Eat, Drink and Be Buried (24 page)

“Yes,” he agreed. “In addition to that, Dr. Wyatt was very popular in the village.”

“The villagers will miss her,” I sympathized.

“Well, actually no. Not from a professional point of view, that is.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“Her offices are in Harley Street—in London. She lived here in Stony Stratton because she enjoyed the quiet village life.”

“Oh, I see…” I didn't entirely but I was going to dig until I did, so I left my comment dangling in the air.

“After all,” he began to explain, “Stony Stratton would hardly have any patients likely to need Dr. Wyatt's services, would it?”

“Why not? Was she a specialist in some medical field?”

He might have a wispy appearance but his gaze was keen. Fortunately, he enjoyed a bit of gossip too. That was probably an inseparable component of the village life. He studied me for a moment. “Yes, you could say she was a specialist.” I waited, but he was not that much of a gossip.

I thought back. I had seen her twice at the castle. She had appeared to have a close relationship with Sir Gerald. I recalled my earlier thought that maybe it went as far as to have a romantic basis. His honor's deputy disappointed me at this point. “A sensitive vocation,” he commented.

“Did you have anything to do with the meal this evening?” he asked, changing the subject quickly.

Changing the subject back was not feasible and, anyway, he had brought my hobbyhorse out of the stable. I had to admit it. “Our aim was to recreate, as far as possible, a meal that might have been served in the early 1400s, that is to say, the time when the Battle of Moreston Marsh was fought. Sir Gerald wanted it to be a formal dining occasion, however, and this presented something of a conflict. So we compromised. We're not having the rough wooden tables, we're not having the seating on one side of the table only—as was the custom then—and we're not eating with knives only. The meal, on the other hand, is authentic.”

We were probably each competing to bring up our own topic when a gong resounded. “Ah,” he said, “dinner. I'm looking forward to this.”

I hoped I was being paranoid. Surely there would not be an attempt at poisoning here?

I made a pretense of looking for my nameplate. I was seated next to the young pretty wife of the captain of the polo team. He too, she informed me, had been one of the rebel cavalry.

“Lot of rebels at dinner tonight,” I observed. “Sir Gerald must be relieved that they were defeated.”

On my other side was a matronly and still attractive woman. She told me that she and her husband, president of a major insurance company and recently retired, had bought a manorhouse adjacent to the Harlington estate. Richard was on the opposite side of the table and a few seats down. It was the way I had arranged with my nameplate adjustment and I was able to look over his shoulder into the serving bay.

Sir Gerald was down at the head of the long table. Felicity was two seats away, wearing a silvery white creation with a flowing motif that made her look like Queen Titania prepared for nuptials in the Forest of Arden. Angela was the other side of me on the opposite side of the table. The two-tone brown outfit she was wearing was demure, but only superficially. She gave me a mischievous glance and her lips moved. As near as I could make it out, she was saying, “Ferns!” Her glance turned into a hot, lingering stare.

Her brother Norman was in conversation with the deputy mayor and Neville Woodward was absorbed with a voluptuous brunette.

The meal began with a “Caudel of Musculs.” This was a dish that I had suggested to Victor and he had prepared as requiring only minor modifications from one of his native French dishes. It was a soup, using mussels, that was often found on medieval menus. The mussels are boiled, then braised onions and leeks are added. Ginger, saffron, cloves, and pepper are the spices, vinegar gives it a tang, then milk and chopped almonds are added.

I watched like a hawk. The dishes came out of the kitchen and into the serving bay on trolleys. The table waitresses took them from there and brought them to the table. There was no way Richard's—or anyone else's—dish could be isolated. As we were finishing this course with its blended fragrance of cloves and ginger, the wife of the insurance company president began telling me of her problems in adjusting to village life after many years in an apartment in Belgravia. I gave her lots of commiseration and then brought up events in Stony Stratton. I started at the point where the deputy mayor had become reticent.

“—a terrible tragedy,” I concluded. “Although I suppose being a newcomer, you haven't been exposed to village debate?”

She smiled. “Gossip, you mean? Oh, but I have. The estate agency lady we dealt with is an endless source of information. I know as much as the old-timers who have been here fifty years or more.”

Trout was the next course. This has been a favorite fish for centuries and methods of cooking it have not changed tremendously. Victor and I had agreed on a stuffing of herbs with a little lemon. We used parsley, thyme, rosemary, and nutmeg with the breadcrumbs and egg yolks. The stuffed fish was laid in a pan with white wine and fish stock. It was boiled, then removed. A mixture of flour and cream was stirred in to thicken the sauce, which was then poured over the fish.

Potatoes had not yet been brought to England at the time we had set the meal, so we did not include them. Bread was more commonly eaten in those days, so Victor and I had his pâtissier bake some “Wastels Yfarced.” We discussed having The Muffin Man bake them for us, but decided we would bake them in the castle kitchen as the order was not large.

Wastels Yfarced were wholemeal brown loaves, served to the gentry and considered one of the highest quality breads. The original recipe called for cooking the loaves in beef broth, after they had been stuffed with mushrooms, spinach, and raisins, but we agreed this was not to current taste so the loaves were baked crispy instead.

I managed to keep the conversation going while watching the serving bay closely. Again, there was no possibility of any skulduggery. During this surveillance, I noticed that Richard seemed to be very friendly with the young woman next to him. She had light red hair and an aristocratic nose. When we were partway through the trout course, I went back to my interrupted conversation with the insurance president's wife. “I'm glad the village tragedy didn't affect the purchase of your house,” I said. “I suppose your estate agency lady must have known the doctor.”

“Yes, indeed. She's a source of knowledge about everyone in the district. She knew the doctor very well.”

“Some kind of specialist, wasn't she?” I asked. “I thought I heard she had a practice in Harley Street.”

“Dr. Wyatt was a psychiatrist.”

I digested that gem of information along with my trout.

“She was a regular visitor at the castle, I believe?”

“She attended Lady Harlington for some time before the poor woman had to be committed to a mental hospital,” the woman said. “Dr. Wyatt normally treated her patients at her Harley Street offices, yes, that's right. But she knew the Harlington family well, and when poor Lady Harlington began to have her mental problems, I understand that the doctor came here to treat her.”

That cleared the air a little. It explained why and how a connection might have been initiated between the doctor and Sir Gerald. It also spoiled the notion of a romantic rather than a professional reason for the doctor's visits to the castle. But then the words of Francis Somerville, Knight Pursuivant, came back to me. Sir Gerald, he had told us, had only six to twelve months to live. He might have a need for some psychiatric counseling and that might be the answer to Dr. Wyatt's visits to the castle.

But it left a murky air of doubt about any link with the death of Kenny Bryce. What could Dr. Wyatt's death, if it were not an accident, possibly have to do with Kenny's death, even if Kenny had been poisoned in error for Richard Harlington? Before turning my attention back to the meal, I looked at Richard again. He was getting along famously with the red-haired girl.

Victor Gontier prided himself as a wine sommelier too and I let him select the wines for the meal. For a Frenchman, he had a surprisingly democratic attitude toward English wines. The fickle English climate is not kind to the country's determined band of wine growers, but with the soup and fish courses, Victor served wine from the David Carr Taylor vineyard in Kent. There, they had planted the best stock on the market. That was necessary as most varieties will not ripen even in the best of English summers. The Geisenheim stock from Germany had been selected and had achieved a deserved reputation. Complimentary comments were being exchanged around the table on this flavorsome, well-balanced Reichensteiner.

Angela caught my eye again and we exchanged what could have been intimate looks—as far as one can be intimate across a dinner table. I felt eyes on me from another direction and found Felicity smiling invitingly. They are trying to congratulate me on the meal, I thought. I hoped I was wrong.

Crustade of Partridge was the next course. A crustade is a pastry case filled with meats, eggs, and spices. In medieval times, cooks would have used much less partridge than we used here. We had added mushrooms to this.

Partridge can be tricky to handle—if hung, it can quickly become toxic. These birds had been promptly prepared—plucked, boned, and the gizzard removed. For the crustade, the traditional flaky pastry had been used, but replacing the lard with a mixture of butter and olive oil to reduce the fat content.

The venison from the recent culling was now ready, so we had very small venison steaks as the central meat course. The steaks were exceptionally moist and juicy due to having been “larded.” This technique uses a large needle to sew strips of fatty bacon into the meat at intervals of about an inch.

I noticed that Victor had taken a shortcut here. He might have tried to find one of the old needles used for sewing sails, but instead, he wrapped the strips around the meat portions. The steaks had been marinated in white wine flavored with thyme, sage, and bayleaves, and the marinade saved for basting during roasting.

With the venison, Victor had not been able to resist serving a red wine from France. This one was a Hermitage wine from the Chaves' cellars. It is a wine bottled without filtration, a rarity these days. Dry, rich, and intense, it was still fruity and the snobby side of me hoped the assembly appreciated it.

The menu, printed especially for the occasion, said that we would be served Syllabub next. The wife of the polo team captain wanted to know what this was. “Syllabub,” I explained, “was traditionally made by milking a cow directly into a bowl containing ale or cider. This was allowed to stand until curds formed on top of the whey. This caused problems as the curds needed to be eaten whereas the whey had to be drunk.

“Later cooks solved the problem by using wine in place of the ale or cider, and cream instead of milk. Later still, the proportion of cream was increased, and that is how it can be made today.”

“Can I make it at home?” the insurance company president's wife wanted to know. “I've always wanted to serve it at a party.”

“Easily,” I told her. “Soak thin lemon rind in white wine for a few hours. Squeeze lemon juice into a bowl containing wine. Add the chopped lemon rind. Add castor sugar and slowly stir in the cream—using about two parts cream to one of wine. Whisk until you get thin peaks. It's best made a day or two ahead of eating.”

As we finished the Syllabub, along came marble cake dark with treacle, Norfolk ginger biscuits, and thin slices of fig cake. “All popular ways to end a meal in the fifteenth century,” I pointed out.

The polo captain's wife eyed these doubtfully. “Not too fattening, are they?”

“You don't have to worry.”

She gave me a coquettish look. “Oh, I do. I have to watch my figure.”

“Richard seems to watching a figure over there,” I said. “Very closely, too.”

“That's Theresa,” she said, her tone becoming neutral. “Father's a judge—retired. Sir Gerald would like to see her and Richard become much closer. Take Richard's mind off that village girl.”

“I suppose we don't get coffee?” I heard Neville Woodward asking. He looked down the table at me. I answered him.

“Yes, you do. We have stayed authentically to the period of this morning's battle as far as the food was concerned—”

“Except for the wines,” he interrupted.

“I'm sorry you didn't enjoy them,” I said smoothly, and a chorus of cries arose. Everyone had noticed how exceptionally good they were.

“We decided that as we couldn't serve wine from the period,” I continued, “and as mead, ale, and cider are too heavy, we might as well be consistent with the other drinks. So there is coffee and tea—despite the fact that coffee didn't come to London till 1630 and tea a century later.”

Neville looked as if he would have preferred not to have coffee just so he could complain about it, rather than have it and be forced to enjoy it. Felicity leaned forward and said to me, “That was a wonderful meal. You should be congratulated.” Her smile was one of those to bask in.

“I'll pass your congratulations on to Victor,” I told her. “He is responsible for the preparation and the cooking.”

Angela was smiling at me, too. It was that tantalizing smile she could turn on, full of promise. These two girls were at full candlepower tonight. I wondered if there was some reason for it, but did not pursue the thought as the waitresses came round with trolleys of liqueurs.

A
FTER WE HAD ALL
left the table, conversations continued as guests were able to renew friendships with acquaintances who had sat too far away during the banquet.

Angela was talking animatedly with a stalwart-looking member of the polo team and Felicity was having a serious discourse with a man of decidedly academic appearance. Sir Gerald was surrounded by a group thanking him for the banquet; Neville had cornered one of the village debutantes; Don McCartney, whom I now saw for the first time, was having a business discussion with a prospect; and Norman was talking rugby with some Hunt Club members.