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 whitebait 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 neighbor'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 eying 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 of their failings at all. People
never do: they never see holes in their neighbors' 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, entree 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 Schlippenschloppen). She had on a
large black funereal turban and appurtenances, and a vast breastplate 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, quite 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.
General Gulpin sported his star, and looked fat and florid, but
melancholy. His wife ordered away his dinner, just like honest Sancho's
physician at Barataria.
Botherby's stories about Lamartine are as old as the hills, since the
barricades of 1848; and he could not get in a word or cut the slightest
figure. And as for Tom Dawson, he was carrying on an undertoned
small-talk with Lady Barbara St. Mary's, so that there was not much
conversation worth record going on WITHIN the dining-room.
Outside it was different. Those houses in Lilliput Street are so
uncommonly compact, that you can hear everything which takes place all
over the tenement; and so--
In the awful pauses of the banquet, and the hall-door being furthermore
open, we had the benefit of hearing:
The cook, and the occasional cook, below stairs, exchanging rapid
phrases regarding the dinner;
The smash of the soup-tureen, and swift descent of the kitchen-maid and
soup-ladle down the stairs to the lower regions. This accident created a
laugh, and rather amused Fitzroy and the company, and caused Funnyman
to say, bowing to Rosa, that she was mistress of herself, though
China fall. But she did not heed him, for at that moment another noise
commenced, namely, that of--
The baby in the upper rooms, who commenced a series of piercing yells,
which, though stopped by the sudden clapping to of the nursery-door,
were only more dreadful to the mother when suppressed. She would
have given a guinea to go up stairs and have done with the whole
entertainment.
A thundering knock came at the door very early after the dessert, and
the poor soul took a speedy opportunity of summoning the ladies to
depart, though you may be sure it was only old Mrs. Gashleigh, who had
come with her daughters--of course the first person to come. I saw her
red gown whisking up the stairs, which were covered with plates and
dishes, over which she trampled.
Instead of having any quiet after the retreat of the ladies, the house
was kept in a rattle, and the glasses jingled on the table as the flymen
and coachmen plied the knocker, and the soiree came in. From my place
I could see everything: the guests as they arrived (I remarked very few
carriages, mostly cabs and flies), and a little crowd of blackguard boys
and children, who were formed round the door, and gave ironical cheers
to the folks as they stepped out of their vehicles.
As for the evening-party, if a crowd in the dog-days is pleasant, poor
Mrs. Timmins certainly had a successful soiree. You could hardly move
on the stair. Mrs. Sternhold broke in the banisters, and nearly fell
through. There was such a noise and chatter you could not hear the
singing of the Miss Gashleighs, which was no great loss. Lady Bungay
could hardly get to her carriage, being entangled with Colonel Wedgewood
in the passage. An absurd attempt was made to get up a dance of some
kind; but before Mrs. Crowder had got round the room, the hanging-lamp
in the dining-room below was stove in, and fell with a crash on the
table, now prepared for refreshment.
Why, in fact, did the Timminses give that party at all? It was quite
beyond their means. They have offended a score of their old friends,
and pleased none of their acquaintances. So angry were many who were not
asked, that poor Rosa says she must now give a couple more parties
and take in those not previously invited. And I know for a fact
that Fubsby's bill is not yet paid; nor Binney and Latham's the
wine-merchants; that the breakage and hire of glass and china cost ever
so much money; that every true friend of Timmins has cried out against
his absurd extravagance, and that now, when every one is going out of
town, Fitz has hardly money to pay his circuit, much more to take Rosa
to a watering-place, as he wished and promised.
As for Mrs. Gashleigh, the only feasible plan of economy which she
can suggest, is that she could come and live with her daughter and
son-in-law, and that they should keep house together. If he agrees to
this, she has a little sum at the banker's, with which she would not
mind easing his present difficulties; and the poor wretch is so utterly
bewildered and crestfallen that it is very likely he will become her
victim.
The Topham Sawyers, when they go down into the country, will represent
Fitz as a ruined man and reckless prodigal; his uncle, the attorney,
from whom he has expectations, will most likely withdraw his business,
and adopt some other member of his family--Blanche Crowder for instance,
whose husband, the doctor, has had high words with poor Fitzroy already,
of course at the women's instigation. And all these accumulated miseries
fall upon the unfortunate wretch because he was good-natured, and his
wife would have a Little Dinner.