In the Days of the Guild

by Louise Lamprey

Neither perfume nor dye could be bought in shops thereabouts, and there were no factories anywhere for making either. Dame Lavender had been, before she was married, maid to a great lady who had taught her women how to make such things out of the plants in the castle garden. Now, when her husband failed to come back from the wars in France, she turned to the perfumer’s trade as the one which she knew best.

There are a great many ways of making perfume at home. If she had had a still, Dame Lavender could have made almost any sort of ordinary perfume, flavor or medicine. In this process, a mixture of blossoms, spices and drugs, or the blossoms alone, or the leaves, is cooked in a glass bottle called a retort, with a long glass tube fitted to it so that the steam must pass through the tube and cool in little drops. These drops run out into a glass flask and are the perfume. Another way was to gather flowers when perfectly fresh and put them into a kettle of alcohol, which would take up the scent and keep it after the flowers are taken out. Strong-scented flowers or leaves were put with salve in a jar and covered, to perfume the salve. Dried plants of pleasant fragrance, mixed with salve, could be left until the scent had been taken up, then the whole could be melted and strained to remove the herbs. Each herb and flower had to be gathered at the proper time, and dried in the little attic. With this business, and the honey which the bees made, and the spinning done by both mother and daughter, they managed to make a living.

One day when they were at their busiest an old man came to the door and asked for a night’s lodging. He had a gentle way of speaking, although his cloak was threadbare, and he seemed much interested in their work. He knew some of the plants which they had never been able to name, and told what they were good for. He seemed so old, poor and feeble, that although she really needed all the money she could earn, Dame Lavender refused the coin he offered her. She felt that if he fell ill somewhere, he might need it.

The Norman castle on the hill had not been really lived in for some ten years. There was a company of soldiers in it, with two or three knights who came and went, but that was all. It had been built as a fortress, and was one; and the situation was such that it could not easily be made into anything else. The baron who owned it was in attendance upon the King.

Then, one day, a rumor went floating about the village, like the scent of growing hedges in spring. It was said that the castle was to be set in order for some great lady; and that she would bring with her two or three maids perhaps, but most of the work was to be done by the people of the village. This was rather mystifying. Mary wondered why a great lady should not rather choose to stay at the nunnery, where the Lady Abbess had all things seemly and well-planned. It was an old Saxon religious house and not at all rich; but Mary always liked to have an errand up Minchen Lane. The lane had got its name from the nuns, who were called “minchens” a long while ago. Sometimes they sent to get some roots or plants from the garden of Dame Lavender. She had some kinds that they had not.

It was nearly certain, at any rate, that the housekeeper at the castle would want lavender and violets, and Dame Annis told Mary to get the besom and sweep out the still-room. This was a shed with a stone floor, the only room they had which was not used for living or sleeping. The room they had given their strange guest, Tomaso of Padua as he called himself, was the one where Mary and her mother usually slept, and they had made up a pallet in the attic.

Mary worked briskly with her besom. It was just such a broom as English people still use to sweep garden walks, a bundle of twigs tied on a stick handle with a pliant osier. While she was at work she heard the gate shut, and saw old Tomaso coming in.

It cannot be said that she was exactly glad to see him. She felt that they might have all that they could do without a lodger just then. She spoke to him courteously, however, and he smiled as if he read her thoughts.

“I have not come to ask for your hospitality this time,” he said, “but to bring your good mother something in return for her kindness.” Beckoning to a boy who stood outside, he opened the gate, and the boy led in a little donkey laden with the basket-work saddle-bags called paniers. From these Tomaso took all the parts of a still, some fine earthen and glass jars, flasks and bowls, and bundles of spice which were like a whole garden packed into a basket.

“These,” he said, “will be of assistance to your mother in her work. I see her coming now, and I will talk with her awhile.”