The cards for dinner having been issued, it became the duty of Mrs.
Timmins to make further arrangements respecting the invitations to the
tea-party which was to follow the more substantial meal.
These arrangements are difficult, as any lady knows who is in the habit
of entertaining her friends. There are--
People who are offended if you ask them to tea whilst others have been
asked to dinner;
People who are offended if you ask them to tea at all; and cry out
furiously, “Good heavens! Jane my love, why do these Timminses suppose
that I am to leave my dinner-table to attend their ----- soiree?” (the
dear reader may fill up the ----- to any strength, according to his
liking)--or, “Upon my word, William my dear, it is too much to ask us to
pay twelve shillings for a brougham, and to spend I don't know how
much in gloves, just to make our curtsies in Mrs. Timmins's little
drawing-room.” Mrs. Moser made the latter remark about the Timmins
affair, while the former was uttered by Mr. Grumpley, barrister-at-law,
to his lady, in Gloucester Place.
That there are people who are offended if you don't ask them at all, is
a point which I suppose nobody will question. Timmins's earliest friend
in life was Simmins, whose wife and family have taken a cottage at
Mortlake for the season.
“We can't ask them to come out of the country,” Rosa said to her
Fitzroy--(between ourselves, she was delighted that Mrs. Simmins was
out of the way, and was as jealous of her as every well-regulated woman
should be of her husband's female friends)--“we can't ask them to come
so far for the evening.”
“Why, no, certainly.” said Fitzroy, who has himself no very great
opinion of a tea-party; and so the Simminses were cut out of the list.
And what was the consequence? The consequence was, that Simmins and
Timmins cut when they met at Westminster; that Mrs. Simmins sent back
all the books which she had borrowed from Rosa, with a withering note of
thanks; that Rosa goes about saying that Mrs. Simmins squints; that Mrs.
S., on her side, declares that Rosa is crooked, and behaved shamefully
to Captain Hicks in marrying Fitzroy over him, though she was forced to
do it by her mother, and prefers the Captain to her husband to this day.
If, in a word, these two men could be made to fight, I believe their
wives would not be displeased; and the reason of all this misery, rage,
and dissension, lies in a poor little twopenny dinner-party in Lilliput
Street.
Well, the guests, both for before and after meat, having been asked,
old Mrs. Gashleigh, Rosa's mother--(and, by consequence, Fitzroy's
DEAR mother-in-law, though I promise you that “dear” is particularly
sarcastic)--Mrs. Gashleigh of course was sent for, and came with Miss
Eliza Gashleigh, who plays on the guitar, and Emily, who limps a little,
but plays sweetly on the concertina. They live close by--trust them for
that. Your mother-in-law is always within hearing, thank our stars for
the attention of the dear women. The Gashleighs, I say, live close by,
and came early on the morning after Rosa's notes had been issued for the
dinner.
When Fitzroy, who was in his little study, which opens into his little
dining-room--one of those absurd little rooms which ought to be called
a gentleman's pantry, and is scarcely bigger than a shower-bath, or a
state cabin in a ship--when Fitzroy heard his mother-in-law's knock,
and her well-known scuffling and chattering in the passage--in which
she squeezed up young Buttons, the page, while she put questions to him
regarding baby, and the cook's health, and whether she had taken what
Mrs. Gashleigh had sent overnight, and the housemaid's health, and
whether Mr. Timmins had gone to chambers or not--and when, after this
preliminary chatter, Buttons flung open the door, announcing--“Mrs.
Gashleigh and the young ladies,” Fitzroy laid down his Times newspaper
with an expression that had best not be printed here, and took his hat
and walked away.
Mrs. Gashleigh has never liked him since he left off calling her mamma,
and kissing her. But he said he could not stand it any longer--he was
hanged if he would. So he went away to chambers, leaving the field clear
to Rosa, mamma, and the two dear girls.
Or to one of them, rather: for before leaving the house, he thought he
would have a look at little Fitzroy up stairs in the nursery, and he
found the child in the hands of his maternal aunt Eliza, who was holding
him and pinching him as if he had been her guitar, I suppose; so that
the little fellow bawled pitifully--and his father finally quitted the
premises.
No sooner was he gone, although the party was still a fortnight off,
than the women pounced upon his little study, and began to put it in
order. Some of his papers they pushed up over the bookcase, some they
put behind the Encyclopaedia. Some they crammed into the drawers--where
Mrs. Gashleigh found three cigars, which she pocketed, and some letters,
over which she cast her eye; and by Fitz's return they had the room as
neat as possible, and the best glass and dessert-service mustered on the
study table.
It was a very neat and handsome service, as you may be sure Mrs.
Gashleigh thought, whose rich uncle had purchased it for the young
couple, at Spode and Copeland's; but it was only for twelve persons.
It was agreed that it would be, in all respects, cheaper and better to
purchase a dozen more dessert-plates; and with “my silver basket in
the centre,” Mrs. G. said (she is always bragging about that confounded
bread-basket), “we need not have any extra china dishes, and the table
will look very pretty.”
On making a roll-call of the glass, it was calculated that at least a
dozen or so tumblers, four or five dozen wines, eight water-bottles, and
a proper quantity of ice-plates, were requisite; and that, as they would
always be useful, it would be best to purchase the articles immediately.
Fitz tumbled over the basket containing them, which stood in the hall as
he came in from chambers, and over the boy who had brought them--and the
little bill.
The women had had a long debate, and something like a quarrel, it must
be owned, over the bill of fare. Mrs. Gashleigh, who had lived a great
part of her life in Devonshire, and kept house in great state there,
was famous for making some dishes, without which, she thought, no dinner
could be perfect. When she proposed her mock-turtle, and stewed pigeons,
and gooseberry-cream, Rosa turned up her nose--a pretty little nose it
was, by the way, and with a natural turn in that direction.
“Mock-turtle in June, mamma!” said she.
“It was good enough for your grandfather, Rosa,” the mamma replied: “it
was good enough for the Lord High Admiral, when he was at Plymouth; it
was good enough for the first men in the county, and relished by Lord
Fortyskewer and Lord Rolls; Sir Lawrence Porker ate twice of it after
Exeter races; and I think it might be good enough for--”
“I will NOT have it, mamma!” said Rosa, with a stamp of her foot; and
Mrs. Gashleigh knew what resolution there was in that. Once, when she
had tried to physic the baby, there had been a similar fight between
them.
So Mrs. Gashleigh made out a carte, in which the soup was left with
a dash--a melancholy vacuum; and in which the pigeons were certainly
thrust in among the entrees; but Rosa determined they never should make
an entree at all into HER dinner-party, but that she would have the
dinner her own way.
When Fitz returned, then, and after he had paid the little bill of 6L.
14s. 6d. for the glass, Rosa flew to him with her sweetest smiles, and
the baby in her arms. And after she had made him remark how the child
grew every day more and more like him, and after she had treated him to
a number of compliments and caresses, which it were positively fulsome
to exhibit in public, and after she had soothed him into good humor
by her artless tenderness, she began to speak to him about some little
points which she had at heart.
She pointed out with a sigh how shabby the old curtains looked since the
dear new glasses which her darling Fitz had given her had been put up in
the drawing-room. Muslin curtains cost nothing, and she must and would
have them.
The muslin curtains were accorded. She and Fitz went and bought them
at Shoolbred's, when you may be sure she treated herself likewise to
a neat, sweet pretty half-mourning (for the Court, you know, is in
mourning)--a neat sweet barege, or calimanco, or bombazine, or tiffany,
or some such thing; but Madame Camille, of Regent Street, made it up,
and Rosa looked like an angel in it on the night of her little dinner.
“And, my sweet,” she continued, after the curtains had been accorded,
“mamma and I have been talking about the dinner. She wants to make
it very expensive, which I cannot allow. I have been thinking of a
delightful and economical plan, and you, my sweetest Fitz, must put it
into execution.”
“I have cooked a mutton-chop when I was in chambers,” Fitz said with a
laugh. “Am I to put on a cap and an apron?”
“No: but you are to go to the 'Megatherium Club' (where, you wretch,
you are always going without my leave), and you are to beg Monsieur
Mirobolant, your famous cook, to send you one of his best aides-de-camp,
as I know he will, and with his aid we can dress the dinner and
the confectionery at home for ALMOST NOTHING, and we can show those
purse-proud Topham Sawyers and Rowdys that the HUMBLE COTTAGE can
furnish forth an elegant entertainment as well as the gilded halls of
wealth.”
Fitz agreed to speak to Monsieur Mirobolant. If Rosa had had a fancy
for the cook of the Prime Minister, I believe the deluded creature of a
husband would have asked Lord John for the loan of him.