Lady Cassandra Part 21

A SENSATION.

"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 cla.s.ses. 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 Ca.s.sandra 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 n.o.body 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sumed 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 Ca.s.sandra, 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?"

Ca.s.sandra 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."

Ca.s.sandra 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, Ca.s.sandra. 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 unfas.h.i.+onably early date, which were despatched forthwith to the post. In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce 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-cla.s.s establishment! For two days beforehand "plannings ahead" enveloped the atmosphere like a cloud. The parlourmaid planned ahead in respect of extra polis.h.i.+ng of silver and gla.s.s, 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 att.i.tude 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 c.u.mbersome 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 gla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+llings, officiated at every dinner party in the towns.h.i.+p. No bellringer had greater facilities for advertis.e.m.e.nt than Mary Edwards. "She'd tell them the style they did things up at Beverleys'!"