The chocolate tart had been pretty good, although too late she worried about serving pastry for two courses, and the mousse might have separated on a few of them. But she’d been more than happy with the cheese. A couple were home-made but there was a very fine local blue cheese and a spectacular Cheddar-type she decided was the standard she was aiming for, if ever she made hard cheese herself.
Sheducked into the scullery and peeked at herself at the small, spotty mirror that hung there. Her hair was frizzy and she had no make-up left on, but it was too late to redo herself. She’d have to brave it out.
She went through to the sitting room, wishing she’d had time to have a glass of wine or something during the evening, to soften her sudden anxiety.
The moment she appeared, Antony was there, putting his arm round her waist.
‘Here she is, our marvellous chef for the evening. I know you all want to show your appreciation.’
Much to Fran’s embarrassment, everyone broke into enthusiastic applause. She looked round the tables at the smiling, congratulatory faces. Some she recognised from the dinner party Antony had taken her to: there was Caroline and her husband Julian, Erica, a couple of men she’d seen before and then – standing out among the crowd because she wasn’t even remotely smiling – Megan, and she was looking daggers at her.
Antony went on. ‘I think you will all agree we have enjoyed restaurant-standard food in a truly original and delightful setting. Fran will kill me for saying this, but can I suggest you are generous in your contributions for the food tonight? Then she might be persuaded to do it all again.’
There was another huge round of applause and then people started the awkward process of getting up from their chairs.
Franwent back to the kitchen. Issi was helping people find their coats and Seb and Tig were on hand to receive the envelopes that had been left on the table for the contributions. Antony had gone to talk to Megan; Fran had seen him make his way through the crowd towards her.
She had hardly had time to start on the washing up when people started visiting her. The first was Erica, the older woman she’d met at Caroline and Julian’s.
‘That was amazing,’ she said without preamble. ‘The cheese particularly.’
‘I didn’t make all the cheese,’ said Fran quickly, sorry that she hadn’t. ‘Only the soft ones.’
‘Oh, I know you didn’t make the hard cheese, or the blue – I know those makers. But I have a stall in the farmers’ market and I’d love it if you’d let me sell your cheese. You’d have to make sure it was being made in properly hygienic conditions, all that annoying but important stuff.’ She smiled. ‘But you’d want to do that anyway?’
‘Of course,’ said Fran. ‘I’d love to talk to you about it all sometime.’
‘Me too. I was going to see if you could come and have coffee or something. Not everyone wants to talk about cheese.’ Erica smiled again.
‘I know. And I’d love to find out everything you know about it.’
They didn’t chat for too much longer because seemingly everyone wanted to congratulate herpersonally.Fran began to relax. It really had been a success.
Fran thought everyone must have gone and Issi was organising the washing up with Mrs Brown when Megan appeared.
‘Hi there,’ she said. ‘I was just chatting to Antony about Mrs Flowers. I wanted to know how you were related. He thought she was some sort of cousin?’
‘Why would you want to know that?’ asked Issi, coming through from the kitchen to collect some glasses, possibly aware she was speaking for Fran, too.
‘I am fascinated by genealogy,’ said Megan swiftly, as if she had been expecting this question. ‘Everyone is, these days.’
‘Oh,’ said Fran, ‘well, I don’t know exactly. My fatherwasa cousin of Amy’s but a fairly distant one. Although I’m sure genealogy is fascinating, I haven’t had much time for it.’
‘Not even when you found out about this farm?’
It did seem a bit odd now, Fran could see. ‘Well, I was prepared to take Amy’s calculations as to how we were related and my mother agreed with her. It wasn’t a complete bolt from the blue.’
Megan shrugged as if not understanding Fran’s laissez-faire attitude and changed the subject. ‘It was quite a nice meal. Did you mean to serve pastry for two courses or was that a mistake?’
‘Itwas a mistake,’ said Fran. ‘But no one but you has mentioned it.’
‘They probably didn’t like to,’ said Megan. ‘Although the pastry was quite nice.’
‘Quite nice?’ raged Fran when Megan had gone. ‘Quite nice! That pastry – both pastries were fabulous!’
‘They were,’ said Antony. ‘Now come and sit by the fire and have a big drink. We’re going to clear up.’
In spite of her protests, Antony led her to the fireside, where someone, presumably him, had cleared away the nearest table and found an armchair. The fire now blazed away.
