Better Than Byron

My Second Introduction into Society

XV

Society is now one polish'd horde,

Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.

-Lord Byron

I awoke the next day in the afternoon, for I had been immensely wearied by sin and rum. After waking I dressed myself with my old precision and attention to detail, and then left my room, finding myself on the sunny deck of the starboard side of the ship. I took in the fresh sea air, and then asked a sailor who was passing whether he could conduct me to the kitchen. "I am the gentleman hostage who was recovered from the islet yesterday." In this manner I justified my odd query.

"The kitchen?" he frowned.

"Yes," I replied. "I have not had a proper meal for days... Well? Are you going to assist me or shall I have to knock your head against the railing?"

"Very good, Sir Deighton," he bowed with a polite smile, as if nothing I had said had been out of the ordinary. "Follow me."

"Sir?" I scoffed, catching up to him. "Why do you call me Sir? I am no baronet – neither am I a knight."

"Everyone knows about Sir Walter Deighton's death, sir," said he, turning a corner and then halting before a door from whence steam filtered. "And everyone knows that he had no heir to his baronetcy, but that his deceased brother, Mr. Deighton, had a son who disappeared and whose friend was suspected of having murdered him."

"What? Murdered me? How on Earth could he have done that when he is in—well no matter where he is, for it is all preposterous drivel. Well then! I am a baronet?"

"Indeed, Sir Deighton," he bowed, leaving me alone at the kitchen door to marvel at and curse my good fortune. I recalled Deighton referring to his brother the baronet's ill-fortune, grumbling about his wife's corruption from her previous marriage and about the friendship she had had with Satan so that she might not be impregnated. He possessed a remarkable talent for linking everything to the Devil.

After getting over my initial stupefaction I burst into the kitchen, demanding a prince's repast to be brought to my room. The cook – a French one I gathered – scoffed at my vulgar desire for food, and said in broken English that he was at present busy making dinner for the gentry, but that the said gentry were having a light luncheon as we spoke.

"I shall eat a whole platter of cucumber sandwiches, then!" I laughed, bouncing out of the kitchen and demanding from a lonely gentleman standing near the railings whether he would show me the way to the dining-room, or wherever the Quality gorged themselves. He seemed a gentle, civil sort, so upon being addressed in so abrupt and unguarded a manner he naturally shrank from me, but being too kind for direct resistance he showed me into the dining-room, where I found everyone to be eating standing in groups with their plates in one hand, and their drinks in the other.

I thanked the gentleman with a gruff, "Many thanks, old chap," and then charged at the nearest table that was laid out with luxurious edibles, cramming as much as I could onto my infuriatingly small China plate. Some gentlemen gave me snobbish scowls, and some of the ladies brought their quizzing glasses up to their eyes, observing me as I thrust the food into my mouth with scornful indifference to those around me. I occasionally slurped on some white wine, wiping my mouth with my handkerchief, which I kept stuffed in my cuffs while I ate.

After I had quieted my hunger, I relieved the English and American elite of my offensive presence and withdrew to the drawing-room.

Though the room was fine and lavish for a ship's quarters, all I saw and heard was civil whiskers and fustian nonsense from abominably artificial gentlefolk. As I strolled casually through the room I heard gentlemen muttering about giving their mistresses congés for their bad tempers, of women cutting shams, gentlemen anticipating the London Derby, ladies discussing the dernier cri in fashion, men admiring the loveliest girls in their vicinity, dowagers discussing their miserable little dower houses, a couple of American hoydens cackling at their tight-lipped English rivals, mawkish women bemoaning their lost beaus, and wealthy tabbies chattering together with their lapdogs sitting contentedly in their laps.