Chapter Five
Leaving Teacup curled up on the gentleman’s chest, Cynthia went into the kitchen, where Ruby was preparing their dinner.
When her mother had been alive, she and Cynthia had, of course, eaten in the dining room, but now that she was alone, Cynthia didn’t enjoy sitting in solitary state.
She had asked whether she could eat in the kitchen with Ruby and Will.
Will, as usual, had looked at his wife for her reaction.
She had harrumphed about it not being right for gentry to eat with the servants, and, in truth, would have preferred to be alone with her husband.
They could speak more freely that way, and Will wouldn’t have to mind his table manners.
But she felt sorry for Miss Cynthia, having neither kith nor kin, and not likely to get a husband at her age, so she had agreed.
“You ain’t got to mind Will eating ’is peas off ’is knife, now,” she said frankly. “’E’s too old ter change ’is ways.”
“Of course! He may eat how he likes, or rather, how you like, Ruby, dear,” replied Cynthia. “In the kitchen you are the hostess. You are in charge.”
This point of view had not occurred to Ruby before, and it pleased her mightily. She had been accustomed to sitting down to eat in her voluminous apron, but after this exchange took it off ceremoniously before taking her place. A hostess did not wear an apron.
“The rabbit stew smells delicious, Ruby,” Cynthia said now.
“Yes, Will got a good fat one, and I had a bit of the bacon left to put in. That’s what makes it smell so good.”
“Goodness!” said Cynthia, “It’s nearly one o’clock. All the activity this morning made the time fly. But Will isn’t back yet, is he?”
“No, but we’ll have our dinner at one o’clock sharp, same as always, with or without him.”
“But he caught the rabbit!” said Cynthia. “It hardly seems right to eat it without him.”
“Easy for you to say, Miss Cynthia, but if I don’t get dinner on the table at one, so that I can get cleared up by two, I don’t get ter put me feet up afore teatime. I’m not as young as I was, y’know!”
“But I can help you clean up!” said Cynthia.
“What? Put your ’ands into the ’ot water and lye soap? Not while I’m standing!” replied Ruby. “Whatever would your mother say?”
“She’d say we women have to help each other. Each needs to do her share.”
“Yer does yer part, Miss Cynthia, that yer do.” Ruby, her hands on her hips, was not giving way.
“Yer makes all our clothes. Will went off today in ’is new coat, fine as fivepence ’e was, thanks to you.
An’ yer does the sweeping and dusting. I won’t ’ave yer clearing and washing crockery, and that’s a fact.
We’ll eat at one o’clock and there’s no more to be said. ”
This argument was brought to an abrupt end by Will himself appearing, being chastised by his wife and told to wash his hands because dinner was on the table.
He was a slow-moving, gentle soul accustomed to his wife’s sharpness, which flowed over him without penetrating.
“I were ’eld up by old Noah throwing a shoe,” he said mildly. “Good thing I weren’t too far on me way back coz I ’ad to turn back. Lucky I’d sold me ’spargus to pay for it.”
Asparagus was a rarity in cottage gardens, but some years before, Will had decided to plant a bed of it.
He’d never eaten it himself, but he’d been in the village shop one day when a maid from the Big House, as they called the residence of the local member of the House of Lords, had paid sixpence for a bunch of asparagus.
He’d pricked up his ears at that. Sixpence for a vegetable!
It was unheard of. He asked the grocer where the asparagus had come from.
“A chap out Fernwood way grows it,” he told him.
“Bit of a bother, be all accounts, and a short season. That’s why it’s so dear.
’E don’t usually bring it this way, but ’appen a couple ’o times ’is regulars ’as been away and ’e brung it ’ere.
They loves it up at the Big ’Ouse and buys whatever I can get. ”
Will was slow of speech but not of mind.
He had clicked up the old pony and driven the gig to Fernwood, a hamlet about five miles away.
He soon found the place — there weren’t that many houses — and in his mild, unassuming way, by dint of hanging over the fence and smoking a pipe, he fell into conversation with the asparagus grower.
As gardeners will, they chatted about which produce was growing well this year and which wasn’t, blamed it on too much rain or not enough.
It was always one or the other. Mother Nature was never perfect in that regard.
Then, pointing with the stem of his pipe at a row of tall, feathery-looking plants he didn’t recognize, Will asked, “What’s that, then? If it’s carrots, I ain’t never seen none like that.”
“Nay,” replied the other. “It’s me ’spargus. Rare, that is. Come on in and take a gander.”
Will was then treated to his new friend’s life story.
It seemed his wife was Italian. They’d both worked up at the Big House.
She was my lady’s maid and he was a gardener, but, she and him, well, they’d been a bit previous, and she fell for a baby afore they was married.
So she’d had to leave, and he left with her.
She’d had a bit of money saved up, and they’d bought the cottage here.
She took in sewing and mending. He did odd jobs and tended people’s gardens, including his own.
Maria, his wife, had a great fondness for asparagus.
They grew it back home where she came from.
So she’d written to ask her father to send some seeds and instructions on how to grow it.
At this point, his new friend, whose name was George, invited Will into his shed for a spot of home-brew.
“I’ve got three daughters,” he said. “I needs a place to meself.”
“Ar!” replied Will. “I ain’t got daughters, but I lives with two wimmin. Yer don’t need t’tell me!”
The friendship thus being sealed, the secrets of asparagus growing were revealed.
You waited for the pods on the female plants to dry — the ones with berries, naturally.
Each pod usually gave two seeds. You planted them in the autumn and in the spring they came up as white fingers.
Gave you a bit of a turn, it did, the first time you saw them, like dead man’s fingers sticking up out of the ground!
But here’s the thing — you didn’t harvest them for at least three years!
You let them go to seed. Then, the fourth year, and this was the trick, when the fingers came up, you covered them with well-fertilized soil so they stayed white and grew fat.
You kept hilling them up until the spears were the size of a man’s middle finger.
“They’s a pain in the arse to get going,” said George, “but once you’ve got ’em, the beds will produce for fifteen to twenty year.
They just keeps on going. You cuts off the spears and they grows the next year.
Naturally, around the ten year mark, you’ll be wanting to start a new bed.
Yer let some of ’em go to seed and yer starts again.
They’s bloody wunnerful! They’ll last longer’n either you or me, they will! ”
Armed with this information and some seed pods wrapped in his handkerchief, Will had gone home and begun growing asparagus. Personally, he thought they were a lot of fuss about nothing. He preferred a nice plate of peas. But as long as people were buying, he was selling.