The empress of ice cream

Carlo

A

The English hedgerows provide much that is good for ices.

The Book of Ices

The king was eating ices at last. But only with Louise. Each day I sent a different one to her rooms. Damson, rosehip, pear, blackberry, and the large, sweet hazelnuts called Kentish cobs. Nuts posed their own challenges, of course - they must be chopped fine, then roasted: I longed to match their crunchiness with the creaminess I had created in my pear ice cream, but although I had tried many times to replicate that smooth texture, it still remained something that seemed to only come about by chance. At one time I thought it must be something to do with eggs, since both the creme an£flaise, the posset and Hannah’s custard had contained egg whites or yolks, but when I tried adding beaten egg to my syrup I simply made a fruit-filled omelette.

There was enough work now that I could employ Elias every day. Although he was young, he was no younger than I had been when I started working for Ahmad, and from the point of view of secrecy, the younger the better, since he was unlikely to understand enough to explain the process to anyone else. In fact he proved an eager pupil, happily grating ice for hours on end, and although he was liable to ask questions I was careful not to tell him too much.

I was less pleased, however, when I entered the pantry and caught him in the very act of dipping his fingers into the last remaining bowl of pineapple sorbet.

‘What is this.>’ I cried, appalled.

He jumped back, his face scarlet.

‘I told you never to taste the ices,’ I reminded him furiously.

He hung his head. ‘I am sorry, master. I was only curious.’

‘You have stuck your dirty fingers in a dish intended for the king,’ I said. ‘That is very possibly treason. What is more, you have disobeyed your master, which most certainly is. Now you shall be beaten - and be grateful that it is only by me, and not the watch.’

I picked up a wooden spoon and began to beat him. He cried out: I raised the spoon to strike again, and suddenly found it gripped by someone behind me. I turned. Hannah was standing there, giving me a furious stare.

‘What are you doing?’ I said, trying to pull the spoon from her grasp. But her grip was surprisingly firm, and I could not.

‘I should ask you that,’ she said calmly.

‘Isn’t it obvious? I am beating him for a thief’

‘Whatever he has done, you strike too hard.’

‘I am his master, and I will strike as hard as I like,’ I retorted.

‘And I am his mother, and will not let you.’

‘His mother! ’ I was so surprised that I relaxed my hold on the spoon; she, meanwhile, had not relaxed hers, and it slipped from my grasp. No one had ever mentioned to me that Hannah was Elias’s mother. i

‘Yes.’ She tossed the spoon to one side. ‘Why do you look surprised?’

‘But then - where is his father?’

She hesitated. ‘Elias has no father.’

‘None you can name, you mean,’ I muttered.

‘That is exactly what I mean,’ she replied defiantly. ‘None I can name. And what of it?’

I ran a hand over my brow. ‘What of it? Madam, I have the royal warrant. And yet now I find I am employing a whore’s bastard as my assistant. In France or Italy that would be enough to have me banished from court.’

For a moment her eyes flashed angrily. ‘Then the courts of France or Italy must be very different to our own,’ she said. She turned to Elias. ‘Is it true? Did you steal?’

‘Yes,’ he said in a small voice. ‘I tasted the ice. The pineapple one.’ ^

She sighed. ‘I am disappointed in you. First, for taking what was not yours, and second, for believing all this nonsense about ices and pineapples in the first place. I have not brought you up to be so foolish.’

‘I am sorry,’ EHas said, his lip trembling.

‘Your punishment will be to work for a whole week without any pay. But if he beats you again, tell me, and you will work for him no longer.’

I was so astonished at this unheard-of interference in the relationship between master and assistant that I barely knew how to respond; by the time I had collected my wits, she had gone.

‘I am sorry, master,’ Elias said hesitantly. My anger had abated by now: indeed, something about his hangdog expression was almost amusing.

‘And have you learnt your lesson?’ I said, with as much sternness as I could muster.

‘I have.’

‘Will you eat the king’s ices again?’

He shook his head.

‘And what did you think of it, now that you have tasted it?’ I said, curious. I was expecting him to screw up his face and say that it was not very pleasant after all: but to my surprise his eyes lit up.

‘Oh! It was wonderful!’ he exclaimed.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Well, don’t get too used to it. It may be a long time before I let you taste another.’

‘Why so glum?’ Cassell demanded. The soldier came round every week or so, to pass on letters or pump me for information about the court. But today he had found me in an ill humour.

‘I have always suffered from melancholy,’ I tell him. ‘Particularly at this time of year.’

‘You Italians are notoriously moody. You should try some horse riding, or fencing.’ He brightened. ‘I know! I’ll take you to the theatre. Come, I insist.’ And so I found myself taking a boat with him to Charing Cross, and then walking up Drury Lane to the King’s Theatre.

This was the grander of the two theatre companies in London, he explained as we queued for our seats, the other being the Duke’s, under the patronage of the king’s brother, tlie Duke of York. It was my first visit to either establishment. To my surprise, men and women were sitting together in the stalls quite openly, while down in the pit some of the women wore masks. This, Cassell told me, was a sign that they were there for sport, and would acquiesce in being groped. Meanwhile, urchin girls ran up and down the aisles with baskets of china oranges; the smell of these as they were peeled, together with the wax candles that illuminated the stage, fortunately mitigating the stench caused by so many common people being crammed together in one place.

Before the play began, two trumpeters announced the king, and the people rose with a kind of cursory respect as the royal party took their seats in a box to one side of the stage - once again I was struck by the lack of formahty with which jthis was done, compared with France or Italy. Louise was by the king’s side, wearing a fashionable - that is to say large - French hat: there was an audible muttering amongst the audience at the sight of her.

The main female role that day was taken by an actress listed on the handbills as Mrs Eleanor Gwynne, although as far as I could tell from what Cassell said she was not actually married, and the audience - who clearly adored her, even going so far as to call out to her during the performance - called her ‘Nellie’ or ‘Miss Nell’. The bill was a double one. First came a serious play about the martyrdom of Saint Katharine; I thought it rather good, although the audience were restless, hurling orange peel at some of the less

impressive actors, though never at Nellie. They only really applauded when, after the action was over and Nell lay dead upon the stage, with the pall-bearer approaching to carry her away, she suddenly leapt to her feet and stopped him.

^Holdl Are you mud ? Ton dumned confounded do^l I am to rise and speak the epilogue. ^

At once the theatre erupted with cheers and laughter, only silenced when Nellie herself held up her hand. There followed a speech full of lewd innuendo, until eventually she advanced to the side of the stage and addressed the king himself.

‘But farewell, sir, make haste to me:

Vm sure ere lon^ to have your company.

As for my epitaph, when I am^one ril trust no poet, but will write my own:

“Here Nelly lies, who though she lived a slattern,

Tet died a princess, acting in Saint Cattern.

Then she started to dance, lifting her skirts and spinning around so that they rose even higher, an exhibition that the audience encouraged with whistles and applause. She was a pretty enough little thing, with shapely legs and a face that seemed full of jest and exuberance; but I could not myself see the appeal.

The second play was called The Conquest of Granada. This time Mrs Gwynne made her entrance in an outlandish get up, with a hat the size of a coach wheel, a vast black wig down to her shoulders, and oversized boots on her feet. The audience roared with laughter.

‘Why is that funnyI asked Cassell. He was laughing too, but he only shook his head.

S till wearing the enormous hat, the actress slouched over to where a male actor with a paste crown on his head was going

through a jewel box. Then she started to speak. Her voice had changed since the last play - she was speaking in a kind of broken, drawling English. But there was something familiar about it, all the same. '

I suddenly realised what I was witnessing. That huge hat was a send-up of French fashion, and the accent was -meant to be Louise’s - indeed, it was Louise: with a precision that was uncanny, the actress had somehow transformed herself into the Frenchwoman. At one point she crossed the stage, her tiny frame somehow taking on Louise’s lissom, long-legged stride; a faint touch of something determined in Louise’s posture now comically exaggerated into a parody of a bossy, pouting, hip-swaying coquette.

‘Me no bad lady! ’ Mrs Gwynne lisped, pushing the actor away. ‘If me tort I was so weckid a lady, I would cut my own trotei’

‘Madam Cartwheel! Can’t you see that I love you?’ the man implored, going down on one knee and winking at the audience, who were by now in stitches. Even the orange sellers were doubled up with laughter, their wares sphling unnoticed from their baskets to the floor.

‘Oh, Your Majestay, I cannot lurve you. For I am a gweat lady ofFwance.’

The man offered her some jewellery from his chest.

‘Well . . . per’aps I can lurve you just a leetlc^'' ihc said, squirreling jewels into her bosom. The audience went wild.

I looked up at the king. He was shaking with laughter. Beside him in the Royal Box Louise’s own face was expressionless.

‘I have had enough of this,’ I said curtly to Cassell.

He was holding his ribs as if in pain. ‘No - wait,’ he gasped. ‘They will get on with the play soon.’

‘I have seen enough fooling for one day.’ Angrily, I pushed my way outside, shoving my way past the helpless Englishmen and women, Cassell following me reluctantly.

‘You wanted me to see that,’ I said when at last we were standing in Drury Lane.

He nodded, unapologetic.

‘Why?’

‘Come, let us find a tavern.’ He began striding down towards the Strand, and I fell in beside him.

‘It is one thing to seduce the king,’ he said calmly. ‘It will be quite another to hold him. As you saw just now, there is no shortage of women eager to share in the spoils.’

‘Nell Gwynne?’

‘Amongst others. The Duchess of Cleveland earned her titles in his bed, and may yet add a few more to her collection. The actress MoU Davies has a fine house in Pall Mall. Peggy Clift has a pension of eight hundred a year. And those are just the ones he’s already had. There are a score of young women at court even now, all eager to fill Madam Carwell’s boots.’ He turned towards a tavern overlooking the river. ‘It will take more than mere acquiescence: she’U need all her filthy French tricks if she’s to—’

He never finished the sentence. I swung around with my fist, driving it into his face. I felt my knuckles meet his teeth, and then I was on the ground, Cassell’s knife at my throat, the blade as steady as the eyes that were now boring into mine.

‘Careful, signor,’ he whispered. ‘I have become fond of you, but I will not take an insult like that from any man.’

‘And neither will I,’ I said, staring him out.

After a moment the knife was withdrawn. ‘Christ’s wounds,’ he said incredulously. ‘You’re sweet on her yourself’

I got to my feet. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I merely resent the suggestion that I am in some way her pimp. If you wish to speak to her of what she must or must not do, do it yourself’

He began to brush the dirt off my back, as calm now as if our quarrel had never happened. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘If I inadvertentiy gave you any offence, signor, please accept my apologies.’ His tone was courteous; but I saw that his eyes were thoughtful, even so.

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