“Yes, please,” Charlotte said, then gave her usual piercing whistle of happiness, guaranteed to make one jump.
“What now?” Beatrice asked, lighting the flame under the kettle on the stove, as well as another under the large pot to which she quickly added brown sugar, treacle, vinegar, butter, and milk. Her basic recipe for treacle toffee, she could practically create it in her sleep.
“Nothing, I’m simply happy to be back.”
Thank goodness for her sisters!Amity had made their shop into a gold mine as a renowned chocolatier before marrying the Duke of Pelham a few weeks earlier. And Charlotte, an artist with her delicate marzipan creations, thoroughly enjoyed working in the front of the store while engaging with their customers.
Beatrice’s toffee was very popular, but it lacked the skill of her sisters’ creations, and she made for a poor shop girl indeed, abiding neither the snout-nosed aristocrats who came in with their silent servants to get free samples despite having more money than God, nor the foolish people who asked her question upon question, as if sweets weren’t simply uncomplicated treats of enjoyment.
“Just taste it,” she’d hissed at one curious fellow the day before.
Her family accepted she was a bit of a bookworm, happy to spend her evenings reading, mostly because doing anything else involved other maddening people. And she did not thrive upon the novels of sentiment generally considered acceptable for young women. She preferred books of facts and history, biographies, scientific improvements, explorations.
To that end, her father paid for a subscription to the London Library on her behalf, and she’d also been known to frequent the British Museum Library during the hours women were admitted. Sometimes she attended what was loosely termed “a lecture” at the London University in the evening. However, these often turned out to be more entertainment than educational and, thus, somewhat disappointing. She didn’t care for the meetings of the Literary Society for Women, as they were too esoteric. Instead, she had a subscription to the practical and idealisticWomen's Suffrage Journal,right alongside her favorite magazine,The Athenæum,and she greatly admired women who were making advancements.
Truthfully, though, Beatrice was equally impressed by the accomplishments of men, and rather unsure what she would achieve by being allowed to vote upon things she usually had no interest in. As for herself, she wondered if a life of making treacle toffee was enough and suffered occasionally from thedoldrums, as her father called it if he caught her moping at home.
Along with Amity, she had declined an official coming-out party at their home on Baker Street, while also knowing she could never be presented at the palace before the queen. That was not for the likes of a shopkeeper’s daughter. Thus, she eschewed a wardrobe of useless ballgowns for more books of her very own and the chance to travel with her family to the Continent. They had done so thrice already.
The bell tinkled above the door as the copper kettle started to boil, and Beatrice was very glad she didn’t have to attend the customers. Pouring water over the loose leaves in the bottom of their ugly but efficient brown-Betty teapot, she considered her next tray of toffee. She was going to add sultanas for the enjoyment of added texture.
“Beatrice,” came her sister’s voice, summoning her. Adjusting the knitted cozy onto the teapot, she parted the velvet curtain and went out front.
“This gentleman wishes to speak with you,” Charlotte said.
To Beatrice’s surprise, it was the American. Strangely, her spirits lifted. He was as good a remedy for tedium as any.
***
“THE PLAIN TOFFEE WASthe best.” Greer decided to tell Miss Rare-Foure immediately. “Without nuts,” he added, in case she’d forgotten. Although, by the look upon her face, she remembered their encounter only too well.
“Thank you,” she replied, and he thought it might have pained her to be nice since her tone plainly did not match her words.
“I found assorted flavors of boiled candies right where you said they’d be, all along Oxford Street.”
Her mouth drew into a thin line, and he was sorry to have mentioned them.
“Why do you despise them so much?” Greer couldn’t help asking.
The sisters — for by their appearance, they were obviously related — turned to one another, and they exchanged a glance.
Then the toffee-maker said, “They need very little skill to produce, except to take care you neither burn the sugar, nor yourself. And any number of nasty things can be put in them to make them colorful and forchildren, no less.” She emphasized the word in such a way as to let him know she disapproved of adults eating the hard sweets.
Greer considered the bag of brightly colored candy residing in his pocket. “Such as what type of nasty things exactly?”
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “You are from America and likely haven’t heard of the Bradford humbug poisoning of more than two hundred people. Twenty died from eating the sweets containing arsenic from a market stall in Bradford, Yorkshire.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat, thinking of the boiled candies he’d eaten since the day before. “Surely that was an aberration.”
“Someone got greedy and didn’t want to pay for pure sugar,” her sister pointed out. Unlike the blue-eyed Miss Rare-Foure, she had warm, brown eyes and darker brown hair. Moreover, she looked ... friendly—a distinct difference! “It could happen again,” she added.
“It could,” the toffee-maker agreed. “Adding cheap ingredients, or ‘daft,’ as it’s called, is often harmless plaster powder or limestone. Terrible to put in your food but not deadly, until some idiot used arsenic by mistake. They used to put stuff into cocoa, too,” she added, casting a glance over the chocolates on the shelves in the display, “before they figured out the best way to refine it. Although since it was usually starch to soak up the cocoa butter in a cup of hot chocolate, it didn’t kill you.”
“Would you care to sample something, sir?” asked the friendly sister, who seemed to realize it might not be the best idea to mention poisoning and death to a customer while trying to sell confectionery.
However, the crabbier Miss Rare-Foure continued undaunted. “It’s only since they abolished the sugar tax a few years back that you can be fairly certain sugar is what you’re getting in anything.” She nodded at her own words. “But you still have to worry about boiled sweets made with lead, mercury, chalk, and copper for the red, yellow, white, and green colors.”
Greer wasn’t too certain about the health risks, but had a feeling he didn’t want to eat copper or any of the other things she’d mentioned. He reached into his pocket and drew out the plain brown paper sack, looking extremely shabby compared to the bleached white bags Rare Confectionery used.
