Having done this small piece of mischief also, he continued his search after Miss MacSalvo. The result of these machinations was that Lady Lombard signified to De Grandeville that he was to hand her down to dinner; John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esquire, performed the same office by Rose, much to the disgust of Richard Frere, who had intended to secure that pleasure for himself, and who being, at the moment in which he first became aware of his misfortune, captured by the Brahminical widow, whose silky manner he could not endure, went downstairs in a frame of mind anything but seraphic. Mrs. Arundel contrived to gain possession of General Gudgeon, with a view, as she observed to Bracy, to discover, firstly, his system of feeding, which, from its results, she felt sure must be an excellent one; and secondly, to ensure his obtaining a liberal supply of port wine, to the end that she might satisfy a reprehensible curiosity as to the precise nature of the “gentleman’s stories” Lady Lombard was so anxious to suppress; which act of un-English-woman-like espièglerie must be set down to the score of a foreign education, than which we know not a better receipt for unsexing the minds of the daughters of Albion. When we add that Bracy, with a face of prim decorum, escorted Miss MacSalvo, a gaunt female, whose spirit appeared to have warred with her flesh so effectually that there was little more than skin and bone left, we believe we have accounted for every member of the party in whom our readers are likely to feel the slightest interest.
During the era of the fish and soup, by which our modern dinners are invariably commenced, little is discussed except the viands; but after the first glass of sherry mute lips begin to unclose, and conversation flows more freely. Thus it came about that John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esquire, of the Inner Temple (we admire his name so much that we lose no opportunity of repeating it), having revolved in his anxious mind some fitting speech wherewith to accost the talented young authoress, of whom he felt no inconsiderable degree of dread, fortified himself with an additional sip of sherry ere he propounded the very original inquiry, “Whether Miss Arundel was fond of poetry?” Before Rose could answer this query her neighbour on the other side, one Mr. James Rasper, a very strong young man with a broad, good-natured, dullish face, demanded abruptly, in a jovial tone of voice, “Whether she was fond of riding?”
As soon as she could collect her senses, scattered by the raking fire of this cross-examination, Rose replied “that she was particularly fond of some kinds of poetry,” which admission she qualified by the apparently inapposite restriction—“When she was on a very quiet horse.”
J. D. D. was about to follow up his attack by a leading question in regard to the gushing pathos of the bard of Rydal, when Rasper prevented him by exclaiming, “No! Do you really?” (which he called “railly”). “Then I know just the animal that would suit you.” And having thus mounted his hobby-horse he dashed at everything, as was his wont when once fairly off, and rattled away, without stopping, till dinner was finished, and he had talked Rose completely stupid; while the unfortunate Dace, foiled in his weak attempt to captivate the influential authoress, plunged again into the deep waters of affliction, where, pondering over this further postponement of his destiny, he sank, and was heard no more.
Exactly opposite to Rose and her companions sat Frere and the simple Susanna, who, labouring zealously at her vocation—viz., husband-hunting—threw away much flattery and wasted an incalculable amount of “sweetness on the desert air.” To all her pretty speeches Frere returned monosyllabic replies in a tone of voice suggestive of whole forests full of bears with sore heads, while a cloud hung heavy on his brow, and his bright eyes flashed envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness at the unconscious James Rasper. At last Susanna chanced to inquire whether he were fond of music; and as, without falsifying facts, he could not answer this negatively, he was forced to reply, “Yes; I like some sort of music well enough.”
“Some sort only,” returned Susanna in a tone of infantine artlessness. “Oh! you should like every kind, Mr. Frere. I never hear a merry tune without longing to dance to it, and pathetic music affects me even to tears. But what class of music is it that you particularly prefer?—though I need scarcely ask—operatic, of course.”
“Not I,” growled Frere; “I hate your operas.”
“Oh, Mr. Frere!” exclaimed Simplicity, fixing its large eyes reproachfully upon him, “you can’t mean what you say. Not like operas! Why, they are perfectly delicious. Look at a well-filled house—what a magnificent coup d’oil!”
“A set of pigeon-holes full of fools, and a long row of fiddlers,” rejoined Frere; “I can’t say I see much to admire in that. I went to one of your operas last year, and a rare waste of time I thought it. It was one of Walter Scott’s Scotch stories bewitched into Italian. There was poor Lucy of Lammermoor dressed out like a fashionable drawing-room belle, singing duets all about love and murder with a pale-faced, moustachioed puppy, as much like Edgar Ravenswood as I am like the Belvidere Apollo—a brute engaged, on the strength of a tenor voice, to make love to all and sundry for the space of four calendar months, for which ‘labour of love’ he is paid to the tune of £500 a month, a salary on which better men than himself contrive to live for a whole year. Then Lucy’s cruel mamma, who is the great feature in the novel, was metamorphosed into a rascally brother, who growled baritone atrocities into the ears of a sympathising chorus of indigent needle-women and assistant carpenters, who act the nobility and gentry of Scotland at half-a-crown a head and their beer. The first act is all love and leave-taking, the second all cursing and confusion, and the third all madness and misery: and that’s what people call a pleasant evening’s amusement. The only thing that amused me was in the last scene, when the stipendiary lover kills himself first and sings a long scena afterwards. I thought that very praiseworthy and persevering of him, and if I’d been Lucy such a little attention as that would have touched me particularly, and I dare say it would have done her, only—seeing that she had died raving mad some five minutes before, and was then drinking bottled porter in her dressing-room for the good of her voice—she was perhaps scarcely in a situation to appreciate it.”
“But if you don’t like the singing, I dare say you prefer the ballet?” suggested Susanna.