“You want them talking about the menu,” Ann replied. “The exquisite pairing of the wines and course selections, the beautiful presentation, the faultless service, and the gracious conversation. Guests stop tasting what you put in front of them when the menu is too lavish.”
A truth too many hostesses never grasped.
“You are certain?” Aunt set aside the menu Ann had spent hours researching and testing. “The brigadier gives me great latitude with my entertainments. He expects food worthy of our standing.”
When had a lot of retired generals and their wives and daughters become more finicky than a pack of dowager duchesses?
“I am absolutely certain, Aunt. You could feed your guests buttered bread and mulled cider, and if you made them feel welcome, provided interesting conversation, and sent them away full, they’d enjoy the evening.”
“You have little grasp of polite society if you believe that.”
When Aunt frowned, she conjured up both the spoiled young woman she’d been prior to marrying Uncle and the settled matron she was becoming. She was still beautiful—a wife nearly twenty years younger than her husband was well advised to remain beautiful as long as she could—but Melisande was perpetually discontent, and that showed.
“I feed polite society every evening, Aunt. I see what disappears from the buffet a quarter hour after it’s served, what remains unfinished at the end of the evening. I know which dishes are all clever presentation—popular the first time we set it out, not of much interest thereafter—and which are constant favorites. At the Coventry, I can experiment without anybody the wiser, and I take advantage of that privilege.”
Aunt poured herself another cup of tea, a stout black that had beery notes on the tongue. “You should not be working in that place, Ann. If anybody learned that my niece…. Suffice it to say, the brigadier is not happy with the situation either.”
Ann had been hearing this refrain for three years. “I am well compensated for my time. I get to cook to my heart’s content, and I am learning much.” A small falsehood. Jules had stopped presenting new recipes less than a year after he’d taken over as chef. “Have you had a chance to pass my menu suggestions to Mrs. Bainbridge?”
“Yesterday. She was intrigued. An apple cider glaze for scallops would certainly be novel.”
The glaze was delicious. “That recipe is also simple to prepare, which matters, and can be made with ingredients common to any country kitchen.” Honey, dark vinegar, pepper, spinach, bacon… nothing fancy, though the results were impressive.
Impressive mattered to a London hostess more than flavorful, nutritious, or cheap to prepare, while for Ann, expense would always be a consideration.
The Pearsons were gentry, but Grandpapa had been wealthy enough to afford London seasons for his daughters. Mama had married a solicitor, and there had been ample funds to send Ann to various schools and academies, each more pretentious than the last. She had run away for the final time at age fourteen, and by then, Mama and Papa had succumbed to influenza, Grandpapa had been ailing, and Aunt had been following the drum in Spain as the dutiful wife of the brigadier.
Ann tried a bite of shortbread and wished she hadn’t. “You can tell Mrs. Bainbridge I am available to discuss the menus at her convenience.”
Aunt set down her tea cup. “No, I cannot. As far as Emily Bainbridge is concerned, you bide in genteel obscurity down at the family seat in Sussex. You send me recipes by post, and that’s the extent of your culinary eccentricity.
“You insist on disgracing your upbringing,” Melisande went on, “by laboring like some scullery maid. If that became common knowledge, Emily Bainbridge would be serving up the gossip for the next five years. You know you are welcome to bide here as my companion, and despite your age, I live in hope that your selfish flight will end in matrimony. That can’t happen unless you put aside your foolish attachment to cooking, of course, because no man wants to take in hand a headstrong, unnatural female.”
Ann needed Melisande’s connections, needed her entrée into polite society’s dining rooms and buffets. She chose her words carefully as a result.
“If I used my inheritance to open a school, would that be less of an embarrassment?”
“A cooking school?” Melisande’s tone conveyed both disdain and amusement, as if cooking weren’t a necessary daily undertaking in most households. “Were you a French chef of considerable renown, then such an enterprise would be bearable, but you are not, and you never will be.”
“French chefs can be more trouble than they’re worth. Let me know what Mrs. Bainbridge says, and please tell her I have more recipes if these won’t suit.”
“Your mother would die a thousand deaths to know what’s become of you.”
Your cook is cheating on the shortbread with lard. Your devoted brigadier has been seen at the Coventry with Emily Bainbridge clinging to his arm.
“I am content, Aunt.” A trifle lonely, truth be told, and utterly sick of Monsieur’s drama in the kitchen, but happy too. That Mama might well have been mortified by Ann’s vocation barely signified.
“You think you are content,” Melisande said, offering a plate of petits fours, “and I know what it is to be young and in thrall to silly dreams, so I turn a blind eye to your stubbornness for now. Promise me the Coventry’s guests never see you, Ann. You owe the brigadier and me, as well as your future expectations, that degree of discretion.”
“Our chef isn’t about to allow the guests to see the army of minions who turn his ideas into delicious reality.” Ann managed a sip of her tea. “The Marchioness of Tavistock has consulted me for menus.”
“She’s Mrs. Dorning now, unless somebody wants to show her undue courtesy. Her husband is your employer. Of course she consults you.”
The marchioness did not consult Monsieur, and that drove him to sniffing and pouting as badly as if his soufflé had fallen.
The point of the call had been achieved. Ann had made certain Mrs. Bainbridge had her menu and turned over another list of suggestions for Aunt Melisande’s upcoming officers’ dinner.
“If your cook has questions,” Ann said, rising, “please let me know. Some of the recipes are complicated, and she should practice them before serving them to your guests.”
“She has enough experience with your suggestions by now to know that, though I must say, the results are delicious and present well.”
“Is that a compliment, Aunt?”
Melisande rose gracefully, her airs still those of the regimental darling. “I do not doubt your talent, Ann, merely your good sense. You could have married a wealthy cit and put on all the lavish dinners you pleased, but you insist on squandering your good name on sculpted potatoes. I worry about you.”
On the quiet nights, when Monsieur retired early and left the kitchen entirely in Ann’s hands, she worried too. The Coventry could be closed down with a single raid, or Monsieur could have her fired on a whim. The Dornings might sell the club, and the new owner could see the kitchen staff replaced.
Ann’s inheritance was safely invested, but Melisande was right: The post of undercook was not a certain path to fame and acclaim.
“You worry for nothing,” Ann said as Melisande escorted her to the front door. “I am happy, and my employers value me.”