Today's Reading
"Anyway," says Rose, fidgeting with her hands, "I did ask him to try and be punctual." As well as engagement and wedding rings I see a big fat cushion-cut emerald in a diamond surround, probably art deco, worth more than I earn in a year.
"While we're waiting, let me tell you a little about the school and what we do here. This house has been in my family—the Strangs—since 1900, and I have lived here all my life. As you can see, it's on the large side. After my husband died—Hoyt is my married name—our daughter took a course at Leith's. It struck me we might be able to set up something along similar lines here.
"We teach what I call 'classic cookery.' A lot of the cookery schools seem only interested in jumping on the latest bandwagon—'Macaroon Masterclass,' 'Vegan in a Hurry,' you know the sort of thing. But if you study here, you learn real cooking—how to make a proper béchamel, French-trim lamb cutlets, or poach a salmon. Proper culinary practice, in other words.
"You will be teaching a class of eight. It's a residential arrangement. I think part of our appeal is that students get to stay in Belgravia, which would normally cost them a king's ransom. From our point of view, if we have all these spare bedrooms, we may as well fill them."
She checks her watch again. According to mine, it's four minutes fast, but maybe she likes it that way. "Did Christian take you through the syllabus?"
"No," I reply, and she hands me a printed sheet. I'm about to raise the question of my fee, but she's already stood up and crossed to the fireplace, beside which an ornate gilt handle is set in a decorative plaster border. She gives it a crank, and noticing my look of interest, comments, "You'll find that in many ways we're rather old-tech here. This is one of the original servants' bells from the nineteenth century, although of course Papa had them electrified."
I look down the list of lessons. Yikes! This is also like stepping back in time—to a 1970s catering college. Mastering the Art of Pastry. Well-tempered Chocolate. Syrups, Spun Sugar, and Sugarcraft. What has Christian landed me with?
"Erm, is there any flexibility with this?" I ask.
"I think you'll find it well structured—it covers the basic techniques and gives a satisfactory balance across the days. I know some schools design their courses so the students effectively cook their own meals, but I find that a little, well, cheap. Besides, that's what Suzie is here for," she adds, as the young woman enters.
"You rang, Mrs. Hoyt." Very 'Downton Abbey'.
"No sign of him, I suppose?" asks Rose.
"I think he was late back last night," replies Suzie.
Rose fiddles with an earring. "In that case, please show Mr. Delamare around and make sure he knows where everything is."
I follow Suzie out and, as soon as the door is shut, say to her, "'Mr. Delamare' makes me feel about a hundred. Please call me Paul."
She nods and we file back past the museum exhibits.
"I do feel a bit let down by Christian," I continue, hoping she'll tell me what's happening. "He promised to be here." She shrugs—barely perceptibly—then leads me downstairs to a stately door with an enormous brass gong to one side. The nameplate is inscribed PINK ROOM.
"This is where we eat," she says, swinging it open. There's something about pink dining rooms that makes me feel bilious, though I have to admit the space itself is gracious enough, facing out over Chester Square and gleaming with mahogany. On one wall, discreetly let into the beeswaxed paneling, I notice a dumbwaiter, and ask Suzie if it's still in operation.
I'm a sucker for old-fashioned gadgets. When I was a child, my mother used to take me to a china shop in South Audley Street that had a magic doormat: when you stepped on it, your weight triggered a mechanism that set the doors juddering open. My first suit came from a men's outfitters that used pneumatic tubes to whizz cash and change between the shop floor and the accounts department upstairs.
"Right to the top," she replies. Useful no doubt in olden days, for servants ferrying breakfast in bed to their indolent masters and mistresses.
"But Mrs. Hoyt doesn't like the disturbance while people are eating, so I still do a lot of traipsing up and down." Suzie indicates a door covered in green baize—the real thing, which you rarely see nowadays except on gaming and billiard tables.
Leaving the Pink Room behind us, she leads me back into the hall, past the funeral flowers to the rear of the building. I knew these properties were big, but this one seems to go on forever. We step out into a dark little courtyard, towered over by brickwork, with a huge black steel door at the back that Suzie says opens into Eaton Mews. A narrow cast-iron stairway—like an old-fashioned fire escape—leads up to a glazed door. Christian told me he had a flat above the old coach house, and this is it.
...
