ladies curtsied, and Sir Denzil bowed elaborately, first to Olivia and then to Cat. He was a small man with a lofty periwig and unusually high heels to his shoes.
‘Ah!’ he said in a high, drawling voice, directing his remarks impartially at the space between the two women. ‘A feast of beauty!’ He turned to Master Alderley and touched his lip with his forefinger, an oddly childlike gesture. He wore a diamond ring on the finger. ‘Truly, sir, I am a veritable glutton for beauty.’ He looked directly at Cat for the first time and said without marked enthusiasm, ‘and soon I shall have the pleasure of eating my fill.’
The ungainly compliment fell like a stone in a pool. There was a moment’s silence.
‘Well, sir,’ Aunt Olivia said to her husband. ‘Shall we go in to dinner?’
Power, Cat thought, resides in small things.
If anything confirmed Uncle Alderley’s position in the world, it was the fact that, while the City was burning to ashes on his doorstep, he himself was dining at home quite as if nothing were amiss. The food was as good as ever when he entertained a guest he wished to please, and the servants just as attentive. They used the best cutlery, the two-pronged forks and the knives with rounded handles that fitted snugly in the hand; Aunt Olivia had insisted on having them; they had been imported from Paris at absurd expense.
There was a message here for Sir Denzil Croughton, and perhaps for Master Alderley’s own family as well: the Fire could not destroy Master Alderley or his wealth; he was, under God and the King, invincible.
They dined as usual at midday. There were five of them at table – Master and Mistress Alderley at either end, Cat and the honoured guest side by side, and Edward sitting opposite them. There were four servants waiting at table. To Cat’s surprise, Jem was among them, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of the Alderleys’ black-and-yellow livery.
‘What’s this?’ Master Alderley said, as Jem appeared at his shoulder.
‘Did I not tell you, sir?’ Aunt Olivia said. ‘Layne is nowhere to be found, so we must make shift the best we can with Jem.’
‘What the devil does Layne think he’s about?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’
‘I’ll have the fellow whipped when he returns.’
‘Just as you say, sir.’ A good hostess, Olivia noticed that Sir Denzil’s nostrils were twitching. ‘Would you care to try the carp, sir? I made the sauce myself, and I pride myself on my sauces.’
Sir Denzil looks like a fish himself, Cat thought. Quite possibly a carp.
All the dishes had been prepared in their own kitchen, for Aunt Olivia scorned to send out for food; she was far too good a housekeeper. Besides, few cook shops were still open, and the few that remained were inundated with custom.
In Sir Denzil’s honour, there were three courses. To his credit, he responded manfully to the challenge. He dug deep into a fricassee of rabbits and chickens, returned again and again to the carp, ripped chunks from the boiled leg of mutton, and swallowed slice after slice of the side of lamb. The food passed through his mouth so rapidly that he seemed hardly to chew it at all.
‘Is that a lamprey pie?’ he asked Aunt Olivia in a voice that rose almost to a trill. ‘How delightful. Yes, perhaps I will take a little.’
Two pigeons, a dish of anchovies and most of a lobster went the way of everything else. By this time Sir Denzil was slowing down, though he compensated by increasing his consumption of wine, revealing an unusual capacity for canary, of which he must have drunk close to half a gallon. By this stage, his colour was high and there was a certain glassiness in his eye that reminded Cat irresistibly of the carp as it had been when it first arrived in the kitchen.
They drank the health of the King and confusion to his enemies. Prompted delicately by Aunt Olivia, Sir Denzil proposed two toasts, first to his hostess, who smiled graciously and accepted it as her due, and then to Cat, who stared at the table and wished to God she were anywhere else but here.
Sir Denzil crooked his finger at her, and the diamond ring sparkled. ‘You see, my dear, I wear your ring. And I shall send you mine as soon as it has been reset.’
This ring, this token of love, was a polite fiction. Cat had understood from Master Alderley that he himself had provided both rings, for Sir Denzil was short of ready money and tradesmen were not enthusiastic about allowing him credit. The rings were designed to be symbols of the betrothal. Master Alderley had sent this one to Sir Denzil only yesterday.
The conversation was mainly of the Fire, of course, and of the King and the court.
‘There are grounds for hope,’ Sir Denzil informed them, his piping voice muffled by a mouthful of lobster. ‘I heard the King himself say so this morning. If the Duke of York can hold the Fire at Temple Bar, then Whitehall is saved.’
Olivia touched her throat. ‘Are we safe here?’
‘Lord Craven’s men have turned back the flames at Holborn Bridge,’ Master Alderley said.
Sir Denzil waved his fork. ‘You need not trouble yourself in the slightest, madam.’
‘I’m advised that the worst is over,’ Master Alderley said. ‘Even Bludworth has at last begun to pull down houses. Only in Cripplegate, but it’s a start.’
‘I fear the Lord Mayor is an old woman, sir,’ Edward said.
‘Very true, sir,’ Sir Denzil said. ‘Only a fool would have failed to realize that creating firebreaks was the only way to hold the fire. Bludworth’s indecision has cost us half the City.’
‘He was afraid he’d be sued by the tenants or the freeholders if he pulled down their houses,’ Master Alderley said. ‘Or both. It comes down to money. It always does.’
‘The City must thank God for the King and the court,’ Sir Denzil said. ‘Without their cool heads and brave deeds, it would have been far worse. That’s the trouble with these aldermen and merchants and so forth. In an emergency, they are no better than children. They cannot even save themselves and their ledgers.’
‘That isn’t true of all of the aldermen,’ Master Alderley said drily. ‘Fortunately.’
The change of tone put Sir Denzil in mind of the company he was in. ‘Of course, sir. And thank God for it. Now if only you, not Bludworth, had been Lord Mayor, it would have been a very different story, I’m sure.’
‘Who would be a Lord Mayor?’ Master Alderley said. ‘It’s a great deal of expense and a man has little return on his investment, as well as much risk. For Bludworth, it will mean ruin.’
‘Will you take a few anchovies, sir?’ Aunt Olivia said, judging that it was time to change the subject. ‘My niece made the sauce according to a French recipe, and I’m sure she would value your opinion.’
Sir Denzil tasted it and nodded. ‘Delicious. Did you know, madam, I have a Frenchman in my kitchen now? I hope you will all dine with me soon. I fancy you will not be disappointed. He has cooked for Monsieur d’Orleans, you know, and several gentlemen have tried to steal him since I brought him over from Paris.’
Cat stole
