And now for the first time Grizel was to have a personal experience of the momentous influence of a dinner party in an ordinary middle-class establishment! For two days beforehand “plannings ahead” enveloped the atmosphere like a cloud. The parlourmaid planned ahead in respect of extra polishing of silver and glass, and was testy in consequence, and disposed to neglect present work. Cook’s whole energies seemed engrossed in the preparation of a mysterious substance yclept “stock,” which filled the house with the most unsavoury of odours, and she plainly considered it an injury to be expected to provide the ordinary meals, while Marie lashed the troubled waters by an attitude of amused disdain.
On the morning of the great day itself the very atmosphere was impregnated with strain, and the two domestics appeared to feel it a personal injury that Grizel herself remained smilingly unperturbed, and went about her way as placidly as if nothing unusual were in the air. Parsons could not decide if it was ignorance, or pure “cussedness” which made the mistress suddenly decide to move the position of the furniture in the room above the dining-room, and to insist upon its being done without delay. The gardener was called in to help, and Parsons of fell intent made the removal as noisy and cumbersome as it could be, and then discovered to her chagrin that both master and mistress had left the house, and had consequently suffered no annoyance from the noise.
By four o’clock a jingle of glass and china announced the fact that Parsons had begun the preparation of “my table,” a work of exceptional responsibility, since beyond a few general directions it had been left entirely in her charge. The day before Grizel had unlocked the door of the upstairs safe-cupboard, wherein reposed some treasures from Lady Griselda’s famous collection of silver, the like of which Parsons had never before beheld. Bowls and goblets, branching candelabra, finely wrought receptacles for fruit, large and small, high and low, each one a work of art. Sufficient treasures for the adornment of a dozen dinner tables were packed away on those baize-covered shelves from which Parsons was bidden to take her choice. Something of the same sombre elation filled her veins as that with which Cook in her kitchen whipped and stirred, and mixed and tasted, resigned to suffer in the hope of glory to come.
At six o’clock Mary Edwards, the hired waitress, would arrive; a young person who, for a consideration of five shillings, officiated at every dinner party in the township. No bellringer had greater facilities for advertisement than Mary Edwards. “She’d tell them the style they did things up at Beverleys’!”
It was only after she was dressed for the evening that Grizel entered the dining-room to survey the completed table, while Parsons and Mary Edwards stood at attention by the sideboard. She wore a wonderful gown of a deep purple crêpe, encrusted with heavy gold embroideries. A diamond aigrette sparkled on her head, but her beautiful white throat was bare of ornaments. She looked young and radiant and exquisite, and to both black-robed, white-aproned onlookers came a spasm of an old regret. The feminine in them revolted at the chasm between the classes... “Oh, to be a lady, and look like that!”
“Quite nice!” cried Grizel graciously. “You’ve done the flowers beautifully, Parsons. Is this Edwards? How d’you do, Edwards! Sure you have everything you want? Enough spoons, and forks, and things like that? That’s all right! Then we’ll just go straight on, you know. No waiting between the courses.”
“Yes, ma’m. No, ma’m,” said Edwards firmly.
Parsons thought of the pandemonium now reigning in the kitchen, and remained discreetly dumb. Grizel gave another nod of approval and turned towards the door.
And then, at that very moment—something happened!
For the life of her during those first reeling seconds Grizel could not have told what it was. There was a creeping, crawling sound, coming from above, and mysteriously growing in force. Something was going to happen: in another second something was happening! It was a dream, a nightmare, a hallucination. The clearly lighted room was suddenly filled with dust, with smoke, with floating particles of white. Down, down, they fell, thicker and thicker, in a solid, snow-like mass, covering the table, covering the carpet, scattering a powdery foam to right and to left. With more or less force certain particles fell on her own head, her own shoulders; she gasped for breath; felt on her tongue a strange dry taste and shuddered in disgust. Across a space of whirling dust clouds Parsons’s face and Mary Edwards’s confronted her, white as two clowns. Grizel shrieked, and still shrieking fled into the hall.