The president always leads the march to supper with the newest bride. Supper is served promptly at midnight, and the ball opens at the early hour of nine o’clock. The men arrive earlier, for the social conditions are such in the South that there are more men than women, and if they indulge in the foolish Eastern habit of arriving just before midnight, they haven’t a chance of finding a single partner through the evening.
The society owns its present napery and silver, which it bought with the first ready money that came in after the desperate financial straits of the terrible reconstruction.
It is as handsome as their splendid plate of antebellum days, which was destroyed by fire.
Both silver and napery bear the monogram of the society, and the linen was especially woven in Ireland. This gives the table an aristocratic air impossible when supper and silver are left to caterers.
The cook who prepares the supper is a gingerbread-colored genius. His cooking of wild duck still brings water to the mouths of those who have been asked to the feast.
The stranger might notice that the managers and a few older men are absent for some time after the guests have returned from supper to the ballroom for the two round dances. If they investigated they would find that the chosen few were regaling themselves with supper made up of even more epicurean dishes and rarer wines than the many had enjoyed.
This is the time for the colored cook to prove what he can do. Many a bonne bouche is served that goes into gastronomic history.
The most exciting moment of the supper room is the scramble of the men for a sugar figure which is placed on the top of a huge fancy structure of spun sugar. Each man tries to secure this souvenir for his partner.
No matter how large the list of the St. Cecilia has grown, the invitations always have been delivered by hand. This custom is a tradition that has come down since the days before a mail service was ever thought of. As all other traditions were kept up, so was this.
Edmund is the name of the darky who possibly for half a century has delivered these invitations from door to door. He has been almost as important as the St. Cecilia. He is a social register for Charleston “quality.” He is as proud of his descent, his position and his social superiority as though his ancestors had landed in the bay under the sturdy Lion of St. George or the Flying Fleur-de-Lys in the seventeenth century.