The Angel of Waterloo by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

A Lime, Tangerine or Lemon Butter

An Excellent Ascorbic, most Strengthening and Delicious, especially Efficacious for Colds of the Head.

Heat gently the juice of six Lemons, or six Tangerines or twelve Limes, a half cup Butter, a cup Sugar, four beaten Eggs, fine Cornflour one tablespoon. Bottle as soon as it thickens. Seal & keep cool. It will last three Days in a stone Larder.

From the Notebooks of Henrietta Bartley

1821

Dear Mrs Higginbotham,

Thank You for your Christmas Wishes! They arrived on the Celeste in late January, but were most Welcome. It is so kind of You and Surgeon Higginbotham to remember me. I am afraid there was some Confusion over the spelling of my Surname when I arrived. It has been erroneously changed to Bartley, and it seems easier to accept the Misspelling than attempt to change it.

Our Colony is still small, though growing rapidly, and Governor Macquarie sees a great Future for it, even equal perhaps to the Cape. I have enclosed a Watercolour of the Harbour. It is magnificent, and could hold twenty Navies in its many Branches.

The work is not by my own Hand, which is as Clumsy with the Paintbrush as always, but by a Friend of mine, Mrs William McDougal. She and her Husband and Mother-in-law offered me Hospitality until my new Home was completed. Mrs McDougal is the former Miss Gwendolyn Lloyd, daughter of the late Major Douglas Lloyd, who served at Coruna when Surgeon Higginbotham was also posted there.

May 1821 bring you and Surgeon Higginbotham Health and Happiness, and may you receive this before the Year is out! Please give my good Wishes to Elinor, Mary, Janet and Master Thomas,

Yours most respectfully,

Mrs M Bartley

‘You must have a verandah,’ declared Colonel Salisbury as they sipped turtle soup in the stifling January heat of his most splendid dining room. ‘Couldn’t do without a verandah back in India. Perfect place to sit in the summer and catch the breeze.’

‘An enclosed stove, Mrs B,’ announced Mrs Cook, kneading bread lightly salted with sweat. ‘And no need to worrit your head about it, ’cause I’ve given the order meself to the blacksmith and the stove will be ready as soon as the flagstones are laid in the kitchen.’

‘I planned an outdoor oven,’ offered Hen. ‘They have them in Portuguese villages — big enough for twenty loaves of bread or to roast a whole sheep without heating up the kitchen.’

‘I will look forward to that,’ said Mrs Cook politely. ‘You just tell me when the floor has settled, and I’ll have Jenkins install me oven.’

‘More manure, and you will soon have most excellent crops,’ enthused William, as he showed her his neat rows of orchard, all enclosed in a thorny hedge of citronelle that (mostly) kept the goats out. ‘It is impossible to give the soil in this place too much manure. Not just from your own stock, or with buckets as you do now, but send your men over to the wharves with barrels thrice each week to sweep the streets.

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