by Myers, Amy
High in his small office in Scotland Yard, Inspector Rose was regretting his hasty decision to leave Plum’s to Stitch – or rather to Didier and Stitch. Sometimes his sense of humour got the better of him, he decided grumpily. He had forgotten about the feast of Plum’s Passing. He’d dearly love to be there . . .
From the gardens, lurking near the tradesmen’s entrance, a slim figure gazed up at Plum’s. Gaylord Erskine would be here for Plum’s Passing. Undoubtedly. The run of Hamlet was finished and the new production would not start till next week. And Mrs Erskine would be at Plum’s as well. A smile of pure happiness crossed the watcher’s face.
The only begetter of the feast was for a rare moment in his life doubting his abilities. Sitting in Emma’s sitting room, he had temporarily put aside the club misfortunes and was running over for the umpteenth time the menu for Plum’s Passing. It was his second Passing since he had joined the club but this year it was the fiftieth anniversary. Clearly the best of Auguste Didier was going to be called for.
For the umpteenth time also, the image of Alexis Soyer rose before his mind. In his rational moments, Auguste knew Soyer to have been a lovable, talented, generous man. In his more irrational moments he saw him as a devil set to taunt and mock him; in his mind’s eye Soyer was forever the barrier his own genius could not surpass. ‘I tell you, Emma, when I get to the gates of heaven, St Peter will say, “Ah, but Auguste, you cannot enter. Your cailles bardées awe feuilles de vignes were inferior to Monsieur Soyer’s.”’
‘Whereas I shall be right in there, swapping receipts with dear Alexis,’ said Emma smugly.
‘Not, ma mie, if you contrive to be so niggardly and use inferior brandy in your mincemeat—’
‘My mincemeat,’ snapped Emma dangerously, ‘is between me and St Peter.’
‘Very well, my love. Very well,’ said Auguste hastily. ‘But tell me, Emma,’ pleadingly, ‘am I right – should I perhaps serve a dinner à la Russe instead?’
‘Anything Soyer could do, you can outdo,’ said Emma forthrightly. Auguste cast a look of doubt at such unexpected support, but accepted the compliment. Once again he stared at the menu in front of him, his own, and compared it with the seemingly incomparable menu of the banquet given for Ibrahim Pasha in 1846, cooked by Soyer. 1846 had been the year of Plum’s founding, and perhaps Plum’s presence at the Soyer banquet had inspired the very begetting of Plum’s.
Seize potages. Well, that was simple. But he, Auguste, could do better. Victoria soup, soup à la Louis Philippe, no. Plum’s should dine on wine soup, and perhaps chestnut or lobster. He brightened a little. Sixteen fish dishes, four each of four different fish dishes. There, too, he would excel. No one could beat Auguste at a sole normande, for instance, not even the recipe of the great Grimod de La Reyniere. And a salmon pudding perhaps. Seize relevés, the roasts. No problems there. Fifty-four entrées. Fifty-four? All by himself? He paled a little. Yet he knew it would be necessary. Out of the 200 members of Plum’s at least 150 would be packed in for Plum’s Passing. Anybody who could come by train, steerage, carriage, foot would be there. Seize rôtis – bon. Easy. Fifty-four entremets. He began to read: six de gelées macédoine de fruits au Dantzic, six de croquantes d’amandes aux cerises, six de tartelettes pralinées aux abricots . . . his eye slipped to the savoury ones. Quatre de haricots verts au beurre noisette. Ah, safer ground here. Then the desserts, those crowning marvels of spun meringue, the pièce montée, crème d’Égypte à l’Ibrahim Pasha, an honour to the distinguished guest. True it would crumple at the first touch of a knife, but no matter. The glory was in the creation . . . like the pièce montée he had created at the Galaxy . . . no, he would not think of the Galaxy – or of darling Maisie.
His face grew paler and paler as he read on grimly. Perhaps he should simplify his menu? He compared the two again. No, that he could not do. It was necessary. He must rival Soyer.
Emma Pryde watched him amusedly. She had never seen him look so downcast. ‘Tell you what, Auguste,’ she offered, ‘I’ll come in and give you a hand . . . They can manage ’ere without me for a day. I’ll put the fear of God into ’em, if they can’t.’
Auguste regarded her with horror. True, she was the famous cook Emma Pryde, but a woman? She was his idol, it was true, but his partner? In his art? Work with him? But, on the other hand, no one had such a hand with the desserts, with pastry and patisserie, as had Emma.
She watched the conflicting emotions cross his face, understood them very well, and at last, putting him out of his misery, said, ‘You’ll be the maitre, Auguste. Naturally. I’ll just be a pastrymaid for the evening. Keep my tongue to myself for a change.’
He regarded her suspiciously. ‘But is that possible, ma chériel,’ he asked simply.
‘Absolutely,’ she said gravely. ‘I’ll tell you afterwards what I think, and follow your instructions while it’s ’appening.’
‘You will do this for me?’ said Auguste, impressed, for he understood what this meant, this delegation of power. Especially from Emma.
‘It’ll give me a chance to snoop around and find out what’s going on. You don’t seem to be getting very far.’
She had said the wrong thing. He glared.
‘Ma mie, since you have refused to discuss your friends’ (heavy emphasis) ‘with me, I am a little hamstrung.’
She was silent for a moment, then said almost pleadingly, ‘Charlie is my friend, Auguste.’
‘If he is innocent, he has nothing to fear,’ he said loftily.
‘Yes, but – oh very well,’ she snapped. ‘But it isn’t just Gertie Briton, you know. Erskine has leaving shops all over London.’ Offhandedly she rattled off three more female names, then, ‘Sylvia Preston—’
Auguste drew in his breath sharply. ‘Mrs Preston!’
‘No, daughter,’ said Emma crisply, not looking at him.
‘That is bad.’
Emma did not comment, but swept on: ‘There are others, too, besides Erskine. Peregrine Salt and James Prendergast, for example.’
‘What?’
She laughed. ‘Not like that. A feud, that’s all. Over Africa. Lord Bulstrode, Colonel Worthington. Over a hat.’
‘A what?’
‘A hat. Really, Auguste. Do listen. Rafael Jones, Colonel Worthington. Reasons unknown.’
‘Stop. All this? In that place of peace, Plum’s?’
‘Of course,’ said Emma, clucking at Disraeli, ‘it’s a club. Now do let me ’elp you detect – or cook – it’ll be a romp.’
‘A romp!’ he echoed, scandalised. ‘A romp is not how I see my art.’
‘Don’t be so stiff and starchy, Auguste. It doesn’t suit you. You’re not like that in bed.’
Auguste opened his mouth, then reflected, and shut it again.
‘They are hardly the same thing,’ he remarked.
‘Oh yes, they are,’ said Emma, ‘you think about it. The hors d’oeuvres, the entrées, the re—’
‘Perhaps,’ said Auguste hastily, ‘but for Plum’s Passing we keep them separate, hein?’
She laughed. ‘I tell you, Auguste. This will be an evening we’ll never forget.’
And in that she was entirely accurate.
Luncheon the next day was unusually quiet. Only three members were lunching, and one of them was Worthington, for once subdued.
Nollins could not understand it, for he had seen the morning room unusually full of people, talking animatedly in earnest little groups, heard the murmur of excited raised voices. But suddenly most of them had melted away. Did they think they were going to be poisoned perhaps? This new spectre haunted him, in his mind’s eye the graph of restaurant receipts taking a severe and irreparable plunge, sinking Plum’s into bankruptcy.
A more immediate result was that Auguste’s best grouse pie was wasted. The chef took this as a direct insult against himself, and set out to discover why.
People came into the club, and half an hour later were seizing their hats back from Peeps and retiring again
. This was unusual. Was it to do with the weather outside?
It wasn’t Derby Day was it? Nollins asked himself anxiously.
By four o’clock the place was like a morgue.
It was Worthington, retiring after his lunch to make use of the facilities, who provided the solution. Red-faced he came steaming up to Nollins:
‘I say, Nollins, we didn’t do things this way at Chillianwallah, you know. Chap had something to say he said it face to face. . .’
The mystery was solved. Somebody had enlivened the white tiles with slogans in red paint, the principal purport of which was to invite an unspecified adulterer to make himself scarce forthwith.
It says much for the clientele of Plum’s that so many of the members had obeyed the edict without question.
‘Daphne!’
Lady Bulstrode waddled placidly into the room, the note in her husband’s voice being so customary that she was not in the least perturbed. Bulstrode House, an imposing but decidedly run-down Regency residence in the heart of Mayfair, was run on haphazard lines. A year’s supply of household impedimenta would accumulate with no housemaid daring to touch them, until Bulstrode, goaded into action by his failure to find his best walking stick, for instance, would erupt through the house with housemaids and footmen alike in his wake like a flood of cleansing water down the gutters of Leather Lane. Lady Bulstrode, an amiable though vague mistress of the household, was popular with all the staff; her husband was regarded as an uncertain volcano, part of the landscape most of the time and a time-bomb when the spirit so moved him. His habit of donning one black sock and one white sock for morning wear, accepted as a harmless eccentricity by his fellow club members, was regarded by his staff as a sign of severe mental disturbance. Only his wife’s placidity convinced them they would not be murdered in their beds.
‘Clara, where the deuce is my hat?’
This was serious; a feverish search at last uncovered the ancient topper, showing signs of age along with its master. ‘Off to the club,’ he explained testily.
‘Yes, dear.’
He paused in the act of clapping the hat on his head.
‘They are letting you women in for Plum’s Passing. No need to worry.’
Lady Bulstrode was the one wife who had not continued to nag her husband. True, she had spearheaded the wives’ rebellion. But that was on principle. In fact she was not at all sure she wanted to go. Draughty, uncomfortable places men’s clubs from what she had seen during her one dramatic visit.
‘Lots of deuced funny things happening at Plum’s nowadays. It’s letting all these pansies in. I was against it, mind. Don’t want you coming, Daphne. You keep out of it.’
‘I think I’ll come, Horace, all the same. After all,’ she said grimly, ‘Mr Erskine will be there.’
Bulstrode regarded his wife with alarm. ‘Dash it, Daphne, you can’t tackle a man in his own club about a mere woman.’
‘Can’t I?’ retorted his spouse placidly enough. She would tackle Erskine anywhere, at any time. For on the subject of her fallen women Daphne Bulstrode was an avenging and implacable Nemesis.
Sir Rafael Jones blinked as the morning light suddenly streamed in the window. Briggs was pulling back the curtains. The day had begun a great deal earlier even in St John’s Wood, but Sir Rafael was not accustomed to rising early. He preferred to talk far into the night with an eager circle of acolytes around him. On the evenings Rosie wasn’t present, that is.
An hour later, having bathed and breakfasted in the beautiful Georgian room, he had decided what to do. He would go to Plum’s for luncheon. He wanted to hear the latest gossip about the Passing feast in the light of the fact that ladies would certainly now be present. He was not married, so the issue was immaterial to him. He could hardly escort his latest mistress, since his taste ran not to wives but to nymphets. He thought about that new young housemaid – wondered if she’d pose . . . and reluctantly decided against it. He’d joined Plum’s partly because the rumours about his models were getting too strong. And now Erskine was ever present, he had to divert any public suspicion that their role went beyond mere modelling. He’d got Erskine into Plum’s – suppose he demanded more? He shivered. But all the same his ‘Girls Bathing in a Stream’ should definitely be his next project. He’d need three models . . .
General Fredericks left the house in Curzon Street with his usual military precision precisely at 12 noon. He would walk to Plum’s via St James’s Park. The day was fine, the walk would do him good. Besides, he and Alice had not exactly seen eye to eye. He began to wonder whether he had been right to agree to the entrance of women to the club at all, even though he had never advocated its being for the Passing Parade. Alice and he usually thought as one. Except that she had never quite understood the importance of Plum’s in his life, or what it represented. He wasn’t quite sure himself up till now. Now it was being threatened, however, he did. A frown crossed his face. Ignore it as they might, something was happening that was shaking the very foundations of the club. Perhaps he was exaggerating. Was his reaction to the shattering discovery he had recently made colouring his whole attitude to Plum’s?
Another former military man was making his way to Plum’s: ‘Jorrocks’ Atkins. Bristling with indignation, he ran through his mind once more the disturbance to his routine occasioned by the unfortunate happenings at Plum’s. It was rare he spent so much time in London: the country was the place for him – especially when that fellow Worthington was not there. But he had to be here for the Passing. His small eyes gleamed. He was looking forward to this meeting. And to the Passing. There could be opportunities for him – opportunities to get his own back on that darned fellow Worthington.
Samuel Preston dutifully pecked his wife Mary on the cheek and left his home behind Westminster Abbey. Normally he would be in the House, attending to his constituency business, as a conscientious (and ambitious) Member of Parliament. In expectation of Salisbury’s retirement, he was already close to Campbell-Bannerman; his plans had been laid for a long time, for over twenty years in fact, ever since he had acquired his fortune by such dubious means. Nothing was going to disrupt them now. Samuel Preston was a lean and hungry man (despite his girth) – a Cassius in search of a Brutus.
This morning, however, he wanted to go to Plum’s. He was intrigued as any at the current discussions. What line was old Worthington going to take? He’d been the club bore for so long, it was hard to see him in the role of campaigner. He put to the back of his mind that other business. But at the Passing itself, then would be the time . . .
Peregrine Salt strode out along Piccadilly, as though on a trek along the Nile, a trail of native bearers behind him. Not for the world would he miss luncheon at Plum’s at the moment. Besides he was almost looking forward now to bringing Juanita into the club. He relished the thought of the dark-haired Amazonian Juanita amongst all those horsy English women. Of course, Juanita was the reason that public recognition of his achievements was a little later than it should otherwise have been. Though perhaps news of his irregular liaisons in Africa had filtered back, with the help of his arch-enemy Prendergast, who, not content with cheating him out of his rightful due over the Wampopo River, had never ceased to rub his victory in. Prendergast was one reason that Salt had hastened to put up for Plum’s. It was necessary he, too, should be seen as part of the British Establishment. Moreover, he had one advantage over Prendergast. He had photographic records of his travels, especially of his archaeological triumphs, and could display them at magic-lantern shows. The next one might be for ladies also. The ladies . . . He wondered what old Worthington would have to say this morning about the ladies joining the parade. As though Juanita would be content to stay cooped up in the dining room. Poor old Mortimer. Such a bore.
Alfred Peeps was not on his way to Plum’s. Alfred Peeps had been there since 7 a.m. when he relieved young Perkins, the night porter. Plum’s remained open till the last member had staggered port-laden out into the night, a little warmer, a
little cheered by Plum’s soft cocoon. For the benefit of the members who stayed overnight in the half dozen or so rooms that Plum’s possessed, night porterage had been instituted.
Alfred Peeps (Mrs Peeps not being involved in the decision) had no doubts what the result of women being allowed into Plum’s would be. Disaster. That’s what it would mean. Disaster. One event must be linked to the other, that was Peeps’ opinion. Where women were, trouble followed. And where trouble was, the perlice followed. And now he’d had another nasty letter. Couldn’t be any of the gentlemen of course. Must be one of the staff. A foreigner probably . . . no Englishman would descend to such language.
Gaylord Erskine, too, was on his way to Plum’s; top-hatted, light overcoat for all it was late May, he strode along the Haymarket to Piccadilly. The Haymarket was crowded as usual, bustling with wayfarers, and the street clogged with traffic. He stood in a knot of walkers, waiting impatiently, pressing forward to cross the road which was jammed with carriages, hansoms and omnibuses. Suddenly a woman’s scream pierced the air. When the hansom shot by her exposing her to view in the middle of the road, the cause could be seen: a pigeon was perched on her hat. Fascinated, the crowd watched as the pigeon deposited an offering amid the veiling and flowers of the hat, to the oaths of its owner, the bird clearly under the impression that it was in some flower garden of St James’s Park.
Gaylord Erskine lurched forward in typically gallant manner to assist. It was as well he did so for the knife merely grazed his wrist instead of penetrating a far more vulnerable part of his body, and clattered to the ground.
In the excitement of pigeon gazing, Police Constable Roberts, there to keep a watchful eye on him, failed to see which one of the dozen or so people gathered round him had administered the blow, and was only useful therefore in picking up the knife as Erskine, feeling the graze, cried out and turned back; then he thought to surrender the handkerchief lovingly tucked into his pocket by his Betty that morning, to tie round Erskine’s wound until such time as he could reach Plum’s and Mrs Hoskins’ more effective ministrations. Gaylord scorned the idea of returning home; he was not going to miss this luncheon for anything . . .