At the front of the Burnham house, adjoining the portico, lay a reception room that Mrs Burnham laughingly referred to as her shishmull, because of the great quantity of gilt-framed Venetian mirrors that hung on its walls: it was here that guests were usually received and seated before the serving of dinner. Although grand enough, this room was by no means the largest in the house, and when all its chandeliers and sconces were ablaze the shishmull offered very few dark or quiet corners – which was something of a nuisance for Paulette, whose principal expedient, in dealing with the Burnham burra-khanas, was to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. In the shishmull, by dint of experimentation, she had found that her purpose was best served by retiring to a corner where a single, straight-backed chair stood in isolation against an unmirrored patch of walclass="underline" here she had succeeded in sitting out the preliminary phases of many an evening without attracting the attention of anyone other than the khidmutgars who were serving iced simkin and sherbet. It was to this corner therefore that she made her way, but tonight her customary refuge did not shelter her for long: she had just accepted a cold tumlet of tart-sweet tamarind sherbet when she heard Mrs Burnham calling out her name. 'Oh Paulette! Where have you been chupowing yourself? I've been looking everywhere for you: Captain Chillingworth has a question.'
'For me, Madame?' said Paulette in alarm, rising to her feet.
'Yes indeed – and here he is.' Mrs Burnham took a half-step aside, bringing Paulette face-to-face with the Captain.
'Captain Chillingworth, may I present Mademoiselle Paulette Lambert?'
Mrs Burnham was gone almost as soon as she had said the words, and Paulette was now alone with the Captain who was breathing rather heavily as he bowed.
'… Honoured, Miss Lambert.'
His voice was low, she noticed, and it had the crunching sound of conkers rattling beneath the wheel of a carriage. Even if he had not been so visibly short of wind, it would have been clear at a glance that he was not in the best of health: the colour of his face was a mottled red, and his figure seemed oddly bloated. Like his body, his face seemed to sag upon a frame that had once been large, square and confident of its power; its lines drooped in apparent exhaustion – the fleshy jowls, the watery eyes and the deep dark pouches beneath them. When he raised his hat, his head was revealed to be almost completely bald, except for a tattered ring of hair that hung down from its edges, like a fringe of peeling bark.
Mopping the sweat from his face, the Captain said: 'I noticed a row of lataniers on the drive. I'm told they were your doing, Miss Lambert.'
'That is true, sir,' Paulette replied, 'it was indeed I who planted them. But they are still so small! I am surprised you noticed them.'
'Pretty plants, latanias,' he said. 'Don't see them much in these parts.'
'I have a great fondness for them,' said Paulette, 'especially the Latania commersonii.'
'Oh?' said the Captain. 'May I ask why?'
Paulette was embarrassed now, and she looked down at her shoes. 'The plant was identified, you see, by Philippe and Jeanne Commerson.'
'And who, pray, were they?'
'My grand-uncle and grand-aunt. They were botanists, both of them and lived many years in the Mauritius.'
'Ah!' His frown deepened, and he began to ask another question – but the query was lost on Paulette who had just caught sight of Zachary, coming through the door. Like the other men, he was in his shirtsleeves, having handed his coat to a khidmutgar before stepping into the shishmull. His hair was neatly tied, with a black ribbon, and his Dosootie shirt and nainsook trowsers were the plainest in the room – yet he looked improbably elegant, mainly because he was the only man present who was not dripping with sweat.
After Zachary's arrival, Paulette was unable to summon much more than a monosyllable or two in response to the Captain's inquiries, and she scarcely noticed when Mr Justice Kendalbushe frowned disapprovingly at her finery and murmured: '"Hell is naked and destruction hath no covering." '
To add to her trials, when it came time to go in to dinner, Mr Doughty began to compliment her effusively on her appearance. ''Pon my sivvy, Miss Lambert! Aren't you quite the dandyzette today? Fit to knock a feller oolter-poolter on his beam ends!' Then, fortunately, he caught sight of the dinner-table and forgot about Paulette.
The table for the evening was of modest size, having been fitted with only two of its six leaves, but what it lacked in length, it more than made up for in the height and weight of its fare, which was laid out in a single spectacular service, with platters and dishes arranged in a spiralling ziggurat of comestibles. There was green turtle soup, served artfully in the animals' shells, a Bobotie pie, a dumbpoke of muttongosht, a tureen of Burdwaun stew, concocted from boiled hens and pickled oysters, a foogath of venison, a dish of pomfrets, soused in vinegar and sprinkled with petersilly, a Vinthaleaux of beef, with all the accompaniments, and platters of tiny roasted ortolans and pigeons, with the birds set out in the arrowhead shapes of flocks in flight. The table's centrepiece was a favourite of the Bethel bobachee-connah: a stuffed roast peacock, mounted upon a silver stand, with its tail outspread as if for an imminent mating.
The spectacle briefly deprived Mr Doughty of his breath: 'I say,' he muttered at last, wiping his forehead, which was already streaming in anticipation of the feast, 'now here's a sight for Chinnery's paintbrush!'
'Exactly, sir,' said Paulette, although she had not quite heard what he had said – for her attention, if not her gaze, was focused upon the place to her left, where Zachary had now appeared. Yet she dared not turn away from the pilot, for she had more than once been reprimanded by Mrs Burnham for the solecism of speaking with a left-hand neighbour out of turn.
Mr Doughty was still exclaiming over the fare when Mr Burnham cleared his throat in preparation for the saying of grace: 'We thank you Lord…' In emulation of the others, Paulette held her clasped hands to her chin and shut her eyes – but she couldn't resist stealing a surreptitious glance at her neighbour, and was greatly discomposed when her eyes encountered Zachary's, who was also peering sideways, over his fingertips. They both flushed and looked hurriedly away, and were just in time to echo Mr Burnham's sonorous 'Amen'.
Mr Doughty wasted no time in spearing an ortalan. 'Tantivy, Miss Lambert!' he whispered to Paulette, as he dropped the bird on her plate. 'Take it from an old hand: have to be jildee with the ortolans. They're always the first to go.'
'Why thank you.' Paulette's words were lost on the pilot, whose attention was now focused on the dumbpoke. With her senior dinner-partner thus distracted, Paulette was free at last to turn to Zachary.
'I am glad, Mr Reid,' she said formally, 'that you could spare an evening for us.'
'Not as glad as I am, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary. 'It's not often that I'm invited to such a feast.'
'But Mr Reid,' said Paulette, 'my little finger has told me that you have been sortieing a great deal of late!'
'Sort… sortieing?' said Zachary in surprise. 'And what might you mean by that, Miss Lambert?'
'Forgive me,' she said. 'I mean dining out – you have been doing so a great deal, no, of late?'
'Mr Doughty and his wife have been very kind,' said Zachary. 'They've taken me with them to a few places.'
'You are lucky,' said Paulette, with a conspiratorial smile. 'I believe your colleague, Mr Crowle, is not so fortunate?'
'Wouldn't know about that, Miss.'
Paulette lowered her voice: 'You know, you must be careful with Mr Crowle. Mrs Burnham says he is an awful thug.'
Zachary stiffened. 'I'm not a'feared of Mr Crowle.'
'But have a care, Mr Reid: Mrs Burnham says she will not have him in the house. You must not tell him you were here tonight.'
'Don't worry, Miss,' said Zachary smiling. 'Mr Crowle's not a man I'm likely to be sharing confidences with.'