the majesty of polished satinwood and gleaming silver, the Westerholmes and their chosen friends awaited the climax of the evening, Mrs Park’s chef-d’oeuvre, the dessert she had created in homage to Muriel Hardwicke.
Below stairs the atmosphere was tense, fraught with the anxieties that attend the launching of a great ship. But the swan, on its gigantic platter, held steady as James lifted it, his scrupulously-tended biceps never mor worthily employed. Win, her mouth agape, ran to open the door; Louise bundled Mrs Park into a clean apron, ready for the expected summons…
‘The Mersham Swan, my lady,’ announced Proom -and as James marched forward to set the bird down before Miss Hardwicke, the guests rose to their feet and clapped.
‘My dear, what a triumphY said Minna Byrne. ‘Really, there is no one in the world like your Mrs Park!’
‘Oi, but that is genius! cried Hannah Rabinovitch, while Miss Tate and Miss Mortimer, the pixillated spinsters, hopped like little birds.
Proom, like a great conductor, waited in silence for silence. Then he took up the knife and, with a flourish which nevertheless contained no hint of ostentation, pierced the noble creature’s heart. Exactly as Mrs Park had foreseen, the filling, softly tinged with the pink of an alpine sunset, oozed mouthwateringly on to the plate. Deftly, Proom scooped but a piece of meringue breast, a section of almond-studded wing and with a small bow handed the plate to Muriel Hardwicke.
Everyone smiled and waited and Anna, standing in the doorway with her tray, gave the exact sigh she had given when, at the age of six, she saw the blue and silver curtains part for the first time at the Maryinsky.
Muriel picked up her spoon in her soft, plump hand. She raised it to her mouth. Then she made a little moue and put it down again.
‘You must forgive me if I leave this,’ she said, turning to the dowager.
The stunned silence which followed the remark was total.
‘You see,’ Muriel explained with a charming smile, ‘it has alcohol in it.’
Muriel was correct. There was alcohol in it. The Imperial Tokay Aszu 1904 which Proom, yielding to Mrs Park’s palpable need, had after all allowed her to have.
The dowager, after an agonized glance at her butler, seemed to be in a state of shock. By the doorway, Anna and Peggy made identical gestures, their hands across their mouths. Proom’s face was as sphinx-like as ever, but a small muscle twitched in his cheek.
Something about the atmosphere now made itself felt, even by Muriel. She turned to her fiance.
‘You don’t mind, I’m sure?’
Rupert tried to pull himself together. ‘No … no, of course not. I knew you didn’t drink wine or spirits but not that even in food …’ He broke off as the full implications of Muriel’s embargo sank sickeningly into his brain.
‘Dr Lightbody showed me a piece of cirrhosed liver once. I have never forgotten it,’ said Muriel simply.
But now the shock which had held the guests silent began to wear off. Each and every person present had a memory of some good deed done by Mersham’s gentle, well-loved cook and, led by Minna Byrne, with her fine social sense, they threw themselves on to the dessert, begging and imploring Proom for helpings of the bird. The vicar, Mr Morland, remembering the feather-light delicacies the cook had sent down during his wife’s last illness, disposed of the swan’s neck and beak in an instant and asked for more. Tom Byrne, whose childhood visits to Mersham had always taken in a session of ‘helping’ in the kitchens, however busy Jean Park might be, consumed virtually an entire wing in fair imitation of Billy Bunter. Hannah Rabinovitch, though it cost her dear, abandoned her guard on the tenuous, pitted organ which served her husband for a stomach and allowed him to consume lethal doses of crime Chantilly…
Downstairs, Mrs Park sat in her clean apron and waited. Waited for ten minutes, for twenty, her eyes on the bell board,
Below stairs the atmosphere was tense, fraught with the anxieties that attend the launching of a great ship. But the swan, on its gigantic platter, held steady as James lifted it, his scrupulously-tended biceps never mor worthily employed. Win, her mouth agape, ran to open the door; Louise bundled Mrs Park into a clean apron, ready for the expected summons…
‘The Mersham Swan, my lady,’ announced Proom -and as James marched forward to set the bird down before Miss Hardwicke, the guests rose to their feet and clapped.
‘My dear, what a triumphY said Minna Byrne. ‘Really, there is no one in the world like your Mrs Park!’
‘Oi, but that is genius! cried Hannah Rabinovitch, while Miss Tate and Miss Mortimer, the pixillated spinsters, hopped like little birds.
Proom, like a great conductor, waited in silence for silence. Then he took up the knife and, with a flourish which nevertheless contained no hint of ostentation, pierced the noble creature’s heart. Exactly as Mrs Park had foreseen, the filling, softly tinged with the pink of an alpine sunset, oozed mouthwateringly on to the plate. Deftly, Proom scooped but a piece of meringue breast, a section of almond-studded wing and with a small bow handed the plate to Muriel Hardwicke.
Everyone smiled and waited and Anna, standing in the doorway with her tray, gave the exact sigh she had given when, at the age of six, she saw the blue and silver curtains part for the first time at the Maryinsky.
Muriel picked up her spoon in her soft, plump hand. She raised it to her mouth. Then she made a little moue and put it down again.
‘You must forgive me if I leave this,’ she said, turning to the dowager.
The stunned silence which followed the remark was total.
‘You see,’ Muriel explained with a charming smile, ‘it has alcohol in it.’
Muriel was correct. There was alcohol in it. The Imperial Tokay Aszu 1904 which Proom, yielding to Mrs Park’s palpable need, had after all allowed her to have.
The dowager, after an agonized glance at her butler, seemed to be in a state of shock. By the doorway, Anna and Peggy made identical gestures, their hands across their mouths. Proom’s face was as sphinx-like as ever, but a small muscle twitched in his cheek.
Something about the atmosphere now made itself felt, even by Muriel. She turned to her fiance.
‘You don’t mind, I’m sure?’
Rupert tried to pull himself together. ‘No … no, of course not. I knew you didn’t drink wine or spirits but not that even in food …’ He broke off as the full implications of Muriel’s embargo sank sickeningly into his brain.
‘Dr Lightbody showed me a piece of cirrhosed liver once. I have never forgotten it,’ said Muriel simply.
But now the shock which had held the guests silent began to wear off. Each and every person present had a memory of some good deed done by Mersham’s gentle, well-loved cook and, led by Minna Byrne, with her fine social sense, they threw themselves on to the dessert, begging and imploring Proom for helpings of the bird. The vicar, Mr Morland, remembering the feather-light delicacies the cook had sent down during his wife’s last illness, disposed of the swan’s neck and beak in an instant and asked for more. Tom Byrne, whose childhood visits to Mersham had always taken in a session of ‘helping’ in the kitchens, however busy Jean Park might be, consumed virtually an entire wing in fair imitation of Billy Bunter. Hannah Rabinovitch, though it cost her dear, abandoned her guard on the tenuous, pitted organ which served her husband for a stomach and allowed him to consume lethal doses of crime Chantilly…
Downstairs, Mrs Park sat in her clean apron and waited. Waited for ten minutes, for twenty, her eyes on the bell board,
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