The Girl in the Mirror. Sarah Gristwood
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Название: The Girl in the Mirror
Автор: Sarah Gristwood
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007412464
isbn:
‘I’m sorry,’ he said gravely, when I told him how my parents died, and he led me on to speak of them, as I had done so rarely. How my father had always said he wanted to become the finest silk merchant in Antwerp, and how my mother joked she wanted a house with a garden, where the flowers would be brighter than all his woven finery.
‘And you? What do you want, Jan?’ I stared at him, dumbly, all my newfound ease of speech, all the pleasure of reminiscence, vanished like smoke, instantly. It wasn’t just the boy’s name he’d called me – the reminder that, while I kept my secret, there could be no true intimacy with anybody. A reminder that, while I kept my secret, I couldn’t dream a happy future with a girl’s dream or a boy’s. It was those things, but it was more. I’d never, you might say, allowed myself to want – not for anything more lasting than a sweet or a sunny day, or for the toothache to go away. I’d lived like the beggars in the streets, not wanting anything more than the food to get by. I felt inadequate, naked and ashamed, as Sir Robert stood there, eyeing me quietly. Then, with a slight twist of his lips and an inclination of his head, he allowed me to slip away.
They kept Christmas well in the great house. I’d found my way into the kitchens soon after I’d arrived. Even the dogs turning the spits were too busy to talk for long, but I don’t think they minded seeing me, especially after the master cook stopped shouting at the scullions long enough to fling a thin foreign book at me and demand I translated a recipe – leg of lamb it was, in the French way, its meat minced with spices, suet and barber-ries, and stuffed back into the skin again. I thought it sounded nasty, but the cook was pleased.
I didn’t care so much for the dairy, or the game larder where they hung birds of every size, ready to be stuffed one inside the other, from the quail to the turkey – nor even for the confectionary, with its candied mock flowers, its cloying marchpane and gilded subtleties. But they soon got used to me in the main kitchen and they’d tease me with tales of what I could expect in summer. Asparagus in a butter and ginger sauce, sweet potatoes boiled in wine, fresh sheep’s cheese and French Angelot. Pies of artichokes with bone marrow and dates, and the crisp, watery cowcumbers, of which I had heard but never tasted. Against the outside wall, the gardeners sheltered pots of herbs, to make sallats for Sir Robert even in winter and dress the celery they’d nursed through the cold days. The smell of the rotting manure came up from the melon pits – ‘Though if we’re not careful the master will be eating them raw as soon as they’re ripe,’ the under-cook said, ‘instead of baked in milk, the proper way.’ The household laughed at Sir Robert’s tastes, but they laughed affectionately.
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