A plate of pudding was now handed to Mr. Faddle, who audibly assured
the company, “he could furnish a most excellent _receipt_ for one,
upon a very economic plan.”
“I never heard of a parson making a plum-pudding before,” said my
uncle: “they should never cook any thing but sermons. Why, your
Reverence, I’m shocked; you would not convert a pulpit-cloth into a
pudding-bag, I hope.”
This speech, though uttered with much gravity, caused a hearty laugh
at the coddling parson’s expense, which seemed to nettle him, though
he did not retort. The cloth was soon after removed, and the desert
made its appearance; but as it was not in the Bond-street style, Mrs.
Deposit could touch nothing but a _prime_ nectarine; observing, the
whole time she was in London last summer, “she lived upon _ice_ and
_peaches_!”
“And, pray, Madam,” said my uncle, very gravely, “what may you live
upon in the winter?”
“_Turtle_ and _chantillies_!” returned the lady.
“And, pray, what may a chantilly be?” asked my uncle.
“La! my dear Sir, don’t you know what it is? ’Pon honour, you country
folks--excuse me--vegetate like cabbages! He, he, he!”
“Cabbages! Madam,” retorted my enraged uncle. “I beg an explanation
of that opprobrious sarcasm. I believe your town residence is not
far from the _cabbage repository_; therefore, please to explain,
Madam: I shall thank you for the intelligence.”
“Why, then, Sir,” answered Mrs. Deposit (much piqued at the retort of
the _cabbage repository_), “do you not vegetate, more and more like a
cabbage, every day of your life? Do you not grow “_white-headed_ and
_hard-hearted_!”--eh! Mr. Tweazy?”
Ha, ha, ha! resounded from the bottom of the table in one united peal
of rough merriment, till interrupted by the Divine, Mr. Faddle, who
requested an explanation of the chantilly.
“Why, Sir,” replied Mrs. Deposit, suppressing a smile, “I really
cannot give you the express _receipt_;” and she winked sarcastically
at the Doctor: “but a chantilly is a kind of a sort of a delicious
olio, the centre ornament of every stylish table, composed of cakes,
whipt cream, sweetmeats, and so forth, served in a ratifia basket,
with barley-sugar ormoulu, lion’s claws supporting its elegant
fabric. It’s a very pretty French kickshaw invention, if _we_ could
but keep it _ourselves_; but, really, it is becoming so _common_ a
dish at your _city gorges_, that it is now nearly expelled from the
western galas, I do assure you.”
The Widow Quiz observed, “it must be a very extravagant dish.”
“La! that’s nothing!” replied Mrs. Deposit. “I would not give a
rush to sit down to a dinner without the table-decker’s tablet
of information, to instruct me, that a dolphin was a disguised
tongue, or a beautiful tortoise was nothing more than a ragoued
pigeon; a dish of blamonge converted into a pack of cards; with a
fierce-looking hedgehog, composed of cake and custard! Oh! there’s
nothing like _dashing_ and _flashing_!”
“Yes, yes!” cried my uncle; “you’re right, Madam. _Dash_ into Hyde
Park one day, and _dash_ into the _Gazette_ the next! that’s high ton
with the new _flash-in-pan_ societies, I understand.”
“True,” replied Mrs. Deposit, very composedly; “such are the
_casualties_ of _fashion_: but I don’t comprehend what you call the
‘flash-in-pan societies.’”
“I mean,” replied my uncle, “the nightly card parties, formed of
_young tradesmen_, who, neglecting all duties, moral and divine,
leave an innocent, wretched young _wife_ of _eighteen_, to weep,
alone, a husband’s destructive follies over the cradle of her hapless
progeny, till day-light dawns upon her tearful eye, and sends the
ruined gamester to his thorny pillow, where love and fond fidelity
have lost their charms, and every place, save _home_, affords him
pleasure. Such is the _minor_ husband, the mere married _boy_,
rushing, with incautious step, to ruin’s brink, and cruelly involving
in his fate the innocent and virtuous victim of his _fancied_
happiness.”
“Oh! but that’s nothing extraordinary, Sir,” cried Mrs. Deposit. “Man
and wife, now-a-days, a’n’t like lock and key, that the one can’t
move without the other. Why, Deposit and I are the most fashionable
couple imaginable: we never intrude on each other’s pleasures: he
has his card parties, I mine: he mounts his hunter, and dashes in
the Ride; I pop into Lady Lounge’s barouche, and sport myself in the
Drive every Sunday; I don’t put on my cottage clumps, and, _glueing_
myself upon _hubby’s_ arm, content myself with _fagging_ through the
plebeian pedestrian throng. La! we should both be the most wretched
creatures living. Shouldn’t we, George?”
“Precisely so, my love,” replied the non-chalante _husband of
fashion_. “The system we married on was a total independence of
principle; for, as we had both arrived at the years of discretion, we
each resolved to pursue the plan most consonant to our wishes; and, I
flatter myself, we are as _fond_ and happy a couple----”
“As any _fashionable_ couple possibly can be,” interrupted my uncle,
whose irritated temper would not permit Mr. Deposit the privilege of
finishing his flourishing sentence.
“Why, my dear Mrs. Tonic,” hemm’d the Doctor, “I’m afraid you and I
must go to school again; for these are lessons we have never learnt
or practised.”
“Then, I’m sure, my dear, we are too old to learn now; and,
therefore, I beg to remain in my happy ignorance,” said Mrs. Tonic.
“Well, well! hem, hem! agreed, old woman, agreed!”
The conversation now became vapid; and the ladies soon after
withdrew into the garden, for a walk and a gossip; Mrs. Tonic
not being blessed with a drawing-room, and the sun having darted
its most fervent ray of excessive power on the parlour they were
first received in. Mrs. Deposit and Mrs. Fungus both declared the
heat would annihilate them; and they, in consequence, made what
they termed a gipsey party, under a cherry-tree; where, seated on
the grass, they retailed envy, hatred, and malice, from the grain
to the pound, without the assistance of the shop scales, as most
other female country parties do, who have little else to employ
them; for, be it known to my readers, Mrs. Deposit and Mrs. Fungus
were mere temporary inhabitants of the village, who condescended
to rusticate themselves for three months in a cottage ornée, to
recruit the excesses of winter balls and galas, “by gleaning,” as
Mrs. Fungus elegantly styled it, “the roses of health, to adorn the
vulgar day-light complexion that the summer’s glaring sun exposed to
the eye of scrutiny, till the less glaring beam of pink wax scented
lights suffered the fascinating convenient Christmas bloom to be
substituted, undetected.”
This cogent reason, subjoined to a few provoking pimples, induced
these ladies to seclude themselves in durance vile, living upon
physic and water-gruel, of which self-vanity induced them to swallow
many potions; while their respective husbands honoured the rural
residence with their company as often as business or _inclination_
permitted; Mr. Fungus being in the speculative line, and Mr. Deposit
constantly engaged in his pulpit, _hammering_ his elaborate discourse
into the ears of his auditors, congregated round him to buy bargains
at his tonish repository.