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| Brandy- W. Somerset Maungham My second adventure was droll. I was being driven around the country by a woman who had been doing a great deal, as had a few charitable English and American women to alleviate the lot of the unfortunate refugees, and latish in the afternoon. I remarked that I must think about getting a room in some hotel for the night. " You need'nt bother about that," she said. "I have some distant cousins in this part of the country who'll be glad to put you up. They're very simple provincial people, but they're quite nice, and they'll give you a good dinner." "That's very kind of them", I said. She did not volunteer their name, and it did not occur to me to ask it. I gathered from what she said that they were poor relations who lived very modestly, so I was surprised when a nightfall we drove into a town and stopped at a house that in the darkness seemed quite imposing. We were recieved by a shortish fat man with a red, homely face. He was dressed in dark, some what ill fitting clothes and looked the typical french bourgeois. He showed me to a warm and comfortable furnished room, and I was glad to see that there was a bathroom. He told me that dinner was at half past seven. I took a bath and as I was very tired, had a nap. At the appointed hour, I went downstairs and found my way to a living room in which a bright fire of logs was blazing. My host was sitting there and offered me a glass of sherry. I sank into a large armchair. "Did you find a bottle of brandy in your room?" he asked me. "I didnt look," I said. "I always keep a bottle of brandy in every bedroom in the house, even the childrens rooms. They never touch it, but I like to know it's there." I thought this an odd notion, but said nothing. Presently my driver for the day came in with a thin, dark woman to whom I was Introduced. She was my host's sister, but I did not catch her name. I gathered from the conversation that my host was a bachelor and that she was staying with him with her two daughters, her husband being mobilized, for the duration of the war. We went into dinner and found waiting for us two girls of perhaps fourteen and fifteen with a prim governess. We were waited on by an acient butler and a maid. My host said: " Ive opened for you my last Magnum of Claret, a Chateau Larose 1874." I have never seen a Magnum of Claret before, and I was impressed. It was delicious. For a poor relation I thought my host was doing very well. The food was excellent, real french country cooking, copious, slightly on the heavy side perhaps, and very rich but extremely succulent. One dish was so good that I was forced to remark on it. "Im glad you like that," said my host. "Everything in this house is cooked in brandy." I began to think it was very strange house indeed, and I wished I knew who on earth this hospitable person was. We finished dinner and had coffee. Then the butler brought some large glasses and immense bottle of brandy. I had done myself very well with the Claret, I was among strangers and thought it wise not to take any more alcohol, so when it was offered to me, I refused. "What!" cried my host, throwing himself back in his chair, "Have you come to spend the night in the house of Martell and you refuse a glass of brandy?" I had been dining in the house of the greatest brandy merchant in the world. |