by Myers, Amy
‘Yes, Mr Didier.’ The look in Algernon’s face boded ill for somebody.
‘Will His Royal Highness like mutton broth?’ wondered Alice doubtfully. ‘It is August.’
‘This menu is not my idea,’ pleaded Auguste despairingly. ‘I have prepared some dishes which I know will please the Prince of Wales. The quails and devilled bones, also the mutton cutlets give him much pleasure. But this mutton broth. Bah! I am told Dickens partook of it at home.’ The tones of disgust indicated Auguste’s reasons for dreading a wife. Suppose he were to marry only to be faced with mutton broth? ‘I have therefore made a small portion of almond soup. Surely in all Mr Dickens’s vast works there must be some mention of almonds, and if not,’ he said firmly, ‘remember that in France this dish is named hedgehog soup. I feel sure Mr Dickens must mention hedgehogs.’ He looked around, but no one had views on this. ‘And if he does not,’ he continued, ‘the Prince of Wales will not mind. It is better than mutton broth in August. Eh bien. Les entrées. The kidneys. Where is Mr Pegg?’ He looked automatically at Alfred.
‘’E went to ’elp Miss Araminta with the coffee,’ said Sid brightly.
‘He has no business to be assisting Miss Araminta,’ said Auguste crossly. ‘Not when kidneys require his attention.’
‘I think he’s sweet on her,’ volunteered Emily. ‘I saw them spooning on the beach,’ she added, rather wistfully.
‘Our guests will be deprived of their chance of spooning this soup, unless you watch this broth, Mr Peckham,’ said Auguste viciously, returning to the fray. James Pegg a rival in Araminta’s affections? Impossible. ‘Kindly adjust the temperature, Mr Peckham, before it boils away, and then be so good as to ask Mr Pegg if he can spare the time to rejoin us.’
Auguste busied himself checking the stuffing, unable to get to the root of his unease. Eventually he did so. His pupils were developing minds of their own, behaving out of character, no longer the dull but devoted group of enthusiasts he had taught so constructively for six months. Did the seaside do this to people? Or was it more than the influence of the Broadstairs sands?
In the lounge Lord Beddington was taking a short rest after the exigencies of luncheon. He had made no concessions to the seaside. He was wearing a decent black cloth lounge suit, and had no intentions of changing his mode of attire. He opened an eye as a door closed with a bang. One of the cooks came in, judging by the white apron. He shut his eye again, then opened it once more, and glared. Algernon Peckham glanced at him, and there was a momentary pause before he moved on to speak to James Pegg.
Beddington closed his eyes, but this time he was not asleep. He was curious to remember where he’d seen that impudent young face before. At last he did.
There’d been a bench between them at the time.
Once luncheon was over, the afternoon began in earnest for both groups of devoted toilers. The Literary Lionisers, having commanded their maids and valets, if they had them, to unpack, or if they had not, scurried through this tedious task themselves, were gathering for the first event of the week, the promenade around Dickens’s Broadstairs. Armed with their texts of the Lion’s own travel guide to the town, Our English Watering Place, The Lionisers were arrayed in their seaside apparel, no less excited at the beginning of their week’s holiday than had been Auguste’s pupils. For some of them, the sands were taking precedence over the works of Mr Dickens, as they gathered to await their leader amid the potted palms in the first-floor sun lounge overlooking the Victoria Parade, the sands and the sea.
In the kitchens below, the other group of devotees, those addicted to cuisine and at the moment wondering why, were entering the most vital and concentrated period of Auguste’s schedule. Everyone worked in tense silence, concentrating on their own particular task. Vegetables were being prepared; eight dozen quails were ready for the ovens; trays of mutton cutlets, to be served with caper sauce in an attempt to please the Dickensian purists (as well as the Prince of Wales) were waiting for their moment to come. Ingredients for the lobster salads were being assembled, the kidneys being sliced for Rognons à la Didier, herbs were being chopped or minced to the accompaniment of the words of wisdom of Emily’s grandmama.
Grave discussions between the wine waiter, Auguste and Alfred were in progress; Alfred had been detailed to serve beverages and wine to the top table this evening, at which the Prince of Wales and the committee members would dine. It had been hard to convince the Imperial’s sommelier of the necessity for the presence of porter and ginger beer. When appealed to for her support over the ginger beer, Araminta had laughed. It was not helpful, but she looked so beautiful in her blue muslin that Auguste forgave her instantly. The need for ginger beer was agreed and put down to French eccentricity.
In the sun lounge, Sir Thomas addressed his flock. ‘We shall progress along the Parade and Albion Street, up to Fort House, known as Bleak House, and thence to the pier,’ he announced grandly, pointing with his Golden Jubilee cane.
‘A queer old wooden pier,’ quoted Gwendolen blithely, determined to be noticed in her new sailor hat.
‘Quite,’ said Sir Thomas shortly. He marched off at a brisk pace, leading his party of fifty or so, including two in bath-chairs intent on taking the tour, come hell or high water, the latter being most probable.
‘Pitch,’ bleated Gwendolen, ‘the pier was covered in pitch, Mr Dickens says.’ No one commented.
Uncle Mack’s Broadstairs Minstrels performing on the sands, the Punch and Judy man, the donkey boys and the fruit vendors were stunned into momentary silence at the sight of this huge party moving along the seafront, like a leviathan as large as the one washed up at Fishness Point in 1574. Sir Thomas was in full flood, though his performance seemed to lack its usual fortissimo, thought Oliver to himself. It was almost as if his thoughts were not wholeheartedly in it for some reason. The group came to a halt outside an old cottage on the front. ‘There,’ Sir Thomas announced dramatically. ‘Betsy Trotwood’s cottage from David Copperfield. Until recently assumed to be at Dover.’
‘Donkeys, Janet!’ trilled Gwendolen at his side.
‘We shall be viewing it later in the week, by kind consent of the owner,’ Sir Thomas continued, ignoring this contribution. He turned to take Angelina’s arm ostentatiously, in full view of Gwendolen’s watchful gaze and that of Oliver.
The mass of promenaders bulged along in the committee’s wake, creating some difficulty as they turned into the narrow High Street and into Albion Street. Six Broadstairs matrons attempting to shop at Marchesi’s the confectioners, two errand boys buying bloaters from Mr Goodman the fishmonger, a few afternoon revellers strolling out from the Dolphin Inn and an eager group from the Tourist Cycling Club staying at the Balmoral Bijou Hotel found themselves swept along with the crowd as they pursued their leaders down Harbour Street under the ancient York Gate (which being without specific Dickensian associations hardly received a glance). Numbers had swelled to eighty by the time the group reached the old Tartar Frigate Inn and poured onto the pier.
‘The chances are a thousand to one that you might stay here for ten seasons and never see a boatman in a hurry,’ quoted Sir Thomas loudly to his brood, waving a lordly hand towards William and Joe who were enjoying a quiet chew of tobacco at the end of the pier. Eighty pairs of eyes focused on them with interest, clearly thinking them Dickensian relics.
‘Visitors, Bill,’ said Joe slowly, barely pausing in his chew.
‘Ah.’
‘Dey says dey wants to see us ’urry.’
‘Ah.’
They rose slowly and deliberately to their feet like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. ‘’Dat young Dickens, ’e were allus in an ’urry, weren’t ’e, Bill?’
‘Ah. I remembers dat,’ announced William. ‘Used to come tearing down ’ere ’e did. Perch on the rail there, chattin’ away baht ’is books an’ all. Bill, ’e used to say, I got summat in mind for you. How d’yer feel about ’Am? ’Am?’
‘’Am, Bill?’ queried Joseph in tones of one
who has asked before.
‘Aye. ’Am. ’Am Peggotty. That’s what I’ll call yer. An’ ’e did, didn’t ’e, Joe?’
‘’E did, Bill,’ agreed Joseph, with a wink only visible to his partner. ‘’E put yer into David Copperfield.’
With a gasp of pleasure, impressed with this firm evidence of Dickensian times, the crowd moved forward to inspect the relics.
In one lightning movement the two fishermen picked up two pails of stinking fish heads and flung them lovingly at the Lionisers’ feet. Fifty-two grateful seagulls swooped, breaking up the ranks amid cries and squeals of distress.
‘Ah,’ remarked William again. They resumed their seats as the Lionisers retreated.
‘I hear,’ said Sir Thomas hastily by way of conversation, ‘the news from Cowes was not good. The Kaiser won the Queen’s Cup.’
‘Shouldn’t mention it to His Royal Highness, Throgmorton,’ rumbled Lord Beddington. ‘He was banking on Britannia winning.’
‘The Kaiser is determined to win at everything,’ observed Oliver, ‘especially on the sea.’
‘Damned fellow,’ said Beddington surprisingly energeti cally. ‘Rules our lives now. You can’t go into the Foreign Office or the club without some new story about young Willie’s spies.’
‘Spies?’ squealed Angelina in mock alarm, clutching for protection at Sir Thomas’s arm.
‘They’re everywhere,’ grunted Lord Beddington. ‘Look at that German band down there. Spies, every man jack of them, I’ll be bound.’
‘Not all spies for Germany are German,’ pontificated Sir Thomas. ‘In this modern age, they are everywhere, the enemy in our midst.’
‘Not in the Literary Lionisers?’ squealed Angelina.
Sir Thomas smiled patronisingly and held her arm the more tightly.
Tempers in the kitchens rose with the temperature as ovens burned and broth smiled on. Kitchen tables resounded to the sound of chopping herbs and eschalots by Emily. James was occupied on lobsters and kidneys, and Algernon, studiously avoiding meat, on vegetables. Alfred had already trussed and stuffed the geese. Only Sid whistled cheerfully throughout, fetching, carrying, soothing. ‘Herr Freimüller,’ Auguste shouted in sudden alarm, ‘where is the prune stuffing? You have provided only the sage and onion.’ But there was no sign of Freimüller.
‘Here it is, Mr Didier. Just needs mixing with the pork,’ came Alice’s calm voice.
‘Alice, you are a blessed jewel among women,’ said Auguste fervently.
Alice hoped that Alfred was listening and taking due note. In fact he was not. He was wondering what Sir Thomas meant by his threat to see him later. And just what he intended to say. And what he would do in return.
Fifty people (the other thirty had disengaged themselves at the first mention of Dickens) were now taking tea in the gardens of the Albion Hotel under the shelter of parasols. The weather was sultry, not sunny, today but you never knew when a lurking sun ray might attempt an assault upon the complexion.
‘It is here of course that Dickens himself stayed, in a house now part of this hotel, while finishing the writing of the immortal Nicholas Nickleby, and on other occasions and later in the hotel itself.’
‘Here we are to spend a merry night, are we not, Thomas?’ shouted Gwendolen in a high penetrating voice, to the intense interest of those not quite so well acquainted with Dickens’s letters. Oblivious of the equivocal nature of her remarks, Gwendolen was hoping that Angelina, with whom Sir Thomas had chosen to sit at a table for two only, would take due note of her omission of the ‘sir’. It was a gauntlet flung down before her rival.
‘As did Dickens himself,’ announced Sir Thomas, turning round having recovered some of his composure. ‘Yes, on Tuesday I believe, we shall all be gathered here for an evening together.’ He then resumed his rapt attention to Angelina, thus leaving Gwendolen with no option but to try to think of something interesting to say to Oliver Michaels and Samuel Pipkin.
‘Have you thought further on that we spoke of the other evening, Angelina?’ Sir Thomas said in a low voice, throbbing in what he hoped was emotion. ‘I should perhaps wait for some more romantic hour.’ In fact he had fully intended to wait for a suitably moonlit warm night, but the trying events of the day had put him so out of sorts that he could stand the waiting no longer. The affirmative he knew would follow would help him in the discussion this evening with the Prince of Wales. The vote had been taken, but as Angelina would undoubtedly now regret her stance, she would make her views clear to His Royal Highness. Besides, to appear eager for a decision would be flattering to Angelina. Would she, or wouldn’t she? he murmured, leaning forward.
‘How is your stomach today, Thomas?’ shouted Gwendolen, determined to be heard.
Sir Thomas flinched, and turned his chair even more deliberately away from the neighbouring table. ‘Well, I thank you,’ he managed to say offhandedly before once again addressing his rapt attention to Angelina, albeit somewhat shaken from his confident suavity.
Angelina smiled sweetly and leaned forward herself. She spoke low and earnestly to Sir Thomas. She would not, was the gist of what she communicated first. The reasons why took rather longer to explain and, like her decision, was between themselves, for strain though she might, Gwendolen could not hear. Shifting her chair position slightly, she saw Sir Thomas’s face pale with emotion, she saw him pick up Angelina’s hand and kiss it with devotion. She saw Angelina remove it modestly, with a maidenly flush on her cheeks, or thus Gwendolen’s jealous eye perceived it. Maiden indeed, she snorted to herself. Mrs Langham must be nearly thirty. Mature, as she was herself.
Unable to bear what she saw as her rival’s triumph, Gwendolen turned to face the teacups again, wrapped in misery. Oliver, observing the scene with the same keen interest as had she, munched his way through a Dickensian gingerbread cake, his emotions harder to determine than those of his companion.
A few minutes later, Sir Thomas was walking slowly back to the Imperial Hotel in advance of the main party. He had made the excuse that he needed to be there to greet the Prince of Wales, but making this pronouncement, which he had previously rehearsed many times, failed to fill him with the satisfaction he had anticipated. For once, his mind was not on royalty and a possible peerage, not on Dickens, not on his incipient gastritis, not even on the blow that Angelina had dealt him. It ranged over many other matters, none of which were pleasant and some of which until he came to Broadstairs he had almost put out of his mind.
‘Attention, ladies and gentlemen. It is time. The geese!’ He looked impatiently. Where was Herr Freimüller? He had been detailed to assist Mr Pegg in placing the geese in the ovens.
Heinrich burst in at the doors, carrying two bottles, followed by Emily, somewhat flushed, holding a bunch of herbs.
‘Thyme for the kidneys,’ she announce nervously in excuse.
‘It is not time for the kidneys,’ shouted Auguste. ‘It is time for the geese,’ extracting his head from the oven.
‘That’s sage, Mr Didier,’ said Emily, puzzled.
Auguste stared at her, wondering whether he was lecturing to imbeciles, and his gaze fell on Heinrich. ‘This is your job, Herr Freimüller,’ he announced grimly.
‘I get champagne,’ he said. ‘I am sorry, Mr Didier. For the kidneys.’
‘Forget the kidneys,’ said Auguste wearily. ‘The geese. They must cook. Dépêchez-vous!’
Heinrich did not understand French, but the meaning was clear.
Oven doors flew open. James and Heinrich placed the geese, covered in their layers of goose fat, into their ovens. The die was cast. In three hours twelve roast geese would emerge succulent, rich and juicy. Would they be eaten? Auguste would take it as a reflection on his honour if they were not, despite the unseasonable time of year. Only the Prince of Wales could refuse his goose with impunity.
How glorious seemed the morrow, Auguste thought, when he could resume his holiday; tomorrow, after supervising a light luncheon, he would escort the delectable A
raminta to the band concert of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. There he would introduce her to Egbert and Edith. Even perhaps they would bathe. The thrill of seeing Araminta in bathing dress, even in the distance, segregated as the gentlemen were from the ladies, made his heart race. Truly there must be something strange about the seaside, when the mere sight of seeing an ankle had made his heart beat the faster. How dear Maisie, or Natalia, and certainly Emma, would laugh to see him enslaved by an ankle after their more generous gifts of person! Yet enslaved he was. He and Araminta had paddled together earlier in the week, an occupation he found most strange. But she had lifted her skirts a full six inches above the ground as she entered the water, and he was captivated. If he were a poet he would write a poem to that glimpse of bare ankle. True, Araminta had no idea of what a poached egg was, but what delight for a man to cook all his life for such an angel. This seaside air of Broadstairs was magical. Never again had he thought the love of woman could touch his heart, not after the pain of knowing Tatiana was lost to him for ever. Perhaps he should be practical and take a wife for comfort. He could marry Alice. How often had he said what a helpmeet she would be, if only Alfred Wittisham were not there. He could marry Araminta. His French practicality reluctantly came to the fore. Alice would be better.
She came in with a further two bottles of champagne and took them, blue eyes shining, to Alfred, assembling the ingredients for the Rognons à la Didier.
‘Heinrich got the champagne for me already,’ Alfred pointed out tactlessly. Alice’s eyes clouded.
Poor Alice, thought Auguste, she tried so hard, but he feared his lordship did not notice her save as a friend, an attitude of which James Pegg would fully approve. He looked round. Pegg had disappeared again. Auguste promptly despatched Alfred to hunt for him. Surely, surely Pegg could not be in pursuit of Araminta? Jealousy flared, a red dagger in his heart.
Sir Thomas walked back to his room in the Imperial somewhat later than he had intended, though he was not destined to reach it quite yet. Out of the small sitting area at the end of the corridor Gwendolen Figgis-Hewett darted like a vixen from cover. Yet a third troublesome encounter, but perhaps the easiest to deal with.