Read As Meat Loves Salt for Free Online

the Master could change his mind.'
    I remembered that. When the man came into the field and bade us follow him, for we were now to work indoors at Beaurepair, he must have thought we would never move off. Izzy stood motionless and speechless, while I dropped to my knees thanking God, for I knew what we had escaped. Servitude inside the house was still bondage in Egypt, but we were now shaded against the noonday heat.
    Caro's fortune was even humbler than my own. Margett told me that Caro's mother, Lucy Bale, had been a maid at Beaurepair in time past, a woman about the Mistress's own age and her entire favourite.
    'It ended sadly, though,' the woman said. 'In the same year that the Mistress married Sir John, Lucy found herself with child. That's a fault easily wiped out, to be sure! — but her Mathias was killed. An unlucky fall.'
    Later, Godfrey told me more. Lucy, it seemed, bore up under her shame with no little dignity. Sir John would have sent her away, but his wife argued that provided she showed herself repentant, she should stay, else she would surely sink to a most degraded condition. In the
    event she had no chance to sink, for she died in giving birth to her daughter.
    The child, which was of a rare white-and-gold beauty (both Lucy and Mathias were, said Godfrey, bright as sovereigns), was christened Caroline and put under the care of the then steward's wife, to be raised up a servant. I remembered her being shouted for, and once, when she might be six or seven, dragged by her hand through the great hall, trembling, for the steward's wife was sharp of tongue and temper. Had Mathias lived, Caro should have been called Caroline Hawks, but none of his kin wished to claim her, so she kept the name of Bale. Izzy, finding her one day weeping in the garden, took her in his arms and dried her eyes and nose on his shirt. He called her Caro for short, and Caro she became.
    'Come along, Jacob.' Godfrey stood before me, smoothing down his collar. 'Leave that for later and wash your hands. The meat is ready to go out.'
    I rinsed the sand off my fingers in a bowl of water before following him into the kitchen. The roast was set upon a wheeled table, and as fragrant as the stalled ox must have smelt to the Prodigal — a fine piece of mutton stuck with rosemary. Around it stood dishes of carrots and peas, a pigeon pie and sweet young lettuces dressed with eggs, mushrooms and oil.
    'Let us hope they leave plenty over,' I said to Godfrey.
    'Amen to that.' The steward poured wine from a decanter, held it up to the light and sipped it. 'Very pleasing. I will help you with the dishes and then come back for the drink.'
    We trundled in with the mutton, my mouth watering. Someone, most likely Caro, had set up the table with such precision that every cup and dish was in absolute line, not a hair's breadth out. No pewter today; instead, the plate glittered. At one end of this perfection sat My Lady, her hair like string and face flaky with white lead; at the other, Sir John, bloated and purplish. To his mother's right Mervyn sprawled like a schoolboy in a sulk, tipping the chair back and forth on two of its four legs. He was far gone in drink. I silently thanked
    Godfrey, grate on me as he might, for keeping Caro away. Only men and whores should serve Mervyn Roche.
    When he saw us he shifted in the seat with annoyance and almost fell backwards.
    'Mother!'
    'Yes, my darling?'
    'Mother, why don't you get a proper butler? Here's the steward serving the wine - what does he know of it? - and none but that booby to help him. If there be any wine.'
    'It is decanted, Sir, and I am going back for it directly,' Godfrey soothed.
    'I saw a man at Bridgwater carve in a new way entirely,' Mervyn announced. 'It was a wonder to see how he did it - here—'
    To my amazement he leapt from his seat and held out his hands for the carving knife and fork.
    Godfrey kept his hands on the trolley but dared do no more; he looked helplessly at My Lady. Sir John,