her. ‘Not that we’d ever stoop to such methods, but there are many who have and in Spain, it’s almost a pastime.’ Taking the molinillo from her hands, he rolled it in his palms with practised ease.

  ‘Have you heard the story about the women of Chiapa Real? A town in the South Americas?’

  Rosamund shook her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted Ashe had drifted closer, sweeping the same spot on the floor over and over.

  ‘I’m astonished Señor Everard hasn’t told you. It’s a tale he likes to recount often.’ He smiled and shook his head.

  How did Rosamund explain her husband barely exchanged a word with her, far less shared a favourite story? The only task she performed for him was to blend his chocolate each morning before she left for Birchin Lane. Even then, she never saw him, but simply left the tray with the prepared chocolate pot and empty bowl for Wat to collect. Her secret hope was that, by learning to read and thus vicariously experiencing, through words and ideas, the circles in which her husband moved, she would one day delight him and his acquaintances — who she prayed would accept her once the business opened — with all her newly acquired knowledge.

  She fixed a smile on her face. ‘I would love to hear it from your lips, señor.’

  With a pleased half-bow, Filip obliged. ‘According to Thomas Gage — a man of God who wrote a book about his travels through the New World — the white women of this town were incensed by their bishop who, believing the ladies were so addicted to chocolate it was causing them to turn from God, forbade them from consuming the drink during his services (a habit to which they’d grown accustomed). In revenge, they slipped some poison into his chocolate. It took him eight terrible days to die.’

  ‘Oh, my.’

  ‘Indeed. As a consequence, there’s a saying, “Be careful with the chocolate of the Chiapas.”’

  ‘I imagine then,’ said Rosamund, amazed the drink she was growing to love could also become deadly when prepared with nefarious intentions, ‘it wouldn’t be a far stretch to consider adding elements to make people sick — not unto death,’ she added swiftly, lest Filip believe her a monster. ‘But to render them poorly for a time; to make them bilious, purge their stomach, slumber heavily or act as a costive.’

  Filip conceded this was not only possible but had been done. ‘Any decent apothecary would know what to add.’

  Rosamund became thoughtful. What would one have to add to make a person content? She glanced at Widow Ashe. To ease grief or allow them to open their heart to love — if not for the first time, then again? Was there a substance able to do that? What about to induce forgetfulness? A picture of Paul loomed large. She shuddered. How marvellous it would be if there was and they could mix it into the drinks.

  Regarding her kindly as he whisked the chocolate, Filip continued to te
ll her about the history of chocolate. How, when the Spanish found the New World and began trading with the Mayan, Aztec and Olmec peoples, they discovered chocolate (the beans even being used as currency), and shared chocolate drinks with the leaders as part of their rituals. The priests and monks who remained in the Americas to try to convert the natives to Christianity grew accustomed to the spicy, bitter drink. While some credited the explorer Cortez with sending the recipe for chocolate home to Spain along with cacao beans so their King and his court might enjoy the ceremonial beverage, the truth was that some Dominican friars took a contingent of Mayan nobles to Spain to visit King Philip and brought the drink with them.

  ‘And so, what started on the other side of the world, before moving into the Spanish, Italian, then French courts as drink for the nobles and the rich, is now available to anyone with the money to buy it here in London. Even so, there are those who refuse to imbibe, believing it a Papist drink that leads one to sin. Those who prepare it, señora, are oft tarred with the same brush.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Rosamund, her heart sinking. A Papist brush was even worse than a whore’s…

  ‘And, because it is so expensive compared to coffee and ale, it’s still quite exclusive,’ finished Filip, pouring her a foaming bowl.

  ‘Unless one is fortunate enough to work in a chocolate house,’ said Ashe.

  They turned towards Ashe in astonishment. She was usually so reticent.

  ‘Si, señora,’ said Filip, sharing an amused look with Rosamund before pouring Ashe a bowl as well. She took it gladly.

  ‘But still, the notion of ritual remains,’ said Rosamund, watching the way Filip poured, his face solemn, the height from spout to bowl just so, the way the molten chocolate flowed, a river of delicious goodness.

  ‘Indeed, it does,’ said Filip, casting her a look akin to pride.

  ‘I think this is something the chocolate house should promote,’ said Rosamund. ‘The idea of ritual. Of pleasure in that… and other things.’ She recalled her conversation with Sir Everard that first night at Blithe Manor. How he chuckled when she said the idea of chocolate seemed ‘naughty.’ If naughty brought the patrons through the doors, and not merely for the news sheets they’d provide… then so be it. People already believed her worse than naughty. Why not embrace it?

  Filip nodded slowly. ‘I agree, señora.’

  ‘If chocolate is, indeed, naughty…’ She took a sip. ‘Then let us call it a heavenly sin.’ She swallowed and beamed angelically, raising her eyes skywards.

  They all laughed.

  Rosamund touched Filip’s arm gratefully. She was learning so much, and about her co-workers as well. Filip had revealed some of his own story to her. When Sir Everard had approached him in Spain to come to England, he’d been in negotiations to work for someone else. Though the chocolate house wasn’t open for business yet, Sir Everard had been determined to employ a man known to be both knowledgeable and adept, even if that meant paying a high wage to lure him and his apprentice son. Filip had finally been persuaded. When Rosamund asked Filip if he regretted leaving his home, especially since the opening of the house was still weeks away, Filip considered his response.

  ‘Not that. It’s the manner of my appointment I regret.’ Much to Rosamund’s frustration, he wouldn’t elaborate, though she assumed it had something to do with the other gentleman for whom he had considered working. She thought about asking Solomon, but decided against it. If Filip wanted her to know, he would tell her; the last thing she wanted was to break the trust growing between them.

  Filip understood that in Rosamund he’d found someone who not only enjoyed the taste of chocolate but had a genuine passion for it and a yearning to learn its mysteries. As the weeks went by and her understanding grew, so did her talent for making it.

  When Rosamund wasn’t mixing additives into the chocolate or mastering the action of the molinillo so as to produce a thick, creamy foam on top, she wasn’t above supervising the roasting of the beans in the large pans with small holes drilled into the bottom, pushing up her sleeves and crushing the cacao husks to extract the seeds, sieving and later rolling them upon the stone slab, the metate, and then shaping the dense, sticky substance into chocolate cakes alongside Solomon. These were passed to Thomas who wrapped them between pieces of waxed paper and stored them in boxes or sacks to dry. Sir Everard was determined they would have plenty of stock so that the mob of gentlemen he was expecting to descend upon the place could drink to their heart’s content and even take away cakes to be dissolved and made into chocolate drinks at home.

  Noting Ashe’s fascination with all things chocolate, Rosamund asked Filip if there was something Ashe could do so she too could be part of the process and partake in their conversations more. Happy to comply, Filip gave her the loaves of sugar to grind in the large mortar. Ashe thrived in her additional duty. Sitting alongside Thomas and Solomon, she would pound away at the crystals, sieve them, then grind them again. Often she would catch Rosamund’s eye and offer her a shy smile, aware who it was that ensured she was included. Excellent at this task, she was soon given others — from supervising the roasting of the beans, washing the precious utensils and replacing them on the shelves, to keeping the fires stoked, the latter freeing Thomas so he too might learn more about chocolate. All the while she kept the kitchen dust free and the working areas spotless.

  Sometimes as they were working, one of them would wonder aloud when the chocolate house might open and they’d set to guessing, their hearts leaping, their grins broadening as they longed to share the delicious substance with patrons and watch the transformation its taste wrought. More and more coffee houses were opening around the city, some serving chocolate; all, according to Mr Henderson, devouring Muddiman’s news sheets and handwritten newsletters as well as what L’Estrange was publishing. Filip became increasingly anxious lest they miss their opportunity. Work on the main room was progressing. A huge mirror had been hung upon the wall above the bar, creating the illusion of even more space, and the windows had been measured and curtain rods nailed into position. The small group in the kitchen, wrapped in a cocoon of cacao and spices, felt the day must, at the very least, be drawing near.

  EIGHTEEN

  In which a troubled conscience is pricked

  It was a long, soggy summer, the endless rain turning the streets into rivers of mud as the capital was deluged and damp claimed every nook and cranny outside and in. Mostly oblivious to the effects of the weather, Rosamund threw herself into chocolate making by day and her reading lessons with Bianca by night, improving her skills in both.

  Colmenero’s work on chocolate was all but known to her. Alas, while it was filled with interesting information, it was also quite dry. There was only so much about the ‘complexion of cacao’ one could read.

  The only interruption to her otherwise routine days was the unexpected (but no less welcome for that) presence of Mr Nessuno, who had taken to visiting the bookshop on a regular basis. First believing his lunchtime visits to be a happy accident, when they became a regular occurrence, she started to wonder, in a most immodest fashion, whether it was Mr Henderson’s company or hers Mr Nessuno sought. The very idea that a gentleman like Mr Nessuno, a correspondent, might seek her conversation, made her feel warm, as if furry little caterpillars were inching their way around her body, tickling her flesh.

  Nevertheless, she had to remind herself that while the man himself was so impressive and his conversation remarkable, what he wrote in the newsletters was less than edifying. While some correspondents risked all by supporting dissenters or calling for religious toleration, what Mr Nessuno wrote mostly made her blush or gasp in dismay.

  One wet day when the rain fell in never-ending sheets that emptied the streets of all but the most stubborn couriers and vendors, Mr Henderson finally fulfilled his promise to take Rosamund to see his printing machine.

  Together they ran through the rain to the old stables in the backyard and Mr Henderson quickly undid the l
ock, wrenched open the door and Rosamund squeezed through. It was dark inside, and she waited while he lit a lanthorn and a few candles, bringing the dank, metallic-smelling interior to life.

  In the middle of the room stood a tall wooden contraption with levers, a flat tray and a series of knobs and ropes. On a table near it were boxes filled with letters and whole words made from lead. She picked up a couple, delighted she knew exactly what they were. Buckets of dark, oily liquid sat beneath them. She saw with dismay the stains on her fingers from handling the small letters and, indicating the buckets, she asked, ‘Ink?’ She sniffed her fingertips, capturing the odour of almond oil, turpentine and something smoky.

  ‘Yes,’ smiled Mr Henderson and handed her a cloth.

  Wiping her hands, she noted shelves of books, stacks of paper, pamphlets, newsletters and news sheets. ‘How does it all work?’ she asked in wonder, amazed such a drab space could contain such a fortune of ideas and knowledge.

  For the next little while as the rain hammered the roof, she was lost in a world of paper and ink and typesetting blocks, including joined letters like ‘ae’, which were called ligatures, and punctuation marks. Mr Henderson explained that once the leaden letters were set and the ink soaked into them, a roller worked to impress them onto paper.