On the arm of her Fitzroy, Rosa went off to Fubsby's, that magnificent
shop at the corner of Parliament Place and Alicompayne Square,--a
shop into which the rogue had often cast a glance of approbation as he
passed: for there are not only the most wonderful and delicious cakes
and confections in the window, but at the counter there are almost sure
to be three or four of the prettiest women in the whole of this world,
with little darling caps of the last French make, with beautiful wavy
hair, and the neatest possible waists and aprons.
Yes, there they sit; and others, perhaps, besides Fitz have cast a
sheep's-eye through those enormous plate-glass windowpanes. I suppose it
is the fact of perpetually living among such a quantity of good things
that makes those young ladies so beautiful. They come into the place,
let us say, like ordinary people, and gradually grow handsomer and
handsomer, until they grow out into the perfect angels you see. It can't
be otherwise: if you and I, my dear fellow, were to have a course of
that place, we should become beautiful too. They live in an atmosphere
of the most delicious pine-apples, blanc-manges, creams, (some whipt,
and some so good that of course they don't want whipping,) jellies,
tipsy-cakes, cherry-brandy--one hundred thousand sweet and lovely
things. Look at the preserved fruits, look at the golden ginger, the
outspreading ananas, the darling little rogues of China oranges, ranged
in the gleaming crystal cylinders. Mon Dieu! Look at the strawberries
in the leaves. Each of them is as large nearly as a lady's reticule, and
looks as if it had been brought up in a nursery to itself. One of those
strawberries is a meal for those young ladies, behind the counter; they
nibble off a little from the side, and if they are very hungry,
which can scarcely ever happen, they are allowed to go to the crystal
canisters and take out a rout-cake or macaroon. In the evening they sit
and tell each other little riddles out of the bonbons; and when they
wish to amuse themselves, they read the most delightful remarks, in the
French language, about Love, and Cupid, and Beauty, before they place
them inside the crackers. They always are writing down good things into
Mr. Fubsby's ledgers. It must be a perfect feast to read them. Talk of
the Garden of Eden! I believe it was nothing to Mr. Fubsby's house; and
I have no doubt that after those young ladies have been there a certain
time, they get to such a pitch of loveliness at last, that they become
complete angels, with wings sprouting out of their lovely shoulders,
when (after giving just a preparatory balance or two) they fly up to the
counter and perch there for a minute, hop down again, and affectionately
kiss the other young ladies, and say, “Good-by, dears! We shall meet
again la haut.” And then with a whir of their deliciously scented wings,
away they fly for good, whisking over the trees of Brobdingnag Square,
and up into the sky, as the policeman touches his hat.
It is up there that they invent the legends for the crackers, and the
wonderful riddles and remarks on the bonbons. No mortal, I am sure,
could write them.
I never saw a man in such a state as Fitzroy Timmins in the presence of
those ravishing houris. Mrs. Fitz having explained that they required a
dinner for twenty persons, the chief young lady asked what Mr. and
Mrs. Fitz would like, and named a thousand things, each better than the
other, to all of which Fitz instantly said yes. The wretch was in such
a state of infatuation that I believe if that lady had proposed to him a
fricasseed elephant, or a boa-constrictor in jelly, he would have said,
“O yes, certainly; put it down.”
That Peri wrote down in her album a list of things which it would make
your mouth water to listen to. But she took it all quite calmly. Heaven
bless you! THEY don't care about things that are no delicacies to them!
But whatever she chose to write down, Fitzroy let her.
After the dinner and dessert were ordered (at Fubsby's they furnish
everything: dinner and dessert, plate and china, servants in your own
livery, and, if you please, guests of title too), the married couple
retreated from that shop of wonders; Rosa delighted that the trouble of
the dinner was all off their hands but she was afraid it would be rather
expensive.
“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 halfpenny 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. Oh, it was delightful
to hear Mr. Truncheon!