Emma had, so to speak, passed her acquaintances through a fine sieve, and the sifted few who came through, they, and they alone, were her intimates. Sebastian, on the other hand, had only one reason for making friends with any one—whether he liked them or not. As a matter of fact he liked the greater part of the world, and was liked by them in return, but anything like an ulterior end in making acquaintances was unknown to him. Emma’s rules for the making of so-called friends, therefore, filled him with amazement; while Emma, on her part, looked with little short of dismay upon the men whom Sebastian welcomed to his table. Certainly there was scarcely one among all his acquaintance that could have been called a gentleman. ‘As why should they, Emma? I am no gentleman myself,’ Sebastian had retorted when taxed with his preference for low company. Emma objected most of all to the soldiers whom her husband had known abroad, and who were continually coming to the house; she might be entertaining her most select lady-friends to a dish of tea, and talking the latest Court gossip with them, when, into this refined circle, and quite undismayed by its frigidly genteel atmosphere, would enter Sebastian, bringing with him, as likely as not, his friend Sergeant Cartwright, or young Tillet the bugler, who played at Ramillies. The Sergeant had lost an arm at Blenheim, and Emma shrank away instinctively from the empty sleeve he wore pinned across his breast; no historic association could reconcile her to the presence of these men in her parlour, and when they were bidden to supper Mrs. Shepley sat at the head of the table with an air of studied aloofness that was fine to see. Now and then she would raise her pretty eyebrows expressively, as when Cartwright spat on the floor, or Tillet made use of expressions not usually heard in parlours; but she came at last to see that remonstrance with Sebastian on this score was useless, and resigned herself as best she might to see the hero of her first love make merry with such friends.
But perhaps Emma’s sorest moments were when those whom she naively termed ‘persons of importance’ came to visit Sebastian. To Emma, every one with a title was a person of importance, be they never so unimportant in reality, and it seemed to her that Sebastian intentionally said and did the wrong things to such personages. There was one terrible night when ‘a Marquis’ (enough that the mystic dignity was his) honoured the little house in Jermyn Street with a visit, and Sebastian, all unheeding of coughs and frowns from his wife, must press this exalted visitor to sup with them. Now on this ill-fated night Emma had chosen to feed her lord and master on pig’s feet and fried liver—viands whose price, or rather want of price, is almost proverbial. It was, indeed, from no sordid motives of economy that Emma had so furnished forth her board, but from the desire to please Sebastian, whose taste in food was incurably vulgar. How could she have anticipated that burning moment when her faltering tongue must frame the words—
‘My Lord, may I offer you some of these pig’s feet, or mayhap your Lordship would relish some of this fried liver more?’
And as if this was not bitter enough, did not Sebastian break into a laugh that shook the glasses on the table, crying out—
‘Faith, Emma, had you known we were to entertain the quality to-night, I had not had my liver and pig’s feet!’
Emma smiled faintly, for tears were not far off; and the Marquis, seeing her perturbation, told the story of the liver they got at Blenheim, that the officers swore was shoe-leather,—‘A different dish from your fine cookery, madam,’ he said, begging for another helping of the dish. But it was a life-long lesson to poor Emma: she never ordered liver for supper again without a pang of foreboding.
Then the matter of Church observances had arisen between these young people. Emma was a devout Church-woman; Sebastian did not hold much to one persuasion or another, and certainly was not fond of Church services. Emma all her life had gone every Sunday to the curious little old church of St. Mary Minories, and after her marriage expected Sebastian to go there with her. The first Sunday morning after her marriage Emma came down-stairs in her church-going attire, and in rather a shocked voice expressed her astonishment to find Sebastian smoking by the fire, instead of making any preparation for coming with her.
‘Charlotte will be here in the coach immediately,’ she said. ‘Hasten, Sebastian, we shall be late at St. Mary’s.’
‘St. Mary’s?’ queried Sebastian.
‘St. Mary Minories, where it hath always been our custom to attend divine service—come, Sebastian, pray lay aside your pipe!’