A Daughter of Fair Verona

In Fair Verona where we set our scene
In the kitchen of Casa Montague

            “The child is hellbent on destruction, Madame.” Nurse stomped into the top floor kitchen bustling with scullery boys and sous chefs, smelling like drying herbs and bubbling broth, and overly warm from the cooking fire that heated the great iron skillet. She planted her broad fists on her broad hips, and stared grimly at Lady Juliet. “Again.”

            Juliet looked up from the lemon she was slicing. “Which child?” She had seven children; nevertheless she had a good idea who Nurse was talking about.

            “Rosaline. Rosaline, your eldest daughter! Who continues to plan and scheme to live her life as she wishes it to be, rather than listen to the wisdom of her parents.”

            Juliet laughed. “Or you?”

            “Yes!” Nurse threw her arms in the air.                                                  

            Juliet didn’t have to be here, standing at the broad wooden table, but in the last year Cook had grown increasingly fragile and crippled with the joint disease…and while Juliet didn’t manage the household well—Rosie did that—and didn’t manage the accounts well—Rosie did that—Juliet loved to prepare food for her family. For her, the kitchen was the heart of their home. She knew she was a lucky woman; she surrounded herself with love and all the gentler emotions, and her Romeo indulged her by adoring her as she adored him.  

            “It’s all very well for you to laugh.” Nurse pushed a stool under Juliet’s bottom and hefted her up on it; she did not approve of her mistress standing when she could be sitting. “You’re not in charge of maintaining the girl’s purity in the face of so many men who wish to take it from her!”

            Juliet slanted a glance at Nurse.

            “Yes, I know. As her mother, you are, but I do the day-to-day work of guarding her like a dragon. Men pant after her, because she looks like you, my lady, with your curves and your sweet face, but Lady Rosaline's sweet face is a lie. She’s an ungoverned demon!” Nurse looked around, found one of the whole plucked chickens, dragged it toward her and pulled her knife from her sleeve.

            Cook sighed mightily.

            Nurse shook her knife at her. “I know how to cut a chicken!”

            “You do indeed. I’ve seen many of your chicken pieces.”

            Juliet discerned the double meaning in that, although the never-subtle Nurse did not.

            “What I need done is”—Cook pointed at the breasts piled up in quantities large enough to feed the Montague family—“debone those and slice them in into thin broad pieces.”

            “Why would I do that?” Nurse was always belligerent if she couldn’t readily discern a reason.

            Because I told you to. Juliet could see it hover on Cook’s lips. She was, after all, the commander of her kitchen.

            Cook and Nurse had clashed before, it was always loud, and would disrupt the low hum of the kitchen business as they prepared dinner for the Montague family and household.

            So Cook chose the peaceful explanation. “It’s summer. It is warm outside and hot inside. I want cutlets that cook quickly on the griddle. After you slice the breasts, you cover them in a towel and pound them with a mallet.” She pointed at that implement on the copper rack.

            “Then what?” Nurse demanded.

            “Then I create a masterpiece.” Cook finished her explanations, and turned to Juliet. “My lady, you’ve cut sufficient lemon slices. If you wish, you may stem and chop the parsley leaves.”

            Juliet said, “I’m at your disposal,” and pulled the large bunch of washed parsley toward her. She knew, as did Cook, that if she obeyed Cook’s orders without argument, Nurse would be so inclined. Also, it was best to change the subject. “Nurse, what has Rosaline done now?”

            “She can’t see what is as plain as the nose on my face!”

            Nurse’s nose was an edifice created to sniff out the smallest lies among her charges, so that was saying something.

            “She refuses to fall in love as is proper!” Nurse deboned and sliced the chicken breast with skillful zeal. The woman had a well-deserved reputation for knife-work, and not always in the kitchen or at the table. The last man on the Verona streets who tried to rob Nurse no longer had the gonadi to create further bambinas.

            “Rosie was never a sentimental child,” Juliet said. “Remember when she was seven and we let her hold her newborn sister to introduce her to the household—”

            Nurse started to chortle.

            Cook asked, “Which sister was that?”

            “Katherina,” Nurse said.

            “—and Katherina took that first, massive baby poop?”

            “It leaked through her wraps and onto Rosie's new sleeves, the ones I made her to convince her another baby in the family was worthy of celebration.” Nurse rocked back and forth as she laughed.

            “She handed that baby to me and in a tone of such lofty, adult disgust, she announced, “Mamma, I do not know why you and Papà continue to produce such ill-mannered beasts as these.’” Juliet grimaced. “I should have known then what her future would hold.”

            “What woman doesn’t want babies?” Nurse demanded.

            “What woman wants baby poop?” Cook returned with prosaic good sense. To one of the scullery boys, she said, “Bring me the jug of lemon juice from the cellar. Do you remember which one it is?”

            Tommaso was perhaps fifteen, all legs and arms with a pock-marked face that showed his brutal past on the streets, yet Juliet thought he showed promise.

            “Yes, Cook,” he said. “It’s the yellow clay jug on the bottom shelf. Yesterday, I squeezed the last of the lemons and filled it myself. Shall I bring the lemon zest also?”

            “A good thought. No more than this.” Cook slowly made a circle of her crooked fingers to show him what she required. “Also a dozen shallots, four heads of garlic, and the salted capers. Can you carry all that?”

            He smirked. “Of course, Cook.” He bowed and ran from the room.

            “Forsooth, Madame, you were right to pick him up out of the shit. He’s cleaned up well and he shows intelligence I wouldn’t have imagined.” Nurse didn’t like to admit when she was wrong, no more than anyone did, but she generously gave praise when it was due.

            She was a good-hearted woman, Juliet’s wet nurse who had come with Juliet into the Montague household. She had eased the way for the young, pregnant bride and for all the Nurse had her loud irritations and outspoken opinions, she was swift and smart and would kill for Rosie and all the children in her charge.

            Juliet placed her head on Nurse's shoulder. Nurse leaned her head against Juliet’s and they took a moment to revel in their mutual affection. When Juliet lifted her head, Nurse began with good humor pounding the pile of chicken cutlets before her. She looked up and grinned. “This is fun!”

            “I want them thin”— Cook showed her the width between two fingers—"but unbroken,” Cook instructed. “When you do that, place them beside Lady Juliet.”

            As Nurse pounded the chicken into cutlets and piled them beside Juliet, Cook added handfuls of well-crushed bread crumbs to a plate, mixed in fine crushed sea salt and a small amount of pepper she had ground herself, and handed it to Juliet. “Dredge the cutlets and shake off the excess crumbs.” Then, sensibly, she said, “You complain that Lady Rosaline refuses to fall in love as is proper. By that you mean with one of her suitors?”

            “Yes!”

            “It’s been the case for all of Rosie's betrothals, so that cannot be the only explanation.” Juliet needed to get to the real reason of Nurse's perturbation to discover whether this was one of Nurse's tempests in a teapot or if she needed to intervene. “What has Rosie really done?”

            “She encourages Imogene.” Nurse's cheeks turned a sturdy red.

            Imogene was twelve, a hoyden and possibly Rosie's favorite sister…not that anyone else suspected that, but Juliet could discern the fondness of one hoyden for another. Patiently, she asked, “What has Imogene done?”

            “She climbed the walnut tree and when I scolded and told her to come down because she’s a young lady now and she needs to stop having fun, Lady Rosaline climbed up to sit with Imogene and grin at me like a…a monkey in a jungle.” Nurse swung her broad arm to the east where she imagined monkeys and jungles must reside.

            Ah. More of a clash of wills than a real issue. Her healthy children were a joy—most of the time—who of course pushed the limits of all that was right and proper. That was what children did and, when she wasn’t dealing with the fallout, she was happy for that. She didn’t want meek progeny who would be victims. She wanted them to be strong, to stand up to life’s challenges, as she and Romeo had done. Although…possibly without all the blood and death.

            Juliet set to smoothing Nurse's ruffled feathers. “The children do love to climb that tree. Its mighty branches appeal to even me.”

            Nurse's eyes grew round in horror. “Madame, you would not! Not in your condition!”

            “No, I would not. Yet as they face the wind and imagine they fly, so my soul wishes to soar.” Juliet took Nurse's chicken-sticky hand. “Let the children be children as long as they can. Torn skirts can be easily mended, but offspring confined to adulthood too soon is a bitter brew.”

            “Walnut stains!” Nurse pointed out.

            Cook handed Juliet a wet towel to wipe her hand clean. “When I was a girl, I was ambitious. I worked hard to learn my trade and become a cook in a noble household such as this. I imagined that someday I’d have time to scale my trees and swing on their branches, have a family and children and a life. Yet a souffle cannot rise twice, and I cannot ever be so young again.” She looked wistfully at her crooked fingers. “When I go to heaven, I pray that the Virgin will assign me to a flowering peach tree where I may climb and lounge and smell the ripe fruit.”

            Nurse stared at Cook as if she comprehended at last.

            Juliet rubbed Cook’s hunched shoulder and again comprehended how well her own impetuous marriage had turned out. She thanked Jesus and St. Xeno for that.

            Nurse harumphed and turned back to pounding the chicken. “Lady Imogene tried to tell me ripped skirts were in fashion!”

            Juliet grinned as she breaded one cutlet after another. “That kid keeps us all on our toes.”

            “She said her friends admire her torn clothes.” Nurse puckered her mouth as if the words she spoke tasted off. “She said Princess Isabella offered to trade her a pearl-embroidered silk bodice for the skirt she snagged on a branch while running through the garden.”

            “That’s ridiculous!” Juliet said. “As if anyone would ever think to make a fashion statement in torn clothes, much less trade or buy—”

            Cook cleared her throat.

            Nurse and Juliet turned to her.

            She nodded at them.

            “You’re jesting!” Juliet couldn’t believe it. “Ripped clothes are in fashion?”

            Cook nodded. “Among the young, for the most part, but in the market I saw Lady Luce wearing sleeves that had been deliberately shredded.” She widened her eyes, a statement without words.

            Nurse had the words. “She is ever ridiculous,” Nurse pronounced, and returned to the subject dear to her heart. “Lady Juliet, whatever the children tear, I’ll make them mend!”

            “Most certainly. Children may have their dreams, but they need to learn the consequences of their actions and how to responsibly partake of the results.” Juliet watched Tommaso return with the garlic, shallots, a clay jar of caper buds and a jug of lemon juice, which Cook accepted with thanks.

            The hum of the staff excitement grew louder as the time for Cook to work her magic approached.

            With the precipitousness of summer thunder, they heard the thump of footsteps running up the stairs toward the kitchen. All turned to see Rosie dash in. Her gaze fixed on a loaf of fresh bread. In some great hurry, she snatched it up and tucked it into the basket on her arm. A small bottle of olive oil followed, a large slice of soft white cheese, a branch of fresh basil, a handful of apples and summer grapes that time had withered into raisins.

            Nurse cleared her throat.

            Only then did Rosie look up to see the phalanx of eyes fixed on her. Not even for a moment was there dismay; instead she curtsied to Juliet. “Madame Mother. I bid you good day.”

            “Good day to you, also, Rosie.” Juliet met her headstrong daughter’s rueful gaze. “Don’t ruin your appetite. Cook is preparing your favorite, chicken piccata.”

            “Lovely!” Rosie glanced in the basket. “Only one loaf, Mamma, among so many of us.”

            “All of you?” Juliet asked. “In the tree?”

            “Yes. We taught Princess Isabella to climb.” Rosie grinned impishly at Nurse and ran out the door.

            Nurse turned to Juliet and gestured wildly after Rosie. “The princess? They taught the princess of Verona to climb our walnut tree? Lady Juliet!”

            “They have taken Princess Isabella into their hearts, and she is much happier among our children,” Juliet pointed out the truth.

            Nurse nodded grudgingly.

            To Cook, Juliet asked, “Do you need us to prepare more ingredients? For with Rosie's generous heart, we may have half of Verona to dine tonight, and at Table Montague, all shall feast!”

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