A City Not Forsaken by Lynn Morris

Author:Lynn Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781598569117
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Published: 2011-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

“Now, my lord,” Fanny Crosby said matter-of-factly, “I shall require your assistance.”

“Certainly, Miss Crosby,” the Marquess of Queensberry answered cordially. “I am always honored to be of service to a lady.”

“Good. And I can tell by your voice that you are neither being pitying nor condescending, which will make this meal so much more enjoyable for both of us.” Fanny smiled. “All I require is that you promise to tell me if I should spill anything on me, or if a crumb should fall on me or—heaven forbid!—land on my chin. So embarrassing, you see; and I think it is much more rude for a person not to tell me than to tell me.”

The Marquess of Queensberry laughed heartily, which made several dozen heads at the tables below turn with curiosity—and envy. “How right you are, Miss Crosby! This has happened to me, you see, and how I’ve wished one of my dinner partners would have just leaned over and said, ‘Look here, Queensberry, do wipe your silly mug.’ I shall be happy to promise you this, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” she said calmly.

The marquess watched her unobtrusively as the servant behind her chair placed the first course, a cold cantaloupe soup, in front of her and then discreetly whispered in her ear and slipped the soup spoon into her hand. Miss Crosby smiled, nodded, and hit the soup bowl without a single clink the first time.

“This is delicious,” Fanny commented to the marquess. “It reminds me of a time when a well-meaning lady visited the Institute for the Blind, where I received my education. She indicated that she would very much like to see the dining room. When asked why, she answered, ‘Why, I am very anxious to see your children eat; how do they find the way to their mouths?’ I couldn’t quite frame an acceptable answer—”

“An acceptably kind answer, I’m sure,” the marquess offered.

“Yes, you do understand. But one young man told her quite seriously: ‘We take a string, tie one end of it to the table leg; the other to our tongue; and then we take the food in our left hand, and feel up the string with our right until we come to our mouth.’ ”

The marquess laughed again, and had hardly recovered when Miss Crosby went on, “Then the poor creature asked quite worriedly how did we ever manage soup?”

Cheney, who was seated at a table directly below the marquess and Miss Crosby, smiled as she overheard the story. She, too, had been concerned with how Fanny would manage at the head table. Obviously she had nothing to worry about.

Except for her dinner partners. By a cruel twist of fate, Philip Teller was seated on one side of her, and his lackey Cullum Wylie on the other.

Exactly one hundred guests were present at the Vanderbilts’ “East to West Indies Gala,” so naturally there was no single table long enough to accommodate them. The hosts had arranged one long table as a head table on a dais in the dining room of the Maiden of Shanghai, with two long tables placed perpendicularly to it.

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