Here is the way Gramp found out how to make it. Cut two chickens into pieces, and sauté them in a casserole in lots of butter. When the chicken is golden and happy, add some whole small onions, salt, pepper, and a mixture sold as “chicken spices.” Cook under a tight cover for two hours in a very slow oven. Then add a pint of cream, and a pound of button mushrooms which have been sautéed. Stir with skill over hot water for another twenty minutes.
Pour a half pint of Sherry over some slices of heated ham sautéed in butter. Drain off the Sherry, and pour it over the chickens after you have beaten up four egg yolks with the liquid. Build a fence of ham around the dish, and serve with a very good Madeira.
We all ate our Dish of Nuns… all except Aunt Fran, who was really not in the mood to look food in the eye. The Captain could see something was bothering her; so he signaled the band to play again “the Amerikaner music.” The German idea of pre-war jazz was as bad as were their ideas on civilization, and it only made Aunt Fran sicker.
The Captain decided to repeat his little joke about the music.
“American music. Bunnies Hug.”
“Do they?” said Aunt Fran.
“Ragtime music. Sie irren sich. Bunnies Hug is a native American dance. Will you have some echten Russischen caviar?”
Aunt Fran stood up and shouted, “I forgive you, Sara!” and ran for her cabin. The sight of caviar had broken her stomach's back….
“Schön, schön,” said the Captain to the Marquis and Marquise. One of them shook cigar ash off on a passing waiter.
And that was how we spent the first night at sea. I remember every word of it, every light and every motion, but the next few days are a blank in my memory. And then I begin to remember the last day at sea, when Ireland was a plate of green spinach in a blue bowl of soup on our left. An author fell in love with Mama and Fran. He is forgotten now, but in his day you couldn't pick up a popular novel without finding his name on it… anyway, it seemed like that.
The Author, smoking a pipe bigger than a small rose, came up on deck when Aunt Fran had recovered somewhat and was only blue under her eyes. She was holding a book someone had handed her.
The Author came over to Mama and Aunt Fran and bowed until his autographing pen almost dropped on the deck.
“I beg pardon. I see you are reading one of my novels.”
Aunt Fran looked up weakly. “Good morning. Gene Stratton Porter.”
“Oh, sorry… thought it was one of mine. I'm — —” (no use giving his name… he may have a wife or two still alive).
“It will be our secret,” said Aunt Fran.
“Have you read my new novel, Sue's Scruples and the Prince?”
Mama said, taking part in the talk for the first time, “We do not allow your books in the house.”
“Wonderful,” said the Author, sitting down and blowing pipe smoke in my face. “And what does the little man read?”
“Tolstoy,” I said. “I'm half-way to Moscow with Napoleon.”
“Oh, one of those filthy Slavs.”
“Go away,” said Aunt Fran. “I'm dying.”
“We shall be in port by morning. April now that England's there….”
I said, “England now that April's there.”
“Thank you, my little tike…. Anyway, you ladies will recover and be presented at court, I'm sure.”
“No,” said Mama, “in our family we don't bow to kings.”
“May I join you at tea?” said the Author. “I'm writing a new novel, and the two main people will be real, honest American beauties who have no use for the fuss and pomp of European royal life or titles.”
But why go on? It's the lowest, stalest trick an author can use on women. After that tea Mama and Aunt Fran were always with the Author… he was going to put them in a book!
The ship sailed on into the gathering darkness. The shores of England beat someplace beyond the scribble of night and the weaving skeins of flashing lights, and morning was to see us on the English shore and on a boat train for London.
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