From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 155)

I’m still floundering in what is proving to be the longest festive season I can remember. Obviously, I don’t mind all of the parties, or all of the ladies in their finery.  It’s simply that this year it all seems emptier and more vacuous than before. We stand on the brink of war, and everyone’s doing their level best to ignore it. Human nature, I suppose, and I say this with scorn.

However, international warfare aside, my most pressing problem is that Alice has invited me to spend Christmas at White Orchards, and I don’t know how I feel about this. There’s to be a house party. It’ll be civil, full of intelligent people, and if her wretched husband hasn’t drunk all the wine that I gave him as an apology for stealing her away the day they came back from their honeymoon, decent booze.

Some pleasures will be denied to me. I won’t feel as though I can flirt under her roof. I’m sure Alice wouldn’t be impressed if I ‘entertained’ one of her friends in my boudoir. She can be most unreasonably possessive of me for a woman who married for love.

Then there’s the issue of Christmas dinner. I don’t object to whatever meat or fowl is chosen for the main course, but I do own to certain requirements for this festive repast. First, and foremost, I require a decent pickle to go with the meat. It must be appropriate to the chosen beast or fowl and preferably home-made by a decent cook. If it must be bought, then nothing less than a jar from our foremost store (which also supplies the sovereign) is acceptable. There should also be a decent English mustard, as yellow as a day-old chick, and it should be smooth with a faint tang of sharp white wine, and also homemade. I require several options for the vegetable course, and a freshly made, smooth, unctuous gravy - no chunks of onion in it please. Potatoes must be piping hot and salted, however they are served. Most importantly, there must be a freshly made - and I mean within the last half hour prior to dining - bread sauce. Without that, the meal is simply not festive.

I’m quite accommodating when it comes to the first course. Lobster is acceptable, with a preamble of some light, well made soup. Nothing stodgy like Windsor Soup! If several courses are being offered, I enjoy a palette cleanser in the form mouthful of sharp sorbet between the courses, or something equally refreshing.

Naturally, the wines must be matched to the courses, and a good brandy offered, as well as the regular port in the final phase of the degustatory engagement. Dessert should be something eye-catching. I don’t tend to eat much of it myself, but I require it to be artistically celebratory in appearance. I’ve less requirements for its taste - mild and inoffensive is best at the end of a long meal. Flaming Christmas pudding, if it must be served, should be later in the day.

There also has to be a decent cheeseboard, finger bowls, fresh flowers, along with sparkling silverware and crystal glasses. A plentiful supply of fresh linen napkins is a necessity. There are a few things worse than seeing one of the diners mop his chops with an already stained napkin. Fresh linen should be offered with each course.

I prefer for time to be taken over the meal, and for it to be given over to pleasure of consuming. I don’t go to Christmas dinner for the conversation, but for the feasting. By the very end of it, I want my waistcoat buttons to be straining - no small feat for any hostess - I have a capacious appetite on the merry 25th.

It’s by these requirements alone I’ve survived Christmas dinner with my family these many years, and I’ve come to rely on these restrictions for my happiness on the day.

I don’t know the cook at White Orchards, and thus cannot predict how competent they are. As I often do with the cooks of houses I visit regularly, I send them pickles, or other minor ingredients for them to try and enlarge their culinary horizons. This must be done with the utmost care, for cooks are ridiculously temperamental. However, a gentleman who takes a genuine interest in their craft is deemed unusual enough to ensure a happy outcome – certainly in all my interventions to date.

So, do I accept this invitation to White Orchards? I will be a bear with a sore head if I don’t get what I want for my Christmas dinner, and Alice would never speak to me again if I sent her a full list of my requirements.

Alas, even in my personal time, I must utilise my masterly diplomacy. There’s no rest for the wicked - and I can be very wicked indeed.