"I should like to ask Peignton and his _fiancee_ to dinner," Martin
said, and Grizel nodded obediently, and said:
"Then we must have roast fowl! Roast fowl, I've discovered, is the
fatted calf of the middle classes. Whenever I tell Cook that a friend
is coming, she says: `A fowl, I suppose, mum. Three-and-three, or
three-and-six?' I always say three-and-three, and feel virtuous for the
rest of the day. If it's three-and-three, there's just breast enough
for `the room'; the extra threepence leaves a picking for the kitchen.
Cook says it's cheaper `in the end' to give the three-and-six, but I
take no notice. Sometimes I suspect the poulterer of a dark design, and
believe that there's no difference at all! The extra threepence is just
a trap for the unwary. However! ... enough of these details. Certainly
we'll ask them if you wish it. And who else? We can't contend with
them alone all night long. I adore lovers in theory, but I object to
feeling _de trop_ in my own house. If we were a _partie carree_ they
would expect me to have an important letter to write for the early post,
and you to come with me to look over my shoulder. No, you don't! We'll
have a crowd, and let them realise from the first that there's no chance
of a quiet moment. Who else?"
Martin deliberated.
"The Raynors? They've been fairly intimate..."
"Certainly not. I must reserve Cassandra to help me later on when we
tackle the formidables. This shall be a lively, informal affair, got up
in a hurry to wish them luck. Quite a short invitation, the shorter the
better. Young people for choice--cheery, and fond of roast fowl. Mary
Mallison for one."
"Because she is young and cheery?"
"It doesn't matter a bit. She is going to be asked," maintained Grizel,
with that characteristic inconsequence which she had the power to turn
into the most charming of attributes. "She shall have the nicest
partner, and the best place, and the merrythought all to herself. I'm
so _sorry_ for Mary Mallisons. There are such a horde of them, and
nobody wants them, and they don't want themselves, and it's all so wrong
and wasteful and piteous, and I never see one of them, and look into her
poor, starved little face that I don't say to myself with a shudder,
`Suppose that was _me_?'"
Martin smiled at her adoringly.
"Oh! but it isn't, and it never by any possibility could have been.
Besides, don't you think it's their own fault? You were twenty-eight
when we were married, and you had lived alone with a cross old aunt.
You might easily have turned into a Mary Mallison yourself, if you had
so little spirit as to allow yourself to be starved. Even if you had
never married, can you imagine yourself sinking into a depth of apathy
and indifference? There's something contemptible about it. An
unmarried woman has such wide possibilities. There is so much work
waiting for her to do."
"If she is allowed to do it! But what if there is a chain around her
neck, in the shape of some relation who thinks that her work is to be an
understudy at home? What would Mrs Mallison have to say to wide
possibilities, while she wants a daughter to run messages and arrange
the flowers? What would _you_ have said in the days when you needed
Katrine, if she had talked of her life's work? Her work was obviously
to darn your socks until such time as you found someone else whom you
liked better, when--pouf!"--she snapped her fingers--"enough of Katrine!
Let her go out into the wilds, and see what she can find!"
"Well! She very speedily found something that she liked better.
Katrine was not a happy illustration, young woman! In your ever-present
desire to be personal, you overlooked--"
"Exceptions prove the rule," Grizel said stubbornly. "Besides, we were
not discussing Katrine, we were discussing the roast-fowl dinner. Two
Mallisons, the Hunters, Captain Peignton. Who else? We might as well
make it up to ten while we are about it."
Martin suggested the name of some young people whose parents had already
entertained himself and his wife, and Grizel sighed, a long sigh of
resignation.
"What shall we do with them afterwards?"
"Talk."
"They can't talk, bless you! Don't know how."
"Then you must talk to them."
"I can't. A dull dinner party pumps me dry, and I simply cannot stand
desultory drawls for an hour on top of it. I get fidgets, and yawn,--
heavens, how I yawn! It's not a mite of use telling me not to. I
_must_. If I swallow them down my nose swells, and my eyes fill. I
look as if I had hay fever... Do you never get fidgets at a dull
party?"
"Mental?"
"No. Physical. In your legs. Far worse! They won't keep still. I've
lived through some shocking hours.--I'd rather play puss-in-the-corner,
than talk twaddle for an hour on end."
"I should thoroughly enjoy seeing Mary Mallison playing
puss-in-the-corner," Martin declared, and beat a hasty retreat.
Experience had proved that it was a colossal mistake to endeavour to
change Grizel's mind. The most convincing of arguments had no power to
move her; while moral axioms sent her galloping headlong in the opposite
direction to that in which she was directed; moreover, it was a waste of
energy to essay the task, since her rebellions were but word deep, and
the passage of a short half-hour was usually sufficient to disperse
them, and restore her to her usual complacent radiance.
This morning the radiance returned at the prospect of Cook's face when
she heard of the impending trial. Grizel did not think of her own face
as she sat at the head of her table awaiting the serving of dishes
prepared by a good plain cook. She had seen that expression more than
once of late on the faces of worthy Chumley hostesses. It was a
compound expression, which included a smile, a determined animation of
the eyes, and withal a pucker, a tightening, a tenseness of anxiety.
For all their forced gaiety the eyes had a faraway expression; they were
penetrating through dividing walls, peering into saucepans, anxiously
regarding the preparation of sauce. Grizel had been quick to diagnose
the symptoms, but her sympathy had been lacking. "Hang it all, it's not
her fault! _She_ didn't cook it!" had been the mental comment.
Cook, as had been expected, folded her arms and assumed an expression of
acute resignation. "_Ten_ did you say, 'Um? Twelve with yourselves.
I'm not sure that the range... How many courses were you thinking of
having?"
"Oh, dozens. As many as we can have. If we do it at all, Cook, we'll
do it well."
"Clear soup?"
"We haven't come to soup yet," said Grizel cheerfully. "Lots of things
before soup."
"When I lived at the Robertses we were always giving dinners, but they
studied me, as well as themselves," Cook replied poignantly. "Soup, of
course, and fish, but she got in the entrees, to give me a clear hand
with the joint. Fowls mostly, or a saddle of mutton. The sweets were
cold, and she got in the savouries, and sometimes an ice pudding. Then
there was cheese straws, and dessert. She always said I managed very
well."
"You would do!" Grizel said. "Well, now you shall have a change. I
won't have anything at all like that..."
It was by this time easy to make a selection of guests, as every
visitable house in Chumley had made its own individual effort towards
entertaining the bride. Sometimes it was dinner, more often it was tea,
and, as Grizel pathetically declared, not even a _real_ tea, a tea where
you could sit quietly in a comfortable chair, and gossip, and consume
rich cake. A tea as enjoyed in Chumley was a strenuous affair, when
guests were bidden from four to six, and were expected to rack their
brains over a number of nerve-racking problems.
The first invitation of the sort that Grizel received was for a Kate
Tea. She misread the first word for Cake, and thought it suitable, if a
trifle ostentatious, but as she afterwards informed Cassandra, the
awakening was rude.
"It was `Kate,' my dear, not cake,--a wretched Kate that haunted us all
afternoon. Did you realise that every second word in the English
language ends with Kate? Well, it does! and Mrs Morley read out a
story, and we had to fill in the gaps with Kate words. Kate had an
untruthful nature and was given to prevari-Kate, so she got into
trouble, and engaged an advo-Kate. See?"
Cassandra groaned.
"Don't! Too awful. You'll have dozens of these preposterous
invitations if you once accept. Why do you go?"
"Ah!" Grizel looked thoughtful. "There was a prize.--I'd be bored for
hours for the chance of gaining a prize. Why is it that the prospect of
something for nothing has such a fatal lure? I might win a manicure
set, or a shoe-horn, or a leather bag. I've thousands already; I
wouldn't know what to do with the blessed things, but I crave to win
them! I racked my brains over that wretched Kate until I was quite
exhausted, and came out next to the bottom. Next week there's `A Florin
Tea.' What happens to a florin? Do they give us one all round? And a
Photograph Tea after that. Everyone takes a photograph of herself as a
baby, and you guess Who's who. There's going to be some scope for
personal remarks. There is a Smelling Tea too, but I'm going to be ill
for that. She means well, dear lady, and I accepted with pleasure, but
I shall stay at home with more. I couldn't respect myself going about
smelling at little bags..."
"They tried the same sort of thing with me years ago, but I steadily
refused, and now they have given me up. You'll have no peace in
Chumley, Grizel, if you let yourself in for these dreadful
entertainments. You'll be asked out to tea every afternoon of your
life, to meet the same people, and sit in the same rooms, and hear the
same little gossip over and over again."
"But that makes them so keen to have _me_ for a change!" Grizel said,
laughing. "My dear, they adore me. I'm a _succes fou_. I wear
different clothes wherever I go, and say all the maddest things that
come into my head, and they hang on my every word. The Kate hostess
nearly cried because I didn't get the prize. She was trying to give me
hints all the time. It was touching! And I was _so_ stupid."
Cassandra regarded her with a puzzled air.
"I believe you really enjoy it! And it's so different from your old
life, just as different as it was for me. I can't think why you aren't
bored!"
"I'm never bored," Grizel declared. "At least, not all at a time. It's
such a funny old world, and a bit of me is interested in everything that
comes along. Besides, I adore kindness, even when it disguises itself
in Kate teas, and the least I can do is to be agreeable in return. But
I am thankful that I have you, Cassandra. I should be lost without one
real friend, who speaks my own language."
There was no procrastination in Grizel's nature; what she had to do,
must be done at once, if it were to be done at all. Straight from the
kitchen she adjourned to the telephone, rang up Teresa to make sure of
the guests of honour, and then proceeded to scribble half a dozen of the
most informal of invitations for an unfashionably early date, which were
despatched forthwith to the post. In an incredibly short space of time
the answers were received, one and all accepting with pleasure, and
Cook, divided between depression and elation, nerved herself to prepare
the dinner of her life.
And now for the first time Grizel was to have a personal experience of
the momentous influence of a dinner party in an ordinary middle-class
establishment! For two days beforehand "plannings ahead" enveloped the
atmosphere like a cloud. The parlourmaid planned ahead in respect of
extra polishing of silver and glass, and was testy in consequence, and
disposed to neglect present work. Cook's whole energies seemed
engrossed in the preparation of a mysterious substance yclept "stock,"
which filled the house with the most unsavoury of odours, and she
plainly considered it an injury to be expected to provide the ordinary
meals, while Marie lashed the troubled waters by an attitude of amused
disdain.
On the morning of the great day itself the very atmosphere was
impregnated with strain, and the two domestics appeared to feel it a
personal injury that Grizel herself remained smilingly unperturbed, and
went about her way as placidly as if nothing unusual were in the air.
Parsons could not decide if it was ignorance, or pure "cussedness" which
made the mistress suddenly decide to move the position of the furniture
in the room above the dining-room, and to insist upon its being done
without delay. The gardener was called in to help, and Parsons of fell
intent made the removal as noisy and cumbersome as it could be, and then
discovered to her chagrin that both master and mistress had left the
house, and had consequently suffered no annoyance from the noise.
By four o'clock a jingle of glass and china announced the fact that
Parsons had begun the preparation of "my table," a work of exceptional
responsibility, since beyond a few general directions it had been left
entirely in her charge. The day before Grizel had unlocked the door of
the upstairs safe-cupboard, wherein reposed some treasures from Lady
Griselda's famous collection of silver, the like of which Parsons had
never before beheld. Bowls and goblets, branching candelabra, finely
wrought receptacles for fruit, large and small, high and low, each one a
work of art. Sufficient treasures for the adornment of a dozen dinner
tables were packed away on those baize-covered shelves from which
Parsons was bidden to take her choice. Something of the same sombre
elation filled her veins as that with which Cook in her kitchen whipped
and stirred, and mixed and tasted, resigned to suffer in the hope of
glory to come.
At six o'clock Mary Edwards, the hired waitress, would arrive; a young
person who, for a consideration of five shillings, officiated at every
dinner party in the township. No bellringer had greater facilities for
advertisement than Mary Edwards. "She'd tell them the style they did
things up at Beverleys'!"
It was only after she was dressed for the evening that Grizel entered
the dining-room to survey the completed table, while Parsons and Mary
Edwards stood at attention by the sideboard. She wore a wonderful gown
of a deep purple _crepe_, encrusted with heavy gold embroideries. A
diamond aigrette sparkled on her head, but her beautiful white throat
was bare of ornaments. She looked young and radiant and exquisite, and
to both black-robed, white-aproned onlookers came a spasm of an old
regret. The feminine in them revolted at the chasm between the
classes... "Oh, to be a lady, and look like that!"
"Quite nice!" cried Grizel graciously. "You've done the flowers
beautifully, Parsons. Is this Edwards? How d'you do, Edwards! Sure
you have everything you want? Enough spoons, and forks, and things like
that? That's all right! Then we'll just go straight on, you know. No
waiting between the courses."
"Yes, ma'm. No, ma'm," said Edwards firmly.
Parsons thought of the pandemonium now reigning in the kitchen, and
remained discreetly dumb. Grizel gave another nod of approval and
turned towards the door.
And then, at that very moment--_something happened_!
For the life of her during those first reeling seconds Grizel could not
have told what it was. There was a creeping, crawling sound, coming
from above, and mysteriously growing in force. Something was going to
happen: in another second something _was_ happening! It was a dream, a
nightmare, a hallucination. The clearly lighted room was suddenly
filled with dust, with smoke, with floating particles of white. Down,
down, they fell, thicker and thicker, in a solid, snow-like mass,
covering the table, covering the carpet, scattering a powdery foam to
right and to left. With more or less force certain particles fell on
her own head, her own shoulders; she gasped for breath; felt on her
tongue a strange dry taste and shuddered in disgust. Across a space of
whirling dust clouds Parsons's face and Mary Edwards's confronted her,
white as two clowns. Grizel shrieked, and still shrieking fled into the
hall.
Doors opened, voices called. At the end of the passage appeared Cook's
crimsoned face. Martin rushed down the staircase, followed by an
exclaiming Marie, and all three stared petrified at the sight before
them.
Parsons and Edwards had followed Grizel's lead, and were now flanking
her on each side, pressing their hands to their hearts, and gasping for
breath. All three were white from head to foot, and on the floor around
them the carpet was whitened to match.
"For mercy's sake, Grizel, _what_ has happened?" cried Martin loudly.
Then, lifting his eyes, he glanced through the open door of the
dining-room, and beheld...
Where had stretched a smooth expanse of white, there were now unsightly
gaps showing glimpses of dust and timber: where the lines of the cornice
had neatly bordered the room, was now a rough and jagged edge. The
ceiling had fallen, gently, unostentatiously, without fuss or clamour,
and deposited itself upon the floor!
At that moment the door bell rang.