As presently they turned from the window, a thought occurred to him, not for the first time.
‘Clerivault,’ he said, ‘why is this my room so fair above all others in the house?’
‘Well, it was a chapel in the old days,’ answered the man, but after a moment’s pause, and with, it would seem, a certain reluctance.
CHAPTER VI.
SOME NEW FRIENDS
Days passed, and largely in the glamour of those expeditions which were to breed in the boy something more than a reconcilement with his destiny. And indeed, what with vigorous exercise, health, a mighty appetite and fine weather, Brion was soon in the mind to welcome solitude, though in a desolate mansion, as a condition as admirable as any which could have befallen him. He and Clerivault, his constant companion, were for ever on foot or on horseback, galloping over the moors, penetrating to town or village, or scrambling over rock and fell in search, pedantically, of the picturesque. They climbed the great tors, and swung the famous logging-stone; they explored the loveliest ravines, and overhung, from the rocky salient guarding Holne Chase, the waters of one of the fairest rivers in England. They fished—with small success, and shot—with none, at fowl of sorts, using for the latter purpose Clerivault’s pistols, which were short Italian ‘daggs,’ so called, heavy weapons with wheel-locks, and the last to prove effective against nimble game. Then in the early evening they would return, fagged and happy, to a great delectable meal, served up in Phineas cook’s most incomparable manner.
This Phineas, like the true artist he was, never condescended to be less than himself, though in such minor matters as the gratifying of a green palate. He had been long with the Judge—who, in the business of the table, was something of an epicure—and, like the other three lealties, was sufficiently his devoted henchman to be ready to follow his fortunes into virtual exile. He was a little long-faced man, with a pointed scrap of beard, and a serene conceit of himself so equable as to be impervious to provocation. His hands were very white and capable, and he habitually wore round his neck the gold chain with which the Lord Chancellor had decorated him on the occasion of a famous banquet given by his master to the Benchers of Gray’s Inn. A cook by profession, he was a genius by intuition, and handled his tools, as a supreme painter his brushes, with the unerring vision which in a few touches will give form and distinction to another’s mediocre design. An ordinary recipe became with him one of those plagiarisms which transcend their originals. In matters of sauce he was a rigid purist, holding that selection was the keynote of efficiency, and greatly abominating those indiscriminate jumbles of ingredients with which lesser cooks sought to cover up their ignorance and achieve a chance applause. As every soul was said to have its affinity in the world, so every dish, in his creed, had its certain complement, and it was no more right or moral to introduce a fifty different herbs and other garnishes into the pot, in the hope of the right one being there, than it would be to furnish a man who wanted a wife with a harem to seek amongst. Such Apician miscellanies as ‘lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies, pepper, pine-nuts, raisins, wine, sweet cheese and oil,’ as a relish to boiled goose, he regarded as enormities, and to be counted only with the filthy potions brewed by Mrs Harlock and her like; but the cook who aspired to the term master should aim rather at the perfect sympathy of meat and seasoning, whereby each, like a loving partner, should prove its own value by emphasising the virtues of the other. To this end simplicity was the first and surest of means, combined with a perfect instinct for the hypostatic union of flavours, and for that psychologic moment reached by the revolving spit when ‘done to a turn’ was inaudibly announced from its well-basted burden. There was none could make plain roast and boiled more delectable than Phineas; as indeed Brion and his companion had good reason to know. He loved to have a hearty appetite to operate on, and would stand and expound his views to the boy, much entertaining that young gentleman, while watching his vigorous enjoyment of the good things provided for him. He liked the youngster, as indeed all associated with him came to do, at first for the master’s sake, but soon enough for his own. He was a prepossessing stripling, in truth, comely in appearance, but attractive more by reason of his gentleness and native urbanity than his looks. And at the same time he had a courageous spirit, to which Phineas loved to supply the animal fuel. There was no stint of that, at least, at the Grange. The bills of fare comprised haunch of venison, wild boar’s cheek, boiled leg of pork, salt buttock of beef (outside cut), sheep’s head (served with an electuary of unknown composition, but entertaining honey), oyster of veal, and other such goodly pièces de resistance. There was a certain ‘Karum’ pie, hoarding in its ambrosial depths treasure of beccaficoes and savoury jellies, to which Brion was mightily partial; and fish there was in plenty, turbots and soles and lobsters from the coasts, and lampreys from the rivers; while, for game, they had moorland partridges, and knots and godwits and hares. To enumerate the delicacies would be idle, though mention must be made of a peculiarly appetising broth with a boned duck floating in it, of a thoughtful hash of calves’ feet, and of a ragout of cocks’-combs with savoury balls which had to be eaten to be understood. But these were kickshaws, and, in Phineas’s philosophy, less illustrative of the culinary art than the plain joint made beautiful. His crowning achievement in their respect was a particular cream sauce, which, like the relish invented by the Marquis de Béchamel, was of that seductiveness that it could have made a mother-in-law, with all her bitterness, ‘go down.’
One might imagine that, with all this gastronomic petting, Brion would end by thinking too much of his food; but, indeed, in his healthy young mind, he regarded it only as he regarded sleep, a need of nature the better for being sound. And that was Phineas’s own view.
‘A dinner remembered,’ said he, ‘is a dinner discredited, and that forgotten as soon as eaten does best honour to the cook. For it is honour to be the begetter of generous thoughts, which spring from good digestion; and a man if he be fed well, and as a proper cook should desire him, ponders not on that he hath consumed, but rather on the great visions which arise from his content and satisfaction. Whereas, should the food itself linger in his mind, it is odds but what he will presently have cause to wish both it and himself at the devil. All human functions are tolerable only to the moment when one is conscious of them: and that is digestion, to which your cook is physician in trust, as it were, to prevent what the others seek to cure.’
‘Methinks,’ said Brion, ‘the best physician is plainness and frugality. The Spartans lived on black broth alone, and were brave soldiers and healthy men.’
‘Anan?’ said Phineas.