Page 33 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘As for the daily menus, I leave that entirely to you, Dido. I expect you have a larger repertoire than Maria’s. She’s good with lamb and rice, or stuffed vine leaves, but one tires of lamb. And she does tend to serve up tinned soup, rice pudding and fruit, unless I’m firm with her.’
‘I’d already noticed there were quite a lot of tins in thelarder. Though that’s no bad thing if we get cut off,’ I said, then asked her if there were any particular dishes she was partial to.
‘My appetite is smaller now, but I do find myself thinking of all the lovely meals Mrs Hill made for us – kedgeree, risotto, beef Wellington, salmon en croûte … souffles, good, spicy curry … Then all the traditional dishes, like roast chicken, or beef and Yorkshire pudding, sausages with mustard mash, cottage pie … steak and chips. Asa used tolovesteak and chips!’
‘Most men seem to – I do myself,’ Henry said.
‘Mrs Hill made her own soup, too: mulligatawny, vichyssoise, pea and ham … and her raised pork pies and curry puffs were wonderful.’
I thought Mrs Hill sounded pretty wonderful, too! I’d been scribbling away and when I’d caught up, I said, ‘I’ll look for the curry puff recipe. That sounds interesting and not something I’ve made before.’
‘They might make nice starters,’ Henry suggested. ‘My department!’
‘What about desserts? Are there any you particularly favour, Mrs Powys?’
‘I likegoodrice pudding, not tinned …’
‘I have an excellent Anglo-Indian recipe with cardamom pods and cream.’
‘Sticky ginger pudding and custard, fresh fruit salad, crème caramel … treacle tart,’ she reeled off. ‘Maria’s baklava is delicious, but she usually only makes it on high days and holidays. We had it for tea yesterday only because Xan is a favourite and she knows he likes it.’
‘I do have my own recipe for that – we spent some time in Greece – but I’d like to compare mine with Maria’s.’
‘She’s promised to write it down for me and bring it with her today, so you can,’ Henry told me.
‘The usual routine of meals will continue up till Christmas. Breakfast is always at eight in the morning room – any guests arriving after nine will find it cleared away. Then lunch in the dining room at one – just something simple, like soup, salad, sandwiches, fruit, cheese – variations on that. Sometimes Welsh rarebit, or eggs Benedict, for a change.’
‘Yes, that’s all clear,’ I assured her. ‘And tea in the sitting room at four fifteen?’
‘Indeed, and you will need to remember that Xan is a coffee drinker. When Lucy is in charge of making the afternoon tea, I’m lucky if I get a limp digestive biscuit with it.’
‘Oh, I can do much better than that,’ Henry assured her. ‘I makethemost delicious little sweet or savoury scones, and my madeleines are todiefor!’
‘That would certainly be a sweet way to go,’ Mrs Powys said drily.
‘I was wondering,’ said Henry, ‘why you don’t have a tea trolley – so much easier than that heavy tray Maria used yesterday.’
She blinked at him and frowned. ‘There is one, but Maria doesn’t like it, for some reason. I expect it’s somewhere about if you look for it.’
‘Oh, good – I will,’ he said. ‘Probably stashed away in one of those little rooms off the kitchen passage.’
‘I dare say,’ she said disinterestedly. ‘Now, you already know all about dinner in the dining room at seven, and that I like some form of starter served in the sitting room first: canapés of some kind, savoury nibbles. I found that the easiest option when we lived on Corfu and now I prefer it.’
‘Much simpler,’ Henry agreed.
‘You will find yourselves with more to do once the guests start to arrive and, of course, the arrangements for meal times will change over Christmas itself.’
‘Naturally,’ I agreed.
She passed me a sheet of paper. ‘Here’s a list of my guests, who are mostly relatives, like Lucy. There’s her elder brother, Nigel, who has an antiquarian bookshop in Alnwick. I’m afraid you’ll find him rather wearing – I certainly do. He adores Christmas and tends to try and be the life and soul of the party.’
Henry and I exchanged glances: we knew that type of old.
‘Then there’s Asa’s cousin Olive Melling, her husband, Frank, and their son, Dominic. Then Timothy Makepeace, who is both an old family friend and my solicitor,’ she continued. ‘He is bringing his granddaughter, who has been living with him since her divorce. She and Dominic will provide some company for Xan.’
She seemed to be mentally counting up. Then she said, ‘Of course! My friend, Mrs Nancy Kane, will also be here, but she’s arriving earlier than the rest.’
‘Including yourself and Lucy, that will make ten for Christmas?’
