The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 by Daniel A. Rabuzzi Read Free Book Online Page B

the last century! And the latest dances, though I know you dislike dancing, still you must do so if only to avoid the censure of a chattering public.
    P.P.S. Hoping the weight of your brother’s absence is not too heavy to bear. Will remember to honour him with a toast at our
soirée
. Post here, must go.



Chapter 2: Many Meetings, or,
A Long, Exact, and Serious Comedy
    “O charming Noons! and Nights divine!
    Or when I sup, or when I dine,
    My Friends above, my Folks below,
    Chatting and laughing all-a-row,
    The Beans and Bacon set before ’em,
    The Grace-cup serv’d with all decorum:
    Each willing to be pleas’d and please,
    And even the very Dogs at ease!”
    —Alexander Pope ,
An Imitation of the Sixth Satire of the
Second Book of Horace
, lines 133-140 (1737)
    “A man shall . . . sin, by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;—rob her of her best dowry; and not only cover her own head with dishonour,—but involve a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake.”
    —Laurence Sterne ,
The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy,
Gentleman
, vol. II, chap. xvii (1760)
    “Insensate doth the dreamer drift
    Upon dark Lethe’s course,
    While song immense from angel-choirs
    Whelms vast-flung night, rings swift oblivion’s source.”
    —Charles Oldmixon ,
The Caliper’d Heart
, lines 121-124 (1774)
    F igs and fiddles! Sedgewick and wife have outdone themselves this evening, I must say!” Barnabas said to himself, as he surveyed for the third—or was it, fourth?—time the spread of food before him.
    “A knuckle of veal, a ham the size of a house (what a prodigious pig that must have been!), pies full of larks and woodcocks and other wingy little birds,” he chuckled. “Eels and burbots, pikelets, tench and trouts! Turtle soup, oh my, oh my. A forced hare. More kinds of beef and mutton than I can name, though ’tis a damnable shame to drown honest English roasts under so many sauces. What is this one?”
    He bent down to read the calligraphied card, folded like a miniature tent, set before the dish. Mrs. Sedgewick had missed no detail in preparing her rout to celebrate the return of the McDoons.
    “
Les cotelettes d’agneau glacées à la Toulouse
. Well, I’ll call it a lamb-chop in onion-butter, I will, and will make short work of it no matter what it calls itself!”
    As he ate, he thought, “I wonder that we won the war at all, since everything has become so very French. Once upon a time we called a duck a “duck,” but now we must call it a “moularde.” And whatever happened to the green bean—poor fellow, now he must answer to “haricot vert.” Truly, you’d think that old Nappy was at St. James, and not King George!”
    Barnabas turned his attentions now to the desserts.
    “I love Yount,” he thought. “But I must confess I have so dearly missed sweets. A singular lack, that, in Yount, there being no sugar, just the odd dab of honey. Oh my, figs and farthings, what have we here?”
    He stood transfixed before heaps of oiled almonds, peels of candied lemon, golden currants, slabs of marchpain, creamy dariendoles, a great syrupy pulpatoon, a
croque-en-bouche aux pistaches
, pralines, glazed biscuits, an enormous Nesselrode Pudding topped with a froth of whipped cream, . . . all gleaming and glistening in the gas-light (the Sedgewicks being among the first to adopt the new form of illumination), beckoning, alluring with a seeming life of their own.
    His satisfaction was complete, nay, overwhelmed and utterly unbayed, when he came upon the selection of port, sherry, Madeira, claret and wine surrounding a most estimable punch bowl.
    “Oh Sedgewick, you have sailed clear beyond the Pillars of Hercules this night!” he said. “A most noble punch-bowl. Why, ’tis large enough to launch a ship in; indeed, I believe I detect a tide! Now, then, what about these bottles? No thin, washy stuff here, oh ho! Why here is, no it