Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

CHAPTER XXIII

IT was an interesting experience for Miss Burney, the writer of novels and the writer of letters. She had never sat down with such a company. They all had their table peculiarities. One uncle took ale for his tea, and drained a tankard before eating anything. The other claimed a particular cup on account of its capacity, and he held it to his mouth with one hand, while he passed a second down the table to Miss Burney, only spilling a spoonful or two in effecting the transit. One of the aunts refused to eat anything except cake, explaining, in order to relieve the anxiety of the company, the details of an acute attack of spleen from which she had recently suffered. The spleen and its humours formed the subject of a fitful conversation at her end of the table.

But it was plain that everyone understood that the company had not come to the table for conversation, but for food. They did not converse, but that was not the same as saying the room was silent. There was a constant clanging of cups, a constant clatter of platters, a loud and insistent demand on the part of Thomas, the elder, and Thomas, the younger, for their guests to say what they would like to eat. This was followed by the handing of plates up and down the table, the sound of steel knives being sharpened, and the jingle of spoons in saucers. The Alderman, who was, of course, an authority on the etiquette of banquets, was formulating an elaborate explanation of the mistake that had been made in the service of the cold sirloin in advance of the venison pasty; and all the time his neighbour was striking the haft of his knife upon the table with a request for someone to pass him the pickles.

All the ceremonial veneer had plainly left the company the moment they seated themselves, and they addressed themselves to the business of feeding. They had healthy appetites—even the lady who had had a recent attack of the spleen. She would eat nothing but cake, but she did eat cake with confidence. There was no sort of cake that she did not try, and her cup was kept in constant circulation from the tea-maker to herself—four times she had it refilled, Fanny could not help noticing, and she wondered what effect such a diet would have upon her capricious spleen. Fanny had an inward hint or two that she had observed quite enough of the party to serve her purpose, and she began to count the moments until she might be able to steal away without offending the susceptibilities of her over-hospitable host and hostess. She hoped that her stepmother would listen to her plea of weariness and take her back to St. Martin's Street—to the music of St. Martin's Street—to the quiet of St. Martin's Street.

The most solid hour of her life had, however, to elapse before her fellow-guests pushed their plates (empty) away from them, and Mrs. Barlowe said:

“I am afraid you have made a poor tea, Miss Burney; but if you cannot be persuaded to have a slice of ham—my son's ham, I call it, for 'tis he who picks it out of the curer's stock whenever we have a party—if you still refuse it, we might go to the drawing-room.”

Fanny was on her feet in an instant. But not sooner than Alderman Kensit. That gentleman, rapping with the haft of his knife on the table, stood with a sheaf of notes in his hand and clearing his throat with great deliberation, started upon a speech in eulogy of Mr. Barlowe's merits as a host and as a merchant, and droned away for a good half-hour in praise of the virtue of hospitality, his text being on the possibility of entertaining angels unawares. Of course, it was only natural that, having got upon this track and with the word “angels” in his mind, he should go on to say that it was quite possible for a hospitably-inclined person to entertain an angel and be fully cognizant of the fact, and so forth: in a speech of well-worn platitudes such a suggestion seemed inevitable; and all eyes were directed to poor Fanny when it seemed impending. It was a great disappointment to everybody—except Fanny and her stepmother—when the orator skipped the expected phrases, and went on to describe a business visit which he had once made to Spain, apropos of nothing in particular. His account of this feat was familiar to all his relations, but they listened to him without a murmur, only wondering when he would come to the angel and Miss Burney.

He never came to the angel and Miss Burney, for it so happened that he had turned over two pages of his notes when he should have only turned over one. The omitted platitude was on the first, and he failed to notice the absence of a platitudinal sequence in the heads of his discourse which he had jotted down during the day.

When he had seated himself, Mr. Barlowe, the elder, got upon his feet, but he had no notes, and not being a member of the Common Council, he was not a past-master of commonplaces. He was only dull for about five minutes instead of half an hour. He had risen with a view to repair his relative's omission of that obvious point about entertaining an angel by appointment in the shape of Miss Burney, but he lost himself before he managed to deliver it; it swam out of his ken with several other points the moment he got upon his legs.

Fully recognizing how narrow was the escape she had had, Fanny was resolved not to run any further chances. She was looking imploringly toward Mrs. Burney, trying to catch that lady's eye, but without success, and she was about to walk round the table to her side and to beg her to come away, when Mrs. Barlowe moved up to her.