“I am sure that I will sing anything that Mr. Pendennis likes,” says Rosey, with her candid bright eyes—and she goes to the piano and warbles “Batti, Batti,” with her sweet fresh artless voice.
More caresses follow. Mamma is in a rapture. How pretty they look—the mother and daughter—two lilies twining together! The necessity of an entertainment at the Temple-lunch from Dick’s (as before mentioned), dessert from Partington’s, Sibwright’s spoons, his boy to aid ours, nay, Sib himself, and his rooms, which are so much more elegant than ours, and where there is a piano and guitar: all these thoughts pass in rapid and brilliant combination in the pleasant Mr. Pendennis’s mind. How delighted the ladies are with the proposal! Mrs. Mackenzie claps her pretty hands, and kisses Rosey again. If osculation is a mark of love, surely Mrs. Mack is the best of mothers. I may say, without false modesty, that our little entertainment was most successful. The champagne was iced to a nicety. The ladies did not perceive that our laundress, Mrs. Flanagan, was intoxicated very early in the afternoon. Percy Sibwright sang admirably, and with the greatest spirit, ditties in many languages. I am sure Miss Rosey thought him (as indeed he is) one of the most fascinating young fellows about town. To her mother’s excellent accompaniment Rosey sang her favourite songs (by the way, her stock was very small—five, I think, was the number). Then the table was moved into a corner, where the quivering moulds of jelly seemed to keep time to the music; and whilst Percy played, two couple of waltzers actually whirled round the little room. No wonder that the court below was thronged with admirers, that Paley the reading man was in a rage, and Mrs. Flanagan in a state of excitement. Ah! pleasant days, happy gold dingy chambers illuminated by youthful sunshine! merry songs and kind faces—it is pleasant to recall you. Some of those bright eyes shine no more: some of those smiling lips do not speak. Some are not less kind, but sadder than in those days: of which the memories revisit us for a moment, and sink back into the grey past. The dear old Colonel beat time with great delight to the songs; the widow lit his cigar with her own fair fingers. That was the only smoke permitted during the entertainment—George Warrington himself not being allowed to use his cutty-pipe—though the gay little widow said that she had been used to smoking in the West Indies and I dare say spoke the truth. Our entertainment lasted actually until after dark: and a particularly neat cab being called from St. Clement’s by Mr. Binnie’s boy, you may be sure we all conducted the ladies to their vehicle: and many a fellow returning from his lonely club that evening into chambers must have envied us the pleasure of having received two such beauties.
The clerical bachelor was not to be outdone by the gentlemen of the bar; and the entertainment at the Temple was followed by one at Honeyman’s lodgings, which, I must own, greatly exceeded ours in splendour, for Honeyman had his luncheon from Gunter’s; and if he had been Miss Rosey’s mother, giving a breakfast to the dear girl on her marriage, the affair could not have been more elegant and handsome. We had but two bouquets at our entertainment; at Honeyman’s there were four upon the breakfast-table, besides a great pineapple, which must have cost the rogue three or four guineas, and which Percy Sibwright delicately cut up. Rosey thought the pineapple delicious. “The dear thing does not remember the pineapples in the West Indies!” cries Mrs. Mackenzie; and she gave us many exciting narratives of entertainments at which she had been present at various colonial governors’ tables. After luncheon, our host hoped we should have a little music. Dancing, of course, could not be allowed. “That,” said Honeyman with his soft-bleating sigh, “were scarcely clerical. You know, besides, you are in a hermitage; and” (with a glance round the table) “must put up with Cenobite’s fare.” The fare was, as I have said, excellent. The wine was bad, as George, and I, and Sib agreed; and in so far we flattered ourselves that our feast altogether excelled the parson’s. The champagne especially was such stuff, that Warrington remarked on it to his neighbour, a dark gentleman, with a tuft to his chin, and splendid rings and chains.
The dark gentleman’s wife and daughter were the other two ladies invited by our host. The elder was splendidly dressed. Poor Mrs. Mackenzie’s simple gimcracks, though she displayed them to the most advantage, and could make an ormolu bracelet go as far as another woman’s emerald clasps, were as nothing compared to the other lady’s gorgeous jewellery. Her fingers glittered with rings innumerable. The head of her smelling-bottle was as big as her husband’s gold snuff box, and of the same splendid material. Our ladies, it must be confessed, came in a modest cab from Fitzroy Square; these arrived in a splendid little open carriage with white ponies, and harness all over brass, which the lady of the rings drove with a whip that was a parasol. Mrs. Mackenzie, standing at Honeyman’s window, with her arm round Rosey’s waist, viewed this arrival perhaps with envy. “My dear Mr. Honeyman, whose are those beautiful horses?” cries Rosey, with enthusiasm.
The divine says with a faint blush—“It is—ah—it is Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick who have done me the favour to come to luncheon.”
“Wine-merchant. Oh!” thinks Mrs. Mackenzie, who has seen Sherrick’s brass plate on the cellar door of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel; and hence, perhaps, she was a trifle more magniloquent than usual, and entertained us with stories of colonial governors and their ladies, mentioning no persons but those who “had handles to their names,” as the phrase is.
Although Sherrick had actually supplied the champagne which Warrington abused to him in confidence, the wine-merchant was not wounded; on the contrary, he roared with laughter at the remark, and some of us smiled who understood the humour of the joke. As for George Warrington, he scarce knew more about the town than the ladies opposite to him; who, yet more innocent than George, thought the champagne very good. Mrs. Sherrick was silent during the meal, looking constantly up at her husband, as if alarmed and always in the habit of appealing to that gentleman, who gave her, as I thought, knowing glances and savage winks, which made me augur that he bullied her at home. Miss Sherrick was exceedingly handsome: she kept the fringed curtains of her eyes constantly down; but when she lifted them up towards Clive, who was very attentive to her (the rogue never sees a handsome woman but to this day he continues the same practice)—when she looked up and smiled, she was indeed a beautiful young creature to behold—with her pale forehead, her thick arched eyebrows, her rounded cheeks, and her full lips slightly shaded,—how shall I mention the word?—slightly pencilled, after the manner of the lips of the French governess, Mademoiselle Lenoir.
Percy Sibwright engaged Miss Mackenzie with his usual grace and affability. Mrs. Mackenzie did her very utmost to be gracious, but it was evident the party was not altogether to her liking. Poor Percy, about whose means and expectations she had in the most natural way in the world asked information from me, was not perhaps a very eligible admirer for darling Rosey. She knew not that Percy can no more help gallantry than the sun can help shining. As soon as Rosey had done eating up her pineapple, artlessly confessing (to Percy Sibwright’s inquiries) that she preferred it to the rasps and hinnyblobs in her grandmamma’s garden, “Now, dearest Rosey,” cries Mrs. Mack, “now, a little song. You promised Mr. Pendennis a little song.” Honeyman whisks open the piano in a moment. The widow takes off her cleaned gloves (Mrs. Sherrick’s were new, and of the best Paris make), and little Rosey sings No. 1, followed by No. 2, with very great applause. Mother and daughter entwine as they quit the piano. “Brava! brava!” says Percy Sibwright. Does Mr. Clive Newcome say nothing? His back is turned to the piano, and he is looking with all his might into the eyes of Miss Sherrick.
Percy sings a Spanish seguidilla, or a German lied, or a French romance, or a Neapolitan canzonet, which, I am bound to say, excites very little attention. Mrs. Ridley is sending in coffee at this juncture, of which Mrs. Sherrick partakes, with lots of sugar, as she has partaken of numberless things before. Chicken, plovers’ eggs, prawns, aspics, jellies, creams, grapes, and what-not. Mr. Honeyman advances, and with deep respect asks if Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick will not be persuaded to sing? She rises and bows, and again takes off the French gloves, and shows the large white hands glittering with rings, and, summoning Emily her daughter, they go to the piano.
“Can she sing,” whispers Mrs. Mackenzie, “can she sing after eating so much?” Can she sing, indeed! Oh, you poor ignorant Mrs. Mackenzie! Why, when you were in the West Indies, if you ever read the English newspapers, you must have read of the fame of Miss Folthorpe. Mrs. Sherrick is no other than the famous artist, who, after three years of brilliant triumphs at the Scala, the Pergola, the San Carlo, the opera in England, forsook her profession, rejected a hundred suitors, and married Sherrick, who was Mr. Cox’s lawyer, who failed, as everybody knows, as manager of Drury Lane. Sherrick, like a man of spirit, would not allow his wife to sing in public after his marriage; but in private society, of course, she is welcome to perform: and now with her daughter, who possesses a noble contralto voice, she takes her place royally at the piano, and the two sing so magnificently that everybody in the room, with one single exception, is charmed and delighted; and that little Miss Cann herself creeps up the stairs, and stands with Mrs. Ridley at the door to listen to the music.