Philip Hensher - The Mulberry Empire

Burnes bows, deeply, coldly; he is oddly irritated by the conversation.

One of the chessmen comes smoothly into the room, and stops just short of Lady Woodcourt. She breaks off her animated conversation with the latest of the guests, and turns to the footman. The guest bows to her back, and makes his escape into the room. What information the footman bears must be thrilling, for in an instant Lady Woodcourt clasps her hands to her brown wrinkled bosom, as if to stop a pet white mouse escaping from between her dugs, and skips girlishly into the centre of the room. The chatter in the room stops raggedly, and the guests all turn to her, shining with her announcement. She calls out, not raising her voice, and everyone graciously inclines in her direction, like a grove of willows in the breeze.

‘… in honour of our most favoured guest, the hero, I may say, may I not, of Bokhara, M. Mirabolant has graciously consented …’

Burnes, who has sat down again, is nodding and smiling; he has had plenty of time to grow used to this announcement.

‘… M. Mirabolant has created a new, a marvellous dish, in honour of his adventures, his great heroism – dear friends, one moment, only …’

And the doors are swung open, and, there is M. Mirabolant, the great chef de cuisine on whom all London dotes – what all great London used to call a Cook. The great M. Mirabolant, universally agreed to be the greatest Frenchman in existence since – since – since Napoleon, since Voltaire, since time began. And before him is borne a large white china dish, piled high with some white stuff into the approximate semblance of a snowy mountain. M. Mirabolant is all geniality, his broad red face greeting the room without, precisely, greeting anyone. There is a little murmur and patter of applause, as the ladies’ hands, soft as the flapping of doves into the sky, acclaim the dish, and the room turns from Mirabolant to the plump hero of the hour, who smilingly discounts any sense that he is worthy of Mirabolant’s marvellous pudding.

‘M. Mirabolant,’ Lady Woodcourt insists, ‘tell me, do not all dishes have a name?’

M. Mirabolant, all geniality, agrees that they do.

‘Pray, M. Mirabolant,’ the Duchesse de Neaud joins in, ‘charming, quite charming – do tell us, what are we to call this dish?’

M. Mirabolant draws himself up, pulls on the left outer extremity of his marvellous black moustache, gazes in deep thought at the glossy mountain of cream on the shoulders of two trembling footmen. Perhaps no inspiration will come, and the room trembles before M. Mirabolant’s genius. But they need not worry; for a light falls on the great Frenchman’s face, and genius prepares to speak.

‘It calls itself,’ he growls, his eyes fixed, as if in a trance, on the dish, and not at all on the attending multitudes, ‘une coupe Bokhara.’

And now a rapture of applause breaks out in the room, and Mirabolant turns and sweeps out, leaving his adoring public, his ecstatic mistress, quite as if he had hired them for the evening, and not the other way round. Leaves, too, a confection made up entirely of iced cream and crushed meringue, the whole sprinkled with white rose petals.

‘Tell me, Mr Burnes,’ Bella finds herself saying. ‘Is this a customary dish of the natives of Bokhara?’

‘To the best of my recollection, Miss Garraway,’ Burnes responds gravely, ‘they dine on it nightly. Meringue is their staple diet.’

‘I was certain of it,’ Bella says. ‘You must have had more dishes named in your honour than anyone now living.’

Burnes laughs heartily, immediately smothering the noise. ‘Perhaps I am a little ungrateful,’ he says. ‘But it seems to me that, like the Dutchman’s daughter, the dish has been christened twenty times, and still remains no better than it was at the first.’

‘Is it always coupe Bokhara , Mr Burnes?’ Bella says. ‘I do hope not – what a melancholy prospect that would be. Not only to have to eat iced cream and meringue every night, but not even to have the solace of variety offered by an occasional change of name.’

A cousin of Lady Woodcourt has gone to the piano, and has started up a strange crooning and crackle, which passes for a selection of Welsh airs; a young man stands by to turn the pages, his eyes wandering about the room, his fervour all directed towards finding some means of escape from his sentry duty.

‘No, not always, indeed, Miss Garraway,’ Burnes says. ‘I think it is only coupe Bokhara when M. Mirabolant takes the helm.’

‘Twice weekly?’ Bella says.

‘Quite that,’ Burnes agrees. ‘Other than that, it may be anything at all; blanquette à l’ Afghanienne, rôti de porc à la mode de Kabul , or coupe Bokhara. Yes, perhaps you are right; it is mostly coupe Bokhara.’

‘And is it always iced cream and meringue with white rose petals on top?’

‘Always. No – I do Mirabolant an injustice – perhaps once the rose petals were pink.’

The macabre daughters in their matching grave-gowns, taking a turn about the room, now come to where Burnes sits with Bella. They bow, sourly; Burnes responds, Bella makes a tiny incline, her shoulders trembling with withheld laughter, and they pass on.

‘I think your brother was in India, Miss Garraway,’ Burnes says when they are gone.

‘Yes, Harry,’ Bella says quickly. ‘Yes, that is right. How did you come to know such a thing?’

‘I think it was the first thing I knew about you,’ Burnes says. Bella blushes and lowers her head, pretending to smooth her gown. ‘I heard of him in Calcutta. It was a sad end. He was spoken of well by everyone.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Bella says. ‘My father would be comforted to hear you say that. We hoped India would be the making of him.’

‘I am sure it would have been,’ Burnes says. ‘I would not wish to intrude on your father in such festive – I mean – I would not be the one to bring melancholy thoughts to mind among happy friends.’

Bella smiles, seeing where all this talk is leading. All this chatter about poor useless Harry, sent out to India to save his name and put an end to his card debts, dead in three months in an unmentionable duel over an officer’s wife or, in official despatches, of the terrible Calcutta cholera. Poor Harry, indeed; but now, at least, he seemed to be serving some kind of useful purpose.

‘I wonder if you would permit me to call,’ Burnes says. ‘To offer some small solace to your poor father.’

‘I am sure he would take great pleasure in your conversation, Mr Burnes,’ Bella says, smiling warmly. ‘You are welcome to call at any time.’ And rests, for one moment, her little white hand on Burnes’s; it is cool and pale, his hand, and as she touches him, he does not start, or move, but merely stares, gazes, at the two-second miracle of her hand in his.

‘Thank you,’ Burnes says, helplessly. ‘And I shall bring my book, if you would permit me.’

‘We should be delighted,’ Bella smiles, and her smile is big and white and open. Her little square teeth, her clean pink mouth, her perfect lips. The smile, it makes him pause, and look, and around him, the room is silent, as if a great glass bell has dropped over them, and they move in a slower, bigger atmosphere. She smiles, and she shows her teeth, and glitters at him; there is no modesty in her, but only delight. He thanked her, and she is, for no reason, delighted.

At the other side of the room, Colonel Garraway snaps back into consciousness, his back upright and clean. It is like a window opening in the room. There before him is a girl, sour in the face and wrapped in black, looking at him inquiringly. He has no idea who she is, or what she has just said. At the other end of the room, there is a girl sitting on a sofa with a man. She is his daughter, his daughter Bella. He stands upright, and sees exactly where he is, at Lady Woodcourt’s. He bows, for no reason, at the girl in black, by his side, and then sees that behind him is a window, and outside the window is the street, and in the street ten or twenty boys, urchins, are leaping up and down, trying to see into the house, to look in and see Colonel Garraway looking out, just as he is looking out trying to see them looking in. A brilliant thought occurs to him now; the world is full of windows, and some are inside the head, and some are not. He must go home and write that down. He bows again to the girl by his side, whose name is Miss Gilbert. He will go and fetch his girl, Bella, who is looking damned fine, and then they will go home, and he will write down his brilliant thought, whatever it was.