Chapter Seventeen.
How I gave a Little Supper to some of my Friends.
The idea of giving a party of my own to my new friends, in return for their hospitality to me, was not by any means a new one. It had been simmering in my mind for some weeks past. Indeed, ever since I began to be invited out, the thought that I could not return the compliment had always been a drawback to my pleasure.
But there had always been two obstacles in the way of carrying out my wish. The first was lack of funds, the second was Mrs Nash. On eight shillings a week I had come to the conclusion it was out of the question to dream of giving a party to eight persons. By the most modest calculation I couldn’t possibly do the thing decently under a shilling a head. It was true I had my uncle’s half-sovereign in my pocket still. I might, I reflected, borrow that, and pay it back by weekly instalments. But somehow I didn’t like the idea quite, and never brought myself to the point of carrying it into effect. Now, however, with the sudden rise in my fortunes recorded in the last chapter, the financial obstacle to my hospitality was quite swept away. I had only to take the extra four shillings a week for two weeks—and the thing was done!
So the idea no longer simmered in my mind—it boiled; and I was determined for once in a way to astonish my friends.
But though one obstacle had vanished, the other remained. What would Mrs Nash say? For, much as I disliked it, I was forced to face the fact that my party, if I gave it, would have to come off in Beadle Square. I had half thought of borrowing Flanagan’s room for the occasion, but didn’t like to ask him; besides, if I did, it would have to be half his party and half mine, which wasn’t at all my idea. Then it occurred to me, should I take lodgings for a week and give it there? No, it would cost too much even for twelve shillings a week; and my uncle, if he heard of it, might stop my keep at Mrs Nash’s. Suppose I hired a room at an hotel for the evening, and asked the fellows there? It wasn’t a bad idea, and would probably only cost me half a week’s wages. But the worst of it is, if you ask fellows to dine with you at an hotel, they are sure to come expecting a grand turn out; and I doubted my talents to provide anything grand; besides, the hotel people would be sure to want to supply the things themselves, and ask for the money in advance. Or if I didn’t humour them they would to a certainty turn crusty and critical, and spoil my party for me.
No, the only thing was to make the best of Beadle Square, and to that end I determined to tackle Mrs Nash at once.
You may fancy the good woman’s surprise and scorn when I propounded to her my ambitious scheme.
“You give a party! Fiddlesticks! You’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“Please, Mrs Nash,” pleaded I, “it will be a very quiet one, I promise.”
“And where do you expect to have it, I wonder?” said she. “In the coal-cellar, I suppose? That’s the only spot in the house that ain’t occupied.”
“Oh,” replied I, thinking it judicious to laugh at this facetious suggestion, “I’d like the parlour for that evening, if you could manage it, Mrs Nash.”
“What! are you going to ask all the fellows here to your party, then?”
“Oh, no. Couldn’t you let them know the parlour’s engaged for that evening?—just for once? You know I’d pay you something—”
“I dare say you would!—you’d pay anything, you would! And what are you going to give them all to eat, eh?”
“Oh, I’ll see to that,” said I.
This was an unfortunate reply of mine. Mrs Nash, as it happened, was inclined to enter into my scheme, and, had I only known it, would have offered to take some trouble to help me. But this answer of mine offended her sorely.
“Oh, very well,” said she, loftily; “you don’t want me, I can see, and I’m just as glad.”
In vain I protested, and implored her not to be vexed. I hadn’t meant it at all. I couldn’t possibly do without her. I was a beast to say what I had, and so on. The most I could get out of her was a vague promise that I might have the room on the evening in question. As for the entertainment, she washed her hands of the whole affair.
I was inclined to give it up. Not that I had ever imagined she would help me; but to have her downright unfriendly at such a time would, I knew, ruin the thing totally.
For some days she would listen to nothing at all on the subject.
“It’s your look-out,” she said to every appeal. “Let’s see what sort of a hand you’ll make of it, my beauty.”
I was in despair. I longed to issue my invitations, but till Mrs Nash was “squared” it was out of the question to name the happy day. It was evidently useless to argue the matter. The best thing I could do was to let it alone, and allow her to imagine the scheme had been abandoned.
In this calculation I was correct. Some days afterwards, happening to be in the parlour with her after breakfast, she said, “And when’s your grand party, as you call it, coming off, Mr Batchelor?”
I started up in rapture at the question.
“Then you will help me, Mrs Nash?” I cried, running up to her, and taking it all for granted.
She first looked amazed, then angry, and finally she smiled.
“I never said so. You’re a sight too independent for my taste, you are. I ain’t a-goin’ to put my fingers into where I ain’t wanted.”
“But you are wanted, and you will be a brick, I know!” cried I, almost hugging her in my eagerness.
The battle was won, and that morning I went down to the office positively jubilant. My party was fixed for Thursday!
I felt particularly important when the time came for inviting Doubleday and Crow to the festive assembly. I had rehearsed as I walked along the very words and tones I would use. On no account must they suppose the giving of a party was the momentous event it really proved itself.
“By the way, Doubleday,” said I, in as off-hand a manner as I could assume, after some preliminary talk on different matters—“by the way, could you come up to supper on Thursday? Just the usual lot, you know.”
I could have kicked myself for the way I blushed and stammered as I was delivering this short oration.
Doubleday gazed at me half curiously, half perplexed.
“Eh—supper? Oh, rather! Where’s it to be? Mansion House or Guildhall?”
I didn’t like this. It wasn’t what I had expected.
“Oh, up at my place, you know—Beadle Square,” I said.
At this Doubleday fairly laughed.
“Supper at your place at Black Beadle Square? Oh, rather! I’ll come. You’ll come too, Crow, eh? The young un’s got a supper on on Thursday. Oh, rather. Put me down for that, old man.”
Could anything have been more mortifying? Most invitations are received politely and graciously. What there was to laugh at about mine I couldn’t understand.
“Oh, yes, Crow’s coming,” I said, meekly. “At least I hope so.”
“Oh, rather!” said Crow, beaming. “I wouldn’t miss it for a lot. Is it evening dress or what?”
I was too much disconcerted and crestfallen to answer the question, and avoided my two prospective guests for the rest of the day.
Already I was half repenting my venture. But there was no drawing back now. Letters or messages came from the rest of the “usual lot”—the Twins, Flanagan, the Field-Marshal, Daly, and Whipcord, every one of them saying they’d be there. Yes, there was nothing left but to go through with it.
The next two days were two of the most anxious days I ever spent. I was running about all one afternoon (when I ought to have been delivering bills of lading), inquiring the prices of lobsters, pork-pies, oranges, and other delicacies, arranging for the hire of cups and saucers, ordering butter and eggs, and jam, and other such arduous and delicate duties. Then I spent the evening in discussing with myself the momentous questions whether I should lay in tea-cakes or penny buns, whether I need have brown bread as well as white, whether Mrs Nash’s tea would be good enough, whether I should help my great dish—the eel-pie—myself, or trust it to one of the company to do.
These and similar momentous matters engaged my thoughts. And it began to dawn on me further that my financial estimates had been greatly out, and that my supper would cost me nearer a pound than ten shillings. Never mind. After all, was I not worth twelve shillings a week? I needn’t trouble about the expense. Besides, the pastrycook had agreed to give me credit, so that really I should have comparatively little to pay down.
A far more serious anxiety was Mrs Nash. It required constant and most assiduous attention to keep her in good temper. And the nearer the time came the more touchy she got. If I suggested anything, she took it as a personal slight to herself; if I was bold enough to differ from her, she was mortally offended; if I ventured to express the slightest impatience, she turned crusty and threatened to let me shift for myself. The affair, too, naturally got wind amongst my fellow-lodgers, who one and all avowed that they would not give up their right to the parlour, and indulged in all manner of witticisms at my cost and the cost of my party. I pacified them as best I could by promising them the reversion of the feast, and took meekly all their gibes and jests when they begged to be allowed to come in to dessert and hear the speeches, or volunteered to come and hand round the champagne, or clear away the “turtle-soup,” and so on.
But the nearer the fatal day came the more dejected and nervous I got. Mrs Nash’s parlour was really a disreputable sort of room, and after all I had had no experience of suppers, and was positive I should not know what to do when the time came. I had neither the flow of conversation of Doubleday, nor the store of stories of Daly, nor Whipcord’s sporting gossip, nor the Twins’ self-possessed humour. And if my guests should turn critical I was a lost man; that I knew. How I wished I were safe on the other side of that awful Thursday!
The day came at last, and I hurried home as hard as I could after business to make my final preparations. The eel-pie was arriving as I got there, and my heart was comforted by the sight. Something, at least, was ready. But my joy was short-lived, for Mrs Nash was in a temper. The fact is, I had unconsciously neglected a piece of advice of hers in the matter of this very eel-pie. She had said, have it hot. I had told the pastrycook to deliver it cold. Therefore Mrs Nash, just at the critical moment, deserted me!
With a feeling of desperation I laid my own tablecloth—not a very good one—and arranged as best I could the plates and dishes. Time was getting short, and it was no use wasting time on my crabby landlady. Yet what could I do without her? Who was to lend me a kettle, or a saucepan for the eggs, or a toasting-fork, or, for the matter of that, any of the material of war? It was clear I must at all hazards regain Mrs Nash, and the next half-hour was spent in frantic appeals to every emotion she possessed, to the drawing of abject pictures of my own helplessness, to profuse apologies, and compliments and coaxings. I never worked so hard in my life as I did that half-hour.
Happily it was not all in vain. She consented, at any rate, to look after one or two of the matters in which I was most helpless, and I was duly and infinitely thankful.
In due time all was ready, and the hour arrived. All my terrors returned. I felt tempted to bolt from the house and leave my guests to entertain themselves. I hated Beadle Square. And there, of course, just when I should have liked things to be at their best, there were three or four cats setting up a most hideous concert in the yard, and the chimney in the parlour beginning to smoke. I could have torn my hair with rage and vexation.
I seized the tongs, and was kneeling down and vigorously pushing them up the chimney, to ascertain the cause of this last misfortune, when a loud double-knock at the door startled me nearly out of my senses. I had never realised what I was in for till now!
Horror of horrors! Who was to open the door, Mrs Nash, or I? We had never settled that. And while I stood trembling amid my smoke and eel-pie and half-boiled eggs, the knock was repeated—this time so long and loud that it must have been heard all over the square. I could hear voices and laughter outside. Some one asked, “Is this the shop?” and another voice said, “Don’t see his name on the door.”
Then, terrified lest they should perpetrate another solo on the knocker, I rushed out and opened the door myself, just as Mrs Nash, with her face scarlet and her sleeves tucked up above the elbows, also appeared in the passage.
They were all there; they had come down in a body. Oh, how shabby I felt as I saw them there with their fine clothes and free-and-easy manners!
“Hullo! here you are!” said Doubleday. “Found you out, then, at last. Haven’t been this way for an age, but knew it at once by the cats. Hullo, is this your mother? How do, Mrs Batchelor. Glad to see you. Allow me to introduce—”
“It’s not my mother!” I cried, with a suppressed groan, pulling his arm.
“Eh, not your mother?—your aunt, perhaps? How do you—”
“No, no,” I whispered; “no relation.”
“Not? That’s a pity! She’s a tidy-looking old body, too. I say, where do you stick your hats, eh? I bag the door-handle; you hang yours on the key, Crow. Come on in, you fellows. Here’s a spree!”
Could anything be more distressing or humiliating? Mrs Nash, too indignant for words, had vanished to her own kitchen, shutting the door behind her with an ominous slam, and here was the hall chock-full of staring, giggling fellows, with not a place to hang their hats, and Doubleday already the self-constituted master of the ceremonies!
I mildly suggested they had better bring their hats inside, but they insisted on “stacking” them, as the Field-marshal called it, in pyramid form on the hall floor; and I let them have their way.
“Come in,” I faltered presently, when this little diversion appeared to be ended. As I led the way into the parlour my heart was in my boots and no mistake.
They entered, all coughing very much at the smoke. What a seedy, disreputable hole Mrs Nash’s parlour appeared at that moment!
“I’m sorry the chimney’s smoking,” I said, “a—a—won’t you sit down?”
This invitation, I don’t know why, seemed only to add to the amusement of the party. Daly proceeded to sit down on the floor, no chair being near, and the Twins solemnly established themselves on the top of him. The others sat down all round the room in silence. What could I do? In my cool moments I had thought of one or two topics of conversation, but of course they ah deserted me now. All except the weather.
“Turned rather cold,” I observed to Whipcord.
“Who?” exclaimed that worthy, with an alarmed face.
“I mean the weather’s turned rather cold.”
“Poor chap, pity he don’t wear a top-coat.”
“I say,” said Doubleday, who had, to my great discomfort, been making a tour of discovery round the room, “rather nice pictures some of these, this one of Peace and Plenty’s not half bad, is it, Whip?”
“Why you old ass, that’s not Peace and Plenty, it’s a Storm at Sea.”
“Well, I don’t care who it is, it’s rattling good likenesses of them. Hullo, Twins, don’t you be going to sleep, do you hear?”
This was addressed to the two brothers, from under whom, at that moment, Daly contrived suddenly to remove himself, leaving them to fall all of a heap.
In the midst of the confusion caused by this accident, it occurred to me we might as well begin supper; so I called the company to attention.
“We may as well begin,” I said, “there’s no one else to wait for. Will you take that end, Doubleday?”
“I’m game,” said Doubleday. “Now then, you fellows, tumble into your seats, do you hear? We’re jist a-going to begin, as the conjurer says. I can tell you all I’m pretty peckish, too.”
“So am I, rather,” said Crow, winking at the company generally, who all laughed.
Awful thought! Suppose there’s not enough for them to eat after all!
I began to pour out the coffee wildly, hardly venturing to look round. At last, however, I recollected my duties.
“That’s an eel-pie in front of you, Doubleday,” I said.
Now at all the parties I had been to I had never before seen an eel-pie. I therefore flattered myself I had a novelty to offer to my guests.
“Eel-pie, eh?” said Doubleday; “do you catch them about here, then? Eel-pie, who says eel-pie? Don’t all speak at once. Bring forth the hot plates, my boy, and we’ll lead off.”
“It’s cold,” I faltered.
“Oh, goodness gracious! Cold eel-pie, gentlemen. You really must not all speak at once. Who says cold eel-pie? The Field-Marshal does!”
“No, he doesn’t,” replied the Field-Marshal, laughing.
“Flanagan does, then?”
“No, thank you,” said Flanagan.
“Well, you Twins; you with the cut on your chin. I wish one of you’d always cut your chin shaving, one would know you from the other. Any cold eel-pie?”
“Rather not,” said the Twin addressed.
“Have some lobster?” I said, despairingly. If no one was going to take eel-pie, it was certain my other provisions would not last round. Why hadn’t I taken Mrs Nash’s advice, and had that unlucky dish hot?
“What will you take?” I said to Flanagan.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” replied he, in a resigned manner; “I’ll take a shrimp or two.”
“Have something more than that. Have some lobster?” I said.
“No, thanks,” he replied.
Evidently my good things were not in favour; why, I could not say. Nobody seemed to be taking anything, and Crow was most conspicuously smelling my lobster.
The meal dragged on heavily, with more talk than eating. Every dish came in for its share of criticism; the eel-pie remained uncut, the lobster had lost one claw, but more than half the contents of that was left on Abel’s plate. My penny buns all vanished, that was one ray of comfort.
“Ring the bell for more buns,” said Doubleday, as if he was presiding at his own table.
What was I to do? There were no more, and it was hardly likely Mrs Nash would go for more. Before I could make up my mind, Whipcord had rung a loud peal on the bell, and Mrs Nash in due time appeared.
“More buns, and look sharp, old woman,” said Doubleday.
“I’ll old woman you if I’ve much of your imperence, my young dandy!” was the somewhat startling rejoinder. “I’ll bundle the pack of you out of the house, that I will, if you can’t keep a civil tongue in your heads.”
“I say, Batchelor,” said Doubleday, laughing, “your aunt has got a temper, I fancy. I’m always sorry to see it in one so young. What will it be when—”
“Oh, please don’t, Doubleday,” I said; “you can see she doesn’t like it. It doesn’t matter, Mrs Nash, thank you,” I added.
“Oh, don’t it matter?” retorted the irate Mrs Nash, “that’s all; we’ll settle that pretty soon, my beauty. I’ll teach you if it don’t matter that a pack of puppies comes into my house, and drinks tea out of my cups, and calls me names before my face and behind my back; I’ll teach you!” And she bounced from the room.
I thought that meal would never end, although no one took anything. In time even the fun and laughter, which had at first helped to keep the thing going, died away, and the fellows lolled back in the chairs in a listless, bored way. It was vain for me to try to lead the talk; I could not have done it even if I had had the spirit, and there was precious little spirit left now!
Doubleday began to look at his watch.
“Half-past seven. I say,” said he, “time I was going. I’ve a particular engagement at eight.”
“Well, I’ll go with you,” said Whipcord; “I want to get something to eat, and we can have supper together.”
“Sorry we’ve got to go,” said Doubleday. “Jolly evening, wasn’t it, Crow?”
I was too much humiliated and disgusted to notice their departure. To have my grand entertainment sneered at and made fun of was bad enough, but for two of my guests to leave my table for the avowed purpose of getting something to eat was a little too much. I could barely be civil to the rest and ask them to remain, and it was a real relief when they one and all began to make some excuse for leaving.
So ended my famous supper-party, after which, for a season, I prudently retired into private life.