It was an extraordinary ordeal that confronted Miss Burney, for young Mr. Barlowe began presenting her to the group, starting from his left and working slowly to the last of the row on the right. There was she with the young man standing close to her, but sideways, doing the formalities of presenting her, while his father and mother stood behind to see that he omitted nothing. Mrs. Burney, a little way apart, was alternately smiling and frowning at the ceremonial. She could see, from observing the effect that the whole business was producing upon Fanny, that the Barlowes were defeating their own ends, assuming that they desired Fanny to become a member of their family. These absurd formalities were, Mrs. Burney knew, quite out of place in a private house. But what could she do to cut them short? She had made an attempt before, and it was received in anything but a friendly spirit by their hostess, so that she did not feel inclined to interfere again: the thing must run its course, she felt, reflecting upon it as though it were a malady. There was no means of curtailing it.
And its course was a slow one for the unhappy victim.
“Miss Burney, I have the honour to present my aunt on my mother’s, side—Mrs. Alderman Kensit,” droned Thomas, and the lady on the extreme left rose at the mention of her name and made a carefully prepared curtsey, while the sky-blue feather in her hair jerked awkwardly forward until the end almost touched her nose.
“Proud to meet Miss Burney, I vow,” said she as she rose; and anyone could see from the expression on her face that she was satisfied that she had gone far in proving her claim to be looked on as a lady of fashion. She had never said “I vow” before, and she knew that it had startled her relations. She felt that she could not help that. Miss Burney would understand that she was face to face with someone who had mingled with the best.
“And this is Aunt Maria, father’s sister, Mrs. Hutchings,” came the voice of Thomas, and the second lady bobbed up with quivering feathers and made a well-practised curtsey. She did not trust herself to speak. Having heard her neighbour’s “I vow,” she knew that she could not go farther. She would not compete with such an exponent of the mysteries of haut ton.
“And this is Alderman Kensit of the Common Council; he is my uncle on my mother’s side—mother is a Kensit, you know,” resumed Thomas. “And this is Aunt Jelicoe. My mother’s sister married Mr. Jelicoe, of Tooley Street. And this is my cousin, Miss Jelicoe. I am sure that you will like Miss Jelicoe, Miss Burney, she is so young.”
The youngest lady of the group simpered with great shyness, concealing half her face with her fan and holding her head to one side, and then pretending to be terribly fluttered. Her curtsey was made in a flurry, and with a little exclamation of “Oh, la!”
Another uncle only remained to be presented; he turned out to be Mr. Jonathan Barlowe, and he was, Thomas whispered half audibly to Fanny, in trade in the Indies.
It was all over, curtsies and bows and exclamations—echoes of the world of fashion and elsewhere—she had been presented to every member of the row and they had resumed their seats, while she hastened to the side of her stepmother, hot and breathless. She had never before been subjected to such an ordeal. She had gladly agreed to accompany her stepmother to this house, for she hoped thereby to increase her observation of a class of people who repaid her study of them; but she had no notion that she should have to vacate her place as an Observer and take up that of a Participator. She was to pay dearly for her experience.
She was burning, her stepmother could see; and she believed that this was due to her mortification on noticing that the dress of the ladies was infinitely more expensive than hers. That would be enough to make any young woman with ordinary susceptibilities indignant, she felt; and she herself, having had an opportunity of giving some attention to the expensive silks—she could appraise their value to a penny—was conscious of some chagrin on this account. She was almost out of patience with her old friend, Martha Barlowe, for making all this parade. The foolish woman had done so, she knew, in order to impress Miss Burney and to give her to understand that she was becoming associated with no ordinary family. But Mrs. Burney had seen enough since she had left Lynn for London to know that Fanny would not be the least impressed except in the direction of boredom by such an excess of ceremony in the house of a tradesman. She had heard Fanny’s comment upon the gorgeous chariot which Sir Joshua Reynolds had set up, and she could not doubt what Fanny’s opinion would be regarding this simple tea to which she had consented to go at the Barlowes’ house.