The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 21

  ‘Nothing can be too expensive which pleases you, dear,’ Fitz said.

  ‘By the way, one of those young women was rather good-looking,’ Rosa remarked; ‘the one in the cap with the blue ribbons.’ (And she cast about the shape of the cap in her mind, and determined to have exactly such another.)

  ‘Think so? I didn’t observe,’ said the miserable hypocrite by her side; and when he had seen Rosa home, he went back, like an infamous fiend, to order something else which he had forgotten, he said, at Fubsby’s. Get out of that Paradise, you cowardly, creeping, vile serpent, you!

  Until the day of the dinner, the infatuated fop was always going to Fubsby’s. He was remarked there. He used to go before he went to chambers in the morning, and sometimes on his return from the Temple: but the morning was the time which he preferred; and one day, when he went on one of his eternal pretexts, and was chattering and flirting at the counter, a lady who had been reading yesterday’s paper and eating a half-penny bun for an hour in the back shop (if that paradise may be called a shop) – a lady stepped forward, laid down the ‘Morning Herald’, and confronted him.

  That lady was Mrs Gashleigh. From that day the miserable Fitzroy was in her power; and she resumed a sway over his house, to shake off which had been the object of his life, and the result of many battles. And for a mere freak – (for, on going into Fubsby’s a week afterwards he found the Peris drinking tea out of blue cups, and eating stale bread and butter, when his absurd passion instantly vanished) – I say, for a mere freak, the most intolerable burden of his life was put on his shoulders again – his mother-in-law.

  On the day before the little dinner took place – and I promise you we shall come to it in the very next chapter – a tall and elegant middle-aged gentleman, who might have passed for an earl, but that there was a slight incompleteness about his hands and feet, the former being uncommonly red, and the latter large and irregular, was introduced to Mrs Timmins by the page, who announced him as Mr Truncheon.

  ‘I’m Truncheon, ma’am,’ he said, with a low bow.

  ‘Indeed!’ said Rosa.

  ‘About the dinner, m’m, from Fubsby’s, m’m. As you have no butler, m’m, I presume you will wish me to act as sich. I shall bring two persons as haids to-morrow; both answers to the name of John. I’d best, if you please, inspect the premisis, and will think you to allow your young man to show me the pantry and kitching.’

  Truncheon spoke in a low voice, and with the deepest, and most respectful melancholy. There is not much expression in his eyes, but from what there is, you would fancy that he was oppressed by a secret sorrow. Rosa trembled as she surveyed this gentleman’s size, his splendid appearance, and gravity. ‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘I never shall dare to ask him to hand a glass of water.’ Even Mrs Gashleigh, when she came on the morning of the actual dinner-party, to superintend matters, was cowed, and retreated from the kitchen before the calm majesty of Truncheon.

  And yet that great man was, like all the truly great – affable.

  He put aside his coat and waistcoat (both of evening cut, and looking prematurely splendid as he walked the streets in noonday), and did not disdain to rub the glasses and polish the decanters, and to show young Buttons the proper mode of preparing these articles for a dinner. And while he operated, the maids, and Buttons, and cook, when she could – and what had she but the vegetables to boil? – crowded round him, and listened with wonder as he talked of the great families as he had lived with. That man, as they saw him there before them, had been cab-boy to Lord Tantallan, valet to the Earl of Bareacres, and groom of the chambers to the Duchess Dowager of Fitzbattleaxe. O, it was delightful to hear Mr Truncheon!

  VI

  On the great, momentous, stupendous day of the dinner, my beloved female reader may imagine that Fitzroy Timmins was sent about his business at an early hour in the morning, while the women began to make preparations to receive their guests. ‘There will be no need of your going to Fubsby’s,’ Mrs Gashleigh said to him, with a look that drove him out of doors. ‘Every thing that we require has been ordered there! You will please to be back here at 6 o’clock, and not sooner: and I presume you will acquiesce in my arrangements about the wine.’

  ‘O yes, mamma,’ said the prostrate son-in-law.

  ‘In so large a party – a party beyond some folks’ means – expensive wines are absurd. The light sherry at 26s., the champagne at 42s.; and you are not to go beyond 36s. for the claret and port after dinner. Mind, coffee will be served; and you come upstairs after two rounds of the claret.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ acquiesced the wretch: and hurried out of the house to his chambers, and to discharge the commissions with which the womankind had intrusted him.

  As for Mrs Gashleigh, you might have heard her bawling over the house the whole day long. That admirable woman was everywhere; in the kitchen until the arrival of Truncheon, before whom she would not retreat without a battle; on the stairs; in Fitzroy’s dressing-room; and in Fitzroy minor’s nursery, to whom she gave a dose of her own composition, while the nurse was sent out on a pretext to make purchases of garnish for the dishes to be served for the little dinner. Garnish for the dishes! As if the folks at Fubsby’s could not garnish dishes better than Gashleigh, with her stupid old-world devices of laurel leaves, parsley, and cut turnips! Why, there was not a dish served that day that was not covered over with skewers, on which troufles, crayfish mushrooms, and forced-meat were impaled. When old Gashleigh went down with her barbarian bunches of holly and greens to stick about the meats, even the cook saw their incongruity, and, at Truncheon’s orders, flung the whole shrubbery into the dust-house, where, while poking about the premises, you may be sure Mrs G. saw it.

  Every candle which was to be burned that night (including the tallow candle, which she said was a good enough bed-light for Fitzroy) she stuck into the candlesticks with her own hands, giving her own high-shouldered plated candlesticks of the year 1798 the place of honour. She upset all poor Rosa’s floral arrangements, turning the nosegays from one vase into the other without any pity, and was never tired of beating, and pushing, and patting, and wapping the curtain and sofa draperies into shape in the little drawing-room.

  In Fitz’s own apartments she revelled with peculiar pleasure. It has been described how she had sacked his Study and pushed away his papers, some of which, including three cigars, and the commencement of an article for the ‘Law Magazine’, ‘Lives of the Sheriff’s Officers’, he has never been able to find to this day. Mamma now went into the little room in the back regions, which is Fitz’s dressing-room, (and was destined to be a cloak-room,) and here she rummaged to her heart’s delight.

  In an incredibly short space of time she examined all his outlying pockets, drawers, and letters; she inspected his socks and handkerchiefs in the top drawers; and on the dressing-table, his razors, shaving-strop, and hair-oil. She carried off his silver-topped scent-bottle out of his dressing-case, and a half-dozen of his favourite pills (which Fitz possesses in common with every well-regulated man), and probably administered them to her own family. His boots, glossy pumps, and slippers, she pushed into the shower-bath, where the poor fellow stepped into them the next morning, in the midst of a pool in which they were lying. The baby was found sucking his boot-hooks the next day in the nursery; and as for the bottle of varnish for his shoes, (which he generally paints upon the trees himself, having a pretty taste in that way,) it could never be found to the present hour; but it was remarked that the young Master Gashleighs, when they came home for the holidays, always wore lacquered highlows; and the reader may draw his conclusions from that fact.

  In the course of the day all the servants gave Mrs Timmins warning.

  The cook said she coodn’t abear it no longer, aving Mrs G. always about her kitching, with her fingers in all the saucepans. Mrs G. had got her the place, but she preferred one as Mrs G. didn’t get for her.

  The nurse said she was come to nuss Master Fitzroy, and knew her duty; his
grandmamma wasn’t his nuss, and was always aggrawating her, – Missus must shoot herself elsewhere.

  The housemaid gave utterance to the same sentiments in language more violent.

  Little Buttons bounced up to his mistress, said he was butler of the family, Mrs G. was always poking about his pantry, and dam if he’d stand it.

  At every moment Rosa grew more and more bewildered. The baby howled a great deal during the day. His large china Christening-bowl was cracked by Mrs Gashleigh altering the flowers in it, and pretending to be very cool, whilst her hands shook with rage.

  ‘Pray go on, mamma,’ Rosa said with tears in her eyes. ‘Should you like to break the chandelier?’

  ‘Ungrateful, unnatural child!’ bellowed the other; ‘only that I know you couldn’t do without me, I’d leave the house this minute.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Rosa; but Mrs G. didn’t wish: and in this juncture Truncheon arrived.

  That officer surveyed the dining-room, laid the cloth there with admirable precision and neatness; ranged the plate on the side-board with graceful accuracy, but objected to that old thing in the centre, as he called Mrs Gashleigh’s silver basket, as cumbrous and useless for the table, where they would want all the room they could get.

  Order was not restored to the house, nor, indeed, any decent progress made, until this great man came: but where there was a revolt before, and a general disposition to strike work and to yell out deflance against Mrs Gashleigh, who was sitting bewildered and furious in the drawing-room – where there was before commotion, at the appearance of the master-spirit, all was peace and unanimity: the cook went back to her pans, the housemaid busied herself with the china and glass, cleaning some articles and breaking others, Buttons sprang up and down the stairs, obedient to the orders of his chief, and all things went well and in their season.

  At six, the man with the wine came from Binney and Latham’s. At a quarter-past six, Timmins himself arrived.

  At half-past six, he might have been heard shouting out for his varnished boots – but we know where those had been hidden – and for his dressing things; but Mrs Gashleigh had put them away.

  As in his vain inquiries for these articles he stood shouting, ‘Nurse! Buttons! Rosa, my dear!’ and the most fearful execrations up and down the stairs, Mr Truncheon came out on him.

  ‘Igscuse me, sir,’ says he, ‘but it’s impawsable. We can’t dine twenty at that table – not if you set ’em out awinder, we can’t.’

  ‘What’s to be done?’ asked Fitzroy, in an agony; ‘they’ve all said they’d come.’

  ‘Can’t do it,’ said the other; ‘with two top and bottom – and your table is as narrow as a bench – we can’t hold more than heighteen, and then each person’s helbows will be into his neighbour’s cheer.’

  ‘Rosa! Mrs Gashleigh!’ cried out Timmins, ‘come down and speak to this gentl— this –’

  ‘Truncheon, sir,’ said the man.

  The women descended from the drawing-room. ‘Look and see, ladies,’ he said, inducting them into the dinning-room; ‘there’s the room, there’s the table laid for heighteen, and I defy you to squeege in more.’

  ‘One person in a party always fails,’ said Mrs Gashleigh, getting alarmed.

  ‘That’s nineteen,’ Mr Truncheon remarked; ‘we must knock another hoff, mam’; and he looked her hard in the face.

  Mrs Gashleigh was very red and nervous, and paced, or rather squeezed round the table (it was as much as she could do) – the chairs could not be put any closer than they were. It was impossible, unless the convive sat as a centre-piece in the middle, to put another guest at that table.

  ‘Look at that lady movin round, sir. You see now the difficklty; if my men wasn’t thinner, they couldn’t hoperate at all,’ Mr Truncheon observed, who seemed to have a spite to Mrs Gashleigh.

  ‘What is to be done?’ she said, with purple accents.

  ‘My dearest mamma,’ Rosa cried out, ‘you must stop at home – how sorry I am!’ And she shot one glance at Fitzroy, who shot another at the great Truncheon, who held down his eyes.

  ‘We could manage with heighteen,’ he said, mildly.

  Mrs Gashleigh gave a hideous laugh.

  She went away. At eight o’clock she was pacing at the corner of the street, and actually saw the company arrive. First came the Topham Sawyers in their light blue carriage, with the white hammer-cloth, and blue and white ribbons – their footmen drove the house down with the knocking.

  Then followed the ponderous and snuff-coloured vehicle, with faded gilded wheels and brass earl’s coronets all over it, the conveyance of the House of Bungay. The Countess of Bungay and daughter stepped out of the carriage. The fourteenth Earl of Bungay couldn’t come.

  Sir Thomas and Lady Gulpin’s fly made its appearance, from which issued the general with his star, and Lady Gulpin in yellow satin. The Rowdy’s brougham followed next; after which Mrs Butt’s handsome equipage drove up.

  The two friends of the house, young gentlemen from the Temple, now arrived in cab No. 9996. We tossed up, in fact, which should pay the fare.

  Mr Ranville Ranville walked, and was dusting his boots as the Templars drove up. Lord Castlenoddy came out of a twopenny omnibus. Funnyman, the wag, came last, whirling up rapidly in a Hansom, just as Mrs Gashleigh, with rage in her heart, was counting that two people had failed, and that there were only seventeen after all.

  Mr Truncheon passed our names to Mr Billiter, who bawled them out on the stairs. Rosa was smiling in a pink dress, and looking as fresh as an angel, and received her company with that grace which has always characterised her.

  The moment of the dinner arrived, old Lady Bungay scuffled off on the arm of Fitzroy, while the rear was brought up by Rosa and Lord Castlemouldy, of Ballyshanvanvoght Castle, Co. Tipperary. Some fellows who had the luck, took down ladies to dinner. I was not sorry to be out of the way of Mrs Rowdy with her dandyfied airs, or of that high and mighty county princess, Mrs Topham Sawyer.

  VII

  Of course it does not become the present writer, who has partaken of the best entertainment which his friends could supply, to make fun of their (somewhat ostentatious, as it must be confessed) hospitality. If they gave a dinner beyond their means, it is no business of mine. I hate a man who goes and eats a friend’s meat, and then blabs the secrets of the mahogany. Such a man deserves never to be asked to dinner again; and, though at the close of a London season that seems no great loss, and you sicken of a white-bait as you would of a whale – yet we must always remember that there’s another season coming, and hold our tongues for the present.

  As for describing, then, the mere victuals on Timmins’s table, that would be absurd. Everybody – (I mean of the genteel world, of course, of which I make no doubt the reader is a polite ornament) – everybody has the same everything in London. You see the same coats, the same dinners, the same boiled fowls and mutton, the same cutlets, fish, and cucumbers, the same lumps of Wenham-lake ice, &c. The waiters, with white neck-cloths, are as like each other everywhere as the peas which they hand round with the ducks of the second course. Can’t any one invent anything new?

  The only difference between Timmins’s dinner and his neighbour’s was, that he had hired, as we have said, the greater part of the plate, and that his cowardly conscience magnified faults and disasters of which no one else probably took heed.

  But Rosa thought, from the supercilious air with which Mrs Topham Sawyer was eyeing the plate and other arrangements, that she was remarking the difference of the ciphers on the forks and spoons – (which had, in fact, been borrowed from every one of Fitzroy’s friends – I know, for instance, that he had my six, among others, and only returned five, along with a battered, old, black-pronged, plated abomination, which I have no doubt belongs to Mrs Gashleigh, whom I hereby request to send back mine in exchange) – their guilty consciences, I say, made them fancy that every one was spying out their domestic deficiencies; whereas, it is probable that nobody present thought o
f their failings at all. People never do; they never see holes in their neighbours’ coats – they are too indolent, simple, and charitable.

  Some things, however, one could not help remarking; for instance, though Fitz is my closest friend, yet could I avoid seeing and being amused by his perplexity and his dismal efforts to be facetious? His eye wandered all round the little room with quick uneasy glances, very different from those frank and jovial looks with which he is accustomed to welcome you to a leg of mutton; and Rosa, from the other end of the table, and over the flowers, entrée dishes, and wine-coolers, telegraphed him with signals of corresponding alarm. Poor devils! why did they ever go beyond that leg of mutton?

  Funnyman was not brilliant in conversation, scarcely opening his mouth, except for the purposes of feasting. The fact is our friend Tom Dawson was at table, who knew all his stories, and in his presence the greatest wag is always silent and uneasy.

  Fitz has a very pretty wit of his own, and a good reputation on Circuit; but he is timid before great people. And indeed the presence of that awful Lady Bungay on his right hand, was enough to damp him. She was in Court-mourning (for the late Prince of Schlippen-schloppen). She had on a large black funereal turban and appurtenances, and a vast breast-plate of twinkling, twiddling, black bugles. No wonder a man could not be gay in talking to her.

  Mrs Rowdy and Mrs Topham Sawyer love each other as women do who have the same receiving nights, and ask the same society; they were only separated by Ranville Ranville, who tries to be well with both: and they talked at each other across him.

  Topham and Rowdy growled out a conversation about Rum, Ireland, and the Navigation Laws, quit unfit for print. Sawyer never speaks three words without mentioning the House and the Speaker.

  The Irish Peer said nothing (which was a comfort); but he ate and drank of everything which came in his way; and cut his usual absurd figure in dyed whiskers and a yellow under-waistcoat.