The Cooks Decameron | Page 9

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."

The First Day
On the Tuesday morning the Marchesa travelled down to the
"Laurestinas," where she found that Mrs. Fothergill had been as good
as her word. Everything was in perfect order. The Marchesa had
notified to her pupils that they must report themselves that same
evening at dinner, and she took down with her her maid, one of those
marvellous Italian servants who combine fidelity with efficiency in a
degree strange to the denizens of more progressive lands. Now, with
Angelina's assistance, she proposed to set before the company their first
dinner all'Italiana, and the last they would taste without having
participated in the preparation. The real work was to begin the
following morning.
The dinner was both a revelation and a surprise to the majority of the
company. All were well travelled, and all had eaten of the mongrel
French dishes given at the "Grand" hotels of the principal Italian cities,
and some of them, in search of adventures, had dined at London
restaurants with Italian names over the doors, where--with certain
honourable exceptions--the cookery was French, and not of the best,
certain Italian plates being included in the carte for a regular clientele,
dishes which would always be passed over by the English investigator,
because he now read, or tried to read, their names for the first time.
Few of the Marchesa's pupils had ever wandered away from the arid
table d'hote in Milan, or Florence, or Rome, in search of the ristorante
at which the better class of townsfolk were wont to take their colazione.
Indeed, whenever an Englishman does break fresh ground in this
direction, he rarely finds sufficient presence of mind to controvert the

suggestions of the smiling minister who, having spotted his Inglese, at
once marks down an omelette aux fines herbes and a biftek aux
pommes as the only food such a creature can consume.