The Cook's Decameron Part 6

"It is a commonplace of the deepest dye to remark that ingrat.i.tude is inherent in mankind," he began; "I am compelled to utter it, however, by the sudden longing I feel for a plate from the hand of the late lamented Narcisse after I have eaten one of the best luncheons ever put on a table."

"Experience of one school of excellence has caused a hankering after the triumphs of another," said Miss Macdonnell "There is one glory of the Marchesa, there is, or was, another of Narcisse, and the taste of the Marchesa's handiwork has stimulated the desire of comparision. Never mind, Sir John, perhaps in another world Narcisse may cook you--"

"Oh stop, stop, for goodness' sake," cried Sir John, "I doubt whether even he could make me into a dainty dish to set before the King of Tartarus, though the stove would no doubt be fitted with the latest improvements and the fuel abundant."

"Really, Sir John, I'm not sure I ought not to rise and protest," said Mrs. Wilding, "and I think I would if it weren't our last day."

"Make a note of Sir John's wickedness, and pa.s.s it on to the Canon for use in a sermon," said Van der Roet.

"I can only allow you half-an-hour, Laura," said the Marchesa to Mrs.

Sinclair, "then you must come and work with me for the delectation of these idle people, who are going to spend the afternoon talking scandal under the chestnuts."

"I am quite ready to join you if I can be of any help," said Mrs.

Gradinger. "When knowledge is to be acquired, I am always loath to stand aside, not for my own sake so much as for the sake of others less fortunate, to whom I might possibly impart it hereafter."

"You are very good," said the Marchesa, "but I think I must adhere to my original scheme of having Mrs. Sinclair by herself. I see coffee is now being taken into the garden, so we will adjourn, if you please."

After the two workers had departed for the kitchen, an unwonted silence fell on the party under the chestnuts. Probably every one was pondering over the imminent dissolution of the company, and wondering whether to regret or rejoice. The peace had been kept marvellously well, considering the composition of the company. Mrs. Fothergill at times had made a show of posing as the beneficent patron, and Mrs. Gradinger had essayed to teach what n.o.body wanted to learn; but firm and judicious snubbing had kept these persons in their proper places. Nearly every one was sorry that the end had come. It had been real repose to Mrs. Wilding to pa.s.s ten days in an atmosphere entirely free from all perfume of the cathedral close. Lady Considine had been spending freely of late, and ten days' cessation of tradesmen's calls, and servants on board wages, had come as a welcome relief. Sir John had gained a respite from the task he dreaded, the task of going in quest of a successor to Narcisse.

Now as he sat consuming his cigarette in the leisurely fashion so characteristic of his enjoyment--and those who knew him best were wont to say that Sir John practiced few arts so studiously as that of enjoyment--he could not banish the figure of Narcisse from his reverie.

A horrible thought a.s.sailed him that this obsession might spring from the fact that on this very morning Narcisse might have taken his last brief walk out of the door of La Roquette, and that his disembodied spirit might be hovering around. Admirable as the cookery of the Marchesa had been, and fully as he had appreciated it, he felt he would give a good deal to be a.s.sured that on this the last evening of the New Decameron he might sit down to a dinner prepared by the hand of his departed chef.

That evening the guests gathered round the table with more empress.e.m.e.nt than usual. The Marchesa seemed a little flurried, and Mrs. Sinclair, in a way, shared her excitement. The menu, for the first time, was written in French, a fact which did not escape Sir John's eye. He made no remark as to the soup; it was the best of its kind, and its French name made it no better than the other triumphs in the same field which the Marchesa had achieved. But when Sir John tasted the first mouthful of the fish he paused, and after a reflective and regretful look at his plate, he cast his eye round the table. All the others, however, were too busily intent in consuming the Turbot la Vatel to heed his interrogative glance, so he followed suit, and after he had finished his portion, asked, sotto voce, for another bit.

In the interval before the service of the next dish Sir John made several vain attempts to catch the Marchesa's eye, and more than once tried to get in a word; but she kept up a forced and rather nervous conversation with Lady Considine and Van der Roet, and refused to listen. As Sir John helped himself to the next dish, Venaison sauce Grand Veneur, the feeling of astonishment which had seized him when he first tasted the fish deepened into something like Consternation. Had his palate indeed deceived him, or had the Marchesa, by some subtle effort of experimental genius, divined the secret of Narcisse--the secret of that incomparable sauce, the recipe of which was safely bestowed in his pocket-book? Occasionally he had taken a brief nap under the verandah after lunch: was it possible that in his sleep he might have murmured, in her hearing, words which gave the key of the mystery, and the description of those ingredients which often haunted his dreams?

One thing was certain, that the savour which rose from the venison before him was the same which haunted his memory as the parting effort of the ill-starred Narcisse.

Sir John was the least superst.i.tious of mortals, still here he was face to face with one of these conjunctions of affairs which the credulous accept as manifestations of some hidden power, and sceptics as coincidences and nothing more. All the afternoon he had been thinking of Narcisse, and yearning beyond measure for something suggestive of his art; and here, on his plate before him, was food which might have been touched by the vanished hand. The same subtle influence pervaded the Chartreuse a la cardinal, the roast capon and salad, and the sweet.

At last, when the dinner was nearly over, and when the Marchesa had apparently said all she had to say to Van der Roet, he lifted up his voice and said, "Marchesa, who gave you the recipe for the sauce with which the venison was served this evening?"

The Marchesa glanced at Mrs. Sinclair, and then struck a hand-bell on the table. The door opened, and a little man, habited in a cook's dress of spotless white, entered and came forward. "M. Narcisse," said the Marchesa, "Sir John wants to know what sauce was used in dressing the venison; perhaps you can tell him."

Here the Marchesa rose and left the room, and all the rest followed her, feeling it was unmeet that such a reunion should be witnessed by other eyes, however friendly they might be.

"Now, you must tell us all about it," said Lady Considine, as soon as they got into the drawing-room, "and how you ever managed to get him out of this sc.r.a.pe."

"Oh, there isn't much to tell," said the Marchesa. "Narcisse was condemned, indeed, but no one ever believed he would be executed. One of my oldest friends is married to an official high up in the Ministry of Justice, and I heard from her last week that Narcisse would certainly be reprieved; but I never expected a free pardon. Indeed, he got this entirely because it was discovered that Mademoiselle Sidonie, his accomplice, was really a Miss Adah Levine, who had graduated at a music-hall in East London, and that she had announced her intention of retiring to the land of her birth, and ascending to the apex of her profession on the strength of her Parisian reputation. Then it was that the reaction in favour of Narcisse set in; the boulevards could not stand this. The journals dealt with this new outrage in their best Fashoda style; the cafes rang with it: another insult cast upon unhappy France, whose destiny was, it seemed, to weep tears of blood to the end of time. There were rumours of an interpellation in the Chamber, the position of the Minister of the Interior was spoken of as precarious, indeed the Eclaireur reported one evening that he had resigned. Pockets were picked under the eyes of sergents de ville, who were absorbed in proclaiming to each other their conviction of the innocence of Narcisse, and the guilt of cette coquine Anglaise. Cabmen en course ran down pedestrians by the dozen, as they discussed l'affaire Narcisse to an accompaniment of whip-cracking. In front of the Cafe des Automobiles a belated organ-grinder began to grind the air of Mademoiselle Sidonie's great song Bonjour Coco, whereupon the whole company rose with howls and cries of, 'A bas les Anglais, a bas les Juifs. 'Conspuez Coco.' In less than five minutes the organ was disintegrated, and the luckless minstrel flying with torn trousers down a side street. For the next few days la haute gomme promenaded with fragments of the piano organ suspended from watch chains as trophies of victory. But this was not all. Paris broke out into poetry over l'affaire Narcisse, and here is a journal sent to me by my friend which contains a poem in forty-nine stanzas by Aristophane le Beletier, the cher maitre of the 'Moribonds,' the very newest school of poetry in Paris. I won't inflict the whole of it on you, but two stanzas I must read--

"'Puisse-je te rappeler loin des brouillards maudits.

Vers la France, sainte mere et nourrice!

Reviens a Lutece, de l'art vrai paradis, Je t'evoque, O Monsieur Narcisse!

Quitte les saignants bifteks, de tes mains sublimes Gueris le sein meurtri de ta mere!

Detourne ton glaive trenchant de tes freles victimes Vers l'Albion et sa triste Megere.'"

"Dear me, it sounds a little like some other Parisian odes I have read recently," said Lady Considine. "The triste Megere, I take it, is poor old Britannia, but what does he mean by his freles victimes?"

"No doubt they are the pigeons and the rabbits, and the chickens and the capons which Narcisse is supposed to have slaughtered in hecatombs, in order to gorge the brutal appet.i.te of his English employer," said Miss Macdonnell. "After disregarding such an appeal as this M. Narcisse had better keep clear of Paris for the future, for if he should go back and be recognised I fancy it would be a case of 'conspuvez Narcisse."'

"The French seem to have lost all sense of exactness," said Mrs.

Gradinger, "for the lines you have just read would not pa.s.s muster as cla.s.sic. In the penultimate line there are two syllables in excess of the true Alexandrine metre, and the last line seems too long by one.

Neither Racine nor Voltaire would have taken such liberties with prosody. I remember a speech in Phaedre of more than a hundred lines which is an admirable example of what I mean. I dare say some of you know it. It begins:--

"Perfide! oses-tu bien te montrer devant moi? Monstre,"

but before the reciter could get fairly under way the door mercifully opened, and Sir John entered. He advanced towards the Marchesa, and shook her warmly by the hand, but said nothing; his heart was evidently yet too full to allow him to testify his relief in words. He was followed closely by the Colonel, who, taking his stand on the hearth-rug, treated the company to a few remarks, couched in a strain of unwonted eulogy. In the whole course of his life he had never pa.s.sed a more pleasant ten days, though, to be sure, he had been a little mistrustful at first. As to the outcome of the experiment, if they all made even moderate use of the counsels they had received from the Marchesa, the future of cookery in England was now safe. He was not going to propose a formal vote of thanks, because anything he could say would be entirely insufficient to express the grat.i.tude he felt, and because he deemed that each individual could best thank the Marchesa on his or her behalf.

There was a momentary silence when the Colonel ceased, and then a clearing of the throat and a preliminary movement of the arms gave warning that Mrs. Gradinger was going to speak. The unspoken pa.s.sage from Racine evidently sat heavily on her chest. Abstracted and overwrought as he was, these symptoms aroused in Sir John a consciousness of impending danger, and he rushed, incontinent, into the breach, before the lady's opening sentence was ready.

"As Colonel Trestrail has just remarked, we, all of us, are in debt to the Marchesa in no small degree; but, in my case, the debt is tenfold.

I am sure you all understand why. As a slight acknowledgment of the sympathy I have received from every one here, during my late trial, I beg to ask you all to dine with me this day week, when I will try to set before you a repast a la Francaise, which I hope may equal, I cannot hope that it will excel, the dinners all'Italiana we have tasted in this happy retreat. Narcisse and I have already settled the menu."

"I am delighted to accept," said the Marchesa. "I have no engagement, and if I had I would throw my best friend over."

"And this day fortnight you must all dine with me," said Mrs. Sinclair.

"I will spend the intervening days in teaching my new cook how to reproduce the Marchesa's dishes. Then, perhaps, we may be in a better position to decide on the success of the Marchesa's experiment."

The next morning witnessed the dispersal of the party. Sir John and Narcisse left by an early train, and for the next few days the reforming hand of the last-named was active in the kitchen. He arrived before the departure of the temporary aide, and had not been half-an-hour in the house before there came an outbreak which might easily have ended in the second appearance of Narcisse at the bar of justice, as homicide, this time to be dealt with by a prosaic British jury, which would probably have doomed him to the halter. Sir John listened over the bal.u.s.ters to the shrieks and howls of his recovered treasure, and wisely decided to lunch at his club. But the club lunch, admirable as it was, seemed flat and unappetising after the dainty yet simple dishes he had recently tasted; and the following day he set forth to search for one of those Italian restaurants, of which he had heard vague reports. Certainly the repast would not be the same as at the "Laurestinas," but it might serve for once. Alas! Sir John did not find the right place, for there are "right places" amongst the Italian restaurants of London. He beat a hasty retreat from the first he entered, when the officious proprietor a.s.sured him that he would serve up a dejeuner in the best French style.

At the second he chose a dish with an Italian name, but the name was the only Italian thing about it. The experiment had failed. It seemed as if Italian restaurateurs were sworn not to cook Italian dishes, and the next day he went to do as best he could at the club.

But before he reached the club door he recalled how, many years ago, he and other young bloods used to go for chops to Morton's, a queer little house at the back of St. James' Street, and towards Morton's he now turned his steps. As he entered it, it seemed as if it was only yesterday that he was there. He beheld the waiter, with mouth all awry, through calling down the tube. The same old mahogany part.i.tions to the boxes, and the same horse-hair benches. Sir John seated himself in a box, where there was one other luncher in the corner, deeply absorbed over a paper. This luncher raised his head and Sir John recognised Van der Roet.

"My dear Vander, whatever brought you here, where nothing is to be had but chops? I didn't know you could eat a chop."

"I didn't know it myself till to-day," said Van der Roet, with a hungry glance at the waiter, who rushed by with a plate of smoking chops in each hand. "The fact is, I've had a sort of hankering after an Italian lunch, and I went out to find one, but I didn't exactly hit on the right shop, so I came here, where I've been told you can get a chop properly cooked, if you don't mind waiting."

"Ah! I see," said Sir John, laughing. "We've both been on the same quest, and have been equally unlucky. Well, we shall satisfy our hunger here at any rate, and not unpleasantly either."

"I went to one place," said Van der Roet "and before ordering I asked the waiter if there was any garlic in the dish I had ordered. 'Garlic, aglio, no, sir, never.' Whereupon I thought I would go somewhere else.

Next I entered the establishment of Balda.s.sare Romanelli. How could a man with such a name serve anything else than the purest Italian cookery, I reasoned, so I ordered, unquestioning, a piatio with an ideal Italian name, Manzo alla Terracina. Alas! the beef used in the composition thereof must have come in a refrigerating chamber from pastures more remote than those of Terracina, and the sauce served with it was simply fried onions. In short, my dish was beefsteak and onions, and very bad at that. So in despair I fell back upon the trusty British chop."

As Van der Roet ceased speaking another guest entered the room, and he and Sir John listened attentively while the new-comer gave his order.

There was no mistaking the Colonel's strident voice. "Now, look here! I want a chop underdone, underdone, you understand, with a potato, and a small gla.s.s of Scotch whisky, and I'll sit here."

"The Colonel, by Jove," said Sir John; "I expect he's been restaurant-hunting too."

"Hallo!" said the Colonel, as he recognised the other two, "I never thought I should meet you here: fact is, I've been reading about agricultural depression' and how it is the duty of everybody to eat chops so as to encourage the mutton trade, and that sort of thing."

"Oh, Colonel, Colonel," said Van der Roet. "You know you've been hungering after the cookery of Italy, and trying to find a genuine Italian lunch, and have failed, just as Sir John and I failed, and have come here in despair. But never mind, just wait for a year or so, until the 'Cook's Decameron' has had a fair run for its money, and then you'll find you'll fare as well at the ordinary Italian restaurant as you did at the 'Laurestinas,' and that's saying a good deal."

PART II--RECIPES