A Classical Education

Nobody made sweet potato pie quite like Miss Velma, distant cousin to Pearl and Vi and daughter of lapsed royalty, her true father was rumored to have been the son of an English duke who had lost his land in a tax dispute and then gone on to forfeit his life in a gentlemen's duel. True or not, it made for a good story.

Miss Velma was a slender, delicately coiffed and well turned out woman of some sixty years, soft spoken, blue eyed and unmarried. She lived alone in a thatched roof, vine covered cottage with stone lions - imported by boat all the way from London, so it was said - guarding her door and a flourishing thicket of grape arbor bordering the flagstone path to the road. A harlequin Great Dane called Sherlock was always on hand to greet visitors and a thick bodied Russian Blue cat who answered to Dr. Watson could usually be found on the hearth. In addition, a puffy, yellow canary hung in a brass cage in the front window - Nigel chirped and twittered and sometimes sang his way through the summer days, as sunny and cheerful as the season itself. Here Miss Velma made her sweet potato pies, baked scones and brown bread, sweet sugar cookies and tiny iced cakes and served Twinings Camomile Tea from a gleaming and elegant silver tea service. Afterward she would "repair to the terrace" and smoke an English cigarette from a thin, satiny white, ivory holder, telling us tales of life in the English countryside, the gentleman farmer she had once been engaged to - Lost in the war, she would say softly and dab at her eyes with a white, lace edged handkerchief - A terrible tragedy but it was in service to England and one can hardly ask for more. Have another scone, dear, do finish them off, they won't keep. And do try that pot of raspberry jam, I've only just opened it.

Rumor had it that as a young girl, Miss Velma had been on the stage, had performed for royalty no less. She could and often would recite Shakespeare for us in a rich, velvety voice and while we didn't understand it, were in fact, mostly mystified by it, we loved listening. Some days she would read - Dick Whittington and His Cat, Tales of Robin Hood, Peter Pan - carrying us away to distant places and magic lands with her laughter and proper, upper class British accent and just as easily slipping into a course Cockney with a wicked gleam in her eyes and a slightly off color if not outright salacious wink. "Liver and onions", she called it, as opposed to "Sweetbreads and port", her natural accent. She spoke Italian passably well, French with animation and flair, and could play either Bach or Chopsticks with equal ease on her baby grand piano. I enjoy being the product of a classical education, she told us with a wistful smile, And of course, a substantial inheritance. It does so broaden one's view.

As a well off and still single woman, even with her silvery hair and education, she had her share of admirers and gentlemen callers but while she welcomed them, she never offered encouragement or false promises. There were, off and on, unusually quiet, discreet and now and then even envious rumors that she had run away from a convent life, still pined for the gentleman farmer, was a disowned and disgraced princess, even that for intimate company, she preferred her own sex. If she knew of the gossip, she ignored it. There are, she would say with a smile, certain matters of one's lifestyle that one keeps private. It would be indelicate to do otherwise. Then she would grin at us and laugh, Besides it's quite fun to be a lady of mystery!

Her death, at the age of nearly ninety, made the papers as far away as St. John and Halifax. She had lived in her little cottage until the day she died, I read, never willing to relinquish her independence, her past, her mystery or the recipe for her sweet potato pie.