The fact is, Miss M.'s connection with good society was rapidly drawing
to a close. My smoky little candle had long since begun to gutter and
sputter and enwreathe itself in a winding sheet. It went out at last in
a blaze of light. For once in his life Percy had conceived a notion of
which his aunt cordially approved--my Birthday Banquet. Heart and soul,
all my follies and misdemeanours forgotten, she entered into this new
device to give her _Snippety_, her _Moppet_, her _Pusskinetta_, her
little _Binbin_, her _Fairy_, her _Petite Sereine_, an exquisite
setting.
Invitations were sent out to the elect on inch-square cards embossed
with my family crest and motto--a giant, head and shoulders, brandishing
a club, and _Non Omnis Moriar_.[1] She not only postponed her annual
departure from town, but, as did the great man in the parable,
_compelled_ her friends to come in. She exhausted her ingenuity on the
menu. The great, on this occasion, were to feast on the tiny. A copy of
it lies beside me now, though, unfortunately, I did not examine it when
I sat down to dinner. Last, but not least, Percy's pastry-cooks, Messrs
Buszard, designed a seven-tiered birthday-cake, surrounded on its
lowermost plateau by one-and-twenty sugar-figures, about a quarter
life-size, and each of them bearing on high a silver torch.
Their names were inscribed on their sugar pediments: Lady Morgan (the
Windsor Fairy); Queen Elizabeth's Mrs Tomysen; the Empress Julia's
Andromeda; the great little, little great Miss Billing of Tilbury; Anne
Rouse and poor Ann Colling; the Sicilian Mlle Caroline Crachami (who
went to the anatomists); Nannette Stocker (33 inches, 33 lbs.
avoirdupois at 33); the blessed and tender Anastasia Boruwlaski;
Gaganini; the gentle Miss Selby of Bath; Alethea (the Guernsey Nymph);
Madame Teresa (the Corsican Fairy); Mrs Jeykll Skinner; the appalling
Nono; Mrs Anne Gibson (_nee_ Shepherd); and the rest.
It was a joke, none the worse, maybe, for being old; and Peter the Great
must have turned in his grave in envy of Mrs Monnerie's ingenuity.
It may scarcely be believed, but I had become so hardened to such little
waggeries that under the genial eye of Mrs Monnerie I made the circuit
of this cake with a smile; and even scolded her for omitting the
redoubtable Mrs Bellamy with her life-size family of nine. I criticized
the images too, as not to be compared, even as sugar, with the alabaster
William of Windsor and Blanche, in the Tower.
The truth is, when real revulsions of body and soul come, they come in a
gush, all at once. Fleming, on the Night, was actually putting the last
touches to my coiffure when suddenly, with a wicked curse, I turned from
the great glass and announced my decision. Tiny tortoiseshell comb
uplifted, she stood in the clear lustrousness looking in at my
reflection, queer thoughts darting about in her eyes. At first she
supposed it was but another fit of petulance. Then her hatred and
disgust of me all but overcame her.
She quietly argued. I insisted. But she was mortally afraid of Mrs
Monnerie, and rather than deliver my message to her, sought out Susan.
Poor Susan. She, too, was afraid: and it was her face rather than her
love that won me over at last. Then she had to rush away to make what
excuse she could for my unpunctuality. It thus came about that Mrs
Monnerie's guests had already sat down to table, and were one and all
being extremely amused by some story she was entertaining them with,
when Marvell threw open the great mahogany doors for me, and I made my
solitary entry.
In primrose silk, _a la Pompadour_, a wreath of tight-shut pimpernels in
my hair--it is just possible that Mrs Monnerie suspected I had chosen to
come in late like this merely for effect. But that would have been an
even feebler exhibition of vanity than _I_ was capable of. All her
guests were known to me, even though only one of them was of my
choosing; for Mrs Bowater was in the Argentine, Sir Walter in France,
Miss Fenne on her deathbed, Mr Pellew in retreat, and Mr Crimble in his
grave. Fanny was my all.
She was sitting four or five chairs away from me on my left, between
Percy (who had on his right hand a beautiful long-faced girl in
turquoise green) and Captain Valentine. Further down, and on the other
side of the table, sat Lady Maudlen--a seal-like lady, who, according to
Fanny, disapproved of me on religious grounds--while I was on Mrs
Monnerie's left, and next to Lord Chiltern. Alas, even my old friend the
"Black Pudding" was too far distant to do more than twinkle "Courage!"
at me, when our eyes met.
Recollections of that disastrous evening are clouded. So evil with
dreams my nights had been that I hardly knew whether I was awake or
asleep. But I recall the long perspective of the table, the beards, the
busts, the pearls, the camellias and gardenias, the cornucopias, and
that glistening Folly Castle, my Birthday Cake. Marvell is behind me,
and Adam Waggett is ducketing in the luminous distance. The clatter of
many tongues beats on my ear. Mrs Monnerie murmurs and gently rocks. The
great silver dishes dip and withdraw. Corks pop, and the fumes of meat
and wine cloud into the air. In memory it is as if I myself were far
away, as if I had read of the scene in a book.
But two moments stand vividly out of its unreality--and each of them to
my shame. A small, wreathed, silver-gilt dish was placed before me.
Automatically I thrust my spoon into its jelly, and pecked at the
flavourless morsels. Sheer nervousness had deprived me of my sense of
taste. But there was something in Mrs Monnerie's sly silence, and Lord
Chiltern's solemn monocle, and Percy's snigger, that set me speculating.
"Angelic Tomtitiska!" sighed Mrs Monnerie, "I wager when she returns to
Paradise, she will sit in a corner and forget to tune her harp."
There was no shade of vexation in her voice, only amiable amusement; but
those sitting near had overheard her little pleasantry, and smilingly
watched me as, casting my eye down the menu--_Consomme aux Nids
d'Hirondelles_, _Filets de Blanchailles a la Diable_, _Ailes de Caille
aux petits pois Minnie Stratton_, _Sauterelles aux Caroubes Saint Jean_,
it was caught at last by a pretty gilt flourishing around the words,
_Supreme de Langues de Rossignols_. This, then, was the dainty jest,
the _clou du repas_. The faint gold words shimmered back at me. In an
instant I was a child again at Lyndsey, lulling to sleep on my pillow
amid the echoing songs of the nightingales that used to nest in its
pleasant lanes. I sat flaming, my tongue clotted with disgust. I simply
couldn't swallow; and didn't. But never mind.
This was my first mishap. Though her own appetite was capricious,
ranging from an almost incredible voracity to a scrap of dry toast,
nothing vexed Mrs Monnerie so much as to see my poor, squeamish stomach
revolting at the sight of meat. She drew up a naked shoulder against me,
and the feast proceeded with its chief guest in the shade. Once I could
soon have regained my composure. Now I languished, careless even of the
expression on my face. Not even the little mincing smile Fanny always
reserved for me in company could restore me, and it was at her whisper
that Percy stole down and filled my acorn glass with a translucent green
liquid which he had himself secured from the sideboard. I watched the
slow, green flow of it from the lip of the decanter without a thought in
my head. Lord Chiltern endeavoured to restore my drooping spirits. I had
outrageously misjudged him. He was _not_ one of Mrs Monnerie's stupid
friends, and he really did his utmost to be kind to me. If he should
ever read these words, may he be sure that Miss M. is grateful. But his
kindness fell on stony ground. And when, at length, he rose to propose
my health, I crouched beneath him shameful, haggard, and woebegone.
It was as minute a speech as was she whom it flattered, and far more
graceful. Nothing, of course, would satisfy its audience when the toast
had been honoured, but that Miss M. should reply. One single, desperate
glance I cast at Mrs Monnerie. She sat immovable as the Sphinx. There
was no help for it. Knees knocking together, utterly tongue-tied, I
stood up in my chair, and surveyed the two converging rows of smiling,
curious faces. Despair gave me counsel. I stooped, raised my glass, and
half in dread, half in bravado, tossed down its burning contents at a
gulp.
The green syrup coursed along vein and artery like molten lead. A
horrifying transparency began to spread over my mind. It seemed it had
become in that instant empty and radiant as a dome of glass. All sounds
hushed away. Things near faded into an infinite distance. Every face,
glossed with light as if varnished, became lifeless, brutal, and
inhuman, the grotesque caricature of a shadowy countenance that hung
somewhere remote in memory, yet was invisible and irrevocable. In this
dead moment--the whole blazing scene like a nowhere of the
imagination--my wandering eyes met Fanny's. She was softly languishing
up at Captain Valentine, her fingers toying with a rose. And it seemed
as though her once loved spirit cried homelessly out at me from space,
as if for refuge and recognition; and a long-hidden flood broke bounds
in my heart. All else forgotten, and obeying mechanically the force of
long habit, I stepped up from my chair on to the table, and staggered
towards her, upsetting, as I went, a shallow glass of bubbling wine. It
reeked up in the air around me.
"Fanny, Fanny," I called to her out of my swoon, "Ah, Fanny. Holy Dying,
Holy Dying! _Sauve qui peut!_" With empty, shocking face, she started
back, appalled, like a wounded snake.
"Oh!" she cried in horror into the sleep that was now mounting my body
like a cloud, "oh!" Her hand swept out blindly in my direction as if to
fend me off. At best my balance was insecure; and though the velvet
petals of her rose scarcely grazed my cheek, the insane glaze of my mind
was already darkening, I toppled and fell in a heap beside her plate.