‘Thank you.’ Having gained her point, Muriel was ready to turn her attention to something that had been puzzling her and, as Tom Byrne came to join his stepmother and be introduced to Muriel, she said: ‘Tell me, those people over there, by the window - who are they?’
Minna’s face creased into a smile. ‘Oh, those are the Rabinoyitches. Have you not met them yet? They’re great friends of the Westerholmes and of ours. When old Mrs Rabinovitch was alive they used to employ Ollie as their Shabbath Goy.’
‘So they are Jewish. I thought they must be.’
‘Oh, yes, very much so and proud of it. Leo came from Poland quite penniless and made a fortune in the rag trade. He’s got some marvellous stories, you must get him to tell you.’
Rupert had crossed the room to talk to the vicar and so it was in a confidential tone that Muriel said, ‘And they are really intimate friends? They visit here quite frequently?’
‘Is there any reason why they shouldn’t?’ broke in Tom Byrne.
Minna looked anxiously at her stepson. On all other matters Tom was easy-going and courteous, but on this particular subject…
Muriel, however, realized she had gone too far. ‘No, of course not. I just thought they might be embarrassed over dietary problems and so on.’ She laughed charmingly. ‘I wouldn’t like to make a mistake and offer them pork!’
‘They’re not strictly orthodox any more,’ said Minna, ‘though they kept the festivals for Leo’s mother while she lived. In any case,’ she went on, striving for lightness, ‘Proom knows everyone’s foibles. It isn’t Mersham they’ll envy you for after your marriage, Muriel - it isn’t even Rupert - it’s Proom!’
And as though on cue, Proom himself appeared in the double doorway and announced that supper was served.
----*
The guests had eaten, the covers had been removed and now, in the majesty of polished satinwood and gleaming silver, the Westerholmes and their chosen friends awaited the climax of the evening, Mrs Park’s chef-d’oeuvre, the dessert she had created in homage to Muriel Hardwicke.
Below stairs the atmosphere was tense, fraught with the anxieties that attend the launching of a great ship. But the swan, on its gigantic platter, held steady as James lifted it, his scrupulously-tended biceps never mor worthily employed. Win, her mouth agape, ran to open the door; Louise bundled Mrs Park into a clean apron, ready for the expected summons…
‘The Mersham Swan, my lady,’ announced Proom -and as James marched forward to set the bird down before Miss Hardwicke, the guests rose to their feet and clapped.
‘My dear, what a triumphY said Minna Byrne. ‘Really, there is no one in the world like your Mrs Park!’
‘Oi, but that is genius! cried Hannah Rabinovitch, while Miss Tate and Miss Mortimer, the pixillated spinsters, hopped like little birds.
Proom, like a great conductor, waited in silence for silence. Then he took up the knife and, with a flourish which nevertheless contained no hint of ostentation, pierced the noble creature’s heart. Exactly as Mrs Park had foreseen, the filling, softly tinged with the pink of an alpine sunset, oozed mouthwateringly on to the plate. Deftly, Proom scooped but a piece of meringue breast, a section of almond-studded wing and with a small bow handed the plate to Muriel Hardwicke.
Everyone smiled and waited and Anna, standing in the doorway with her tray, gave the exact sigh she had given when, at the age of six, she saw the blue and silver curtains part for the first time at the Maryinsky.
Muriel picked up her spoon in her soft, plump hand. She raised it to her mouth. Then she made a little moue and put it down again.
‘You must forgive me if I leave this,’ she said, turning to the dowager.
The stunned silence which followed the remark was total.
‘You see,’ Muriel explained with a charming smile, ‘it has alcohol in it.’
Muriel was correct. There was alcohol in it. The Imperial Tokay Aszu 1904 which Proom, yielding to Mrs Park’s palpable need, had after all allowed her to have.
The dowager, after an agonized glance at her butler, seemed to be in a state of shock. By the doorway, Anna and Peggy made identical gestures, their hands across their mouths. Proom’s face was as sphinx-like as ever, but a small muscle twitched in his cheek.
Something about the atmosphere now made itself felt, even by Muriel. She turned to her fiance.
‘You don’t mind, I’m sure?’
Rupert tried to pull himself together. ‘No … no, of course not. I knew you didn’t drink wine or spirits but not that even in food …’ He broke off as the full implications of Muriel’s embargo sank sickeningly into his brain.
‘Dr Lightbody showed me a piece of cirrhosed liver once. I have never forgotten it,’ said Muriel simply.
But now the shock which had held the guests silent began to wear off. Each and every person present had a memory of some good deed done by Mersham’s gentle, well-loved cook and, led by Minna Byrne, with her fine social sense, they threw themselves on to the dessert, begging and imploring Proom for helpings of the bird. The vicar, Mr Morland, remembering the feather-light delicacies the cook had sent down during his wife’s last illness, disposed of the swan’s neck and beak in an instant and asked for more. Tom Byrne, whose childhood visits to Mersham had always taken in a session of ‘helping’ in the kitchens, however busy Jean Park might be, consumed virtually an entire wing in fair imitation of Billy Bunter. Hannah Rabinovitch, though it cost her dear, abandoned her guard on the tenuous, pitted organ which served her husband for a stomach and allowed him to consume lethal doses of crime Chantilly…
Downstairs, Mrs Park sat in her clean apron and waited. Waited for ten minutes, for twenty, her eyes on the bell board, while hope and confidence and anticipation slowly drained away.
Until Proom himself, believing concealment to be impossible, came down and broke the news.
CHAPTER SIX
The night after the engagement party, Anna could not sleep. She had been on her feet from six in the morning until midnight, and even then Miss Hardwicke had expected her to wait up and help her into bed. By the time she reached her attic, Anna was in that state of exhaustion in which sleep, though desperately desired, is impossible to reach.
For a while she endured the heat and stuffiness of the little room, tossing and turning in the narrow bed. Then she gave up, slipped back the covers, and throwing a cotton shawl over her shoulders, began to creep quietly downstairs.
On the second floor landing she stopped abruptly. Here the back staircase crossed a panelled corridor on which were a series of small guest rooms used for visitors who came for shooting parties: simple, bachelor rooms that she had hardly seen.
And from behind the door of one of these had come the sound of someone moaning, as though in pain.
But who? Surely the rooms were empty? And then she remembered. The earl had moved into the end one temporarily while the grand master suite was being spring-cleaned for the wedding.
The sound came again: a low cry, followed by a spate of indistinguishable words. And, hesitating no longer, Anna pushed open the door.
By a shaft of moonlight coming from the uncurtained window, she could make out a tousled head on the pillow. The Earl of Westerholme was groaning. He was also fast asleep. In familiar country now, Anna moved