She turned up her coat collar, huddled herself in the corner, and resolutely read her library book until, at the terminus, Sir Peter took Jennifer into his arms and kissed her hair. She did not look up until the man had left the carriage.
That evening, at home, the man from the train was suddenly confronted with one of those uncanny intuitions which, with a genius for the opportune, seem to be a prime characteristic of women as habitually trying as his wife. "Do you remember," she said, apropos of nothing, "that girl you used to tell me about before we were married?" and raising her voice above the din of radio-music, "You know, the one you said you really loved, your once-in-a-lifetime girl? If you met her now, over fifteen years later, what would you do? Would you still love her?"
The man looked up from the other side of the fireplace, his eyes carefully without expression. There was in his face nothing that revealed the scars of his long ordeal on the train, no sign whatsoever of the emotional suffering that stayed with him from those long hours, but he could not reply immediately.
She looked at him as if she demanded some response. He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know," he said cautiously, "I mean, I'd have to see her properly, talk with her. She's probably changed. Whatever put that into your head?"
His wife smiled. "I don't know," she said. "Must have been the dance-music, I suppose. It's extraordinary, isn't it, how interested everyone is in love. No one seems to write or sing about anything else."
Editor's Note
Margery Allingham was no great traveler. She went abroad seldom, she visited the United States only once (in February 1949) and she received by post the Ellery Queen Award voted to her in 1951 as one of the ten best active mystery writers by an International Poll of authors, critics, editors, publishers and readers. She was, however, duty-bound to undertake many journeys by train. As anyone knows who has ever attempted to get into London by train from the remoter parts of Essex, the journey is arduous and its length out of all proportion to the distance covered, but she found rail-travel "conducive to collecting ideas." ("Evidence in camera," collected in The Allingham Case-Book published in I 969, is another train-inspired story.)
Once in a Lifetime is published here for the first time.
The Kernel of Truth
Alfred inherited the recipe for Prior's Punch (whose other name in the lost archives was Liquor of Happiness) and, almost on the same day, Le Jardin Des Enfants Doux in Siddon's Street, Soho, and, since his was an essentially practical disposition, both were by way of being a responsibility to him.
Des Enjants was out of favor with the Bohemians, who at that far-off time could make or break any eating establishment, the chef was erratic to the point of being a visionary, and the interior was badly in need of regilding. Alfred's father had never been remarkable as a restaurateur save in the singular particular that he was an Englishman, and one day he gave up his good-natured muddling and stepped, so to speak, out of one garden into another where, no doubt, the indefatigable Frenchwoman who had been Alfred's mother was awaiting him on the lawns of Paradise.
A little later in the same week, far down in the country, there died also the fabulous great-aunt of whom Alfred had heard so much. In her time she had cooked at great houses where Royalty visited. The remnant of her days she had spent in a tied cottage on a fast-dwindling estate. Alfred was her sole remaining relative and, had he been of a less prosaic mind, he might have hoped for his share of the munificence of princes, but, when it arrived in a registered envelope forwarded by the vicar of the parish, his inheritance from his great-aunt consisted of but two treasures. One was a button cut from Bonaparte's coat by an ancestor of the old lady's who had been in service with the Governor of St Helena, and the other was a sealed package, labeled simply "Itt."
Alfred had no doubt that this was the recipe for the Punch. He opened it and spread the tattered piece of sermon-paper (or its vellum equivalent) on the cash desk of Des Enfants. He had heard so much of the famous draught and its extraordinary properties that, for all his lack of romantic feeling, he could not escape a thrill of anticipation as he saw at last the mystery set forth in a bold and clerkly hand.
Unfortunately, the first item set his feet back firmly on the ground. "One. Take of finest French brandy thirty years in cask two full quarts and toss Itt in a silver bowl made hot." Alfred sighed. As he had feared, the Liquor of Happiness had no great commercial possibilities.
He folded the parchment sadly and placed it with the button, which looked like a medal, and with them the accompanying note which said that anyone who wore the button would "achieve dominance," in the secret drawer of the desk in which he kept the details of his overdraft.
However, after a spring in which Des Enfants Doux might well have been Des Guttersnipes Revolting for all the notice anyone took of his restaurant, the maternal relatives of Alfred, of whom there were several dozen in the immediate vicinity, made what was for Alfred a fateful decision, and Augustine appeared.
In this important matter Alfred's practical disposition was a great comfort, for at first sigh Augustine at twenty-eight was not a vision to quicken the blood. She was thin and sallow with a string nose, a decided chin and little black eyes like sequins. But she brought a dot which was timely rather than sizable and her parents, who kept The Chicken on the Hearth in Caroline Street, were sorry to part with her save, of course, for her tongue.
The miracle occurred at the wedding. After the ceremony. There were at the breakfast relatives from both sides assembled and Augustine, wearing the button of Bonaparte which had been made into a brooch, was sitting in the center of a smugly speculative throng when, for the first time, Alfred made the Liquor of Happiness.
He made only a half-quantity because, great though the occasion was, there is a difference between generosity and sheer prodigal extravagance, but there was no tampering with the ingredients. All was as laid down. Even the bowl was of solid silver. Mr Reubenstein from the corner, who lent the vessel, came with it, of course, but he had a charming character and a fund of the most delicate and suitable anecdotes and could almost have merited an invitation anyhow.
For Alfred the first intimation of the experience to come the first few notes on the harp, as it were began when he first poured the pint of Demerara rum into the quart of tossed brandy and a thin blue air, too rare to be called a fume, arose from a mixture, brown and soft as a passionate eye, in the soft, white metal of the bowl. Immediately a strange new sense of well being stole over him and, for the first time, he saw the broad flat face of his mother-in-law without any unease whatsoever. He added the ten lemons one by one, rejoicing in their exquisite ripeness and the way the juice hung like mist swirls in the mixture. When first he had read the recipe the demand for powdered white sugar had seemed to him to be too lavish, but he used the full half-pound and, as he breathed the now powerful fragrance, he began to smile and the worries of the past and the apprehensions for the future began to fade.
With the mace and the cinnamon one pennyweight of each he began to think of Des Enfants as a magnificent possession and, by the time he had added a trace of allspice, the pathway of his life had taken on a certain splendor such as previously he had not observed.
At this point the recipe ended, save for the direction concerning boiling water ("one gallon drawn from a fair Spring,") but there was below a single line of writing so faint as to be indecipherable. Alfred gave up trying to read it and added the water which had just come to the boil in a coffee-urn. At once the full melody, as one might say, of the beverage poured out beneath his nose in glorious crescendo.
At that moment he caught sight of his bride and at once he noticed about her something delightful which he had never seen before. Her long spice-brown hair, drawn back with a comb set high on the back of her head, had an undulation in its strands that touched his heart and reminded him of something pleasant and familiar. He stood looking at it open mouthed, and absentmindedly his fingers strayed towards the spice-tray where a packet
of nutmegs nestled. Still absorbed by his wife's hair, so like the brown fruit in his hand, he grated a whole small nut into the brew after and this, as it happened, was important the water had been added. The rest of the evening was pure magic.
The gathering, made up of experts, was not easy to impress or to soften, but the things that happened that night made talk among them for a decade. Men saw new beauty in the wives of twenty years; children confided in their parents; Mr Reubenstein was actually prevented by the mother of Augustine from presenting the happy couple with the valuable bowl; and an obscure and hitherto neglected uncle sang a song of a far country which no one had ever heard before or could remember afterward, but which was so beautiful that everyone who spoke of it sighed gently and made somebody else a small gift.
That was the first time Alfred made the Liquor of Happiness, and for a very long time he thought it also the last. Of course, he brewed the Punch from the recipe a number of times.
In one sense he prospered. Augustine, with the sign of the dominator, blue and gold, upon her bosom, was the sort of woman who did not countenance failure and, as their joint efforts were poured ruthlessly and untiringly into it, Des Enfants waxed in popularity. Alfred made the Punch a score of times throughout those years. It shed a scented benison at the christenings of each of his children. The heads of Alfred junior, of Ernestine, of Cecile, of Paul, of Tony, of Bettine and Josef, were all whetted at the conventional times with no less a draught, but never once did it achieve quite the same unearthly potency as had been observed upon that first occasion. It was always remarkable, always admired, but the highest note, the sweet, shrill echo of peace of the heart was never reached again, not until very much later.
It was after the war. Alfred and Augustine were no longer young. The darkness, the noise and the tragedy and hard work had left their mark upon them. One summer's night the Des Enfants itself had sunk in black ashes and, but for Augustine's thrift, prudence, and indomitable courage, it might never have arisen again. Then, one Sunday in the early 1950s, in the new and recently enlarged Des Enfants, white walled and decked with blushing napery, Alfred made the Punch again.
It was his silver wedding and there were a great many guests. He stood behind the table with the pink cloth on it and with a delicate hand poured four bottles of fine into his own silver bowl. Ernestine, Cecile and Bettine waited upon him and, far across the graceful room, Augustine sat stiffly among her guests, the button of Bonaparte her only jewel.
In many respects it was a splendid affair and most eyes in the assembly were envious, but Alfred, catching sight of himself in a mirror, felt vaguely resentful. He saw a fat man with a short neck and insufficient hair. It was only to be expected, he told himself sensibly as he stirred in the sugar and took up the small wooden box of powered allspice. Life had been hard and Augustine's tongue one of its many scourges. Youth had come and looked at him, had sighed and gone away.
It was sad, he reflected, sad but inevitable. He glanced across at Augustine and frowned. She was a remarkable woman, indefatigable and, but for that one failing, a good enough sort, her failing that she had never been a beauty. Now, with her sallow skin, dusted with a powder too pale, her little eyes and her wrinkles, she looked like nothing so much as a nutmeg.
He was so struck by the similarity that, without realizing what he was doing, he took one from the box and grated almost the whole of it into the Punch. The bitter flakes lay on the steaming surface of the pool like dust on mahogany. Startled, he stood back and nodded to his elder daughter to begin to serve.
The miracles of middle age happen slowly. The proprietor of Des Enfants Doux had reached the bottom of his first rummer before it occurred to him that something very remarkable had taken place. He observed the phenomenon when, on looking in the glass, he saw not a fat man but a stalwart blessed with becoming dignity, interestingly Grey.
As he lifted his head he heard for the first time in twenty five years a deep warm note in the chatter about him and his heart leapt. Quite suddenly Bettine, who was in love as well with Jules, the new sommelier-achieved beauty. It blossomed before her father's astounded eyes like a Japanese paper flower unfolding in a glass of water. Even Ernestine, who took after her mother's family, had a radiance that Alfred had never seen before.
The entire company underwent a strange, unforgettable experience in which only the very best in the nature of each enjoyed a sweet liberation. Later on in the evening someone sang a song everybody remembered hearing long ago but none knew when or where. It had happened again. The Liquor of Happiness had been achieved a second time.
Even the next day when, in the break after their late luncheon in a corner of the deserted restaurant, Alfred and Augustine discussed it, the affair remained with them as slightly uncanny. Alfred was inclined to put it down to the quality of the brandy, but when they sent for a bottle of the same brand it was no better and no worse than the fine that they had used so often.
"Think!" commanded Augustine, her sharp eyes earnest. "Without doubt it is a matter of mixing. Think! First at our wedding and then again last night."
Alfred allowed his practical mind to dwell on the two occasions.
"Wait," he said suddenly. "That's it. It's something to do with you. Each time at the very end of the business, after the water has gone in, I caught sight of you and ..." He paused abruptly.
His wife stared at him. "Perhaps you've been drinking too much?" she suggested coldly.
"No." Alfred was on the right track but he perceived a difficulty. "No, my dear. It's a fact. That's the only difference. On each of these special occasions, just as the stuff was ready, I looked over at you and-er something happened."
Augustine flushed and her sequin eyes grew ever brighter. "Idiot!" she said, but she was very pleased and when she got up to go over to the account books she let a brown hand rest caressingly for a moment on his collar. "The mother of Jules is coming to speak to you tonight about Bettine," she murmured. "He's a good worker. Let us hope they are as happy as we have been. 'The look of love' eh? You old blagueur! That was the secret, was it?" She went off laughing, and, left to himself, to settle his digestion Alfred took a small glass of the fine.
He reflected that Augustine was a good woman and the best wife in the world but for her failing. Her last words were still in his ears and under his breath he answered them. He was a kindly man if a practical one. "It wasn't, you know," he said to himself. "It was the nutmeg."
Editor's Note
This story, "Margery Allingham's sigh from the heart over Prior's Punch," was written in 1953 for The Complete Imbiber and in 1956 was reprinted in an anthology, The Complete Imbiber: An Entertainment.
The Complete Imbiber was a periodical miscellany sponsored by Gilbey's and edited first by Margery Allingham's husband, Young man Carter, and subsequently by Cyril Ray, who also edited the anthology.
There were among its contributors some of the most eminent of the day, indeed the century. The Table of Contents glitters with famous names John Betjeman, Compton Mackenzie, A. P. Herbert, Marghanita Laski, Louis Golding, John Pudney, of course Margery Allingham and, as illustrators, Edward Bawden, Nicolas Bentley, James Boswell, Gerard Hoffnung, Laurence Scarfe, John Minto but close and informed analysis makes clear how much Pip regarded The Complete Imbiber as also not infrequently The Tatter as his personal "house-magazine." Many, perhaps most, of the contributors were also regulars at D'Arey Feasts, some his brother-in-law Philip Allingham, Baron the photographer, John Arlott, T. E. B. Clarke, the scriptwriter of some of Ealing Studio's funniest films, and the author of these notes were also not infrequently included in those more intimate gatherings in the D'Arey House bar. And there is one name in the list which does not appear in any reference-book: George Gulley was Pip himself.
Happy Christmas
Young Mr and Mrs Robinson collected Victoriana and considered collecting it their Thing. He was tall, dark, very good looking and without fault save a quick temper, she was a rolypoly duck of a girl
with spun gold hair and bright eyes, and she was, just a little, what used to be called a muggins. Let us face that fact, accept it, and ignore it. He was twenty-four, she twenty-one and their son Sebastian fifteen months and four days old.
The Robinsons took their hobbies seriously. They did not live but rather resided in the basement flat of one of those high, terrace houses which stand like vast, keg-molded butter-lumps along the endless stone-shelves of London's wide western streets north of the park. It was certainly no mansion flat but the principal room was sufficiently large to house the dining-table and the splendid set of six chairs which had launched the couple into the mysteries of collecting, and also the love-seat, not much use for loving but superb for quarreling.
Outside the flat there was a tiny triangle of garden for Sebastian and the Good Dog Tray, large enough to house also Sebastian's pram, if only after Michael's rages had persuaded the local urchins that it was not a litter-bin or a receptacle for amazingly expensive toys intended for Sebastian's use.
The G.D. Tray was a pleasing dog, brownish, fat, with a round head, beautiful eyes and a leg at each corner.
On the evening before Christmas Eve there was crisis in their cosy room with the sprigged paper which Mr Robinson had hung with his own hands.
As so often in this modern world, it was the telephone which served as herald to crisis. The Robinsons telephone, for all that it was disguised by a knitted tea-cosy so that it would not clash with the fine group of waxed flowers and fruits under a glass dome which stood beside it, remained a telephone still and still possessed of all that instrument's faults and so it was that when it rang, late in that evening of December 23rd, not only did it set Sebastian in his early, ironwork cot to howling, but also, in its habitually abrupt and abominable offhand way, it announced that Moppet and Mo would not, after all, spend Christmas with their second-degree friends the Robinsons. At the last minute they had been summoned to a super session at Castle Croesus; miraculously their car had recovered its health; they were off first thing in the morning; Mo was taking his guitar.
The Return of Mr Campion Page 15