Martine Bailey > Quotes

“Next morning I had to get outside, and so began a period of long walks in the park. Early November continued bright, with the last sun of the year shining low and coppery over the woods. Striding through heaps of rusty autumn leaves, I ached to see beauty dying all around me. I felt completely alone in that rambling wilderness, save for the crows cawing in their rookeries and the wrens bobbing from hedge to hedge. I began to make studies in my book of the delicate lines of drying grasses and frilled seed pods. I looked for some lesson on how best to live from Nature, that every year died and was renewed, but none appeared.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“The track led into a sort of tunnel made of forest. They left daylight behind, a thousand leaves hemming them into dusky shade. As she traipsed behind Jack's torn blue jacket, he squinted into the foliage, hearkening to every cracking twig or bird-chirrup. After what seemed an age, they came out into blessed sunshine again. They were in a clearing, their ears filled with a thundering wind, the air itself trembling. A few paces further they came upon the source: above them, a waterfall tumbled from a clifftop as high as a church steeple. The water fell in milky blue strands, shooting spray in the air that danced in rainbows of gold, pink and blue. At their feet was a deep and inviting lagoon. It fair took her breath away.
Jack crouched to look at the pool's edge, where a mud bank was scrabbled with marks.
"We should go back," he said. "Something drinks here."
She didn't care. She was spellbound. "Look, a cave!" Across the lagoon stood a dark entrance hung with pretty mosses, like a fairy grotto.
"Just one peep," she whispered, for there was something powerful and secret about the place. "Then we can go back."
But Jack was still peering at the tracks around the water's edge.
"Whatever drinks here, it's not here now. I dare you, Jack. A quick look around the cave and then we'll be on our way." She had a notion, from some story or other, that caves were places where treasure was hidden; she reckoned pirates might have left jewels and plunder behind long ago.
"It's the end of the rainbow," she laughed. "Let's find our crock of gold.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“On December the twenty-third, the park was hazy from clammy mists that muted and softened all color and distance. Michael had not set off for Whitelow after breakfast, so I bundled myself into my redingote that was as thick and warm as a man's, and pulled on my sable hat and muff. Even so, the chill pinched my nose as I hurried along paths of mushy leaves, sending startled birds pink-pinking up into the air. Claw-like seed pods clung to my skirts; the fine flowers of summer drooped slimy and black. I collected a few posies of evergreens to paint: stiff pine cones, jewel-like berries of black and scarlet, and oval seed pods as lustrous as pearl.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Save for the accident of her low birth, Peg might have been a person of fashion; a vibrant beauty, painted by an academician in oils.
Intending to make a quick end to it, I started mixing the lily green I had made especially from crushed flowers, hoping exactly to tint her eyes, rattling my tiny brush in the jar. Then I subjected her to my closest gaze.
"Your eyes," I said, musingly. "They are a very unusual green; in different lights they reflect brown and blue. Do they perhaps reflect whatever light falls on them?"
Peg replied that she couldn't say. "Do, please, sit very still." I looked very hard, then used my green with a wash of yellow ochre to tint the iris, and a ring of burnt umber. A pinprick of white titanium gave them startling life. I was happy with them; surely even Peg would admire her lively cat-like eyes.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“I was thrown together with Florence, or 'Florawns' as she was called, a pert girl of nineteen who worked in our kitchen and was sent out to help me. First, I followed her to a butcher where fat sausages hung from the ceiling like aldermen's chains, and I could choose the best of plump ducks, sides of beef, and chops standing guard like sentries on parade. Once the deal was done Florence paid him, gave me a wink and cast a trickle of coins into her apron pocket. So it seemed that serving girls will pay themselves the whole world over.
The size of the Paris market made Covent Garden look like a tinker's tray. And I never before saw such neatness; the cakes arranged in pinks and yellows and greens like an embroidery, and the cheeses even prettier, some as tiny as thimbles and others great solid cartwheels. As for the King Cakes the French made for Twelfth Night, the scents of almond and caramelled sugar were to me far sweeter than any perfumed waters.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“While Mr Loveday aired my lady's sheets, I set to scratching up a supper. With not even time to change from my own damp clothes I had in one-half hour some welcoming tea steaming and hot brandy to mix a punch. Our bill of fare was the remnants of Mrs Garland's Yorkshire Pie, still sound and savory, fried bacon, and a hillock of roasted rabbits that disappeared as quickly as I made them. The last of the seed cake was eaten too, with a douse of brandy sprinkled over it to warm us.
'She will not eat those beggarly scraps,' said Jesmire, the spiteful old cat, when I took a tray of food to my lady's door. Yet I did see a slice of brandied cake disappear. I knew my mistress well enough by then, and she was a slave to her sugar tooth.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“Sal and Henry return with a gust of warm garden air and I settle down to create miniature roses from sugarpaste using tiny ivory spatulas and crimpers. I will have no antique tester bed crowning my cake, only a posy of flowers: symbols of beauty and growth, each year new-blossoming. I let Henry paint the broken pieces with spinach juice, while I tint my flowers with cochineal and yellow gum. As a pretty device I paint a ladybird on a rose, and think it finer than Sèvres porcelain.
At ten o'clock tomorrow, I will marry John Francis at St. Mark's Church, across the square. As Sal and I rehearse our plans for the day, pleasurable anticipation bubbles inside me like fizzing wine. We will return from church for this bride cake in the parlor, then take a simple wedding breakfast of hot buttered rolls, ham, cold chicken, and fruit, on the silver in the dining room. Nan has sent me a Yorkshire Game Pie, so crusted with wedding figures of wheatsheafs and blossoms it truly looks too good to eat. We have invited few guests, for I want no great show, and instead will have bread and beef sent to feed the poor. And at two o'clock, we will leave with Henry for a much anticipated holiday by the sea, at Sandhills, on the southern coast. John Francis has promised Henry he might try sea-bathing, while I have bought stocks of cerulean blue and burnt umber to attempt to catch the sea and sky in watercolor.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“The room had been decked with late-blooming roses that cast up a sugary glasshouse scent. Yet amongst the profusion of china and silver, the atmosphere was one of flamboyance, rather than celebration. Mrs. Croxon announced that we should eat 'exactly the Bill of Fare as given by a most genteel Countess at Bath'. I had no appetite for sardines in mustard, creamed oats and kidneys, for I had a stomach full of butterflies, as my mother had called my fits of nerves.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“That's how it is for us servants. No one pays you much heed; mostly you're invisible as furniture. Yet you overhear a conversation here, and add a little gossip there. A writing desk lies open and you cannot help but read a paper. Then you find something, something you should not have found...”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“She sent a serving girl out to fetch some food. A beef pie, bread and butter and plenty of the sweet stuff that she loved. She devoured a treacle pudding, closing her eyes to savor every sticky crumb. Sugar. How she had craved the stuff. Though her belly was full, still she helped herself from a paper bag of sugarplums, globes of candied fruits that made her cheeks bulge. Was this happiness, she wondered? She was full of food again, and as sleepy as a suckled child. She pictured a well-stocked larder, and the chance to make all the delights in Mother Eve's Secrets. She would help herself to the best, of course, for she who stirs the pot never starves. A comfortable future lay before her, all for the taking.
Mrs. Quin bustled back into the room and began to dress her face. Gone were the worst of the bran-specks and flaking red sores. Instead, she had the prettiness of a portrait on an enameled tin; a smudgy confection of pink and cream. "A rosy blush," Mrs. Quin said benignly, "is the fashion nowadays."
While Mrs. Quin deposited her half a crown in a locked trunk, Mary slipped a bottle of Pear's Almond Bloom and a tin of White Imperial Powder into her skirts.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Now this is grand, she thought, the white linen well-pressed, the warm light glimmering from a score of candles, the silver plate polished like mirrors. It was a feast in a picture book, a queen's banquet in a fairy castle.
At the centre rose a vast Desert Island molded from sugar-paste, just as Aunt Charlotte had used to make it. A stockade of licorice crowned the peak, and a pathway of pink sugar sand stretched to the shore. The whole was surrounded by a sea of broken jelly, swimming with candied fish. First off, she ate the two tiny sugar castaways from the lookout on her island- very sweet and crisp they were, too. She stood to make a toast. "To you, Jack, my own true love," and took a long draught.
Sugarplums next; a whole pyramid to herself, of every color: raspberry, orange, violet, pistachio. She was eating dinner back to front, and she recommended it heartily. Next, her teeth sank into a sticky mass of moonshine jelly- it was good, very good.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“From the cobbled Close, we all admired the Minster's great towers of fretted stone soaring to the clouds, every inch carved as fine as lacework. Once we had passed into the nave, I surrendered my scruples to that glorious hush that tells of a higher presence than ourselves. It was a bright winter's day, and the vaulted windows tinted the air with dappled rainbows. Sitting quietly in my pew, I recognized a change in myself; that every morning I woke quite glad to be alive. Instead of fitful notions of footsteps at midnight, each new day was heralded by cheery sounds outside my window: the post-horn's trumpeting and the cries and songs of busy, prosperous people. I was still young and vital, with no need for bed rest or sleeping draughts. I was ready to face whatever the future held. However troubled my marriage was, it was better by far than my former life with my father. Dropping my face into my clasped hands, I glimpsed in reverie a sort of labyrinth, a mysterious path I must traverse in the months to come. I could not say what trials lay ahead of me- but I knew that I must be strong, and win whatever happiness I might glean on this earth.
It was easy to make such a resolution when, as yet, I faced no actual difficulties. Each morning, Anne and I returned from our various errands to take breakfast at our lodgings. Awaiting us stood a steaming pot of chocolate and a plate of Mrs. Palmer's toast and excellent buns. Anne and I both heartily agreed that if time might halt we should have liked every day to be that same day, the gilt clock chiming ten o'clock, warming our stockinged feet on the fire fender, splitting a plate of Fat Rascals with butter and preserves, with all the delightful day stretching before us.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Women dream in courtship, but wedlock wakes them.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“I wanted to try dainty Italian fare, and bought spicy Bologna sausage, pink papery hams, hard white bread, and chalky cheeses. I also bought the makings of a Mackeroni Pie I had seen made at an inn, and a new sort of green stuff named brockerly that proved a great deal tastier than cabbage.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“All my hard work had come to fruition that day: the new fireplace housed a might Yule log that warmed the room, casting reflections across the crystal and silver. I admired the forest green of the brocaded furniture, and the holly gathered in red ribbons hung about the walls. I decided that whatever temper Michael might be in, I would not let him spoil our first Christmas.
The new damask cloth was spread with a fine repast: Peg's own Yule cakes looked even daintier than those I had already sampled. A great wheel of cheese had pride of place, beside magnificent pies of game and fruit. On a great round platter was a salamagundy salad as fresh as a bouquet of flowers; concentric rings of every delight: eggs, chicken, ham, beetroot, anchovies, and orange.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“As I inspected the engravings for sale, I noticed a very fine classical scene within which was written, FERREA VIRGA EST, UMBRATILIS MOTUS. Recognizing the Latin motto from the sundial at Delafosse, I asked the proprietor if he knew the meaning.
"'The rod is of iron, the motion of shadow,'" he told me obligingly.
"Thank you," I said with a smile , and returned to the engraving. It was a memento mori, an Italian scene in which the sundial was reminiscent of a tomb. On one side, a pair of young lovers basked idly in sunshine, while on the other they slept in sinister shadow. An ugly representation of Death approached them from behind the ornate tomb. They do not see what pursues them, I mused.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“In ten minutes Peg had returned with a bundle of stuff. She washed her mistress's rat-tails at the stand, and then tucked her back into freshly laundered sheets. Enticing pattern books and journals lay across the coverlet. To Peg's satisfaction, her mistress began to leaf through The Lady's Magazine.
"Your hair has a natural wave." Peg snipped at the ends with the scissors from her chatelaine, curling them into charming spirals. "Would you care for this style?" She held up an illustration of the "Grecian Manner", and deftly wound a bandeau of blue ribbon around her mistress's crown and temple. When Mrs. Croxon lifted the mirror, her face softened. She turned her head from left to right, admiring her reflection.
"Now see that ribbon. That is the color you must have for your new gowns. Forget-me-not, and that pistachio color, they are all fashion. Forget those paces and daffodils.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Then I pushed my way through and saw a young woman climb down, no more than my age, only she was as pale as a flour bag, with rosebud lips pressed tight together, and two spots of rouge high on her cheeks. She stared at the rabble, her eyes narrowing. She weren't afeard of us, no not one whit. She lifted her chin and said in a throaty London drawl, 'Mr Pars. Fetch him at once.' Like magic the scene changed: three or four fellows legged it indoors and those staying behind hung back a bit, fidgeting before this girl that might have dropped from the moon for all we'd ever seen such a being in our yard. What drew my eye was her apricot-colored gown that shone like a diamond. I drank in all her marks of fashion: the peachy ribbon holding the little dog she clutched to her bosom, her powdered curls, but most of all it was her shoes I fixed on. They were made of shiny silver stuff, and in spite of the prettiest heels you ever saw, were already squelched in Mawton mud. It were a crime to ruin those shoes, but there were no denying it, she'd landed in a right old pigsty.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“I think of that sundial on the tower at Delafosse: the long shadow cast by a shape unseen, relentlessly circling the dial. In time the iron rod will rust, and the brass-bound face will crumble. Time devours all things: love and murder and secrets. And though the sun sinks, and the golden numerals fade, we must believe that our own fragile hearts will guide us, like pinpricks of starlight through the approaching night.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“I'd give me two eyes for a slice of apple pie." She was brain-cracked, but spoke for them all.
Then Tabby Jones joined in, holding forth on the making of the best apple pie: the particular apples, whether reinettes or pippins, the bettermost flavorings: cinnamon, cloves, or a syrup made from the peelings. Slowly, groans of vexation turned to appreciative mumblings. Someone else favored quince, another lemon. Apples, they all agreed, though the most commonplace of fruit, did produce an uncommon variety of delights: pies and puddings, creams and custards, jellies and junkets, ciders and syllabubs. The time passed a deal quicker and merrier than before.
Janey, the whore who had once been famed in Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, told them, in her child's voice, that the best dish she ever tasted was a Desert Island of Flummery, at a mansion in Grosvenor Square. "It was all over jellies and candies and dainty figures, and a hut of real gold-leaf. Like eating money, it were. I fancied meself a proper duchess."
She knew what Janey meant. When she had first met Aunt Charlotte she had gorged herself until her fingers were gummy with syrup and cream. There was one cake she never forgot; a puffed conceit of cream, pastry, and pink sugar comfits.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“I had never before heard Mozart's "Idol mio", nor anything sung by so fine a singer as Signora Tirenza, the prima donna from Rome itself. Her astonishing voice transported me to another place of wordless emotion. All my life I had hoped to find that uplifting love that crowns some lucky spirits but evades others, however long they seek it. Would it always escape me? Or should I return home, and try even harder to nurture affection between Michael and myself?”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Aunt Charlotte was everyone's Auntie, and provided the food: the ladies' sugared ratafias, plates of toasted cheese at four in the morning, and beef and eggs for the gentlemen's hearty breakfasts. But her pastry-cook's heart was in the buffets that glittered under the colored lamps: the sugarwork Pleasure Gardens, and Rocky Islands decorated with jellies, rock candies, and pyramids of sweetmeats. And best of all were the chocolate Little Devils, morsels of magic that all the gentlemen loved.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Outside, I shivered in a landscape of greys and silvers, the stone walls and cobbles looming pale in the wintry air. The only true color was an amber penumbra shimmering around the moon. Beyond the silvered slope of overgrown lawn, the mass of black trees moved to and fro in the breeze, with a strange undulation like waving sea fronds.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“The Cocoa-Nut Tree at Covent Garden? Why it's the finest confectioner in the capital and sells bonbons, macaroons, candied fruits, and ices,' I said in my proper reading voice. I had long studied their advertisement in Mr Pars' London Gazette after he'd left it by the kitchen fire. It was a beautiful advertisement, with little drawings of sugar cones, ice pots, and tiny men attending wondrous stoves.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“Come and sit by the fire, pet. Want a Little Devil? Devilinos, the Italians call 'em." She pushed a dish of exquisite little brown globes, studded with comfits, towards her. Mary was as hungry as a hawk; when she put one in her mouth it was sweet yet bitter, melting but nutty; by far the most marvelous thing she had eaten in her life.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“Another day, sheltering beneath trees in a rain-shower, I uncovered a doorway long obliterated by undergrowth. After pulling shrubbery aside, I stepped inside a long deserted summerhouse, fronted by cracked marble columns and ironwork, the rear extending deep into the hillside. Though still filthy, even after I cleared away the tenacious vines, the windowpanes gave sufficient greenish light for me to sketch indoors. In a cobwebbed corner stood a gardener's burner that must once have coaxed oranges or other delicate shrubs to life. With that alight, I found a chair and sat with my shawl muffled around me as I sketched.
The marble statues that lined the walls were fine copies of the Greek masters, with muscular limbs and serene faces, though sadly disfigured with a blueish-green patina. As an exercise, I copied a figure of a handsome boy, admiring the sculptor's rendering of tensed muscle, the body frozen just an instant before extending in action. My mind drifted to Michael, the uncertainty hanging over us, my urges to please him, my need to move beyond this stupid impasse. As I sketched the statue's blind eyes I half-heartedly followed his line of sight.
I stood and looked more closely at the statue. "What are you looking at?" I said out loud. A green stain blotted the boy's cheek, ugly but also strangely beautiful, for the color was a peacock's viridian. For the first time I noticed the description, "HARPOCRATES- SILENCE", engraved on the pediment, and had a vague recollection of a Roman boy-god who personified that virtue. He held one index finger raised coyly to his lips, while his other hand pointed towards a low arch in the wall. I paced over to the spot at which he pointed. The niche was filled with gardener's trellis that I removed with rising excitement. Behind stood an oak doorway set low in the wall. As I lifted the latch, it opened onto a blast of chilly darkness. Lighting the stub of a candle at the stove, I propped the door open and ventured inside.
At once I knew this was no gardeners' store, but another tunnel burrowing into the hillside. Setting forth with the excitement of new discovery, my footsteps rang out and my breath fogged before me in clouds. The place had a mossy, mineral smell, and save for the dripping of water, was silent. Though at first the tunnel ran straight, it soon descended an incline, and my feet splashed into muddy puddles. Who, I wondered, had last passed through that door?”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“So what are you after, eh? Side of beef? Some chops?'
'Aye, sir. Whatever you fancy.'
He licked his lips and listed his favorite dishes: plain pudding, lemon pickle, roast beef. Then he asked for his own particulars: tobacco and coltsfoot for his pipe, and some more comfrey for Her Ladyship's tea.
'And no green oils. Get a block of dripping and cook it plain.'
It was true that the food in France had been a great hog potch of good and bad. One night on the road we were served a right mess of giblets, fishy smelling frogs' legs and moldy old cheese. But at Chantilly the fricassee of veal was so tender I'm not sure how they softened it. I could have eaten the whole pot it was that good, but instead had to watch Jesmire scraping off the sauce, whining all the time for a little boiled ham.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“Honeysuckle iced petals,' scoffed one John Bull, spying my menu. 'I should as soon eat a bouquet of flowers. You must serve me solid belly timber, madame, nothing else.' Yet in one week I had tempted the old duffer with a restoring quintessence of veal. Then at dessert I caught him licking his spoon like a schoolboy as he scooped up a flower of my own exquisite honeysuckle ice.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“Around me shone the kitchen I'd worked in each day: the copper pans hung neatly, the scratched wooden table and neat blue plates set in rows on the dresser. I got up to rake out the cinders and suddenly clutched at the black stone of the hearth. How long was it since as a new girl I'd first spiked a fowl and set it to roast on that fire? What great sides of beef had we roasted on the smoke-jack, while bacon dangled on hooks, and meat juices basted puddings as light as eggy clouds? Never, in all my ten years at Mawton, had I let that fire die out. Every dawn, in winter or summer, I'd riddled the dying embers and set new kindling on the top. I touched the rough stone and let my cheek press on its everlasting warmth, wishing I could take that loyal fire with me. Foolish, I know, but a fire is a cook's truest friend. It was a good fire at Mawton: blackened with hundreds of years of smoking hot dinners.
I think no heathen ever worshipped fire like a cook. So I kissed the smutty hearth wall and packed instead my little tinderbox, to light new fires I knew not where.”
― Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets

“He'd found a sweet-water stream that I drank from, and for dinner we found winkles that we ate baked on stones. We watched the sun set like a peach on the sea, making plans on how we might live till a ship called by.
Next we made a better camp beside a river and had ourselves a pretty bathing pool all bordered with ferns; lovely it was, with marvelous red parrots chasing through the trees. Our home was a hut made of branches thatched with flat leaves, a right cozy place to sleep in. We had fat birds that Jack snared for our dinner, and made fire using a shard of looking glass I found in my pocket. We had lost the compass in the water, but didn't lament it. I roasted fish and winkles in the embers. For entertainment we even had Jack's penny whistle. It was a paradise, it was."
"You loved him," her mistress said softly, as her pencil resumed its hissing across the paper. Peg fought a choking feeling in her chest. Aye, she had loved him- a damned sight more than this woman could ever know.
"He loved me like his own breath," she said, in a voice that was dangerously plaintive. "He said he thanked God for the day he met me." Peg's eyes brimmed full; she was as weak as water. The rest of her tale stuck in her throat like a fishbone.
Mrs. Croxon murmured that Peg might be released from her pose. Peg stared into space, again seeing Jack's face, so fierce and true. He had looked down so gently on her pitiful self; on her bruises and her bony body dressed in salt-hard rags. His blue eyes had met hers like a beacon shining on her naked soul.
"I see past your always acting the tough girl," he insisted with boyish stubbornness. "I'll be taking care of you now. So that's settled." And she'd thought to herself, so this is it, girl. All them love stories, all them ballads that you always thought were a load of old tripe- love has found you out, and here you are.
Mrs. Croxon returned with a glass of water, and Peg drank greedily. She forced herself to continue with self-mocking gusto. "When we lay down together in our grass house we whispered vows to stay true for ever and a day. We took pleasure from each other's bodies, and I can tell you, mistress, he were no green youth, but all grown man. So we were man and wife before God- and that's the truth."
She faced out Mrs. Croxon with a bold stare. "You probably think such as me don't love so strong and tender, but I loved Jack Pierce like we was both put on earth just to find each other. And that night I made a wish," Peg said, raising herself as if from a trance, "a foolish wish it were- that me and Jack might never be rescued. That the rotten world would just leave us be.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade