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Part I

The Cook's Decameron

Prologue

The Marchesa di Sant'Andrea finished her early morning cup of tea,
and then took up the batch of correspondence which her maid had
placed on the tray.  The world had a way of treating her in kindly
fashion, and hostile or troublesome letters rarely veiled their
ugly faces under the envelopes addressed to her; wherefore the
perfection of that pleasant half-hour lying between the last sip of
tea and the first step to meet the new day was seldom marred by the
perusal of her morning budget.  The apartment which she graced with her
seemly presence was a choice one in the Mayfair Hotel, one
which she had occupied for the past four or five years during her
spring visit to London; a visit undertaken to keep alive a number
of pleasant English friendships which had begun in Rome or Malta.
London had for her the peculiar attraction it has for so many
Italians, and the weeks she spent upon its stones were commonly the
happiest of the year.

The review she took of her letters before breaking the seals first
puzzled her, and then roused certain misgivings in her heart.  She
recognised the handwriting of each of the nine addresses, and at
the same time recalled the fact that she was engaged to dine with
every one of the correspondents of this particular morning.  Why
should they all be writing to her? She had uneasy forebodings of
postponement, and she hated to have her engagements disturbed; but
it was useless to prolong suspense, so she began by opening the
envelope addressed in the familiar handwriting of Sir John
Oglethorpe, and this was what Sir John had to say--

"My Dear Marchesa, words, whether written or spoken, are powerless
to express my present state of mind.  In the first place, our
dinner on Thursday is impossible, and in the second, I have lost
Narcisse and forever.  You commented favourably upon that supreme
of lobster and the Ris de Veau a la Renaissance we tasted last
week, but never again will you meet the handiwork of Narcisse.  He
came to me with admirable testimonials as to his artistic
excellence; with regard to his moral past I was, I fear, culpably
negligent, for I now learn that all the time he presided over my
stewpans he was wanted by the French police on a charge of
murdering his wife.  A young lady seems to have helped him; so I
fear Narcisse has broken more than one of the commandments in this
final escapade.  The truly great have ever been subject to these
momentary aberrations, and Narcisse being now in the hands of
justice--so called--our dinner must needs stand over, though not, I
hope, for long.  Meantime the only consolation I can perceive is
the chance of a cup of tea with you this afternoon.

   J. O."

Sir John Oglethorpe had been her husband's oldest and best friend.
He and the Marchesa had first met in Sardinia, where they had both
of them gone in pursuit of woodcock, and since the Marchesa had
been a widow, she and Sir John had met either in Rome or in London
every year.  The dinner so tragically manque  had been arranged to
assemble a number of Anglo-Italian friends; and, as Sir John was as
perfect as a host as Narcisse was as a cook, the disappointment was
a heavy one.  She threw aside the letter with a gesture of
vexation, and opened the next.

"Sweetest Marchesa," it began, "how can I tell you my grief at
having to postpone our dinner for Friday.  My wretched cook (I gave
her seventy-five pounds a year), whom I have long suspected of
intemperate habits, was hopelessly inebriated last night, and had
to be conveyed out of the house by my husband and a dear, devoted
friend who happened to be dining with us, and deposited in a four-
wheeler.  May I look in tomorrow afternoon and pour out my grief to
you? Yours cordially,

"Pamela St. Aubyn Fothergill."

When the Marchesa had opened four more letters, one from Lady
Considine, one from Mrs. Sinclair, one from Miss Macdonnell, and
one from Mrs. Wilding, and found that all these ladies were obliged
to postpone their dinners on account of the misdeeds of their
cooks, she felt that the laws of average were all adrift.  Surely
the three remaining letters must contain news of a character to
counterbalance what had already been revealed, but the event showed
that, on this particular morning, Fortune was in a mood to strike
hard. Colonel Trestrail, who gave in his chambers carefully devised
banquets, compounded by a Bengali who was undoubtedly something of
a genius, wrote to say that this personage had left at a day's
notice, in order to embrace Christianity and marry a lady's-maid
who had just come into a legacy of a thousand pounds under the will
of her late mistress.  Another correspondent, Mrs. Gradinger, wrote
that her German cook had announced that the dignity of womanhood
was, in her opinion, slighted by the obligation to prepare food for
others in exchange for mere pecuniary compensation.  Only on
condition of the grant of perfect social equality would she consent
to stay, and Mrs. Gradinger, though she held advanced opinions, was
hardly advanced far enough to accept this suggestion.  Last of all,
Mr. Sebastian van der Roet was desolate to announce that his cook,
a Japanese, whose dishes were, in his employer's estimation,
absolute inspirations, had decamped and taken with him everything
of value he could lay hold of; and more than desolate, that he was
forced to postpone the pleasure of welcoming the Marchesa di
Sant' Andrea at his table.

When she had finished reading this last note, the Marchesa gathered
the whole mass of her morning's correspondence together, and
uttering a few Italian words which need not be translated, rolled
it into a ball and hurled the same to the farthest corner of the
room.  "How is it," she ejaculated, "that these English, who
dominate the world abroad, cannot get their food properly cooked at
home? I suppose it is because they, in their lofty way, look upon
cookery as a non-essential, and consequently fall victims to gout
and dyspepsia, or into the clutches of some international
brigandaccio, who declares he is a cordon bleu.  One hears now and
again pleasant remarks about the worn-out Latin races, but I know
of one Latin race which can do better than this in cookery."  And
having thus delivered herself, the Marchesa lay back on the pillows
and reviewed the situation.

She was sorry in a way to miss the Colonel's dinner.  The dishes
which the Bengali cook turned out were excellent, but the host
himself was a trifle dictatorial and too fond of the sound of his
own voice, while certain of the inevitable guests were still worse.
Mrs. Gradinger's letter came as a relief; indeed the Marchesa had
been wondering why she had ever consented to go and pretend to
enjoy herself by eating an ill-cooked dinner in company with social
reformers and educational prigs.  She really went because she liked
Mr. Gradinger, who was as unlike his wife as possible, a stout
youth of forty, with a breezy manner and a decided fondness for
sport.  Lady Considine's dinners were indifferent, and the guests
were apt to be a bit too smart and too redolent of last season's
Monte Carlo odour.  The Sinclairs gave good dinners to perfectly
selected guests, and by reason of this virtue, one not too common,
the host and hostess might be pardoned for being a little too well
satisfied with themselves and with their last new bibelot.  The
Fothergill dinners were like all other dinners given by the
Fothergills of society.  They were costly, utterly undistinguished,
and invariably graced by the presence of certain guests who seemed
to have been called in out of the street at the last moment.  Van
der Roet's Japanese menus were curious, and at times inimical to
digestion, but the personality of the host was charming.  As to Sir
John Oglethorpe, the question of the dinner postponed troubled her
little:  another repast, the finest that London's finest restaurant
could furnish, would certainly be forthcoming before long.  In Sir
John's case, her discomposure took the form of sympathy for her
friend in his recent bereavement.  He had been searching all his
life for a perfect cook, and he had found, or believed he had
found, such an one in Narcisse; wherefore the Marchesa was fully
persuaded that, if that artist should evade the guillotine, she
would again taste his incomparable handiwork, even though he were
suspected of murdering his whole family as well as the partner of
his joys.

That same afternoon a number of the balked entertainers
foregathered in the Marchesa's drawing-room, the dominant subject
of discourse being the approaching dissolution of London society
from the refusal of one human to cook food for another.  Those
present were gathered in two groups.  In one the Colonel, in spite
of the recent desertion of his Oriental, was asserting that the
Government should be required to bring over consignments of
perfectly trained Indian cooks, and thus trim the balance between
dining room and kitchen; and to the other Mrs. Gradinger, a gaunt,
ill-dressed lady in spectacles, with a commanding nose and dull,
wispy hair, was proclaiming in a steady metallic voice, that it was
absolutely necessary to double the school rate at once in order to
convert all the girls and some of the boys as well, into perfectly
equipped food-cooking animals; but her audience gradually fell
away, and in an interval of silence the voice of the hostess was
heard giving utterance to a tentative suggestion.

"But, my dear, it is inconceivable that the comfort and the
movement of society should depend on the humours of its servants.
I don't blame them for refusing to cook if they dislike cooking,
and can find other work as light and as well paid; but, things
being as they are, I would suggest that we set to work somehow to
make ourselves independent of cooks."

"That 'somehow' is the crux, my dear Livia," said Mrs. Sinclair.
"I have a plan of my own, but I dare not breathe it, for I'm sure
Mrs. Gradinger would call it 'anti-social,' whatever that may
mean."

"I should imagine that it is a term which might be applied to any
scheme which robs society of the ministrations of its cooks," said
Sir John.

"I have heard mathematicians declare that what is true of the whole
is true of its parts," said the Marchesa.  "I daresay it is, but I
never stopped to inquire.  I will amplify on my own account, and
lay down that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole.
I'm sure that sounds quite right.  Now I, as a unit of society, am
independent of cooks because I can cook myself, and if all the
other units were independent, society itself would be independent--
ecco!"

"To speak in this tone of a serious science like Euclid seems
rather frivolous," said Mrs. Gradinger.  "I may observe--" but here
mercifully the observation was checked by the entry of Mrs. St.
Aubyn Fothergill.

She was a handsome woman, always dominated by an air of serious
preoccupation, sumptuously, but not tastefully dressed.  In the
social struggle upwards, wealth was the only weapon she possessed,
and wealth without dexterity has been known to fail before this.
She made efforts, indeed, to imitate Mrs. Sinclair in the
elegancies of menage, and to pose as a woman of mind after the
pattern of Mrs. Gradinger; but the task first named required too
much tact, and the other powers of endurance which she did not
possess.

"You'll have some tea, Mrs. Fothergill?" said the Marchesa.  "It's
so good of you to have come."

"No, really, I can't take any tea; in fact, I couldn't take any
lunch out of vexation at having to put you off, my dear Marchesa."

"Oh, these accidents will occur.  We were just discussing the best
way of getting round them," said the Marchesa.  "Now, dear,"
--speaking to Mrs. Sinclair--"let's have your plan.  Mrs. Gradinger
has fastened like a leech on the Canon and Mrs. Wilding, and won't
hear a word of what you have to say."

"Well, my scheme is just an amplification of your mathematical
illustrations, that we should all learn to cook for ourselves.  I
regard it no longer as impossible, or even difficult, since you
have informed us that you are a mistress of the art.  We'll start a
new school of cookery, and you shall teach us all you know."

"Ah, my dear Laura, you are like certain English women in the
hunting field.  You are inclined to rush your fences," said the
Marchesa with a deprecatory gesture.  "And just look at the people
gathered here in this room.  Wouldn't they--to continue the horsey
metaphor--be rather an awkward team to drive?"

"Not at all, if you had them in suitable surroundings.  Now,
supposing some beneficent millionaire were to lend us for a month
or so a nice country house, we might install you there as Mistress
of the stewpans, and sit at your feet as disciples," said Mrs.
Sinclair.

"The idea seems first-rate," said Van der Roet; "and I suppose, if
we are good little boys and girls, and learn our lessons properly,
we may be allowed to taste some of our own dishes."

"Might not that lead to a confusion between rewards and
punishments?" said Sir John.

"If ever it comes to that," said Miss Macdonnell with a mischievous
glance out of a pair of dark, flashing Celtic eyes, "I hope that
our mistress will inspect carefully all pupils' work before we are
asked to eat it.  I don't want to sit down to another of Mr. Van der
Roet's Japanese salads made of periwinkles and wallflowers."

"And we must first catch our millionaire," said the Colonel.

During these remarks Mrs. Fothergill had been standing "with parted
lips and straining eyes," the eyes of one who is seeking to "cut in."
Now came her chance. "What a delightful idea dear Mrs. Sinclair's
is. We have been dreadfully extravagant this year over buying
pictures, and have doubled our charitable subscriptions, but I believe
I can still promise to act in a humble way the part of Mrs. Sinclair's
millionaire. We have just finished doing up the 'Laurestinas,' a little
place we bought last year, and it is quite at your service, Marchesa,
as soon as you liketo occupy it."

This unlooked-for proposition almost took away the Marchesa's
breath. "Ah, Mrs. Fothergill," she said, "it was Mrs. Sinclair's
plan, not mine. She kindly wishes to turn me into a cook for I know
not how long, just at the hottest season of the year, a fate I should
hardly have chosen for myself."

"My dear, it would be a new sensation, and one you would enjoy
beyond everything. I am sure it is a scheme every one here will hail
with acclamation," said Mrs. Sinclair. All other conversation had
now ceased, and the eyes of the rest of the company were fixed on the
speaker. "Ladies and gentlemen," she went on, "you have heard my
suggestion, and you have heard Mrs. Fothergill's most kind and
opportune offer of her country house as the seat of our school of
cookery.  Such an opportunity is one in ten thousand. Surely all of
us---even the Marchesa--must see that it is one not to be neglected."

"I approve thoroughly," said Mrs. Gradinger; "the acquisition of
knowledge, even in so material a field as that of cookery, is always
a clear gain."

"It will give Gradinger a chance to put in a couple of days at Ascot,"
whispered Van der Roet.

"Where Mrs. Gradinger leads, all must follow," said Miss Macdonnell.
"Take the sense of the meeting, Mrs. Sinclair, before the Marchesa
has time to enter a protest."

"And is the proposed instructress to have no voice in the matter?"
said the Marchesa, laughing.

"None at all, except to consent," said Mrs. Sinclair; "you are going
to be absolute mistress over us for the next fortnight, so you
surely might obey just this once."

"You have been denouncing one of our cherished institutions,
Marchesa," said Lady Considine, "so I consider you are bound to help
us to replace the British cook by something better."

"If Mrs. Sinclair has set her heart on this interesting experiment.
You may as well consent at once, Marchesa," said the Colonel, "and
teach us how to cook, and--what may be a harder task--to teach us
to eat what other aspirants may have cooked."

"If this scheme really comes off," said Sir John, "I would suggest
that the Marchesa should always be provided with a plate of her own
up her sleeve--if I may use such an expression--so that any void in
the menu, caused by failure on the part of the under-skilled or
over-ambitious amateur, may be filled by what will certainly be a
chef-d'oeuvre."

"I shall back up Mrs. Sinclair's proposition with all my power,"
said Mrs. Wilding.  "The Canon will be in residence at Martlebridge
for the next month, and I would much rather be learning cookery
under the Marchesa than staying with my brother-in-law at Ealing."

"You'll have to do it, Marchesa," said Van der Roet; "when a new
idea catches on like this, there's no resisting it."

"Well, I consent on one condition--that my rule shall be absolute,"
said the Marchesa, "and I begin my career as an autocrat by giving
Mrs. Fothergill a list of the educational machinery I shall want,
and commanding her to have them all ready by Tuesday morning, the
day on which I declare the school open."

A chorus of applause went up as soon as the Marchesa ceased
speaking.

"Everything shall be ready," said Mrs. Fothergill, radiant with
delight that her offer had been accepted, "and I will put in a full
staff of servants selected from our three other establishments."

"Would it not be as well to send the cook home for a holiday?" said
the Colonel.  "It might be safer, and lead to less broth being
spoilt."

"It seems," said Sir John, "that we shall be ten in number, and I
would therefore propose that, after an illustrious precedent, we
limit our operations to ten days. Then if we each produce one
culinary poem a day we shall, at the end of our time, have provided
the world with a hundred new reasons for enjoying life, supposing,
of course, that we have no failures.  I propose, therefore, that
our society be called the 'New Decameron.'"

"Most appropriate," said Miss Macdonnell, "especially as it owes
its origin to an outbreak of plague--the plague in the kitchen."