Recalling himself, Roger made a deep sweeping bow which, beginning with Sir Harry Burrard, included all those present.
"Your servant, gentlemen."
As they returned his bow, he noticed for the first time that there was a stranger among them. He was a paunchy little man with a fat face, double chin, small pursed-up mouth and snub nose, but he had large, luminous eyes. Many of the older men were wearing wigs, but evidently he preferred the newer fashion, as his own brown hair was curled in two rolls above his ears and tied with a black bow at the back of his neck.
At that moment he stepped forward and spoke in a sonorous, rather pompous voice.
"Captain, pray do me the honour to present me to your son."
"On the contrary, Sir, I am flattered that you should take notice of him. Roger, make your service to Mr. Edward Gibbon, who has recently become our Member of Parliament on the retirement of Sir Harry, here. But keep your schoolboy Latin tags for other company, since that is his second tongue, and his learning upon ancient times puts us all to the blush."
Roger's eyes opened wide as he bowed again. "Indeed, I'm honoured, Sir. My House-master at Sherborne lent me the first volume of your Decline and Fall but I had not thought to have the happiness of meeting its distinguished author."
Gibbon's fat face broke into a smile. "Nor I, young Sir, that my cherished labours should already have reached so youthful a public.'
"Strap me, Roger!" beamed his father, "you have the laugh of us, for I'll vow that few others of us here have as yet had the courage to tackle so weighty a work, much as we may admire Mr. Gibbon's industry. For that you deserve a glass of wine. What shall it be— Madeira, Malaga or Sack? But I forget, you're old enough now to drink as and when you please."
"Thank you, Sir," Roger turned away to a table that old Ben, the house-man, now elevated by the wearing of his best black to the rank of butler, had carried out on to the terrace. On it were three decanters and a tray of tall, slender, trumpet-shaped glasses. Choosing the Madeira, as the sweetest wine, he was pouring himself a glass when Mr. Bond cried:
"I take you up on that, Chris! I've read all three volumes that Mr. Gibbon has so far published, and am a-thirst for more."
"Ah, John, your nose was ever in some book while the foxes at Buckland made a Roman holiday in your hen roosts," responded the captain, and his sally raised a hearty laugh among the fox-hunting squires of which the company mainly consisted.
"I, too, am happy to say that I have read Mr. Gibbon," declared Sam Oviatt.
"I'll not gainsay you," said his host, with a broad wink at the others. "With no lands to look to and the scandalous profits you make on your smuggled liquor, you must be the richest man among us and the one with most leisure."
Another gust of laughter followed, then Mr. Gibbon held up a plump hand. "Come, come, gentlemen! No more disputing over the rival claims of my poor work and other pursuits, I beg. Three readers among ten of you is so handsome a proportion that could I boast the same of the population of England I should be so well endowed that I could afford to found a free library for the enlightenment of poor sailors returned from the wars."
The laugh this time was against Captain Brook but it was interrupted by the arrival of two newcomers, the Vicar and Mr. Sutherland, who lived at Grosvenor House in the High Street, the meadow behind which ran down to abut on the Captain's orchard. After greetings had been exchanged and they had been furnished with drinks, the gay, inconsequent talk went on.
Soon after three o'clock old Sir Harry Burrard asked that his coach might be summoned, so that he could drive home to dinner;
but Captain Brook would not hear of it, insisting that the whole company should remain to dine with him, and that his wife had prepared against them doing so. Heads were counted and Roger sent to tell his mother that, besides themselves, there would be eleven guests; and as she had already bidden her nearest and dearest neighbour, Mrs. Sutherland, to join them, to keep her in countenance with so many gentlemen, covers were prepared for fifteen.
Roger helped old Ben put the extra leaves in the dining-room table, but they had no need to use them all, as it was a good modern one made only a dozen years before in Mr. Chippendale's London workshop and could, as Roger knew from their Boxing Night parties, seat twenty, when fully extended.
By four o'clock its highly polished mahogany mirrored a brave array of china, glass, gleaming silver, white napery, crystal bowls of fruit and filigree baskets holding bonbons, comfits and candied peel, while the side tables were filled to capacity with steaming dishes and rows of bottles.
Polly and Nell, now smart in their frilled aprons and mob caps, took their places on either side of the table; old Ben announced that his master was served, and the company went in to dine.
Lady Marie had Mr. Gibbon on her right and Sir Harry on her left; the Captain had Mrs. Sutherland on one side and old General Cleveland on the other; Roger sat between Sam Oviatt and Captain Burrard.
For a first course Lady Marie gave them a dish of perch and trout, another of lobster patties, three fowls broiled, a fore-quarter of lamb, and a fillet of veal roasted with Morella cherries and truffles. And for a second course, sweetbreads, a green goose roasted and peas, a pigeon pie, apricot tart, cheesecakes, and a trifle.
Few ate of all these things, but many of most; everyone choosing what they preferred and often having their plates piled high with helpings from several different dishes at the same time. The meal was good, but by no means pretentious as nine dishes to each course were often served in larger houses and even when alone few of those present ever sat down in their own homes to a dinner of less than a single course of five. All of them took unabashed enjoyment in their food and washed it down with copious draughts of Rhenish, Claret and Anjou. Such heavy eating and drinking brought internal troubles to most people in middle life and was largely responsible for the early death rate but they lived too fully and violently to give a thought to that.
With the interval between courses this cheerful guzzling continued for the best part of three hours, then the port was put on the table and the ladies withdrew.
Behind a tall, brocaded screen in one corner of the room was a commode with two chamber pots, in order that the gentlemen might be spared the inconvenience of interrupting their conversation by leaving the room. Most of them now made use of these and, as they settled down again, the Captain told Roger to take his mother's place at the foot of the table; the decanters were passed round and the jovial talk went on.
"You have told us little yet, Sir, of the state in which you left the Indies," remarked Mr. Gibbon to his host, "and no small part of our prosperity hangs upon the Sugar Islands."
"Things are well enough there now, Sir," promptly replied his host. "The enemy caused some destruction in the towns where our people put up a resistance to him; but in such islands as fell to his assault he burnt few of the plantations, thinking to profit from them himself in years to come."
Captain Burrard laughed. "After the French recapture of St. Eustatius, and with only Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua left to us. he had some reason to count his chickens. Things there were in a parlous state until my Lord Rodney's victory off the Saints restored the situation."
"Were you present at the fight, Chris?" asked Mr. Sutherland.
"Aye, Jack," nodded Captain Brook, "and a bloody business it was; the enemy's ships being crammed to bursting with soldiers for his projected invasion of Jamaica. As you may have heard tell, my Lord Rodney made naval history by deliberately disrupting his own line of battle to break clean through the enemy centre. This new manoeuvre enabled us to get to windward of the French and encircle five of their biggest ships, including the Ville de Paris, in which Admiral de Grasse was flying his flag. After a monstrous gruelling he hauled down the flag of France with his own hands and surrendered himself to Hood on the Barfleur. Rodney then called off the fight, and although we took four prizes, in Hood's view had we kept at them we might have taken many more. So, although a fine victory, 'twas not so conclusive as Quiberon Bay, where I served as gunnery Lieutenant of the middle deck in Augusta. I count Lord Hawke's action there in 'fifty-nine as our greatest naval victory since the Armada; it gave us undisputed command of the seas for a decade."