The House at Old Vine by Norah Lofts

Author:Norah Lofts
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752464978
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

I went away car rying the one word ‘Merravy’ as carefully as Emma Webster had carried the carter’s mug of ale.

That was a concrete thing, like a hard round pebble one could grip; but I carried something else too, flimsy and shapeless – the silly, inexplicable certainty that between these two women, so much alike, so entirely different, there was a link, something hidden and fascinating, human and strange.

Then I remembered that I was a Rahabite, and I clutched my pebble.

Half-way along the street that led back to the market place there was a cook-shop, very sweet smelling, with dishes of tarts and saffron cakes and gingerbread in its narrow window. I went in and found behind the counter a woman who, except that she was small, very much resembled my overnight image of Mrs. Kentwoode, severe-looking, dressed in dark grey and wearing an ugly linen cap, I said that it all smelt so good that I was overcome by greed and could I have a square of gingerbread and did she mind if I ate it there and then. She was much less strict than she looked; and she, too, had a grievance, a small but rather engaging one. She said that when you made cakes and sold them all day long you couldn’t bring yourself to eat one.

‘When I was a little girl I used to stand outside this very window and sniff and stare hnd long for a penny to spend. And when Joe asked me to marry him, do you know what I said? I said:’ “I’ll ruin you, love, in a month. I shall eat more than I sell.” And I had the run of my teeth for a fortnight, after which I couldn’t eat a cake to save my life.’

‘That is hard,’ I said. ‘You miss so much. I’ve never tasted such gingerbread in all my life.’ Then I slipped in my question about Merravy.

Oh yes, of course she’d heard of it. It was out at Nettleton, Sir Rawley Rowhedge’s place.

‘Funny you should go and ask that. Seeing you bite so hearty made me think of Master Charles. In the old days he’d come in sometimes on his pony and set out there and rap the window with his whip. I didn’t have to ask what he wanted. Lemon-curd tarts. Lemon-curd tarts he had a passion for; I’ve known him eat eight straight off. Once I say to him, “Master Charles, I’ll give you the recipe then they can make you some at home,” and he say, “Oh, Mrs. Bun” – he always called me that, though Platt is my name – “Oh, Mrs. Bun, don’t do that, that’d spoil it.” You see, he knew. Poor little chap.’

Why ‘poor little chap?’ Had he died young – of a surfeit of lemon-curd tarts?

‘Has he, like you, outgrown his liking for goodies?’

‘I don’t know. I never saw him after he went off to Cambridge. But to me there’s always something sad about the way little boys grow up and alter.

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