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!
VI.
On the great, momentous, stupendous day of the dinner, my beloved
female reader may imagine that Fitzroy Timmins was sent about his
business at an early hour in the morning, while the women began to
make preparations to receive their guests. "There will be no need
of your going to Fubsby's," Mrs. Gashleigh said to him, with a look
that drove him out of doors. "Everything that we require has been
ordered THERE! You will please to be back here at six o'clock, and
not sooner: and I presume you will acquiesce in my arrangements
about the WINE?"
"O yes, mamma," said the prostrate son-in-law.
"In so large a party--a party beyond some folks MEANS--expensive
WINES are ABSURD. The light sherry at 26s., the champagne at 42s.;
and you are not to go beyond 36s. for the claret and port after
dinner. Mind, coffee will be served; and you come up stairs after
two rounds of the claret."
"Of course, of course," acquiesced the wretch; and hurried out of
the house to his chambers, and to discharge the commissions with
which the womankind had intrusted him.
As for Mrs. Gashleigh, you might have heard her bawling over the
house the whole day long. That admirable woman was everywhere: in
the kitchen until the arrival of Truncheon, before whom she would
not retreat without a battle; on the stairs; in Fitzroy's dressing-
room; and in Fitzroy minor's nursery, to whom she gave a dose of
her own composition, while the nurse was sent out on a pretext to
make purchases of garnish for the dishes to be served for the
little dinner. Garnish for the dishes! As if the folks at
Fubsby's could not garnish dishes better than Gashleigh, with her
stupid old-world devices of laurel-leaves, parsley, and cut
turnips! Why, there was not a dish served that day that was not
covered over with skewers, on which truffles, crayfish, mushrooms,
and forced-meat were impaled. When old Gashleigh went down with
her barbarian bunches of holly and greens to stick about the meats,
even the cook saw their incongruity, and, at Truncheon's orders,
flung the whole shrubbery into the dust-house, where, while poking
about the premises, you may be sure Mrs. G. saw it.
Every candle which was to be burned that night (including the
tallow candle, which she said was a good enough bed-light for
Fitzroy) she stuck into the candlesticks with her own hands, giving
her own high-shouldered plated candlesticks of the year 1798 the
place of honor. She upset all poor Rosa's floral arrangements,
turning the nosegays from one vase into the other without any pity,
and was never tired of beating, and pushing, and patting, and
WHAPPING the curtain and sofa draperies into shape in the little
drawing-room.
In Fitz's own apartments she revelled with peculiar pleasure. It
has been described how she had sacked his study and pushed away his
papers, some of which, including three cigars, and the commencement
of an article for the Law Magazine, "Lives of the Sheriffs'
Officers," he has never been able to find to this day. Mamma now
went into the little room in the back regions, which is Fitz's
dressing-room, (and was destined to be a cloak-room,) and here she
rummaged to her heart's delight.
In an incredibly short space of time she examined all his outlying
pockets, drawers, and letters; she inspected his socks and
handkerchiefs in the top drawers; and on the dressing-table, his
razors, shaving-strop, and hair-oil. She carried off his silver-
topped scent-bottle out of his dressing-case, and a half-dozen of
his favorite pills (which Fitz possesses in common with every well-
regulated man), and probably administered them to her own family.
His boots, glossy pumps, and slippers she pushed into the shower-
bath, where the poor fellow stepped into them the next morning, in
the midst of a pool in which they were lying. The baby was found
sucking his boot-hooks the next day in the nursery; and as for the
bottle of varnish for his shoes, (which he generally paints upon
the trees himself, having a pretty taste in that way,) it could
never be found to the present hour but it was remarked that the
young Master Gashleighs, when they came home for the holidays,
always wore lac
quered highlows; and the reader may draw his
conclusions from THAT fact.
In the course of the day all the servants gave Mrs. Timmins
warning.
The cook said she coodn't abear it no longer, 'aving Mrs. G. always
about her kitching, with her fingers in all the saucepans. Mrs. G.
had got her the place, but she preferred one as Mrs. G. didn't get
for her.
The nurse said she was come to nuss Master Fitzroy, and knew her
duty; his grandmamma wasn't his nuss, and was always aggrawating
her,--missus must shoot herself elsewhere.
The housemaid gave utterance to the same sentiments in language
more violent.
Little Buttons bounced up to his mistress, said he was butler of
the family, Mrs. G. was always poking about his pantry, and dam if
he'd stand it.
At every moment Rosa grew more and more bewildered. The baby
howled a great deal during the day. His large china christening-
bowl was cracked by Mrs. Gashleigh altering the flowers in it, and
pretending to be very cool, whilst her hands shook with rage.
"Pray go on, mamma," Rosa said with tears in her eyes. "Should you
like to break the chandelier?"
"Ungrateful, unnatural child!" bellowed the other. "Only that I
know you couldn't do without me, I'd leave the house this minute."
"As you wish," said Rosa; but Mrs. G. DIDN'T wish: and in this
juncture Truncheon arrived.
That officer surveyed the dining-room, laid the cloth there with
admirable precision and neatness; ranged the plate on the sideboard
with graceful accuracy, but objected to that old thing in the
centre, as he called Mrs. Gashleigh's silver basket, as cumbrous
and useless for the table, where they would want all the room they
could get.
Order was not restored to the house, nor, indeed, any decent
progress made, until this great man came: but where there was a
revolt before, and a general disposition to strike work and to yell
out defiance against Mrs. Gashleigh, who was sitting bewildered and
furious in the drawing-room--where there was before commotion, at
the appearance of the master-spirit, all was peace and unanimity:
the cook went back to her pans, the housemaid busied herself with
the china and glass, cleaning some articles and breaking others,
Buttons sprang up and down the stairs, obedient to the orders of
his chief, and all things went well and in their season.
At six, the man with the wine came from Binney and Latham's. At a
quarter past six, Timmins himself arrived.
At half past six he might have been heard shouting out for his
varnished boots but we know where THOSE had been hidden--and for
his dressing things; but Mrs. Gashleigh had put them away.
As in his vain inquiries for these articles he stood shouting,
"Nurse! Buttons! Rosa my dear!" and the most fearful execrations up
and down the stairs, Mr. Truncheon came out on him.
"Egscuse me, sir," says he, "but it's impawsable. We can't dine
twenty at that table--not if you set 'em out awinder, we can't."
"What's to be done?" asked Fitzroy, in an agony; "they've all said
they'd come."
"Can't do it," said the other; "with two top and bottom--and your
table is as narrow as a bench--we can't hold more than heighteen,
and then each person's helbows will be into his neighbor's cheer."
"Rosa! Mrs. Gashleigh!" cried out Timmins, "come down and speak to
this gentl--this--"
"Truncheon, sir," said the man.
The women descended from the drawing-room. "Look and see, ladies,"
he said, inducting them into the dining-room: "there's the room,
there's the table laid for heighteen, and I defy you to squeege in
more."
"One person in a party always fails," said Mrs. Gashleigh, getting
alarmed.
"That's nineteen," Mr. Truncheon remarked. "We must knock another
hoff, Ma'm." And he looked her hard in the face.
Mrs. Gashleigh was very red and nervous, and paced, or rather
squeezed round the table (it was as much as she could do). The
chairs could not be put any closer than they were. It was
impossible, unless the convive sat as a centre-piece in the middle,
to put another guest at that table.
"Look at that lady movin' round, sir. You see now the difficklty.
If my men wasn't thinner, they couldn't hoperate at all," Mr.
Truncheon observed, who seemed to have a spite to Mrs. Gashleigh.
"What is to be done?" she said, with purple accents.
"My dearest mamma," Rosa cried out, "you must stop at home--how
sorry I am!" And she shot one glance at Fitzroy, who shot another
at the great Truncheon, who held down his eyes. "We could manage
with heighteen," he said, mildly.
Mrs. Gashleigh gave a hideous laugh.
. . . . . .
She went away. At eight o'clock she was pacing at the corner of
the street, and actually saw the company arrive. First came the
Topham Sawyers, in their light-blue carriage with the white
hammercloth and blue and white ribbons--their footmen drove the
house down with the knocking.
Then followed the ponderous and snuff-colored vehicle, with faded
gilt wheels and brass earl's coronets all over it, the conveyance
of the House of Bungay. The Countess of Bungay and daughter
stepped out of the carriage. The fourteenth Earl of Bungay
couldn't come.
Sir Thomas and Lady Gulpin's fly made its appearance, from which
issued the General with his star, and Lady Gulpin in yellow satin.
The Rowdys' brougham followed next; after which Mrs. Butt's
handsome equipage drove up.
The two friends of the house, young gentlemen from the Temple, now
arrived in cab No. 9996. We tossed up, in fact, which should pay
the fare.
Mr. Ranville Ranville walked, and was dusting his boots as the
Templars drove up. Lord Castlemouldy came out of a twopenny
omnibus. Funnyman, the wag, came last, whirling up rapidly in a
hansom, just as Mrs. Gashleigh, with rage in her heart, was
counting that two people had failed, and that there were only
seventeen after all.
Mr. Truncheon passed our names to Mr. Billiter, who bawled them out
on the stairs. Rosa was smiling in a pink dress, and looking as
fresh as an angel, and received her company with that grace which
has always characterized her.
The moment of the dinner arrived, old Lady Bungay scuffled off on
the arm of Fitzroy, while the rear was brought up by Rosa and Lord
Castlemouldy, of Ballyshanvanvoght Castle, co, Tipperary. Some
fellows who had the luck took down ladies to dinner. I was not
sorry to be out of the way of Mrs. Rowdy, with her dandified airs,
or of that high and mighty county princess, Mrs. Topham Sawyer.
VII.
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
A Little Dinner at Timmins's Page 4
