Not sleeping well.Can’t sleep, here I am living with my daughter, like I was some sort of giant baby.
He gave the roast, which was nothing more than the fore shank off a pig his son-in-law had butchered for a neighbor, a desultory turn.
Not a proper roast at all. Not like that last ‘un up at the hall. I had not meant to burn it, when the house got quiet at night it was hard as a mother-in-law’s heart to stay awake. Durned upstart young cockerel of a cook!
His daughter came to the kitchen door. “Some ‘un to see you, Da,” she called. Then she turned to an unseen person, and said, “There now, I’ve waked him up for you.”
The visitor came in and sat on one of the kitchen stools. “I don’t think that roast will get done before all the fat melts away and it will then turn into gristle.”
“Happen you are right,” Mr. Sparks said. “But my daughter asked me to turn it, so turn it I shall.”
“Don’t seem right, you bein’ turned out like that. You should have had head cook after the old one up and quit. You been there long enough.”
Mr. Sparks sucked at his lower lip, a habit he had acquired after four of his teeth fell out. Fool doctor man said he needed to eat vegetables and eat some apples.
Apple a day to keep the doctor away, ha!
It had not kept them away from his wife, who had loved apples. He missed the old woman, he did.
“You come down here to tell me that?”
“Might. An’ might be I came to bring some pap an’ catlap that hoity-toity Frenchified cook sent. He seems to think you need fattenin’ up.”
“Din’ seem to think that way when I was there. Always goin’ on about not stickin’ yer fingers in stuff.”
His visitor laughed. “That might o’ had somethin’ to do with you filchin’ icin’ off the Duchess’ birthday cake. Mr. Rudge was fit to be tied, ‘specially since he had to scrape all the icin’ off an’ redo it. He was in a lather worryin’ about whether it would harden enough before time to be served.”
Mr. Sparks cackled a broken old laugh. “He were that, weren’t ‘e?”
“Would you like to get some of your own back?” the visitor asked.
“Would I ever! That young whippersnapper tuck bein’ cook right out from under my nose.”
“Very well,” said the visitor, “Here is what I want you to do...”
After the visitor departed, Mr. Sparks puzzled over his instructions.Why would anyone want the tack room in the old stables read-up?
Granted it had a roof, and even a stall or two that were still intact.
Well, for the tidy pouch of coin offered, I will be glad to read-up a dozen such rooms.
But it would not do to let on that such was the case. He went back to turning the roast with more enthusiasm.
Perhaps I could keep enough juice in it to feed the family.
Chapter 28
Darrius knocked at the door of Carleton Manor with some trepidation. He was relieved when the butler admitted him, even though he was left to wait in the front hall while the fellow carried his card up to the ladies of the house. His heart lightened even more when he was ushered, with some ceremony, into the presence of Lady Carleton and her daughter.
It seemed that the two of them had been having a serious discussion. He was somewhat astonished by Blanche’s appearance, for the face she turned on him was innocent of all adornment, even her delicate eyebrows had been shaven away. Had she been drawing them on, he wondered.
The change made her look younger, vulnerable in a way he had never seen her. Her eyelids and the end of her nose were both slightly pink, as if she had been crying.
Lady Carleton, dressed in her usual outmoded finery, was still powdered and rouged, just as she might have done twenty years before. “I shall be direct,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“Do I need an excuse to visit my intended wife?” Darrius asked.
“You have never called upon us before,” Lady Carleton said bluntly. “Not since your father’s death.”