She Sold Pies to Survive – Until the Richest Duke’s Daughter Took One Bite and Everything Changed

PART 2:

Your grace 6 days  £12 and your board ‘ 12 ‘ 12 12 ‘ then I’d be a fool and I’m poor which is different. ‘ There are conditions. ‘ There always are. ‘ One you remain below stairs. Two, you do not use the great stair. The back stair is yours. Three, this kitchen is yours, but the menu for the 18th is  mine.

‘ Four. ‘ Four. You do not speak to Lady Georgiana. ‘ Why not? ‘ Because she is seven and she has  already decided you are the most interesting person in person in England. I would rather she were disappointed now than in 6 days. ‘ That’s honest at least. ‘ And one more which is mine and not Mr. Pinnox.

  You will never ask me why I want that pie.  Five rules. I’ll want one. Nobody touches my pastry but me. Not your cooks, not your maids,  and not you, sir. Whatever your house is worth. ‘ Agreed. Your grace agreed rather quickly. I have agreed to one condition in 4 years. Allow me the novelty.  You are not permitted to speak to me.

 ‘ That was breathing and you’ll not prove otherwise. ‘ Then I shall speak and you may simply not answer. ‘ Nobody has forbidden me anything. They never remember to. That’s a dangerous piece of luck for a child to work out so young. You answered. ‘ I did. ‘ Good. I shall be here tomorrow. Mr. Pinnock’s menu.

 40 covers  and nine of these dishes are white. He has designed a dinner the color of a fog. You will not say that to him. ‘ I’ll say it to the fog. ‘ I have not done that down here in a while. No. Mom, what were you doing in this house?  Miss Bray,

there were initials on the dresser.  ‘ There were. ‘ Whose? ‘ Mr. Pinnock. You knocked on my door at 6:00 in the morning and required me. You know whose?  ‘ His grace asked me to find out what became of Susanna Bray. I have not yet told him what I found. ‘ And what did you find? that the page which would say is gone out of the book.

Somebody cut it out with a knife. Eat your supper. Mrs. Tur. Mrs. Tier, what does this county actually like? The county likes to be able to say what it ate. Then we’ll give them something they can say. Nobody flinch. It’s a crust, not a magistrate. I have made a list of everything you are not allowed to say to me.

‘ There are nine things. And what’s at the top? ‘ Good morning. It is the one you break most. ‘ Good morning, Lady Georgiana. ‘ Good morning, Miss Bray. Is anyone in this room? ‘  ‘ Somebody’s in this room. ‘ Thank you. ‘ How long have you been standing there?

‘ Since. Is anyone in this room? You have a cook and two rangers and a room for pans and you’re eating off a rack with your fingers like the boot boy. Why? That question is next door to the one you promised not to ask.  Then don’t  answer it. Sit down and eat it off a plate like a Christian. I have not sat down to a dinner in this house in 4 years.

‘ I know. The whole town knows. They think it’s very romantic. ‘ And what do you think it is? ‘ I think it’s four years of cold trays going back up those stairs and some poor girl scraping them and everybody too well-mannered to say so. ‘ [snorts] ‘ Mr. Pinnock tells me your mother’s page  has been cut out of the book.

‘ He told me the same. ‘ Does that frighten you? It makes me angry. Which is cheaper, ‘ Miss Bray? Whatever is on that page, you did not do it. ‘ No, but I’m the one still here to be blamed for it, and she isn’t. That’s how it goes with the dead. They leave you holding the bill. They sometime. Yes, they do. 40 of the county come here on the 18th and the dinner is in the hands of a girl

who trades off a board. ‘ She is a cook. Aunt, ‘ she is a tray and they will  know it by the fish. Rafe, this dinner is not about dinner. 4 years is long enough for grief and too long for a county to wait for a duchess. Is that what the 18th is? ‘ That is what every dinner is. Stand up straight, girl.

 Where were you trained? My mother’s elbow, ma’am. In a room you’d call a cupboard. In a room you’d call a cupboard. ‘ You are impertinent. ‘ I’m flowery, ma’am.  It comes out very similar from a distance. If on  the tree, what did you say your name was? Bray, ma’am.  the 18th.

 40 covers and not one order placed with this shop. ‘ There’s a new cook, ma’am.  ‘ There is a Trey girl. What is her name? ‘ Bray. ‘ Susanna Bray’s girl off the parish book. Late of Marchwood House in service. ‘ Ma’am, I’ve said enough. You have said almost nothing and been paid handsomely for it. There is an old receipt book in that kitchen.

Come back when you have it.  Two years I’ve not looked in you.  Because while I don’t look, she’s just my mom. And after I look, she’s whatever’s in there.  Tom, the big copper off the fire now. Not in a minute. Sarah, those go out hot

or they don’t go out?  ‘ 22 minutes. ‘ Miss Bray, the removes are not as written. ‘ Nine of yours were white. I’ve left you six. It’s still a fog, Mr. Pinnock, but it’s a fog with a shape now.  ‘ I am not permitted at dinner. I am seven. You are. ‘ It is a scandal. ‘ I have the best pallet in this house.

And they have given my chair to a man who puts water in his wine. ‘ Then I’ll tell you what. Whatever they eat up there tonight,  you’ll have had it first. ‘ That is against at least two rules. ‘ Three.  Miss Bray, I must tell you I find you an extremely bad influence and I hope you will never stop 99  smudgwood.

 What is this? ‘ A pie, sir Henry. I have made exhaustive inquiries. I have made exhaustive inquiries. ‘ Yes, quite so. A dynamic performance. [laughter] ‘ Simply wonderful. [laughter] ‘ You are enjoying yourself. ‘ I appear to be. Your grace. Before the county praises this dish any further, it should know whose dish it is.

Mrs. Skington,  sit down. ‘ It is a Marchwood receipt. It was made in this house, in this kitchen 12  years ago, and it left this house in the apron of a woman who was turned out of it. Verity Susanna Bray dismissed from this  service and tonight her daughter has served it back to you at your own table and been paid £12 for the privilege.

The house’s own book. Her page cut her page cut out of it. ‘ Ask why a woman cuts a page out of a book, your grace, and you will not have to ask me anything else. Marchwood, is this true? But a cars to hundreds. I will look into it. Of course, your grace, ‘ you’ve selling me Jesus in Fortitely. ‘ They say your mom thieved it.

Tom, ‘ let him. He’ll hear it in the street tomorrow anyway.  What did his grace say? He said he would look into it. He said he’d look into it. Miss Bray, ‘ your grace, ‘ don’t do that. ‘ It’s what I’m called upstairs. I thought I’d see how it sat down here. ‘ There were 40 people in that room and half of them magistrates.

 Had I called her a liar with nothing in my hand, it would be in every parlor in the county by Thursday, as the Duke defending his cook. ‘ It’s already in every parlor. It went up the back stair before the plates did. ‘ Give me a week. ‘ I gave you six days. You gave me four words. ‘ What would you have had me say? that you’d eaten in this kitchen  off a rack with your fingers and that no thief’s daughter put that in front of you and that you knew it.

‘ And if she has proof,  ‘ then she’s got proof of something. I’d like to know what because I’d like to know who my mother was, too. You had four years of not eating, sir, and everybody called it grief and left you to it. I’ve had two years of a tin on a shelf I dare open. Nobody calls that anything.

They just call the rent.  ‘ Your £12. His grace directed that it be paid in full. ‘ Six. I worked six days out of six and I was thrown out of the seventh. ‘ Miss Bray, take the 12. ‘ Mr. Pinnock, I’ll take what I earned and I’ll not take what I didn’t because in about 9 hours, this whole town is going to be telling each other exactly what the braves take.

 It was cut out with a pen knife close to the spine by somebody unhurried. Hot pies. ‘ Fourpants. ‘ Fourpants. Mr. Dell. Same as Tuesday. ‘ Not today. Relas. All right, ma’am.  They’ve said

it in the square now. I’d sooner hear it from you. A character Susanna Bray, undercook, 11 years in this service. Honest, sober,  and able. signed and never used. You never went for another place at all. My dear Sue, here it is written out at last and properly because you always would do it by eye and then say it was nothing.

It is not nothing. It is the only thing anyone in this house has made me want in a 12 month. And I am past wanting much now. Constants will see you have money and a place away from here. Do not argue with her. She is unbeatable. Go before the end, Sue. I could bear the rest of it, but I could not bear you watching.

 Your friend Claraara Marchwood, she never stole it. The Duchess wrote it out for her in her own hand as a gift. And then she was paid to go away so a dying woman needn’t be watched by  her friend. And you never went for another place because you never could have said why you left this one.  2 years that’s been on my shelf.

2 years. ‘ [sighs]  ‘ It is mutton. You like mutton? ‘ I have no quarrel with the mutton. My father sent away the only person who has made him eat a dinner in 4 years on the word of a woman who sells sausages and dislikes being left out of things. I am registering a protest. ‘ You are seven. ‘  ‘ Yes, it is all I have got.

 I cannot write to the newspapers.   11 years of wages paid to the quarter day and never once short and then a final payment. Not wages. £40  in one line in a hand that is not the housekeepers. Whose is it? Your grace, I have written every [clears throat] word I have ever thought in a book, and I find I do not want to write this one.

Pinnac, it is Lady Constance’s  hand.  ‘ £40.  Your hand. Your hand. the quarter before my wife died.  ‘ Yes. You told me for 4 years that woman was dismissed.  That woman was dismissed. ‘ I told you nothing at all for 4 years. Which is different and which you never once questioned.

‘ Why?  because Claraara asked me to get her out of the house, and because I have never in my life been able to refuse Claraara anything, including dying, which I would very much have preferred she did not. And afterwards, it was simply easier that the woman had gone, had gone,  than that Claraara had sent her.

 And the page in the kitchen book. ‘ I did not cut a page out of a book. I am not a burglar, Rafe. I am a  snob. They are different vices, and mine is cheaper. ‘ Then who? ‘ Ask your own hall. A page does not walk to Verity Skington in a green police. Rafe. When you find it, do it where they said it.

 Three times this month, you were seen at the door of Skington’s  cook shop. This house has not placed an order at that shop in 2 years. Ersands, Mr. Pinnock,  your grace. She paid me two guineies for the page. She said it was only an old receipt. She said it was nothing  that mattered.

‘ Where is it now? ‘ In her cash box, sir. She keeps it under the tray. She showed it me. She was that pleased  with it.  ‘ There’s a carriage road. ‘ There is. You’ve not used it. ‘ I have found I would rather arrive at this door looking like what I am than what I am worth. ‘ And what are you? ‘ A man who said he would look into it.

Come up then. Mind the fourth step. It’s a liar.  Read the last part. This is her hand. I have not seen her hand in four years. ‘ I had the desk locked. ‘ Then sit down, sir, before you fall down. You may ask me now why I wanted the pie. I would rather you asked than that I simply said it.

‘ All right. ‘ Why? Because the last meal I ate with my wife in this world, she made herself in my own  kitchen badly standing up laughing. And I have not been able to taste anything since ‘ 4 years. ‘ Everything is paper. And then a child put a pie in my face in a market square. Your grace does us honor.

‘ You said a thing at my table and it was in this square by nightfalling. So we will finish it where it was repeated. You said the book showed it. The book showed a cut edge. You never showed the county the page. ‘ The page was gone. Your grace ‘ weave belly where under the tray. Ma’am, you told the man yourself.

That is my property. It is my house’s property. And you paid two guineies for it in front of a witness. An expensive way to acquire something. You told 40 people it’s simply gone. Two guineies for a receipt. Verity. ‘ It was. ‘ It was a woman’s name. You bought it for two guineies and sold it to a county for nothing.

‘ How this whis into your sense of the twain  written in the kitchen book of my house in my wife’s hand given by me to Susanna Bray. This being hers by right of invention and mine only by marriage. to a man with a large table. [laughter] [laughter] My wife gave it to her and my aunt paid her to leave this parish at my wife’s asking.

 And that was my family’s doing and not Susanna  Bray’s. Susanna Bray left my house honest. Her daughter cooked in it honest. And any person in this square who says otherwise after today is calling the late Duchess of Marchwood a liar in her own hand.  ‘ Miss Bray, I have not eaten a proper dinner in 4 days. ‘ 4 days.

It was a protest. It was extremely effective and I would like it to stop now. [laughter] ‘ Then eat you dreadful child. ‘ Thank you. Papa is going to say something. He has been practicing it on the horse. Miss Bray, I am offering you the kitchen at Marchwood. Cook of that house for life at your own wage with Mr.

 Pinnock’s menu subject to your veto. Your grace written down, Mr. Pinnock. ‘ No. No. ‘ No, sir. I’ll not be paid to stand in the one room in your house I’m allowed in. ‘ Offer me the kitchen and I’m your cook for life. A lovely wage, a stone floor. And I’d never once come up those stairs. Never times a termic art. And she the conting at King Ker as we jing the pimaty in the siximus.

Then I withdraw it. Miss Bray, come to dinner ‘ in your kitchen ‘ at my table. The 18th of next month. 40 covers. Every one of the people standing in this square and you at the top of it beside me announced. I shall require the correct form of your name. Miss ‘ Nell Bray. It’s not much of an announcement. Leave that to me.

 I have been announcing in different names for 40 years. Rule one, I stay below stairs. ‘ Rescended.  ‘ Rule two, I don’t use the Great Stair. ‘ Miss Bray, I wrote both of those rules and I have spent four days regretting one of them and 11 years regretting the other. Come up. ‘ Am I permitted in this room? ‘ You own it. That has never once been the same

question. ‘ Then yes, stand there and don’t touch my pastry. Nell Bray, I have a house with two rooms for pans, a daughter who has appointed you her personal cause, and a table I have not sat at in 4 years. I would like you at the top of it, not as my cook. ‘ Say the rest of it. ‘ Marry me. ‘ You flower on you.

I am aware. ‘ A duke stood in his own kitchen with flower to the wrist asking a tray girl. ‘ Yes. ‘ Yes. ‘ Yes. ‘ Yes. ‘ Yes. Rafe. I’d have had you with nothing and you nearly arranged it.  ‘ Is the bread ready for the oven yet? Finally, Miss Bray, may I be at the top of the table as well? I have the best pallet in this house, and nobody has ever once asked me.

‘ Come down then and mind the last step. Heat.  Heat.  Heat. Heat.  ‘