It would be accompanied by a mixture of vegetables collected by the equally disgruntled butler from a walled garden belonging to the house and apparently tended by a part-time gardener who was not paid for his services but allowed to use the plot to supply his own large family. The cooking utensils in the kitchen were old and in a bad state and there was a dire shortage of such things as spices, cooking fats and even butter. When Eliza asked for salt for the potatoes she was given a jar with only a thin sprinkling of the condiment in the bottom. In sheer exasperation, Eliza said, ‘Surely the Trevelyan family isn’t so poor that it can’t afford salt? Even the poorest household in the land would have more than this!’ ‘The wealth, or otherwise, of the Trevelyan family is none of your business, my girl. You get on with what you need to do and hope they leave enough left over to keep you from going to bed with an empty belly.’ ‘If I thought they were going to eat it all I’d have mine first and tell ’em we’d been given a one legged bird!’ Eliza made the comment in a jocular manner, but Mrs Grimm had no sense of humour.
