Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

‘It’s not money that’s the root of all evil, but women,’ he declared. His wife, wispy in pale-blue, cowered away from him and Doctor Franklin, who was the main recipient of the Major’s discourse, looked harried. Only Mrs Fletcher looked pleased, and that might have been because Judith was leaning ostentatiously on Gerald’s arm. Miss Medenham was remarkable in cyclamen chiffon and amethysts. The poet was offering her a cocktail and drinking her in with what looked like serious, if alcoholically inspired, concentration.

The gentlemen were dressed in the usual panoply; the ladies ranged from Joan Fletcher’s ‘suitable’ grey velvet to Miss Cray’s habitual mourning weeds, dressed up with a multitude of jet brooches with hair in them.

Phryne swept in and Lin Chung detached himself from the gathering with deceptive ease and offered her his arm.

‘You look absolutely beautiful,’ he said softly. Phryne surveyed him. His clothes, she thought, were made to measure in Savile Row, or perhaps in Oxford. They fitted him like a glove. The linen irreproachable; the links and studs of round undecorated gold in very good taste. His hair was as shiny as patent leather and he was as sleek and self-satisfied as a black cat.

‘So do you,’ she told him with perfect truth.

‘Shall we go in?’ asked the hostess. Phryne accepted Tom Reynolds’ arm. As the highest-ranking lady, it was her place to go first and be seated first.

Tom was more than a trifle unsteady as the great doors opened into a dining room shining with glass and lit by three chandeliers. The tables were laid with damask as white as snow, on which were displayed glasses in the highest state of gleam; silver polished to extinction, several epergnes full of ferns and a real Sevres dinner service – Peninsular War vintage. Unless it came with the house, it must have cost Tomseveral fortunes. Phryne hoped that the domestics knew that the penalty for dropping a plate was a shooting at dawn.

She paraded down the length of the room. The decor was, as usual, mixed. Linen-fold panelling lined the walls, but the ceiling was decorated with a frieze of dancing Greek maidens and plaster mouldings in the shape of trailing bunches of ivy and grapes. A Dionysiad, therefore; but a very polite one. No nymph could get into too much trouble when she had such a very tight corset on under her tunic. The floor was parquet and slightly springy, and the windows were draped with full High Victorian curtains, endless falls of heavy velvet and piles of priceless lace heaped carelessly to the floor.

‘Lord, Tom, what a room,’ she murmured, holding her host up with a hand under his elbow.

‘Magnificent, ain’t it?’ he blurred.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Come along, old thing, you’re meant to sit here, the head of the table, and I sit here on your left. Downsy-daisy,’ said Phryne, pushing slightly as the butler shoved the chair forward. Hinchcliff flourished his master’s napkin and spread it on his lap. Phryne exchanged a rueful glance with him. How had Tom got so polluted in such a short time? Although the large man’s face remained perfectly butlerine, she caught a flicker of a wink and a small, very fleeting, smile.

‘That’s the way,’ she encouraged. ‘You have to have something to eat, Tom dear. You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.’

‘’M not drunk,’ protested Tom.

‘No, of course not, my dear,’ said Phryne, very pleased that Lin Chung was sitting beside her with Miss Medenham and Jack Lucas opposite. At least she would have someone to talk to.

The rest of the company had entered, each gentleman escorting a lady, and Phryne looked down the board. She could not see far, because of a bank of ferns of Amazonian luxuriance. The Major had been separated from his wife, who was sitting next to Tadeusz. Luttrell was inflicting his opinions on Joan Fletcher who, by the look of her, was about to deliver a mustard-plaster snub. Phryne hoped that she would be able to hear it. Miss Cray and Miss Mead flanked the Doctor, and Gerald Randall had accompanied Judith Fletcher and was even listening to what she was saying, or appearing to. Perhaps, Phryne thought, he really was interested in cricket.

‘Hock, Madam?’ asked Mr Hinchcliff, and Phryne nodded. Perhaps Tom Reynolds was wise. This assortment of people might look much better through the pink spectacles of the slightly shickered. She examined the menu card, written in waiter’s French.

Pure Mrs Beeton. No one would serve a meal of such richness and variety in the city now, except possibly the Lord Mayor. Phryne sipped the hock, hoped that she was hungry, and joined in politely to Lin Chung’s conversation about Oxford.

The delights of that city lasted through the consommé de gibier, game soup composed mostly of local rabbit and possibly pigeon.

‘I suppose that it is difficult to make game soup in Australia,’ she commented, ‘though this is excellent. No partridges or quail, no wild birds.’

‘There’s a recipe for parrot soup,’ Tom Reynolds came awake. ‘You take an old boot and a couple of parrots. You put them in a pot and stew them until the old boot is soft. Then you throw the parrots away and eat the old boot.’

Having delivered himself of this culinary gem, Tom lapsed into his reverie again.

‘Well, they are so decorative that I wouldn’t want to eat them anyway,’ said Miss Medenham with aplomb. ‘Don’t you agree, Miss Fisher? I saw a flight of galahs from my window this afternoon, like a grey cloud. Then they turned, and the cloud was pink.’

‘They are beautiful,’ agreed Phryne. ‘And as you say, very Art décoratif . Those bold colours – black and crimson, or the red, blue and gold of rosellas.’

‘Greenfinches would make a lovely frieze around a room,’ said Jack Lucas. ‘Flights and flights of green birds, or silver-eyes, perhaps, in that strange grey-green like gumleaves.’

‘Or that chalk-blue of budgies, though perhaps not a frieze,’ commented Lin Chung. ‘The feathers are very fine. Promise me, Phryne, you will not start a fashion? If you wear the bright plumage, all the ladies will emulate you and there will not be a parrot left in Australia, which would be a pity.’

‘I promise,’ Phryne smiled. ‘The feathers I’m wearing are from a seagull, and I picked them up myself on Elwood beach after he had preened them away. Dot put them together – she is a famous needlewoman.’

‘They are quite perfect,’ said Jack Lucas. ‘They seem to set off your silky black hair just as Miss Medenham’s amethysts set off her golden locks.’

‘Do you admire my golden locks, Jack?’ asked Miss Medenham, shaking her head so that all of her purple stones flashed in the chandelier’s bright light.

‘You know I do,’ he said.

There was a pause. The housemaid, moving with extreme care, offered fillets of trout cooked with almonds. The gentlemen had obviously caught some fish.

‘Tom, dear, would you like some truite almandine ?’ asked Phryne as he stared blankly at the embarrassed maid. ‘You caught them, you know.’

‘Me? No. I never caught nothing. Fish, eh? No. Don’t want no fish.’

Phryne waved a hand at the butler, who came instantly and leaned down so that she could whisper. He smelt of starch and eau-de-cologne.

‘I think your master might improve with some coffee. Strong, you know, and black. Can you sort of sneak it in so the others don’t notice? ’He nodded, gave her an approving look which left Phryne feeling a little overwhelmed, and went away.

The trout was delicious, though Phryne heard Miss Cray complaining that hers had not been cooked properly. Miss Mead, a sensible woman, explained the concept of bleu in an undertone, which did not stop Miss Cray from observing, ‘How revolting!’ at the top of her not inconsiderable voice.