Chapter IV: Part I: The Cook's Decameron (2)

"I can account for the missing sirloin," said the Marchesa. "The Colonel is wrong for once. It went duly into the kitchen, and not to Mr. Van der Roet's bedroom; but I must begin with a slight explanation, or rather apology. Next to trial by jury, and the reverence paid to rank, and the horror of all things which, as poor Corney Grain used to say, 'are not nice,' I reckon the Sunday sirloin, cooked and served, one and indivisible as the typical fetish of the great English middle class. With this fact before my eyes, I can assure you I did not lightly lay a hand on its integrity. My friends, you have eaten that sirloin without knowing it. You may remember that yesterday after lunch the Colonel was loud in praise of a dish of beef. Well, that beef was a portion of the same, and not the best portion. The Manzo in insalata, which pleased the Colonel's palate, was that thin piece at the lower end, the chief function of which, when the sirloin is cooked whole, seems to lie in keeping the joint steady on the dish while paterfamilias carves it. It is never eaten in the dining-room hot, because every one justly prefers and goes for the under cut; neither does it find favour at lunch next day, for the reason that, as cold beef, the upper cut is unapproachable. I have never heard that the kitchen hankers after it inordinately; indeed, its ultimate destination is one of the unexplained mysteries of housekeeping. I hold that never, under any circumstances, should it be cooked with the sirloin, but always cut off and marinated and braized as we had it yesterday. Thus you get two hot dishes; our particular sirloin has given us three. The parts of this joint vary greatly in flavour, and in texture as well, and by accentuating this variation by treatment in the kitchen, you escape that monotony which is prone to pervade the table so long as the sirloin remains in the house. Mrs. Sinclair is sufficiently experienced as a housekeeper to know that the dish of fillets we had for dinner last night was not made from the under cut of one sirloin. It was by borrowing a little from the upper part that I managed to fill the dish, and I'm sure that any one who may have got one of the uppercut fillets had no cause to grumble. The Filetto di Bue which we had for lunch to-day was the residue of the upper cut, and, admirable as is a slice of cold beef taken from this part of the joint, I think it is an excellent variation to make a hot dish of it sometimes. On the score of economy, I am sure that a sirloin treated in this fashion goes a long way further."

"The Marchesa demolishes one after another of our venerable institutions with so charming a despatch that we can scarcely grieve for them," said Sir John. "I am not philosopher enough to divine what change may come over the British character when every man sits down every day to a perfectly cooked dinner. It is sometimes said that our barbarian forefathers left their northern solitudes because they hankered after the wine and delicate meats of the south, and perhaps the modern Briton may have been led to overrun the world by the hope of finding a greater variety of diet than he gets at home. It may mean, Marchesa, that this movement of yours for the suppression of English plain cooking will mark the close of our national expansion."

"My dear Sir John, you may rest assured that your national expansion, as well as your national cookery, will continue in spite of anything we may accomplish here, and I say good luck to them both. When have I ever denied the merits of English cookery?" said the Marchesa. "Many of its dishes are unsurpassed. These islands produce materials so fine, that no art or elaboration can improve them. They are best when they are cooked quite plainly, and this is the reason why simplicity is the key-note of English cookery. A fine joint of mutton roasted to a turn, a plain fried sole with anchovy butter a broiled chop or steak or kidney, fowls or game cooked English fashion, potatoes baked in their skins and eaten with butter and salt, a rasher of Wiltshire bacon and a new-laid egg, where will you beat these? I will go so far as to say no country can produce a bourgeoises dish which can be compared with steak and kidney pudding. But the point I want to press home is that Italian cookery comes to the aid of those who cannot well afford to buy those prime qualities of meat and fish which allow of this perfectly plain treatment. It is, as I have already said, the cookery of a nation short of cash and unblessed with such excellent meat and fish and vegetables as you lucky islanders enjoy. But it is rich in clever devices of flavouring, and in combinations, and I am sure that by its help English people of moderate means may fare better and spend less than they spend now, if only they will take a little trouble."

Menu--Lunch

Gnocchi alla Romana. Semolina with parmesan.
Filetto di Bue al pistacchi. Fillet of beef with pistachios
Bodini marinati. Marinated rissoles.

Menu--Dinner.

Zuppa Crotopo. Croute au pot soup.
Sogliole alla Veneziana. Fillets of sole.
Ateletti alla Sarda. Atelets of ox-palates, &c.
Costolette di Montone alla Nizzarda. Mutton cutlets.
Pollo alla Fiorentina. Fowl with macaroni.
Crema tartara alla Caramella. Caramel cream.
Uova rimescolati al tartufi. Eggs with truffles.

The Sixth Day

The following morning, at breakfast, a servant announced that Sir John Oglethorpe was taking his breakfast in his room, and that there was no need to keep anything in reserve for him. It was stated, however, that Sir John was in no way indisposed, and that he would join the party at lunch.

He seated himself in his usual place, placid and fresh as ever; but, unharmed as he was physically, it was evident to all the company that he was suffering from some mental discomposure. Miss Macdonnell, with a frank curiosity which might have been trying in any one else, asked him point-blank the reason of his absence from the meal for which, in spite of his partiality for French cookery, he had a true Englishman's devotion.

"I feel I owe the company some apology for my apparent churlishness," he said; "but the fact is, that I have received some very harrowing, but at the same time very interesting, news this morning. I think I told you the other day how the vacancy in my kitchen has led up to a very real tragedy, and that the abhorred Fury was already hovering terribly near the head of poor Narcisse. Well, I have just received from a friend in Paris journals containing a full account of the trial of Narcisse and of his fair accomplice. The worst has come to pass, and Narcisse has been doomed to sneeze into the basket like a mere aristocrat or politician during the Terror I was greatly upset by this news, but I was interested, and in a measure consoled, to find an enclosure amongst the other papers, an envelope addressed to me in the handwriting of the condemned man. This voix d'outre tombe, I rejoice to say, confides to me the secret of that incomparable sauce of his, a secret which I feared might be buried with Narcisse in the prison ditch."

The Marchesa sighed as she listened. The recipe of the sauce was safe indeed, but she knew by experience how wide might be the gulf between the actual work of an artist and the product of another hand guided by his counsels, let the hand be ever so dexterous, and the counsels ever so clear. "Will it be too much," she said, "to ask you to give us the details of this painful tragedy?"

"It will not," Sir John replied reflectively. "The last words of many a so-called genius have been enshrined in literature: probably no one will ever know the parting objurgation of Narcisse. I will endeavour, however, to give you some notion as to what occurred, from the budget I have just read. I fear the tragedy was a squalid one. Madame, the victim, was elderly, unattractive in person, exacting in temper, and the owner of considerable wealth--at least, this is what came out at the trial. It was one of those tangles in which a fatal denouement is inevitable; and, if this had not come through Mademoiselle Sidonie, it would have come through somebody else. The lovers plotted to remove madame by first drugging her, then breaking her skull with the wood chopper, and then pitching her downstairs so as to produce the impression that she had met her death in this fashion. But either the arm of Mademoiselle Sidonie--who was told off to do the hammering--was unskilled in such work, or the opiate was too weak, for the victim began to shriek before she gave up the ghost. Detection seemed imminent, so Narcisse, in whom the quality of discretion was evidently predominant, bolted at once and got out of the country. But the facts were absolutely clear. The victim lived long enough to depose that Mademoiselle Sidonie attacked her with the wood chopper, while Narcisse watched the door. The advocate of Narcisse did his work like a man. He shed the regulation measure of tears; he drew graphic pictures of the innocent youth of Narcisse, of his rise to eminence, and of his filial piety as evidenced by the frequent despatch of money and comestibles to his venerable mother, who was still living near Bourges. Once a year, too, this incomparable artist found time to renew his youth by a sojourn in the simple cottage which saw his birth, and by embracing the giver of his life. Was it possible that a man who treated one woman with such devotion and reverence could take the life of another? He adduced various and picturesque reasons to show that such an event must be impossible, but the jury took the opposite view. Some one had to be guillotined, and the intelligent jury decided that Paris could spare Narcisse better than it could spare Mademoiselle Sidonie. I fear the fact that he had deigned to sell his services to a brutal islander may have helped them to come to this conclusion, but there were other and more weighty reasons. Of the supreme excellence of Narcisse as an artist the jury knew nothing, so they let him go hang--or worse--but of Mademoiselle Sidonie they knew a good deal, and their knowledge, I believe, is shared by certain English visitors to Paris. She is one of the attractions of the Fantasies d'Arcadie, and her latest song, Bonjour Coco, is sung and whistled in every capital of Europe; so the jury, thrusting aside as mere pedantry the evidence of facts, set to work to find some verdict which would not eclipse the gaiety of La Ville Lumiere by cutting short the career of Mademoiselle Sidonie. The art of the chef appealed to only a few, and he dies a mute, but by no means inglorious martyr: the art of the chanteuse appeals to the million, the voice of the many carries the day, and Narcisse must die."

"It is a revolting story," said Mrs. Gradinger, "and one possible only in a corrupted and corrupting society. It is wonderful, as Sir John remarks, how the conquering streams of tendency manifest themselves even in an affair like this. Ours is a democratic age, and the wants and desires of the many, who find delight in this woman's singing, override the whims of the pampered few, the employers of such costly luxuries as men cooks."

"You see you are a mere worm, Sir John," laughed Miss Macdonnell, "and you had better lay out your length to be trampled on."

"Yes, I have long foreseen our fate, we who happen to possess what our poor brother hankers after. Well, perhaps I may take up the worm's role at once and 'turn', that is, burn the recipe of Narcisse."

"O Sir John, Sir John," cried Mrs. Sinclair "any such burning would remind me irresistibly of Mr. Mantalini's attempts at suicide. There would be an accurate copy in your pocket-book, and besides this you would probably have learnt off the recipe by heart."

"Yes, we know our Sir John better than that, don't we?" said the Marchesa; "but, joking apart, Sir John, you might let me have the recipe at once. It would go admirably with one of our lunch dishes for to-morrow."

But on the subject of the sauce, Sir John--like the younger Mr. Smallweed on the subject of gravy--was adamant. The wound caused by the loss of Narcisse was, he declared, yet too recent: the very odour of the sauce would provoke a thousand agonising regrets. And then the hideous injustice of it all: Narcisse the artist, comparatively innocent (for to artists a certain latitude must be allowed), to moulder in quicklime, and this greedy, sordid murderess to go on ogling and posturing with superadded popularity before an idiot crowd unable to distinguish a Remoulade from a Ravigotte! "No, my dear Marchesa," he said, "the secret of Narcisse must be kept a little longer, for, to tell the truth, I have an idea. I remember that ere this fortunes have been made out of sauces, and if this sauce be properly handled and put before the public, it may counteract my falling, or rather disappearing rents. If only I could hit upon a fetching name, and find twenty thousand pounds to spend in advertising, I might be able once more to live on my acres."

"Oh, surely we shall be able to find you a name between us," said Mrs. Wilding; "money, and things of that sort are to be procured in the city, I believe; and I daresay Mr. Van der Roet will design a pretty label for the sauce bottles."

Menu--Lunch.

Pollo all'olive. Fowl with olives.
Scaloppine di rive. Veal cutlets with rice.
Sedani alla parmigiana. Stewed celery.

Menu--Dinner.

Zuppa primaverile. Spring soup
Sote di Salmone al funghi. Salmon with mushrooms.
Tenerumi d'Agnello alla veneziana. Breast of lamb alla Veneziana.
Testa di Vitello alla sorrentina. Calf's head alla Sorrentina.
Fagiano alla perigo. Pheasant with truffles.
Torta alla cremonese. Cremona tart.
Uova alla fiorentina. Egg savoury.

The Seventh Day

"It seems invidious to give special praise where everything is so good," said Mrs. Sinclair next day at lunch, "but I must say a word about that clear soup we had at dinner last night. I have never ceased to regret that my regard for manners forbade me ask for a second helping."

"See what it is to have no manners," said Van der Roet. "I plunged boldly for another portion of that admirable preparation of calf's head at dinner. If I hadn't, I should have regretted it for ever after. Now, I'm sure you are just as curious about the construction of these masterpieces as I am, Mrs. Sinclair, so we'll beg the Marchesa to let us into the secret."

"Mrs. Sinclair herself had a hand in the calf's-head dish, 'Testa di Vitello alla sorrentina,' so perhaps I may hand over that part of the question to her. I am very proud that one of my pupils should have won praise from such a distinguished expert as Mr. Van der Roet, and I leave her to expound the mystery of its charm. I think I may without presumption claim the clear soup as a triumph, and it is a discovery of my own. The same calf's head which Mrs. Sinclair has treated with such consummate skill, served also as the foundation for the stock of the clear soup. This stock certainly derived its distinction from the addition of the liquor in which the head was boiled. A good consomme can no doubt be made with stock-meat alone, but the best soup thus made will be inferior to that we had for dinner last night. Without the calf's head you will never get such softness, combined with full roundness on the tongue, and the great merit of calf's head is that it lets you attain this excellence without any sacrifice of transparency."

"I have marvelled often at the clearness of your soups, Marchesa," said the Colonel. "What clearing do you use to make them look like pale sherry?"

"No one has any claim to be called a cook who cannot make soup without artificial clearing," said the Marchesa. "Like the poet, the consomme is born, not made. It must be clear from the beginning, an achievement which needs care and trouble like every other artistic effort, but one nevertheless well within the reach of any student who means to succeed. To clear a soup by the ordinary medium of white of egg or minced beef is to destroy all flavour and individuality. If the stock be kept from boiling until it has been strained, it will develop into a perfectly clear soup under the hands of a careful and intelligent cook. The fleeting delicate aroma which, as every gourmet will admit, gives such grateful aid to the palate, is the breath of garden herbs and of herbs alone, and here I have a charge to bring against contemporary cookery. I mean the neglect of natural in favour of manufactured flavourings. With regard to herbs, this could not always have been the rule, for I never go into an old English garden without finding there a border with all the good old-fashioned pot herbs growing lustily. I do not say that the use of herbs is unknown, for of course the best cookery is impossible without them, but I fear that sage mixed with onion is about the only one which ever tickles the palate of the great English middle-class. And simultaneously with the use of herb flavouring in soup has arisen the practice of adding wine, which to me seems a very questionable one. If wine is put in soup at all, it must be used so sparingly as to render its presence imperceptible. Why then use it at all? In some sauces wine is necessary, but in all cases it is as difficult to regulate as garlic, and requires the utmost vigilance on the part of the cook."

"My last cook, who was very stout and a little middle-aged, would always use flavouring sauces from the grocer's rather than walk up to the garden, where we have a most seductive herb bed," said Mrs. Wilding; "and then, again, the love of the English for pungent-made sauces is another reason for this makeshift practice. 'Oh, a table-spoonful of somebody's sauce will do for the flavouring,' and in goes the sauce, and the flavouring is supposed to be complete. People who eat their chops, and steaks, and fish, and game, after having smothered the natural flavour with the same harsh condiment, may be satisfied with a cuisine of this sort, but to an unvitiated palate the result is nauseous."

"Yet as a Churchwoman, Mrs. Wilding, you ought to speak with respect of English sauces. I think I have heard how a libation of one of them, which was poured over a certain cathedral, has made it look as good as new," said Miss Macdonnell, "and we have lately learned that one of the most distinguished of our party is ambitious to enter the same career."

"I would suggest that Sir John should devote all that money he proposes to make by the aid of his familiar spirit--the ghost of Narcisse--to the building of a temple in honour of the tenth muse, the muse of cookery," said Mrs. Sinclair; "and what do you think, Sir John, of a name I dreamt of last night for your sauce, 'The New Century Sauce'? How will that do?"

"Admirably," said Sir John after a moment's pause; "admirably enough to allow me to offer you a royalty on every bottle sold. 'The New Century Sauce', that's the name for me; and now to set to work to build the factory, and to order plans for the temple of the tenth muse."

Menu--Lunch.

Maccheroni al pomidoro. Macaroni with tomatoes,
Vitello alla pellegrina. Veal cutlets alla pellegrina.
Animelle al sapor di targone. Sweetbread with tarragon sauce.

Menu--Dinner.

Zuppa alla Canavese. Soup alla Canavese
Naselli con piselli. Whiting with peas.
Coscia di manzo al forno. Braized ribs of beef.
Lingua alla Visconti. Tongue with grapes.
Anitra selvatica. Wild duck.
Zabajone ghiacciato. Iced syllabub.
Crostatini alla capucina. Savoury of rice, truffles, &c.

The Eighth Day

"We are getting unpleasantly near the end of our time," said the Colonel, "but I am sure not one of us has learnt one tithe of what the Marchesa has to teach."

"My dear Colonel Trestrail," said the Marchesa, "an education in cookery does not mean the teaching of a certain number of recipes. Education, I maintain, is something far higher than the mere imparting of facts; my notion of it is the teaching of people to teach themselves, and this is what I have tried to do in the kitchen. With some of you I am sure I have succeeded, and a book containing the recipe of every dish we have tried will be given to every pupil when we break up."

"I think the most valuable lesson I have learnt is that cookery is a matter for serious study," said Mrs. Sinclair. "The popular English view seems to be that it is one of those things which gets itself done. The food is subjected to the action of heat, a little butter, or pepper, or onion, being added by way of flavouring, and the process is complete. To put it bluntly, it requires at least as much mental application to roast a fowl as to cut a bodice; but it does not strike the average Englishwoman in this way, for she will spend hours in thinking and talking about dressmaking (which is generally as ill done as her cooking), while she will be reluctant to give ten minutes to the consideration as to how a luncheon or supper dish shall be prepared. The English middle classes are most culpably negligent about the food they eat, and as a consequence they get exactly the sort of cooks they deserve to get. I do not blame the cooks; if they can get paid for cooking ill, why should they trouble to learn to cook well?"

"I agree entirely," said Mrs. Wilding. "That saying, 'What I like is good plain roast and boiled, and none of your foreign kickshaws,' is, as every one knows, the stock utterance of John Bull on the stage or in the novel; and, though John Bull is not in the least like his fictitious presentment, this form of words is largely responsible for the waste and want of variety in the English kitchen. The plain roast and boiled means a joint every day, and this arrangement the good plain cook finds an admirable one for several reasons: it means little trouble, and it means also lots of scraps and bones and waste pieces. The good plain cook brings all the forces of obstruction to bear whenever the mistress suggests made dishes; and, should this suggestion ever be carried out, she takes care that the achievement shall be of a character not likely to invite repetition. Not long ago a friend of mine was questioning a cook as to soups, whereupon the cook answered that she had never been required to make such things where she had lived; all soups were bought in tins or bottles, and had simply to be warmed up. Cakes, too, were outside her repertoire, having always been 'had in' from the confectioner's, while 'entrys' were in her opinion, and in the opinion of her various mistresses, 'un'ealthy' and not worth making."

"My experience is that, if a mistress takes an interest in cooking, she will generally have a fairly efficient cook," said Mrs. Fothergill. "I agree with Mrs. Sinclair that our English cooks are spoilt by neglect; and I think it is hard upon them, as a class, that so many inefficient women should be able to pose as cooks while they are unable to boil a potato properly."

"And the so-called schools of cookery are quite useless in what they teach," said Miss Macdonnell. "I once sent a cook of mine to one to learn how to make a clear soup, and when she came back, she sent up, as an evidence of her progress, a potato pie coloured pink and green, a most poisonous-looking dish--and her clear soups were as bad as ever."

Said the Colonel, "I will beg leave to enter a protest against the imperfections of that repast which is supposed to be the peculiar delight of the ladies, I allude to afternoon tea. I want to know why it is that unless I happen to call just when the tea is brought up--I grant, I know of a few houses which are honourable exceptions--I am fated to drink that most abominable of all decoctions, stewed lukewarm tea. 'Will you have some tea? I'm afraid it isn't quite fresh,' the hostess will remark without a blush. What would she think if her husband at dinner were to say, 'Colonel, take a glass of that champagne. It was opened the day before yesterday, and I daresay the fizz has gone off a little'? Tea is cheap enough, and yet the hostess seldom or never thinks of ordering up a fresh pot. I believe it is because she is afraid of the butler."

"I sympathise with you fully, Colonel," said Lady Considine, "and my withers are unwrung. You do not often honour me with your presence on Tuesdays, but I am sure I may claim to be one of your honourable exceptions."

"Indeed you may," said the Colonel. "Perhaps men ought not to intrude on these occasions; but I have a preference for taking tea in a pretty drawing-room, with a lot of agreeable women, rather than in a club surrounded by old chaps growling over the latest job at the War Office, and a younger brigade chattering about the latest tape prices, and the weights for the spring handicaps."

"All these little imperfections go to prove that we are not a nation of cooks," said Van der Roet. "We can't be everything. Heine once said that the Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged to learn the Latin grammar; and it is the same with us. We can't expect to found an empire all over the planet, and cook as well as the French, who--perhaps wisely--never willingly emerge from the four corners of their own land."

"There is energy enough left in us when we set about some purely utilitarian task," said Mrs. Wilding, "but we never throw ourselves into the arts with the enthusiasm of the Latin races. I was reading the other day of a French costumier who rushed to inform a lady, who had ordered a turban, of his success, exclaiming, 'Madame, apres trots nun's d'insomnie les plumes vent placees.' And every one knows the story of Vatel's suicide because the fish failed to arrive. No Englishman would be capable of flights like these."

"Really, this indictment of English cookery makes me a little nervous," said Lady Considine "I have promised to join in a driving tour through the southern counties. I shudder to think of the dinners I shall have to eat at the commercial hotels and posting-houses on our route."

"English country inns are not what they ought to be, but now and then you come across one which is very good indeed, as good, if not better, than anything you could find in any other country; but I fear I must admit that, charges considered, the balance is against us," said Sir John.

"When you start you ought to secure Sir John's services as courier, Lady Considine," said the Marchesa. "I once had the pleasure of driving for a week through the Apennines in a party under his guidance, and I can assure you we found him quite honest and obliging."

"Ah, Marchesa, I was thinking of that happy time this very morning," said Sir John. "Of Arezzo, where we were kept for three days by rain, which I believe is falling there still. Of Cortona, with that wonderful little restaurant on the edge of the cliff, whence you see Thrasumene lying like a silver mirror in the plain below. Of Perugia, the august, of Gubbio, Citta di Castello, Borgo San Sepolcro, Urbino, and divers others. If you go for a drive in Italy, you still may meet with humours of the road such as travellers of old were wont to enjoy. I well remember on the road between Perugia and Gubbio we began to realise we were indeed traversing mountain paths. On a sudden the driver got down, waved his arms, and howled to some peasants working in a field below. These, on their part, responded with more arm-waving and howling, directed apparently towards a village farther up the hill, whereupon we were assailed with visions of brigands, and amputated ears, and ransom. But at a turn of the road we came upon two magnificent white oxen, which, being harnessed on in front, drew us, and our carriages and horses as well, up five miles of steep incline. These beautiful fellows, it seemed, were what the driver was signalling for, and not for brigands. Again, every inn we stayed at supplied us with some representative touch of local life and habit. Here the whole personnel of the inn, reinforced by a goodly contingent of the townsfolk, would accompany us even into our bedrooms, and display the keenest interest in the unpacking of our luggage. There the cook would come and take personal instructions as to the coming meal, throwing out suggestions the while as to the merits of this or that particular dish, and in one place the ancient chambermaid insisted that one of the ladies, who had got a slight cold, should have the prete put into her bed for a short time to warm it. You need not look shocked, Colonel. The prete in question was merely a wooden frame, in the midst of which hangs a scaldino filled with burning ashes--a most comforting ecclesiastic, I can assure you. All the inns we visited had certain characteristics in common. The entrance is always dirty, and the staircase too, the dining rooms fairly comfortable, the bedrooms always clean and good, and the food much better than you would expect to find in such out-of-the-way places; indeed I cannot think of any inn where it was not good and wholesome, while often it was delicious. In short, Lady Considine, I strongly advise you to take a drive in Italy next spring, and if I am free I shall be delighted to act as courier."

"Sir John has forgotten one or two touches I must fill in," said the Marchesa. "It was often difficult to arrange a stopping-place for lunch, so we always stocked our basket before starting. After the first day's experience we decided that it was vastly more pleasant to take our meal while going uphill at a foot-pace, than in the swing and jolt of a descent, so the route and the pace of the horses had to be regulated in order to give us a good hour's ascent about noon. Fortunately hills are plentiful in this part of Italy, and in the keen air we generally made an end of the vast store of provisions we laid in, and the generous fiascho was always empty a little too soon. Our drive came to an end at Fano, whither we had gone on account of a strange romantic desire of Sir John to look upon an angel which Browning had named in one of his poems. Ah! how vividly I can recall our pursuit of that picture. It was a wet, melancholy day. The people of Fano were careless of the fame of their angel, for no one knew the church which it graced. At last we came upon it by the merest chance, and Sir John led the procession up to the shrine, where we all stood for a time in positions of mock admiration. Sir John tried hard to keep up the imposition, but something, either his innate honesty or the chilling environment of disapproval of Guercino's handiwork, was too much for him. He did his best to admire, but the task was beyond his powers, and he raised no protest when some scoffer affirmed that, though Browning might be a great poet, he was a mighty poor judge of painting, when he gave in his beautiful poem immortality to this tawdry theatrical canvas. 'I think,' said Sir John, 'we had better go back to the hotel and order lunch. It would have been wiser to have ordered it before we left.' We were all so much touched by his penitence that no one had the heart to remind him how a proposition as to lunch had been made by our leading Philistine as soon as we arrived, a proposition waved aside by Sir John as inadmissible until the 'Guardian Angel' should have been seen and admired."

"I plead guilty," said Sir John. "I think this experience gave a death-blow to my career as an appreciator. Anyhow, I quite forget what the angel was like, and for reminiscences of Fano have to fall back upon the excellent colazione we ate in the externally unattractive, but internally admirable, Albergo del Moro."

Menu--Lunch.

Astachi all'Italiana. Lobster all'Italiana
Filetto di bue alla Napolitana. Fillet of beef with Neapolitan sauce.
Risotto alla spagnuola. Savoury rice.

Menu--Dinner.

Zuppa alla Romana. Soup with quenelles.
Salmone alla Genovese. Salmon alla Genovese.
Costolette in agro-dolce. Mutton cutlets with Roman sauce.
Flano di spinacci. Spinach in a mould.
Cappone con rive. Capon with rice.
Croccante di mandorle. Almond sweet.
Ostriche alla Napolitana. Oyster savoury.

The Ninth Day

"Since I have been associated with the production of a dinner, I have had my eyes opened as to the complicated nature of the task, and the numerous strings which have to be pulled in order to ensure success," said the Colonel; "but, seeing that a dinner-party with well-chosen sympathetic guests and distinguished dishes represents one of the consummate triumphs of civilisation, there is no reason to wonder. To achieve a triumph of any sort demands an effort."

"Effort," said Miss Macdonnell. "Yes, effort is the word I associate with so many middle-class English dinners. It is an effort to the hosts, who regard the whole business as a mere paying off of debts; and an effort to the guests, who, as they go to dress, recall grisly memories of former similar experiences. It often astonishes me that dinner-giving of this character should still flourish."

"The explanation is easy," said Van der Roet; "it flourishes because it gives a mark of distinction. It is a delicious moment for Mrs. Johnson when she is able to say to Mrs. Thompson, 'My dear, I am quite worn-out; we dined out every day last week, and have four more dinners in the next five days.' These good people show their British grit by the persistency with which they go on with their penitential hospitality, and their lack of ideas in never attempting to modify it so as to make it a pleasure instead of a disagreeable duty."

"It won't do to generalise too widely, Van der Roet," said Sir John. "Some of these good people surely enjoy their party-giving; and, from my own experience of one or two houses of this sort, I can assure you the food is quite respectable. The great imperfection seems to lie in the utter want of consideration in the choice of guests. A certain number of people and a certain quantity of food shot into a room, that is their notion of a dinner-party."

"Of course we understand that the success of a dinner depends much more on the character of the guests than on the character of the food," said Mrs. Sinclair; "and most of us, I take it, are able to fill our tables with pleasant friends; but what of the dull people who know none but dull people? What gain will they get by taking counsel how they shall fill their tables?"

"More, perhaps, than you think, dear Mrs. Sinclair," said Sir John. "Dull people often enjoy themselves immensely when they meet dull people only. The frost comes when the host unwisely mixes in one or two guests of another sort--people who give themselves airs of finding more pleasure in reading Stevenson than the sixpenny magazines, and who don't know where Hurlingham is. Then the sheep begin to segregate themselves from the goats, and the feast is manque."

"Considering what a trouble and anxiety a dinner-party must be to the hostess, even under the most favouring conditions, I am always at a loss to discover why so many women take so much pains, and spend a considerable sum of money as well, over details which are unessential, or even noxious," said Mrs. Wilding. "A few flowers on the table are all very well--one bowl in the centre is enough--but in many houses the cost of the flowers equals, if it does not outrun, the cost of all the rest of the entertainment. A few roses or chrysanthemums are perfect as accessories, but to load a table with flowers of heavy or pungent scent is an outrage. Lilies of the valley are lovely in proper surroundings, but on a dinner-table they are anathema. And then the mass of paper monstrosities which crowd every corner. Swans, nautilus shells, and even wild boars are used to hold up the menu. Once my menu was printed on a satin flag, and during the war the universal khaki invaded the dinner table. Ices are served in frilled baskets of paper, which have a tendency to dissolve and amalgamate with the sweet. The only paper on the table should be the menu, writ plain on a handsome card."

"No one can complain of papery ices here," said the Marchesa. "Ices may be innocuous, but I don't favour them, and no one seems to have felt the want of them; at least, to adopt the phrase of the London shopkeeper, 'I have had no complaints.' And even the ice, the very emblem of purity, has not escaped the touch of the dinner-table decorator. Only a few days ago I helped myself with my fingers to what looked like a lovely peach, and let it flop down into the lap of a bishop who was sitting next to me. This was the hostess's pretty taste in ices."

"They are generally made in the shape of camelias this season," said Van der Roet. "I knew a man who took one and stuck it in his buttonhole."

"I must say I enjoy an ice at dinner," said Lady Considine. "I know the doctors abuse them, but I notice they always eat them when they get the chance."

"Ah, that is merely human inconsistency," said Sir John. "I am inclined to agree with the Marchesa that ice at dinner is an incongruity, and may well be dispensed with. I think I am correct, Marchesa, in assuming that Italy, which has showered so many boons upon us, gave us also the taste for ices."

"I fear I must agree," said the Marchesa. "I now feel what a blessing it would have been for you English if you had learnt from us instead the art of cooking the admirable vegetables your gardens produce. How is it that English cookery has never found any better treatment for vegetables than to boil them quite plain? French beans so treated are tender, and of a pleasant texture on the palate, but I have never been able to find any taste in them. They are tasteless largely because the cook persists in shredding them into minute bits, and I maintain that they ought to be cooked whole--certainly when they are young--and sautez, a perfectly plain and easy process, which is hard to beat. Plain boiled cauliflower is doubtless good, but cooked alla crema it is far better; indeed, it is one of the best vegetable dishes I know. But perhaps the greatest discovery in cookery we Italians ever made was the combination of vegetables and cheese. There are a dozen excellent methods of cooking cauliflower with cheese, and one of these has come to you through France, choux-fleurs au gratin, and has become popular. Jerusalem artichokes treated in the same fashion are excellent; and the cucumber, nearly always eaten raw in England, holds a first place as a vegetable for cooking. I seem to remember that every one was loud in its praises when we tasted it as an adjunct to Manzo alla Certosina. Why is it that celery is for the most part only eaten raw with cheese? We have numberless methods of cooking it in Italy, and beetroot and lettuce as well. There is no spinach so good as English, and nowhere is it so badly cooked; it is always coarse and gritty because so little trouble is taken with it, and I can assure you that the smooth, delicate dish which we call Flano di spinacci is not produced merely by boiling and chopping it, and turning it out into a dish."

Menu--Lunch

Minestrone alla Milanese. Vegetable broth.
Coniglio alla Provenzale. Rabbit alla Provenzale.
Insalata di pomidoro. Tomato salad.

Menu--Dinner.

Zuppa alla Maria Pia. Soup alla Maria Pia.
Anguilla con ortaggi alla Milanese. Eels with vegetables.
Manzo con sugo di barbabietoli. Fillet of beef with beetroot sauce.
Animelle alla parmegiana. Sweetbread with parmesan.
Perniciotti alla Gastalda. Partridges alla Gastalda.
Uova ripiani. Stuffed eggs.

The Tenth Day

The sun rose on the tenth and last day at the "Laurestinas" as he was wont to rise on less eventful mornings. At breakfast the Marchesa proposed that the lunch that day should be a little more ornate than usual, and the dinner somewhat simpler. She requisitioned the services of six of the company to prepare the lunch, and at the same time announced that they would all have a holiday in the afternoon except Mrs. Sinclair, whom she warned to be ready to spend the afternoon in the kitchen helping prepare the last dinner.

Four dishes, all admirable, appeared at lunch, and several of the party expressed regret that the heat of the weather forbade them from tasting every one; but Sir John was not of these. He ate steadily through the menu, and when he finally laid down his knife and fork he heaved a sigh, whether of satisfaction or regret it were hard to say.

"It is a commonplace of the deepest dye to remark that ingratitude 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 pass 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 nobody 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 pass 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 assailed 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 assured 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 empressement 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 superstitious 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 scrape."

"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?"