Plain Cakes

Plain Cakes

Trigger warning: Off-page sexual assault

May 8, 1875

My dear Joan–

I received your last from St. Johns and am glad to hear that your journey met with no more difficulty after the carriage wreck and that your headache is gone. I would wish for your master’s leg to heal slowly and with great pain and am ready with suggestions as to how this might be accomplished without anyone’s being the wiser, but Beth refuses to include them. She is writing this out for me, being the village schoolmistress now—absurd; I am sure Beth was in short skirts and begging jam tarts from my kitchens barely a year ago. My eyes are not what they were, so I have asked for her assistance, though I suspect she is improving on my language, the wretch. But since she will only allow me to pay her in the very jam tarts she once begged from my kitchens, I suppose I must allow it. And really, what can one expect from a schoolmistress?

I hope your own kitchens are more peaceful now with your master laid up and that his incapacity forces him to behave properly. I have been worried he might do you greater harm, for all he has kept to groping and filthy words so far, and those are bad enough in all conscience. What is the housekeeper thinking, allowing him to interfere with her girls? Mrs. Drumley would never have allowed such a thing at Hollyfield, even if Master Tom had been inclined to try it—but he is much too sweet-natured, and all he has cared about are his bugs and butterflies in any case.

As far as your training, broth is less interesting to cook, to be sure, but it’s simple enough. Your mistress will return in a few months, and in the meantime, his mother will still have her evenings, which should give you chances to learn to make your grand dishes even without his dinners and balls. The jellies and cakes you describe for her card parties alone seem elegant enough for a ball, but then, our mistress’s tastes are much simpler than your fancy folk in London, thank goodness. Why you would want the work of running the kitchen in a grand household when the running of one in a simple country estate is so much work I do not know.

Matthew Clay repeats his offer to you, though he still hopes for the vicarage and I have reminded him of your views on being a vicar’s wife. He says he can see his way through if you change your mind and want a quieter life. A quiet life! I said he must have forgotten you entirely if he thinks you want that.

With love,

Your mother

December 28, 1875

My dear Joan –

I am pleased to hear that your mistress continues to prove kind now that she has finally returned from her visit with her friends, and that she bought Mrs. Rundell’s book for your kitchens. I have never seen it myself, but Mrs. Jennings over at the Beatie house speaks highly of it.

I tried your receipt for the French mille fool at Christmas. The household received it with enthusiasm, but in all honesty, I believe they would have received ordinary Christmas cake with similar enjoyment. It took hours to make and used up all the butter, which leaves us short. I shall return to our usual receipts after this, though it was pleasant for a change.

Christmas was quiet, with just two families for dinner besides Master Tom and his mother. Matthew Clay came too. He and Beth have published the banns and are to marry next week. They are moving into the vicarage, the old vicar having finally gone to live with his daughter in Woodham, and not a minute too soon. The poor man’s sermons wandered like lost sheep toward the end. And he was making other mistakes as well. He tried to christen Mr. and Mrs. Elton’s new baby Helen Grace last Easter, and the child is a boy!

You have not written of your master. I hope you are well.

With love,

Your mother

February 18, 1877

My dear Joan,

I am very pleased to hear of your promotion to plain chef. After only three years as a kitchen maid! Mrs. Watson must have praised your work to the heavens, as I am sure she should. You always learned so quickly and were a deft hand. I have no doubt that you make their French dishes beautifully.

The weather here is very wet, and everybody in the household has a cold. I have boiled more broth in the last week than I did over the whole course of the winter, and as everybody from the mistress to the stable boy is coughing, our supply of honey is running low. I look forward to spring.

Perhaps your mistress, as you say she is kind and approves your work, may remove you to their country estate to manage the kitchens there this summer? I know you are learning a great deal from Mrs. Watson, but I cannot think it is safe for you to remain there while the master remains in residence so often. I think you said he seldom visits their country house? Would it not be best for you to remove there if your mistress allows it?

With all my love,

Your mother

May 20, 1877

My dear Joan,

I have had yr last leter an I praye to God fr you. That yr mastur shal burn in the helfire is the onlie cumfurt I hav, an even that is a littel thing.

I must rite you meself as Beth wud never send such a remidy, bein a vicer’s wif, an I do hope you will pardin my bad speling. Burn this lettre onse you have red it.

Tincktur of mugwort shud bring yr corses on, tho it takes 2 week or more to be reddy. You prhaps hav got dryed mugwort in towne? Grind it down fine an put sevral spoonfulls in a jar of cidur vinigar. Keepe it in a cool dry spot an shake it evry day. After two or three week, strain out the juyce. Longer wuld be better but you ent got the time if if yr months count be rite. Drink the juyce to end the blokage.

I can start the mugwort in the kitchen here todaye if you cum home so I can tend you. These remidys sumtimes make troubble. God frbid you take ill or bleed to deth. Will yr mistris let you visit if you tell her yr mother is poorly?. An I beleve you can stay here to werk if you got a mind to even if you remane with child if we tel my mistris of yr troubble. She knows yr a good gurl, havin known you since you was a babe.

With all my love,

Yr mother

June 12, 1877

My dear Joan,

You foolish child. I would have taken care of you here. I am grateful some pain is the worst that came of your recklessness. I am sorry you remain ill, and also for having written too plainly in my earlier letter.

As you see, Beth is writing for me again, as she is a sensible girl and I thought might have some ideas about remedies for your illness, though not of the kind I suggested in my last. She was very distressed at the thought of it. But she has another idea. As you say your mistress is a kind woman, perhaps she will allow you to visit us for an extended visit in the fall? I have been feeling very poorly and would welcome your assistance for several weeks if she can spare you.

I will tell you Beth’s idea when you come to us.

Please thank your friend Julia for her help and discretion and offer her the enclosed molasses taffy with my thanks. I wish I could send her a batch of summer tarts, the strawberries being especially fine this season, but I am sure they would crumble in the parcel.

With love,

Your mother

July 1, 1877

Dear Mam,

You know well enough as mistress would never allow me to visit more than a day or two. Ordinarily, it’d be as much as my place is worth to even ask. But seeing as I can’t let out my dresses no further, I knew I’d be turned off in disgrace soon anyhow. So I asked the housekeeper if I might have a word with mistress, and this afternoon mistress called me into her private sitting-room.

I told her as you was poorly, and I asked if I might come stay with you a while till you was better. Mistress said she couldn’t see her way to allowing such a thing. “If every servant up and left when they had a mind to” says she, “the house would be in chaos.” I said, “Then I must give notice.” She said it were a shame, me doing so well under Mrs. Watson. I told her someone had to look after you. Then she stared at me, quiet-like, so long I fair blushed.

Then she says the housekeeper’s of a mind I might be ill myself. I went hot and cold all over. She saw the look on me and said she meant to keep a good Christian house, and if I couldn’t behave like a decent girl, maybe it were best I go tend to my mother—she said mother, not mam—and that she wouldn’t trouble herself to give me a character.

Well, the devil got into me then, and afore I knew it, I burst out saying God might strike me dead if I’d ever done aught to bring on such illness. I said it were a shame if a good girl couldn’t do her duty without being troubled by the men of the house, and if she truly wanted a Christian home, she’d best look to its master first afore turning off a decent girl with no reference.

Mistress went red as a poppy and looked fit to burst. I turned on my heel and walked out without asking leave. She’d already said she was turning me off without a character, so what harm was there in it?

My mistress sent a message allowing as I may sleep the night, as the train has already left, and Harry the footman is to walk me to the station come morning and see me on the train. I am sure it is for the look of the thing, for I doubt she cares overmuch for my wellbeing, but I am glad of it, as I have nowhere else to go. Though when you think about it, little could happen to me out there that has not already happened to me here.

So I stay one more night.

I am putting this letter in the early post, and I do hope it reaches you before I do. I shall walk from the station, so don’t expect me till nightfall tomorrow.

Love,

Joan

April 17, 1881

My dear Joan,

I hope the inn is thriving and that John continues strong in his recovery from his fall. I am glad to hear that the new road they have built is bringing fresh trade, and that your new ale is popular. Stews and mutton and ales and fruit cakes – good plain food may not hold the same interest for you as the fine cooking you used to do in town, but the point is to cook it well. And sometimes perhaps you might try some of your old, fancy receipts for a little variety. Plain folks will enjoy your cakes and jellies too, see if they don’t.

Little Jamie is strong and doing very well. He looks so different from his sister that people comment on it, but nobody has guessed the truth, and why should they? They never saw you as you increased – nobody questioned your illness, knowing as we all do how filthy London is -- and they never saw Beth during her lying in. Why should she not have had two babes? And yet some days I am surprised some days that nobody sees it, as like you as he is when you were a little one. But then, they have no reason to remember you as I do from that time.

I passed your thanks to Beth again. I believe John would have married you in any case, but nobody will tell him about Jamie unless you do. Maybe someday you will. Beth says no thanks are needed. Jamie is her own child, same as Daisy.

Master Tom sends his regards and is glad you have maintained your recovery from your illness, and my mistress and Mrs. Drumley join him in wishing you well.

I know a country inn and life as a wife and a mother if God wills it and plain food was not what you wanted. But it’s a good life. And if you aren’t the girl you were, you’re content, I think. Certainly there were worse alternatives.

It’s enough, I hope, and that’s all that we can ask in this life, for the Lord’s sake.

With love,

Your mother