WANTING TO AVOID further revelations from Fanny, I sent her to the kitchen to deal with the quails Mrs. McAfee had brought by earlier, in payment for the garlic ointment I’d given her for pinworms.
“I’ve always wondered,” I remarked, tying Elspeth’s sling. “What, exactly, does ‘grass-combing’ mean? Is it actual bad language, or just descriptive?”
She’d been holding her breath as I made the final adjustments but now let it out with a small sigh, gingerly testing the sling.
“Thank you. As to ‘grass-combing,’ it usually means someone who is either idle or incompetent. Why combing grass should imply either attribute is unclear, but it’s not actually bad language as such, unless the term ‘bugger’—sometimes multiple buggers—is attached. Though I can’t say I’ve ever heard it without ‘bugger,’” she added fairly.
“I daresay you’ve heard more than that, if you’ve been at sea. I think you may have shocked Fanny. Not the language itself, but that you don’t look like a whore.”
She snorted briefly.
“Women tend to be much freer in their speech when there are no men present, regardless of profession; surely you’ve noticed that?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “Including nuns.”
“Do you know any nuns? On a personal basis?” she asked, with a trace of sarcasm. Her face was beginning to show a tinge of color, and her breathing was easier.
“I did, once.” And in fact, while I’d seldom heard any of the sisters of the H?pital des Anges say anything like “grass-combing bugger,” I’d certainly heard them mutter “Merde!”—and a few more colorful sentiments—under their breaths while dealing with the more trying aspects of practicing medicine among the poor of Paris.
And suddenly I had a vivid memory of Mother Hildegarde, who seldom said even “Merde,” but who had told me quite frankly that the King of France would expect to lie with me if I went to beg him for Jamie’s release from prison. And then she’d dressed me in red silk and sent me off to do exactly that.
“Merde,” I muttered, under my own breath. Elspeth didn’t quite laugh—probably because it would hurt her shoulder—but snorted a little.
“It’s been my observation,” she said, “that either sex is much more constrained in language when in the presence of the other than when they are solely in the company of their own kind. Save perhaps in brothels,” she added, with a glance toward the kitchen, where Fanny was singing “Frère Jacques” to herself while rolling quails in clay. “That is a remarkable child, but you must really try to persuade her not to—”
“She knows not to say things like that in public,” I assured Elspeth, and poured some whisky into a cup. “But you’ll be quite free to say anything you like tonight, because I’m not having you go back to your cabin in your condition.”
She gave me a considering look but then shoved a straggle of steel-gray hair behind one ear and acquiesced.
“I’m not sure whether by my ‘condition’ you mean injured or intoxicated, but in either case, thank you.”
“Shall I send Fanny up to your cabin to smother your fire?”
“No. I drowned it before I left, with a pitcher of cold tea. Quite a waste, but I couldn’t tell how soon I should be back.”
“Good.” I took her by her sound arm and helped her off the table. “I’ll help you upstairs to lie down for a bit.”
She didn’t argue, and I saw how much the injury and the journey to reach me had exhausted her. She lifted her feet with slow care, to keep from stumbling on the stairs. I parked her on one of the children’s beds, provided her with a quilt, a pitcher of cold water, and a stiff dram, then went down to help Fanny with the supper preparations.
Brianna had shown her how to pack quails in clay for baking in the ashes, but this was the first time she’d done it alone, and she was frowning at the row of pale clods and smears of mud on the table.
“Do you think that’s enough mud?” she asked me, dubiously. There was a long streak of clay down her cheek, and quite a bit in her hair. “If it’s not enough, Bree says, it will crack before they’re cooked and burn the meat, but if it’s too much mud, they’ll be raw inside.”
“I expect we’ll be too hungry to care much by the time they’re cooked,” I said, but gave one of the little packages a light squeeze and felt the clay give under my fingers. “I think we may have a few air pockets in the clay, though. Squish them—lightly—with your hands all over, to be sure we’ve got rid of all the air—otherwise, when the steam hits an air pocket, the quail—well, the package, not the actual quail—will explode.”