Part 13 (1/2)
”We are going to have a little dinner party to-day,” said Mrs Tom.
”A dinner party!” said Margaret. ”I didn't look for that, Sarah.”
”Perhaps I ought not to call it a party, for there are only one or two coming. There's Dr Slumpy and his wife; I don't know whether you ever met Dr Slumpy. He has attended us for ever so long; and there is Miss Colza, a great friend of mine. Mademoiselle Colza I ought to call her, because her father was a Portuguese. Only as she never saw him, we call her Miss. And there's Mr Rubb,--Samuel Rubb, junior. I think you met him at Littlebath.”
”Yes; I know Mr Rubb.”
”That's all; and I might as well say how it will be now. Mr Rubb will take you down to dinner. Tom will take Mrs Slumpy, and the doctor will take me. Young Tom,”--Young Tom was her son, who was now beginning his career at Rubb and Mackenzie's,--”Young Tom will take Miss Colza, and Mary Jane and Susanna will come down by themselves.
We might have managed twelve, and Tom did think of asking Mr Handc.o.c.k and one of the other clerks, but he did not know whether you would have liked it.”
”I should not have minded it. That is, I should have been very glad to meet Mr Handc.o.c.k, but I don't care about it.”
”That's just what we thought, and therefore we did not ask him.
You'll remember, won't you, that Mr Rubb takes you down?” After that Miss Mackenzie took her nieces to the Zoological Gardens, leaving Mary Jane at home to a.s.sist her mother in the cares for the coming festival, and thus the day wore itself away till it was time for them to prepare themselves for the party.
Miss Colza was the first to come. She was a young lady somewhat older than Miss Mackenzie; but the circ.u.mstances of her life had induced her to retain many of the propensities of her girlhood. She was as young looking as curls and pink bows could make her, and was by no means a useless guest at a small dinner party, as she could chatter like a magpie. Her claims to be called ”Mademoiselle” were not very strong, as she had lived in Finsbury Square all her life. Her father was connected in trade with the Rubb and Mackenzie firm, and dealt, I think, in oil. She was introduced with great ceremony, and having heard that Miss Mackenzie lived at Littlebath, went off at score about the pleasures of that delicious place.
”I do so hate London, Miss Mackenzie.”
”I lived here all my life, and I can't say I liked it.”
”It is such a crowd, isn't it? and yet so dull. Give me Brighton! We were down for a week in November, and it was nice.”
”I never saw Brighton.”
”Oh, do go to Brighton. Everybody goes there now; you really do see the world at Brighton. Now, in London one sees nothing.”
Then came in Mr Rubb, and Miss Colza at once turned her attention to him. But Mr Rubb shook Miss Colza off almost unceremoniously, and seated himself by Miss Mackenzie. Immediately afterwards arrived the doctor and his wife. The doctor was a very silent man, and as Tom Mackenzie himself was not given to much talking, it was well that Miss Colza should be there. Mrs Slumpy could take her share in conversation with an effort, when duly a.s.sisted; but she could not lead the van, and required more sprightly aid than her host was qualified to give her. Then there was a whisper between Tom and Mrs Tom and the bell was rung, and the dinner was ordered. Seven had been the time named, and a quarter past seven saw the guests a.s.sembled in the drawing-room. A very dignified person in white cotton gloves had announced the names, and the same dignified person had taken the order for dinner. The dignified person had then retreated downstairs slowly, and what was taking place for the next half-hour poor Mrs Mackenzie, in the agony of her mind, could not surmise. She longed to go and see, but did not dare. Even for Dr Slumpy, or even for his wife, had they been alone with her she would not have cared much.
Miss Colza she could have treated with perfect indifference--could even have taken her down into the kitchen with her. Rubb, her own junior partner, was nothing, and Miss Mackenzie was simply her sister-in-law. But together they made a party. Moreover she had on her best and stiffest silk gown, and so armed she could not have been effective in the kitchen. And so came a silence for some minutes, in spite of the efforts of Miss Colza. At last the hostess plucked up her courage to make a little effort.
”Tom,” she said, ”I really think you had better ring again.”
”It will be all right, soon,” said Tom, considering that upon the whole it would be better not to disturb the gentleman downstairs just yet.
”Upon my word, I never felt it so cold in my life as I did to-day,”
he said, turning on Dr Slumpy for the third time with that remark.
”Very cold,” said Dr Slumpy, pulling out his watch and looking at it.
”I really think you'd better ring the bell,” said Mrs Tom.
Tom, however, did not stir, and after another period of five minutes dinner was announced. It may be as well, perhaps, to explain, that the soup had been on the table for the last quarter of an hour or more, but that after placing the tureen on the table, the dignified gentleman downstairs had come to words with the cook, and had refused to go on further with the business of the night until that ill-used woman acceded to certain terms of his own in reference to the manner in which the foods should be served. He had seen the world, and had lofty ideas, and had been taught to be a tyrant by the weakness of those among whom his life had been spent. The cook had alleged that the dinner, as regarded the eating of it, would certainly be spoilt.
As to that, he had expressed a mighty indifference. If he was to have any hand in them, things were to be done according to certain rules, which, as he said, prevailed in the world of fas.h.i.+on. The cook, who had a temper and who regarded her mistress, stood out long and boldly, but when the housemaid, who was to a.s.sist Mr Grandairs upstairs, absolutely deserted her, and sitting down began to cry, saying: ”Sairey, why don't you do as he tells you? What signifies its being greasy if it hain't never to go hup?” then Sarah's courage gave way, and Mr Grandairs, with all the conqueror in his bosom, announced that dinner was served.
It was a great relief. Even Miss Colza's tongue had been silent, and Mr Rubb had found himself unable to carry on any further small talk with Miss Mackenzie. The minds of men and women become so tuned to certain positions, that they go astray and won't act when those positions are confused. Almost every man can talk for fifteen minutes, standing in a drawing-room, before dinner; but where is the man who can do it for an hour? It is not his appet.i.te that impedes him, for he could well have borne to dine at eight instead of seven; nor is it that matter lacks him, for at other times his eloquence does not cease to flow so soon. But at that special point of the day he is supposed to talk for fifteen minutes, and if any prolonged call is then made upon him, his talking apparatus falls out of order and will not work. You can sit still on a Sunday morning, in the cold, on a very narrow bench, with no comfort appertaining, and listen for half an hour to a rapid outflow of words, which, for any purpose of instruction or edification, are absolutely useless to you. The reading to you of the ”Quae genus,” or ”As in praesenti,” could not be more uninteresting. Try to undergo the same thing in your own house on a Wednesday afternoon, and see where you will be. To those ladies and gentlemen who had been a.s.sembled in Mrs Mackenzie's drawing-room this prolonged waiting had been as though the length of the sermon had been doubled, or as if it had fallen on them at some unexpected and unauthorised time.
But now they descended, each gentleman taking his allotted lady, and Colza's voice was again heard. At the bottom of the stairs, just behind the dining-room door, stood the tyrant, looking very great, repressing with his left hand the housemaid who was behind him. She having observed Sarah at the top of the kitchen stairs telegraphing for a.s.sistance, had endeavoured to make her way to her friend while Tom Mackenzie and Mrs Slumpy were still upon the stairs; but the tyrant, though he had seen the cook's distress, had refused and sternly kept the girl a prisoner behind him. Ruat dinner, fiat genteel deportment.
The order of the construction of the dinner was no doubt a la Russe; and why should it not have been so, as Tom Mackenzie either had or was supposed to have as much as eight hundred a year? But I think it must be confessed that the architecture was in some degree composite. It was a la Russe, because in the centre there was a green arrangement of little boughs with artificial flowers fixed on them, and because there were figs and raisins, and little dishes with dabs of preserve on them, all around the green arrangement; but the soups and fish were on the table, as was also the wine, though it was understood that no one was to be allowed to help himself or his neighbour to the contents of the bottle. When Dr Slumpy once made an attempt at the sherry, Grandairs was down upon him instantly, although laden at the time with both potatoes and sea-kale; after that he went round and frowned at Dr Slumpy, and Dr Slumpy understood the frown.