The Cooks Decameron | Page 7

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