by R S Surtees
Half-way down, on Pattycake’s right, arose a grand memorial of our Indian Empire, in the shape of a noble elephant, fully accoutred with its howdah, or castle, filled with sporting men, going out against the tiger; while a similar position on Pattycake’s left was occupied by a barley-sugar pagoda, surrounded with bon-bons.
At the far end, on the right, was Britannia, ruling waves of sugar, and her car drawn by dolphins, red, white, and blue.
On a crimson velvet-covered shelving stand at the back of the room arose a perfect pyramid of plate, commencing with the massive shields and salvers of olden times, and gradually tapering away into the cups and vases of the present. It had been so long locked up, that it almost seemed to stare, as if quite unused to society. Its noble owner, however, would have stared far more if he could have seen it.
The entertainment was, indeed, what Mrs Watkins’s cook (Lubbins) would call a “grand uproar.”
O’er all this sumptuous elegance Mr Fizzer’s head man, Mr Percival Pattycake, presided, having a Dirty on each side of him, and the figure footmen towards the ends of the table.
Old Dirty was kept below to wash up, whilst Dirtiest of he Dirty wandered about the rooms, pocketing sugar and picking up what she could.
Mr Romford started convulsively when he got to the dining-room door, just as if he had seen another “woman in black;” for, however bold the Beldon Hall ladies were, he did not think they dared have ventured on such a step as this.
Mrs Hazey, too, stared with astonishment, and inwardly thought it would be
A very fine thing to be mother-in-law
To a very magnificent fox-hunting Bashaw.
The pressure, however, from the crowd behind was too great for much soliloquising, and the huge pent-up wave of society pushed on, and presently broke against the entire length of the supper-table, all equally anxious to be at the eatables. To see the onslaught that was made on the hams, and the tongues, and the turkeys, one could not help wondering what they would have done if there had not been any supper. Nor were the jellies, the creams, or the custards a bit more neglected. “Munch, munch, munch,” was the order of the day. At length the light artillery of bon-bons began to sound through the room, which, however, was quickly silenced by the more congenial fire of champagne. Fiz, pop, bang! went the corks from the right, left, and centre. Fiz, pop, bang! repeated others, and forthwith black arms and red arms, and fair arms, presented glasses across the tables to check the now overflowing exuberance of the bottles. Nor once, nor twice sufficed to repulse them—back came the glasses as though they had never been filled. The first glass, of course, was said to be good; the second middling; and the third “gusberry.”
Mr Romford having now what he called got Mrs Hazey hanked on to her husband, while he, wandering about alone, muttering to himself, “Where the devil do the chickens come from? where the deuce do the hams come from? where the dickens do the turkeys come from?” He knew that Betsy Shannon’s friend had only undertaken to supply the ornaments. And Facey felt just as if he was going to get the stomach-ache. At this interesting juncture the fair Cassandra Cleopatra came tripping up, all smiles and radiance, though somewhat troubled in spirit, and presented arms at him in the shape of a bon-bon.
The champagne fire now became weaker and more languid, but the hubbub of voices and the cracking of bon-bons supplied the deficiency. Fizzer had sent down an unlimited supply of them, which ladies presented to gentlemen and gentlemen to ladies with the most undaunted courage. Crack, crack! shriek, crack! sounded through the spacious apartment, to which he occasional boom of the champagne corks acted like artillery. Ten-and-a-half-per-Cent. and Mrs Somerville pulled one together, in which was the following prudent hint:—
Be not too forward in touching toes under the table; some day you will make a grand mistake.
while “If-father-would-but-die” was unremitting in his attention to Miss Hamilton Howard, looking as happy as if father was dead. The red or auburn-haired lady, as the case may be, was in her glory! Mrs Somerville, too, was surrounded with beaux, all anxious for a smile from the beautiful widow with ten thousand a year, as they now called it. She thought how happy she would be if she could have such a party every night in the year. People seemed to amalgamate better than they usually do on these sort of occasions. They all appeared to have specific engagements, and to be more bent on forwarding their own little affairs than watching how other people got on. Miss Mouser, to be sure, kept on the alert with her eyeglass, but they seemed to regard her much as people regard a policeman in plain clothes, or a wasp deprived of its sting.
Meanwhile the Dirties and footmen, under the direction of Mr Percival Pattycake, replenished the tables and arranged the garniture for further assaults—mangled remains were removed and replaced with uncut viands : Fizzer did the thing well.
Facey, who had now imbibed several glasses of champagne, was sufficiently elevated to be able to treat the matter in a philosophical overshoes, over-boots sort of way, though when he looked at the temples and towers, and other triumphs of confectionery, he couldn’t but think of his proposed rabbit-pie and cheese. “Wonderful work,” muttered he, with a chuck of the chin to himself as a fresh crop of champagne took its place on the table. “The ways of the women are wonderful,” added he, as a boar’s head and plovers’ eggs came sailing in, as though the resources of the house were inexhaustible. “Wonder how many Philistines there are here,” continued he, glancing round the crowded room. “Rather keep them in prayer-books than champagne,” added he, looking at the long line of empty bottles ranged against the wall below the plate trophy.
And now, having inducted the reader thus far into the evening’s entertainment, we will take leave to branch off briefly to another subject, promising that if he would like a glass of champagne in the meantime he can call for it, and he won’t get it.
LIII
THE INVASION
WHILE ALL THIS FROLICSOME FEASTING and gaiety was going on inside the house, things wore a very different aspect at the door. The night, as we said before, was cold and frosty, with a keen cutting crescent moon; there was no accommodation either for man or horse, and the gravelled ring was so blocked with carriages that the coachmen could not get their horses moved about to keep them warm. It was a dead lock from end to end. Under these circumstances the whole cavalcade resolved itself into a committee to discuss the meaning and probable duration of an “At home.” One servant said it was a sort of a tea-drinkin’, another that it was a kind of a fiddlin’ concern, a third that it was just a ladies’ clothes show, a fourth that they met to exchange characters of servants; but Mrs Watkins’s London Johnny assured them it was only a sort of a morning call thing performed at night, to which people could come and go just as they liked. At the same time he said, “undoubtedly genlmen’s servants and osses ought to be provided for; porters and such like might take their chance.”
Whereupon a stentorian voice, that could belong to no one but our popular friend Independent Jimmy, struck up from the moon-shaded side of the ring, declaring “it didn’t see what for gentlefolk’s husses and things”—meaning by the latter term “servants”—“what for gentlefolk’s husses and things were to be treated differently to other people’s, seein’ that other people’s husses might bring quite as great company as gentlefolk’s;” and there being two postboys in the ring, they declared in favour of Jimmy’s “unadorned eloquence.” Whereupon a brisk and rather acrimonious discussion ensued as to the relative social position of public and private servants, Jimmy contending that the man who wore his own “claes,” and knew when his day’s work was done, was far more respectable than a powder-monkey Peter, who had to fetch and carry “arl day, and arl night tee” if required. Whereupon several of the Jeames de la Pluche tribe retorted that Jimmy, and such as him, were little better nor galley slaves, putting three days’ work into one, and living like criminals; to which Jimmy retorted that if the work was hard and the fare poor, he always in health, which was more, he’d be
bound to say, than many of them were, “with an their dish-lickin’ pot-wollopin laziness.” And so the debate proceeded from divers parts of the ring,—now a butler speaking, now a footman, now a tea-kettle groom, Independent Jimmy generally replying to their observations without reference to the fact of his having spoken before.
When the argument was about at its height, the sound of music came softened through the Hall to the carriages.
“Hist!” exclaimed Jimmy; “hist! arm dashed if they’re not dancin’! Sink!” added he, “but they’ll keep theirsels warm, whativer they de by us,” Jimmy stamping severely in the bottom of the melon-frame box as he spoke.
Then there was a louder waft of music, and a louder still.
“Ay, that they are!” exclaimed Mrs Watkins’s footman, listening; “and we may be kept waiting here till ‘daylight does appear.’”
“Wonder wot time they’ll be thinking of us,” observed Mr Large’s butler, who would have sent the footman if he had thought they would have been treated so.
“Wonder!” ejaculated Mr Tuckwell’s man; adding, “should have been out before, I think.”
“Certainly,” growled Mr Bonus’s servant, who, being on board wages, was inclined to indulge.
“Just you slip in, Tom,” said Mr Brogdale’s coachman to his footman, “and see if there’s anything to get;” adding, “if they don’t mind about people’s osses, they surlie might think o’ the servants freezin’ and starvin’ in this way,” the many-cape-coated speaker flagellating his broad chest as he spoke.
And Tom, nothing loth, descended from his rumble, and forth with commenced worming his way among the carriages, making his way for the back door, with which he was well acquainted, having, when a policeman, been a suitor of Dirty No.2’s. So he opened the door and entered, just like one of the family. Nay, he did more, for knowing the ways of the house, he groped along the passages till he came to what would have been the invisible door in the dining-room but for the Miss Dirties’ finger marks, who had established a short cut that way for carrying coals to the breakfast-room. This, then, he opened, and entered the gay lightsome apartment.
Now it so happened that when Tom came in, Mr Percival Pattycake, who was much smitten with Dirtiest of the Dirty, had resigned his post of commander-in-chief to Dirty No.1, while he and Dirtiest of the Dirty carried on a flirtation in the deserted room; and Tom appealing pathetically to Miss Dirty’s softer and better feelings, she just told him to help himself off the supper-table, whereupon Tom clutched a couple of capons, together with a tongue and a bottle of champagne, with which he returned triumphantly to the carriages. The sound of his coming, with the demand for a knife, caused quite a sensation in the ring, indeed all the way up the line towards the stables; and forthwith delegates were appointed from several of the vehicles to go on a sort of qui tam excursion into the house, and see what they could get as well for themselves as the coachmen.
Away they flew, like a flock of pigeons, as though they hadn’t tasted meat for a month, and Lord Lonnergan’s young man knowing the ways of the house too, he soon brought them, by certain circuitous ways, to the aforesaid invisible but dirt-defined door. Dirty No.1 had now paired off with the fat boy, leaving the whole paraphernalia, ornaments and all, exposed to the mercy of the enemy. The intruders immediately set upon it. Mr Blanton’s young man turned a lobster salad into his livery hat, and restoring it, with a kerchief over it, to his head, next helped himself to a pigeon pie, and a bottle of seltzer water, mistaking it for curaçoa. The Dalberry Lees footman pounced on a shape of orange jelly, a nest of plovers’ eggs, and a pine-apple; Miss Mouser’s young man ran off with a sponge cake porcupine, all bristling with almonds; Mr Lolly’s servant with a dish of Norfolk biffins; while Mr Beddingfield’s great clown of a coachman took an uncut ham in his hand, and the beautiful Elephant and Castle ornament away under his arm. Up to this time the triumphs of confectionery had been respected, partly perhaps because they did not look like man’s meat, and partly because there were more tempting-looking things to be had on the table. Now, however, Mr Beddingfield’s servant’s bad example was followed by Mr Kickton’s man pocketing a pair of turtle doves, to eat with some cheesecakes and a bottle of sherry.
The return of the marauders to the carriage ring was hailed with enthusiastic applause, and other adventurers were encouraged to proceed.
“You go in Sam! You go in Joe! You go in Jimmy!”
“Nor, oi’ll not gan in,” said Independent Jimmy. “If they don’t send oot, oi’ll not gan in; oi’ve got a crust o’ bread i’ mar pocket,” added he, diving into his dirty old Witney coat as he spoke.
Fiz, pop, bang! now went the champagne corks from the carriages, and great was the demand for a sack at the bottles, and entreaties for a fair distribution of the food. In the midst of the clamour a spluttering cry of woe arose, causing a cessation of eating for the purpose of listening.
“Hush! what’s that?” was the cry.
It was the voice of the great Mr Spanker, the Dalberry Lees coachman, who has taken a hugh bite out of the pineapple without pealing it, filling his mouth full of needles and pins, as he afterwards described it. At first it was thought the worthy gentleman had taken a fit, then from the heaving of his shoulders that he was choking, and three or four smart whacks were administered on his back before the real cause was discovered.
And now, while they are prescribing for his much-blistered mouth, one giving him champagne out of a bottle as they give water to a race horse, another recommending seltzer water, which was in no great demand, a third telling him to stuff his mouth full of cotton wool, let us return to our invited friends within the walls of Beldon Hall.
LIV
THE BELDON BALL
THE SCENE NOW CHANGED, AND Mr Facey Romford, who thought he had exhausted all the wonders and surprises of the night, was doomed to undergo another apparition more startling and dazzling than any of the rest. This was neither more nor less than the beautiful gold and white drawing-room, brilliantly lighted up for a ball. The chair-covers, the brown holland bags, yea the cut pile carpet itself, had disappeared, and a searching radiance reigned supreme. It was no light for dirty gloves or dashed dresses. The cut-glass chandeliers fulgurated their sparkling lustre; while every sconce, every bracket, every available standing-place for a lustre supported its bunch of finest spermaceti, as well to show off the beauties and elegances of the apartment itself, as the beauties and elegances that were expected to enter it. And so quietly and secretly had the arrangements been made, that not one of the party, scarcely anyone in the house, knew what was going to happen. Old Dirty and a daughter (Dirty No.2) had removed the rolled-up carpet to the housekeeper’s room, and washed the floor a few days before; but beyond this, Lucy and Betsey had kept the key and their own counsel, and did the rest of the decoration themselves, even to tipping the candles with spirits of wine, in order to make them light more readily. It was only on the afternoon of the very day that Chasseur Proudlock was inducted into the secret, and told to light up as soon as ever the guests went in to the supper-room; and then, having done so, to throw the door open for them to enter as they returned. And it was on their homeward voyage—Mr Romford now convoying Mrs Watkins, with Cassandra Cleopatra, steering her voluminous petticoats, by his side—that the first dawn of what was going to happen burst upon him.
Facey started as the flood of light shot across his path; a shock that was further increased by six well-dressed musicians slipping in before him, and hurrying up to their places in the bay. These were part of the produce of the chairman of the Half-guinea-Hat Company’s hundred pounds’ worth of shares in that excellent speculation, and out of which Mrs Somerville had wheedled Mr Bonus. But of that little transaction Mr Facey knew nothing.
There, however, were the musicians, there the ball-room, and here Mr Romford with his assiduous ladies.
“Oh dear, what a beautiful apartment!” lisped the Dalberry Lees charmer.
“Splendid!” ejaculated Mrs Wa
tkins, now lost in astonishment at its size—fifteen feet longer than hers, and much higher.
Just then the pressure from behind carried them onward, and a surprised and now hilarious crowd entered the room, spreading over its ample dimensions, all anxious to try the merits of the beautiful floor. All was surprise and excitement.
“Oh dear, how charming!” “Was there ever anything so nice!” “Did you ever?” “No, I never!” “How kind of Mrs Somerville to give us a ball.”
And our hostess, who had tarried behind in the supper-room, ostensibly for the purpose of attending to her guests, but in reality to let Mr Romford break the ice of this, the great finishing-stroke of the evening, without her, now came up leaning on Willy Watkins’s arm, attended by Ten-and-a-half-per-Cent., while Betsey Shannon a little in the rear, distributed her smartness among the Honorary Secretary, young Large, and the Honourable Lovetin Lonnergan. Then, as the latter reached the radiant room, there were fresh exclamations of surprise. “Oh dear! how nice! how beautiful!” and they all wanted to dance with Betsey at once. She then surveys the scene of her exertions complacently, and inwardly congratulates herself on the fact that the Facey face exhibits nothing but the surprise that might be carried off by the use of his favourite aphorism of “verily the ways of the women are wonderful!” And wonderful they certainly were upon this occasion, converting a quiet evening and a little music into a splendid ball and supper.
Meanwhile the musicians have been tuning their instruments, young gentlemen drawing on their gloves (some wishing they were cleaner), others taking furtive glances at themselves in the mirrors, and all things conduce to an opening. The fiddlers are now in form, the assorted couples single themselves out from the crowd, the bystanders retire, the music strikes up gaily, and away they all go with a gallop.