A Winter's Child

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘Perfectly, madam.’

  ‘Good. I will send you a sketch.’ Champagne – naturally – in rivers. Wines and brandies and those terrible cocktails as seemed appropriate. And then a little supper at midnight for the dancers, of smoked salmon, lobster, something – not chicken again – in aspic, and those delicious little cheese savouries they had always served, before the war, at High Meadows. Did Hardie think his chef could manage that? Hardie thought so.

  And flowers? She paused, looking doubtful, clearly uncertain as to whether or not flowers grew in hotel lobbies. Certainly. Would madam care for orchids, perhaps? Madam would not. ‘Natural flowers, Hardie dear, the kind one might expect to see in the drawing rooms of one’s friends. And – oh dear, I really don’t wish to be a nuisance, but not in those stiff, professional arrangements – florist’s arrangements. Just naturally put together as any lady would do in her own home. Is that – all right, Hardie?’

  ‘Quite all right, madam.’

  She had, of course, reminded him with a dozen little velvet-dawed touches of his former position in her household. But he had expected that, and stifling an impulse to give her the party free of charge as his personal gift to Polly, he returned to the Crown in great good humour. The evening of the fourth of June, the date Miriam had fixed upon, would be a landmark in his life as an hotelier, a show-piece for his skills which would give Faxby’s e¥/lite far more to talk about than a cake. He was not precisely excited. Jubilant came nearer, brimful of confidence and ready not just to rise to the occasion but to surpass it. His food and wine would be superb, his service faultless, but Faxby had grown used to that. Extra details were required, extra attentions, an extra stretch of the imagination. Very well. She had expressed a desire for flowers which looked as if they had been arranged by a lady and he knew plenty of ladies, in these days of shrinking incomes and investments, who would be happy to earn a discreet pound or two. He hired three of them to transform such areas of the Crown as would be brought to Miriam’s notice into a garden of her favourite shell-pink roses – Madame Pierre Oger, by name, he had not forgotten – alongside a profusion of the considerably more homely larkspur, love-in-a-mist, blue cornflowers and white daisies, sweet peas in all their tender colours. She had mentioned the cheese savouries once served at High Meadows quite mischievously, assuming their recipe to have departed with the morose little woman who had been her pre-war cook, long since retired and now quite possibly dead. But, at some inconvenience, Kit eventually discovered her as alive and melancholic as ever in a Humberside cottage where it cost all his charm and persistence and a five-pound note to obtain her recipe from her. The fish and the páté and the trifles presented no problem, but Miriam had complained of the tedious reliability of chicken. He called Aristide Keller to his office and convinced him that not only Miriam Swanfield but the world in general were ready and waiting now, all agog, for the creation of Chicken Supréme Anstide, Poulet Keller, whatever he chose to call it so long as it ensured that Miriam would never be bored by chicken again. She had spoken of a cake. Who better than Amandine Keller, pastry chef extraordinaire, to bake and decorate it? She had wrinkled her nose at the thought of cocktails. Had she ever tasted one? He doubted it. And he called another conference, with MacAllister this time, asking him not only to create a special cocktail for Polly, which was always done for brides and fiancees in any case, but also for Miriam, called a ‘gracious lady’, he rather thought, in a wide-brimmed glass, a dash of well-spiced sweet Jamaica rum and apricot brandy, a dark colour to it, something purple, vaguely imperial. She wouldn’t be able to resist a sip or two of that. She might even mellow sufficiently to be impressed. And if that happened it would not spoil his pleasure one little bit to know that he was charging her royally for it.

  And then, two days before the great event, a bolt from the sky which, a moment before, had been a limpid, unruffled blue. ‘Where is my wife?’ Amandine Keller’s husband wanted to know.

  Amandine Keller, pastry chef, was found in the stillroom, not busily icing Polly’s cake as she ought to have been, but in compromising proximity with the fishmonger who supplied the best turbot and sole and shellfish to be had in Faxby, to the Crown.

  ‘I am going to kill you,’ announced Aristide Keller, chef de cuisine to his wife who promptly threw a pastry fork at him which lodged in his temple, although without doing too much harm; and then, while first-aid was being administered by Claire, went off to pack her bags and take refuge in the fish-shop of her lover.

  ‘I’d take it easy – wouldn’t jump to any quick conclusions. There could be another explanation,’ said Kit who certainly could not think of one himself, being simply thankful that dinner, at least, was safely over. But Aristide Keller, knowing himself betrayed, shook off the false reassurance of false friends and set off at speed, muttering fiercely of what one could only assume to be revenge.

  ‘It might be as well to follow him, Claire,’ said Kit. ‘I’d go myself, but I’ve got the Mayoress in my office, waiting to book a banquet and overnight accommodation for a Mayor and Corporation from somewhere in theColne Valley. And in the state he’s in, he might think I have an eye on Amandine myself.’

  She followed apprehensively, soon lost his trail without too much regret, so that she was neither present nor particularly sorry to have missed the fun, when he physically attacked the fishmonger’s shopfront, causing so much grievous bodily harm to plate glass windows and counters and then a certain amount to Amandine herself, that he was locked up in the cells underneath Faxby Town Hall and sentenced the next morning to three months in Armley Gaol.

  So much for Chicken Supréme Aristide. So much, too, for Polly’s party cake already baked, of course, but still waiting for Amandine’s magic to transform it from three square dark slabs of fruit and spices and cherries to an enchanted icing-sugar tower.

  So much, too, for today’s luncheon, today’s dinner. And what of tomorrow? How would it affect the reputation of the hotel? And what about Arnold Crozier who, with no reputation of his own, set high standards for everyone else? What would he have to say about adultery among the Cre‘/me Chantilly and Poires Belle He¥/le‘/ne, and headlines in the local press?

  ‘One thing at a time,’ said Kit who had spent most of the night attempting without success to persuade Amandine and the police to drop their charges and then, when he finally admitted there was no chance of it, doing what he could – not much he feared – to keep the affair out of the newspapers. ‘Let’s think about breakfast first, shall we? You all know you can manage that. And put a little posy of fresh flowers on the trays – in case things don’t improve throughout the day.’

  He went into his office, spent a long time on the telephone, sent a few telegrams and then called for Claire.

  ‘I have to go down to Kent.’

  ‘Kit – at a time like this!’

  ‘Exactly. I need a chef. I know where to get one In Kent.’

  ‘Can’t you just send for him?’

  ‘Claire – if life could only be so simple. As it happens he has a job. I’ve no reason to believe he doesn’t like it. So I have to go and convince him he’d like this one better. And apart from that – well, he’s a fairly peculiar fellow. I worked with him once before, years back, and he was odd then – worse now I reckon.’

  ‘Why worse?’

  ‘Because of the war – no, not shell-shock or gas – nothing so straightforward as that really. He was a conscientious objector.’

  ‘I like him already.’

  ‘I thought you would.’

  ‘Did he go to prison?’

  ‘Oh yes. He says, at one point, they shipped him and some others over to France. Told them the Government had signed their death warrants and staged a mock execution. Stood them against a wall, blindfolds, guns, the lot. That’s what he says –!’

  ‘I believe it.’

  ‘He believes it. He’s never got over it. So – he is somewhat on the twitchy side and the kitchen maids won’t love him. But he c
an cook.’

  ‘What are the chances that he’ll come?’

  ‘Enough to take me down there. After all, as a conscientious objector his days in the kitchens of the aristocracy are over. Perhaps he’s not doing too well. He needs looking after in any case. I’ll have to find out what he wants and convince him I can supply it. And while I’m away do you feel up to going on your knees to Amandine about Polly’s cake?’

  ‘Pound notes would do it better.’

  ‘Whatever it takes to get her back.’

  ‘Which means –?’

  ‘That if I get John David, this bloke in Kent, I can manage without Aristide. So, if the Kellers won’t work together again – and they probably won’t – I’ll take the pastry chef.’

  ‘And the fishmonger.’

  ‘Well yes. I suppose he is part of the deal. I can’t see him delivering his merchandise to our back door again – can you? – until he knows there’s no chance of meeting Aristide with his meat cleaver. And I wouldn’t know where to go for better turbot.’

  ‘How long will you be away?’

  He put a steady hand on her shoulder, gave her a steady smile, showing more faith in her than it would have been reasonable for anyone to feel.

  ‘From now until tomorrow afternoon.’

  Her mouth went dry.

  ‘That means today’s lunch and dinner. And lunch – at least-tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m not worried about it, Claire. I know you’ll cope.’

  ‘No you don’t. Without a chef?’

  He smiled. She wondered how he possibly could.

  ‘It’s midweek, We’re quiet. Get the kitchen staff together and ask them what they can do. Then use your own judgement. Don’t let anybody try to prove himself another Escoffier. Simple menus, and plenty of stand-by dishes in case something goes wrong. I went to the vegetable market on my way back from the cells first thing this morning. The meat has been delivered. Get the under-chefs to have a look at it before you put the menus together. No point in promising Escalope Marengo if there isn’t any veal – and no tomatoes. Try and keep the waiters calm.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes – except that you’re a lovely lady.’

  ‘I’m terrified.’

  ‘Oh – you’re not really you know. Once you get going you’ll be fine.’

  He smiled again, picked up his bag, touched her arm and her cheek.

  ‘Don’t miss your train.’

  ‘No. And – by the way …’

  ‘Yes Kit?’ She had heard his ‘by the way’so many times before and knew she had good cause to dread it.

  ‘It’s midweek as I said. We ought to be quiet. But with Aristide’s little mishap on the front page of The Faxby Echo – oh yes, it’s bound to be. Well – the Lady Mayoress might cancel but other people might just want to come and see how we’re managing without him. I’d rather you didn’t turn any bookings away.’

  ‘Yes, Kit.’

  ‘No man is indispensable, Claire.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. As a theory it never quite convinced me.’

  Now she knew why.

  Lunch which amazingly, gratifyingly, did prove quiet was an anguished rehearsal for dinner.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’ asked Toby, stopping by for his prawns poached in white wine and cream, his Wednesday bottle of Chablis.

  ‘Yes. Come to dinner tonight and keep on singing our praises very loud.’

  ‘So I will. Not that anybody listens to me. And as to the spot of bother with Aristide – well – nine days’wonder you know. Front page news this morning. Nobody can quite remember just what it was all about the morning after.’

  Yet several people telephoned, quite early, to voice vague apprehensions about future bookings, including Miriam – the telephone held at least four inches from the delicate mechanism of her inner ear – who informed Claire, in a flustered, desperately well-meaning voice that there was a horrid rumour in circulation about the Crown. Was it true? And, if so, she hoped it would not be allowed to cast any kind of a shadow on her party. Claire – her eyes on the undecorated slabs of birthday cake – assured her that it would not.

  Predictably the Mayoress cancelled her table for that evening, not wishing, with true political instinct, to associate herself with an establishment which might now have started on its downward path, particularly as the bench which had sentenced Aristide Keller that morning had consisted of an uncle and two cousins of hers. But others proved more curious, happier to take a chance, less fickle, and it soon became terribly clear that the restaurant would be full.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Claire, smiling brightly, and having made sure that everybody was gainfully occupied in obeying Kit’s instructions to the letter, she dashed off, her arms full of flowers, to plead with Amandine.

  She had no time for diplomacy.

  ‘What do you want, Amandine?’

  Revenge first of all. For a moment Claire was at a loss as to how she could supply that.

  ‘Well, he’s in prison. And when he comes out, the Major doesn’t want him. He wants you.’ Amandine gave a thin, peevish shrug. Her husband would not be returning to the Crown in any case. He was planning to open a restaurant in Town Hall Square. It was all arranged. Claire wondered what the Major would have to say about that.

  ‘All right, Amandine. We need you.’

  ‘I know, said Amandine, her mind playing happily around those large plain squares of fruit cake. And what it came down to in the end was how much. She named her price. Claire halved it. They haggled, settled. She would come back and ice the cake and then they would see. Perhaps she would stay, because of the Major, who had always been good to her. Perhaps not.

  ‘Detestable woman,’ thought Claire.

  ‘Do not imagine,’ said Amandine, from her new position of power, ‘that the Major will marry you. He will not.’

  Dinner approached.

  ‘That’s delicious,’ said Claire, standing in the kitchen in her evening dress of beaded black net, smiling serenely, having passed the barrier of tension to an unnatural, exalted calm. ‘It’s going very well – coming out just right.’

  The menu was smaller than usual but the portions larger, four vegetables instead of three, potatoes in many guises, less complicated main dishes but a larger variety of cheeses and cold desserts, little extras slipped in between courses, a champagne sorbet to follow the fish, crystallized fruits and what remained of Amandine’s dainty confectionery with the coffee, lashings of cream.

  ‘Yes – that’s exactly right. You’re doing fine.’ She hardly knew what she was praising. She simply praised, soothed, spoke calm, cheerful words, was simply there – as Kit was always there – to be referred to, to make the decision and take the chance, to keep on repeating, until she had almost convinced herself, that everything was going well, would be perfectly all right.

  One spark of panic, only one, and she knew there would be no putting out the conflagration. Therefore, there must be no panic. When a sauce curdled and a cry was raised, ‘What do I do?’ Claire, who had never made a sauce in her life, looked into the pan with wise appraisal and said ‘Oh, that’s not serious. You’ll easily put it right.’ When a kitchen maid burned her hand on an oven door and, jumping backwards, collided with a waiter and his tray of, fortunately, iced vichyssoise, she moved like lightning to put herself between them, converting what might have been a flare of highly infectious temper, a burst of demoralizing tears, into a simple matter of clearing up broken china, cold leeks and potatoes and starting again. When too many waiters brought in too many orders and shouted them all at once she did not interpret the jumbled, abbreviated culinary terms which, in fact, she did not fully understand. She simply stood between the two opposing forces, those who cooked the food in shirt-sleeves in hectic, stifling obscurity and those immaculate dignitaries who carried it condescendingly to table, her cool presence keeping them apart.

  ‘Let’s just get on with it shall we?’ And they submitted to her composu
re, her good humour, her fierce determination that none of them – absolutely no one – should let Kit down.

  She went into the restaurant and, a smiling, unobtrusive presence, made her rounds. ‘Is everything all right for you, sir-madam –?’ In most cases it was. ‘What’s all’ this we’ve been hearing about?’ somebody wanted to know. ‘Jealous husbands, eh, and meat cleavers – very continental.’ But what did anyone really know of Aristide beyond his Veal Marengo and his Lobster Bordelasse, or of Amandine that was of greater interest to them than her mille-feuilles. And if those things remained more or less unchanged, who really cared?

  ‘Is everything all right for you, sir?’ In one instance, and fairly loudly, it was not, Claire’s apologies falling sweet and fast as she whisked away the offending Steak Chasseur, although very little remained on the plate to judge whether or not it had really been tough, and replaced it with the lobster the gentleman now considered he should have ordered at the start.

  She slept in the hotel that night, having spent a long time cashing up, tidying up, giving praise generously where it was due, and was downstairs early, as Kit always was, to make sure that everybody else was at his post and that all the early morning requirements of the guests were promptly and cheerfully met.

  ‘Will the Major be back today?’ Mr Clarence and Mrs Tarrant both wanted to know.

  ‘I expect so.’

  She sounded admirably unconcerned. If he came, all well and good. If not then what of it? They would just carry on.

  Mrs Tarrant sorrowfully shook her head. Mr Clarence gave a nervous smile. Adela Adair, the restaurant pianist, who had no reason to be in the hotel so early, her red hair looking very red indeed in the unaccustomed daylight, her long face a year or two older, heaved a sigh and began to talk of her long association with disaster. Gerard, the head waiter, kept glancing at his watch, and MacAllister, despite Claire’s vigilance, had consumed far more of his own rum punch than had been good for him.