Sweet Poison

by David Roberts

  The Duke was looking tired and saying very little. It was typical of Ned, he considered, to have an accident driving his motorcar too fast. He was always crashing aeroplanes, motor cars and even boats, and as a result of this accident he had succeeded in breaking up his carefully arranged ‘meeting of minds’. It had all been going rather well, too. Ned had arrived just when the men, relaxing over their port and cigars, were at their most suggestible. It was the time when, with the ladies, bless ’em, out of the way, confidences could be made, friendships forged and unlikely alliances built, but Ned bursting in on the scene had destroyed all that. The women were back at the dining-table and the men could no longer speak freely with the easy confidence of gentlemen gathered in sacred harmony. The whole atmosphere had been ruined, the Duke decided. Before they had heard Edward and Verity at the front door, Craig and Friedberg had to their own amazement found common ground in disparaging the performance of the American forces on the Western Front in 1918, conveniently forgetting that without the Americans the war might have dragged on indefinitely. They told stories – no doubt, the Duke thought, apocryphal – illustrating the poor quality of the American infantry officer, and the two men, who had earlier been snapping at each other’s heels, had gone so far as to laugh at each other’s instances of American ineptitude. That breath of good will was dissipated by the new arrivals. The Duke felt aggrieved but could not say so. As he listened to Verity with half an ear, he reviewed the dinner.

  When they sat down there had been some awkwardness about the empty chair but Connie had decided not to clear Edward’s place in case he arrived in time for some food. Hermione had in the end behaved herself, to Connie’s great relief, and had discussed dress-makers with Celia Larmore quite amiably. She had not even been too rude to Honoria Haycraft when the latter opined that night-clubs were the haunt of the devil. Unwisely perhaps, the Bishop had backed his wife up: ‘It’s the cocktails which do the harm in my view. They poison the system. All a civilized person needs is a glass or two of dry sherry before dinner.’

  ‘And all that smoking,’ went on Honoria, blithely unaware of Hermione’s scowl. ‘In my day girls did not smoke. It’s such a dirty habit.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the Duke hurriedly. ‘I think you are being unfair on the young. We haven’t left them much of a world to grow up in, you know. What do you think, Hermione?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ the girl said sullenly. ‘I don’t feel as if I am one of the “younger generation” anyhow. Ask my stepfather. The New Gazette is always doing stuff about “youth”. I’m sure he knows all about it.’

  There was an awkward silence but the Duke covered it with talk of cricket and the moment passed.

  The food had been good and the wine first-rate but the Duke pinned all his hopes on the hour the men would spend over their port once the table had been cleared and the ladies had left to take their coffee in the drawing-room. To grace the occasion he had selected two bottles of his finest port and he was determined, without looking obvious about it, to make it known to his guests just how favoured they were. When Bates had placed the decanter in front of him and offered round the cigars in an oak box which his grandfather had brought back from Cuba in 1883, the Duke dismissed the butler and offered Larmore, the most knowledgeable wine-lover among his guests, a light-hearted challenge. ‘Larmore, I remember you telling me you were interested in port so I thought you might like to taste this,’ he began, with all the benevolence of one who knows he is going to give his guests a treat they probably don’t deserve.

  The Duke passed him the decanter and Larmore filled his glass before passing it on. While the others were filling their glasses Larmore was going through an elaborate pantomime, examining the wine as he rolled it in his glass and making curious grunts as he mentally checked off its characteristics. He put the glass to his nose and a strange expression transformed his face. Concentrating fiercely, he drank from his glass. The effect was immediate. The lines of petulance around his rather small mouth vanished and his eyes, which had been narrow and anxious-looking during dinner, shone like those of a dog unexpectedly presented with a particularly juicy beef bone. His whole bearing indicated intense, almost sexual, pleasure. ‘By Jove, Duke,’ he said at last, ‘this is splendid. I don’t know I have ever tasted anything finer. Who is the shipper?’

  The Duke assumed a look of low cunning. ‘If I tell you the shipper, can you tell me the vintage?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Larmore.

  ‘Taylor’s,’ said the Duke.

  All eyes were turned on Larmore but he seemed not in the least disconcerted. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I thought it was big enough to be the Taylor’s – splendidly rich and powerful.’ He smelled the port again and then held the glass up to the candlelight. ‘As for the vintage, I think it is too mature to be the ’12 which really leaves only the 1900 or the 1896. Hmm – the only port I have had which could begin to match this was with the Devonshires last Christmas and that was the ’86 Graham’s – a regal port but not as good as this – so I think I am going to go for ’96.’ He looked at the Duke inquiringly.

  ‘Very well done, Larmore. You have hit the nail on the head. Please, fill your glass.’

  There was a murmur of approbation from the General and from Lord Weaver.

  ‘Certainly I couldn’t have done that, Larmore – identified the vintage, I mean,’ said Weaver admiringly, ‘but even I, Duke, can appreciate it’s of particular sweetness and strength – the wrong words, I know, but I have always found it difficult to describe the distinctive character of a fine wine, so you’ll have to forgive me. You have really done us proud, sir.’ Weaver raised his glass towards the Duke and the Duke bowed his head modestly. ‘The burgundy we had with the fish, that was Corton Charlemagne, was it not?’

  ‘1921, Louis Latour,’ confirmed the Duke.

  ‘And if I may be so vulgar as to inquire,’ Weaver continued, ‘the claret was . . . ?’

  ‘Château Haut-Brion, 1920,’ said the Duke, embarrassed but proud. He did not like to seem to brag but it was well that his guests – even philistines like the Bishop and von Friedberg – should understand the compliment he had paid them.

  Once again everyone was silent. Larmore refilled his glass and admired the rich ruby colour which, when he held his glass up to the candle, seemed to flame and flicker. He then lowered his head reverentially as if, the Bishop thought, he was going to pray and inhaled the intoxicating scent of a wine which had been maturing for two generations. Still without speaking, he put his lips to the delicate glass and sipped. The lines of anxiety below his eyes were smoothed and his smile lit up his countenance so that, to the Bishop who was sitting opposite him, he suddenly seemed a much younger man.

  General Craig said, ‘I don’t have your knowledge, Larmore, but even my untutored palate recognizes greatness.’ He raised his glass to his lips, his hand shaking so noticeably that the Duke wondered if he were ill. Instead of sipping the wine and savouring its particular character he drank deeply. It seemed to steady him a little, and when he replaced his glass on the table the Duke thought he looked less feverish; quite unconsciously the old man stroked his stomach as though the wine was helping his digestion. ‘My doctor tells me I must drink very sparingly but, as I tell him, I have so few pleasures – pleasures of the flesh – left to me that I am loath to give up one of the few I can still enjoy,’ Craig said sadly.

  The Bishop too claimed to drink very little but the Duke noticed with amusement that he drained his glass quickly and refilled it from the decanter, which was now circulating for the third time. The Duke saw that Friedberg was a little at a loss to know how to enter the conversation about wine without making a fool of himself, and hurriedly moved to include him in the general bonhomie by asking him if port was much drunk in Germany, and was told that it was not. ‘We prefer brandy or liqueurs but when I am in England and,’ he bowed his head, ‘in such distinguished company, I do as the Romans do – that is the phrase, is it no
t? – and with the greatest of pleasure’. Saying which he tossed down his port as though it was slivovitz, which made the Duke wince. Von Friedberg went on to spoil the mood of quiet contentment around the table by embarking on a long and boring lecture about the superior merits of the wines of Alsace – a part of Germany, he was moved to say with drunken solemnity, whatever the French might like to claim.

  The Duke roused himself to bring Friedberg to heel – politely, of course. Rather subtly, he thought, he interrupted Friedberg by asking General Craig if he had any particular memories of other great wines he had drunk. The General said he could not say he remembered tasting wines nobler than those he had drunk this evening – he nodded to the Duke in tribute – but he had drunk wines in some queer places. He launched into a story of finding a case of champagne, almost boiled by the sun, in General Gordon’s apartments in Khartoum in 1896. ‘It may have been a great year for port,’ he said ruefully, ‘but not for champagne – at least not in the Sudan. I had always believed General Gordon to have been a teetotaller so what the champagne was doing there in his rooms I have no idea. I brought the wine to Kitchener in his tent and he decreed it would be drunk that night under the stars in memory of the man we had come to rescue. It turned out to be a rather embarrassing occasion. Of course, we had no means of chilling the wine and I got a good deal of chaff for, when the bottles were broached and all we officers – of whom I was the youngest and most junior – had a glass in our hand, and our chief had made a little speech, we all drank only to have to spit out the wine which, as I ought to have guessed, was filthy. Fortunately, the chief thought it was funny. He didn’t have much of a sense of humour – great man though he was – but when he did find something funny he would let himself go. On this occasion he roared with laughter, slapped me on the back and said that as a punishment he required me to drink my glass dry, which I did, and was promptly sick. I think perhaps the chief was really celebrating his safe arrival in Khartoum. It had been a most terrible campaign and we were all heartily looking forward to going home. I shall always remember the occasion: the horrible wine, the chief’s laughter and my being sick in the sand. It cemented a special relationship all we young officers had with Kitchener, but I have a feeling that poor Gordon’s ghost might have been hovering nearby quietly satisfied that we who had come too late to save him had at least come too late to enjoy his wine.’

  The Duke smiled and turned to the Bishop. ‘I suppose there is no point in soliciting a story from you, is there Cecil? I know you are not a drinker.’

  ‘Well, no, Duke, though I do remember when I was a young curate taking a communion service in place of my vicar, who was away. It was an ill-lit barn of a church in Middlesbrough and it was very hard for the priest to see how many people were intending to take communion. I was dependent on the church warden when he brought up the collection plate telling me the numbers. On this occasion – either I was nervous or he mumbled – but I thought he said thirty-three while in fact he had said twenty-three and of those twenty-three a majority were little old ladies who merely touched the wine with their lips and did not drink it. Imagine my horror when I saw that everyone had taken communion and I had almost a pint left in the chalice. As you know, the wine once it has been consecrated must be consumed, so I had no alternative but to drink it all down. It was not good wine and, like you, General, I felt very sick, but unlike you it was out of the question to give way to it. I think the sidesman seeing me stagger through the end of the sacrament thought I was drunk – as indeed I was – and reported me to the vicar. The latter rebuked me for being a fool and I think it was from that moment that I decided the grape and I were never going to be good friends – but,’ and the Bishop refilled his glass for the third time, ‘if I may say so, Duke, you are converting me.’ He smiled at his little joke. ‘This really is quite delicious. Even I can understand that you are paying us a rare compliment, Duke, and I thank you.’ He, as Weaver had done, raised his glass to the Duke and smiled benignly.

  The Duke wondered if Honoria would reprimand the poor man, as had the vicar all those years ago, when she smelt the wine on her lord’s breath that night.

  Von Friedberg was still thinking about the General’s story of Lord Kitchener and he interrupted Larmore, who wanted to recall for the assembled company the many great wines he had sampled in his life, by asking Craig if Kitchener had been as brave as legend had it.

  ‘Oh yes, brave, stalwart, obstinate, awkward – all these things – a very great soldier in my opinion, second only to my late commander, Field Marshal Earl Haig, God rest his soul, but unlike Haig, Kitchener was not suited to being a politician,’ said the General, shaking his head mournfully.

  They waited for him to elaborate but it seemed that the General, now deep in his own thoughts, was not going to provide examples of Kitchener’s battles with the politicians to prove his point, and the discussion turned to the nature of courage. The Duke, with half an eye on Friedberg, made an eloquent plea for politicians and soldiers to have the moral courage to restrain the ‘sabre rattling’ of their political leaders.

  Von Friedberg looked sour and went into a long tirade about Germany demanding its rightful place at the council tables of Europe. The Bishop chipped in to assure the German that most English people wanted his country to return to its position as a leading power in Europe, and Larmore hurried to agree.

  ‘So, that is what will happen,’ said the German sententiously. ‘Under the leadership of our great leader, Chancellor Adolf Hitler . . .’

  ‘And is it true you are expanding your army?’ asked Weaver, who had been noticeably silent, content to listen to the others and enjoy his port and cigar.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Friedberg pugnaciously. ‘We need a new model army like your Oliver Cromwell . . .’

  ‘Not my Oliver Cromwell,’ Weaver muttered but Friedberg did not hear him.

  ‘. . . and we will build aeroplanes and ships so that no one can say to us “You do this, you do that.” I may tell you in confidence, we have already . . . But no, the wine speaks, Duke, and makes me wish to be indiscreet.’ He simpered knowingly.

  The Bishop, his tongue loosened by the wine, said, ‘You make my blood run cold, Baron. I fear for all that I hold dear: humanitarianism, brotherly good will between nations and their leaders. These political creeds we see thriving like weeds in an uncared-for garden – they may not in themselves be evil, they may even bring benefits: jobs, food, a steady income and with these, self-respect, but we must recognize that they are imposed by force and rest on a basis of cruelty and fear.’

  The Bishop had spoken with so much feeling there was a moment of embarrassment when he ceased speaking. Everyone tried to avoid the German’s eye though longing to see how he took the attack. Craig looked at the Duke with burning eyes, a small smile curling the edge of his lips, but he said nothing.

  Von Friedberg looked round the table at a ring of troubled faces and realized he had gone too far in his triumphalism. ‘Do not worry, my friends,’ he said jovially, actually putting a hand on the shoulder of the General, who was sitting next to him. He puffed at his cigar, sending a plume of smoke over his neighbour who coughed and waved his hand in front of his face. The Duke was anxious lest Friedberg would think the General was being rude, but fortunately he was too absorbed in what he wanted to say to notice the waving hand. ‘We Germans have no quarrel with the English. We admire your Empire. We admire you . . .’ he added mischievously. ‘We are all Aryans and should unite against the lesser races,’ and he waved his finger at Weaver, perhaps in imitation of his leader.

  Weaver grunted but said nothing, for which the Duke was grateful.

  ‘There is room for two empires in the world, surely,’ said Larmore nervously.

  ‘Ah, Mr Larmore, you are right.’ Friedberg grinned wolfishly. ‘Let me repeat, we Aryans must – how do you say it – “stick together”? Communism is the great enemy and our enemies may overwhelm us unless we have our hand on the sword of justice.’ />
  Friedberg smiled, obviously pleased by his grandiloquence and confident that what he had said would reassure his listeners. But the Bishop for one was uneasy.

  ‘I always shiver when I hear anyone talk about swords of justice. If indeed yours is a sword of justice, Baron, I urge you not to draw it from your scabbard.’

  ‘From my scabbard? What is scabbard?’ said Friedberg, momentarily puzzled.

  ‘Die Degenscheide . . . ?’ suggested the Duke, tentatively.

  ‘Ja! die Degenscheide – danke, mein Herzog. I did not know you spoke German.’

  ‘Only a little,’ said the Duke modestly. It was at this point that the conversation turned to what made a good army, and the General and Friedberg unexpectedly found common ground in disparaging Americans. Weaver was just about to put in a mild defence of North American soldiery when they all heard a loud knocking at the door. The Bishop found himself thinking of that ridiculous moment in Macbeth when the knocking at the gate disturbs the sleeping castle and the audience want to giggle because they know there will soon be so much blood. Then there was the rattle of bolts, the sound of Bates opening up, followed by the clear, confident cries of the English nobleman returning home.

  Ah!’ exclaimed the Duke with irritation. ‘That must be my brother. Please forgive me if I leave you for a moment to find out what has happened to make him so late. Sit and enjoy your wine, please, I won’t be long.’

  For whatever reason, the Duke’s guests felt unable to stay put and rose with their host to stroll after him to the door in the dining-room which opened into the hall. Even Friedberg seemed anxious not to be left behind, either alone or with the Bishop, who was rather drunk and feeling melancholy at the bellicosity displayed by the German and by General Craig. The Bishop stumbled to his feet and followed Friedberg, finding himself beside General Craig. ‘You were very silent when Friedberg was telling us his vision of a resurrected Germany,’ he murmured.