‘Perhaps it is not such a good idea after all,’ I muttered.
‘Commercial advantage being your raison d’etre^ He shrugged. ‘Very well, sir, that is a matter for you to decide. How fare our ice blocks, Elizabeth?’
‘The one in water is almost melted, while the dry one has merely become cylindrical,’ she reported.
‘Excellent! What I would give for an accurate thermoscope, so that we could measure their relative temperatures.’
I watched as Boyle made some notations in his book, more stung by his previous comment than I cared to admit. ‘It is not commercial advantage.’
‘What is not?’
‘Why I do this. It is not for money. Or not money alone.’
‘I am pleased to hear it,’ Boyle said mildly. ‘But I would remind you of our motto. Nullius in verba. And whilst your words do you credit, it is not those but your actions from which I will draw my conclusions.’
‘I cannot give away my secrets.’
‘In that case, sir, you had better not consort too long with gentlemen like myself,’ Boyle said. ‘Secrets being, in our considered view, the sworn enemy of truth.’ He turned back to his work bench, and I understood that, despite the man’s courteous tone, I was being dismissed.
*
Back at the Lion I immediately called for salt. Elias brought a salt pot: someone in the kitchen had assumed I meant a litde salt for seasoning.
‘Bring me five pounds of salt, as quickly as you can,’ I told him.
The child looked confused. ‘We do not have so much.’
‘Then send out for it. How much do you need.> A shilling?’ I tossed him a coin, and saw his eyes go very big. ‘Go,’ I said. ‘And if there is a penny change, you shall have it, so long as you are back within the half-hour.’
By the time he returned I was ready to conduct my own experiment. I had been impressed by the logical manner of Boyle’s test with the ice, putting the two cubes side by side so as to see which ‘ melted faster: I now proceeded to do the same, but with mixtures of ice and salts. In one subotiere I had my usual mixture of ice and saltpetre - a crystal extracted from the urine of horses and humans; and, as the apothecary had noted, an essential and expensive ingredient of gunpowder; in another, I put a similar quantity of ice to which I added ordinary table salt.
Now I needed something to freeze. It hardly mattered what, so I went into the kitchen and helped myself to a jug of the ubiquitous custard which they made by the gallon every day, for their desserts.
I waited twenty minutes, then opened the lids, j
Inside the first pot was a dense, smooth mass. I reached in and scooped out a shaving of frozen custard.' I reached into the second and did the same.
I sat back on my heels, thinking.
Boyle was right: the saltpetre was not needed after all. Ahmad had talcenit on blind faith, as he had taken so much else about this process. Now that I knew the truth, I would be able to freeze an ice mixture for next to nothing - for a few pennies.
Amazed, I permitted myself a brief oath in Italian.
‘What is it?’
I turned. Hannah was standing behind me, wiping her hands
on a cloth. Without asking my leave, she picked up one of the bowls of ice cream and looked at it curiously. ‘May I taste it.>’
Quickly, I took the bowl away from her. ‘It is not for vulgar palates.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t need to taste it, in any case. It wants more sugar.’
‘I make these for courtiers. Not those who would pour sweetness into any dish if they could.’
‘I only meant,’ she said, moving away, ‘that more sugar might set the custard better.’
‘Sugar? Set the custard?’
‘I see you are learning English by the method that hears it and then speaks it back again, signor.’
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I demanded. ‘This pantry is supposed to be private when I am working.’
‘I was looking for the custard I made earlier. But I see that it has been turned into ice cream.’
‘You can have it back. Here, put it near a stove and it will be just as it was before.’ I scraped the frozen mixture back into the jug. As I did so I tasted some, as was my habit.
It was good - surprisingly good: and despite the fact that I had not stirred it as it froze, creamy and soft. In fact, it was almost as soft as the one I had made in Versailles, the one that had got me banished.
Although it wanted a little sugar, to set it.
A knowing expression crossed Hannah’s face. ‘Well?’
I scowled. ‘These are secret matters. Recipes that no one else has except me. I do not discuss them with anyone.’
4
Louise
‘We must tempt him to pleasure,’ Lady Arlington says. ‘If we can drag him from despondency, the rest will surely follow.’
Her voice, with its sharp Dutch inflection, carries into the room where I am sitting. Her husband’s voice does not penetrate so easily - a low rumble of which I can only catch a few words.
‘But grief is a kind of pleasure,’ Lady Arlington argues. ‘At least, a form of self-indulgence. Charles is gorging himself on sorrow today; tomorrow it will be a different kind of excess. Both stem from the same immoderation of character that he has always shown.’
Another rumble.
‘But we don’t have to choose,’ Lady Arlington says. ‘For the time being at least, she can be both. As for the other thing - we can cross that particular bridge when we come to it.’
She comes to see me, all smiles. ‘I have persuaded Bennet to let us go to court, to see a play. A private performance. The king is a great lover of theatre, usually, but since his sister’^ death he has been somewhat distracted. We are hoping that this entertainment may reawaken his interest.’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ I say dutifully. As their guest, I have little choice in the matter.
‘And I will lend you a dress. Using his sister’s seems to have piqued his interest, but it is something best not tried twice.’ She goes to my closet, studying what I have brought with me. ‘Dark clothes suit you, though. I will find you something grey.’
The play, frankly, turns out to be wearisome. There are only twenty or so of us watching, and most seem to find it hilarious.
although I find myself wondering if they are laughing because of the play’s wit, or in the hope of making the king laugh too. It is something about a courtier who pretends to be a commoner in order to avoid marriage with a woman he affects to dislike but actually wishes'to seduce. Rather than express merriment I do not feel, I adopt an expression of - I hope - polite but neutral curiosity.
The only other person not laughing is the king. While the others titter and guffaw, he is silent. After a while I glance at him, and find him looking at me. His stare is unnerving. I feel myself colour, and resolve to stare just as fixedly at the actors.
In the interval ices are served, but although Lady Arlington points them out to the king he waves the server away. He says to the person next to him, loud enough that I can hear, ‘What do you think of the play. Lord Clifford?’
‘Wonderfully amusing,’ Lord CHfford assures him. ‘The best he has done.’
‘I find it contrived.’
‘Indeed, sir. It is somewhat contrived.’
‘And yet you think it hilarious.’
‘Amusing, sir. I said amusing. It is amusingly contrived.’
‘Both acts were overlong.’
‘They were a little on the long side,’ Lord Clifford agrees. ‘But no less amusing for it.’
The king is looking at me now, not at his minister, and I wonder whether some of this baiting of the man might be for my benefit. ‘It was tedious and superficial.’
‘It repays careful attention, shall we say—’
‘The jokes were coarse and the characters thin. What do you say, mademoiselle?’ This last suddenly addressed to me.
‘I could not follow all of it,’ I say carefully. ‘But in any case, I prefer tragedy. What Racine calls its majestic sadness. If I am to be moved, I would rather be moved to tears than to cynicism.’