Sophie giggled. “Promise,” she said.
Mr. Breen smiled and caressed the child’s cheek, and then, to Mrs. Breen’s growing anxiety—what if something should go wrong?—Mr. Breen rang the bell. He reached down and squeezed her hand, and then the butler was admitting them into the great foyer, and soon afterward, before she had time to fully compose herself, announcing them into the drawing room.
Lady Donner turned to meet them, smiling, and it was as if the incident in Grosvenor Square had never happened. She took Mrs. Breen’s hand. “I am glad you were able to come,” she said. “I have so missed you.” And then, kneeling, so that she could look Sophie in the eye: “Do you remember me, Sophie?”
Sophie, intimidated by the blazing drawing room and the crowd of strangers and this smiling apparition before her, promptly inserted a knuckle between her teeth. She remembered nothing, of course. Lady Donner laughed. She ran her finger lightly over the ribbon and conjured up a sweet, which Sophie was persuaded after some negotiation to take. Then—”We shall talk again soon, darling,” Lady Donner promised—a housemaid ushered the child off to join the other children at the children’s feast. Lady Donner escorted the Breens deeper into the room and made introductions.
It was an exalted company. In short order, Mrs. Breen found herself shaking hands with a florid, toad-like gentleman who turned out to be Lord Stanton, the Bishop of London, and a slim, dapper one whom Lady Donner introduced as the Right Honorable Mr. Daniel Williams, an MP from Oxford. Alone unwived among the men was the radical novelist Charles Foster, whom Mrs. Breen found especially fascinating, having whiled away many an hour over his triple-deckers during her time in exile. The sole remaining guest was the aged Mrs. Murphy, a palsied widow in half-mourning. Mrs. Breen never did work out her precise rank, though she must have been among the lesser great since she and Mr. Breen were the penultimate guests to proceed down to dinner. Mrs. Breen followed, arm in arm with Mr. Foster, whose notoriety had earned him the invitation and whose common origin had determined his place in the procession. Mrs. Breen wished that her companion were of greater rank—that she, too, had not been consigned to the lowest position. Her distress was exacerbated by Mr. Foster’s brazen irreverence. “Fear not, Mrs. Breen,” he remarked in a whisper as they descended, “a time draws near when the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”
Mr. Foster’s reputation as a provocateur, it turned out, was well deserved. His method was the slaughter of sacred cows; his mode was outrage. By the end of the first course (white soup, boiled salmon, and dressed cucumber), he had broached the Woman question. “Take female apparel,” he said. “Entirely impractical except as an instrument of oppression. It enforces distaff reliance upon the male of the species. What can she do for herself in that garb?” he asked, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of an affronted Mrs. Breen.
By the end of the second course (roast fowls garnished with watercresses, boiled leg of lamb, and sea kale), he had launched into the Darwinian controversy. “We are all savage as apes at the core,” he was saying when the footman appeared at his elbow with the entrée. “Ah. What have we here? The pièce de résistance?”
He eyed the modest portion on Mrs. Breen’s plate and served himself somewhat more generously. When the servant had moved on down the table, he shot Mrs. Breen a conspiratorial glance, picked up his menu card, and read off the entrée sotto voce: Lightly Braised Fillet of Stripling, garnished with Carrots and Mashed Turnips. “Have you had stripling before, Mrs. Breen?”
She had, she averred, taking in the intoxicating aroma of the dish. Two years ago, she continued, she had been fortunate enough to partake of ensouled flesh at this very table. “And you, Mr. Foster?”
“I have not.”
“It is a rare honor.”
“I think I prefer my honors well done, Mrs. Breen.”
Mrs. Breen pursed her lips in disapproval. She did not reply.
Undeterred, Mr. Foster said, “Have you an opinion on the Anthropophagic Crisis?”
“I do not think it a woman’s place to opine on political matters, Mr. Foster.”
“You would not, I imagine.”
“I can assure you the Anti-Anthropophagy Bill will never become law, Mr. Foster,” Mr. Williams said. “It is stalled in the Commons, and should it by chance be passed, the Peers will reject it. The eating of ensouled flesh is a tradition too long entrenched in this country.”
“Do you number yourself among the reformers, Mr. Williams?”
“I should think not.”
Mr. Foster helped himself to a bite of the stripling. It was indeed rare. A small trickle of blood ran into his whiskers. He dabbed at it absent-mindedly. The man was repulsive, Mrs. Breen thought, chewing delicately. The stripling tasted like manna from Heaven, ambrosia, though perhaps a little less tender—and somewhat more strongly flavored—than her last meal of ensouled flesh.
“It is good,” Mr. Foster said. “Tastes a bit like pork. What do shipwrecked sailors call it? Long pig?”
Lady Stanton gasped. “Such a vulgar term,” she said. “Common sailors have no right.”
“Even starving ones?”
“Are rightfully executed for their depravity,” Lord Donner pointed out.
“I hardly think the Anthropophagic Crisis is proper conversation for this table, Mr. Foster,” said Mr. Breen.
“I can think of no table at which it is more appropriate.” Another heaping bite. “It is a pretty word, anthropophagy. Let us call it what it is: cannibalism.”
“It is a sacred ritual,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“And cannibalism is such an ugly word, Mr. Foster,” Lord Donner said.
“For an ugly practice,” Mr. Foster said.
Lady Donner offered him a wicked smile. She prided herself on having an interesting table. “And yet I notice that you do not hesitate to partake.”
“Curiosity provides the food the novelist feeds upon, Lady Donner. Even when the food is of an unsavory nature. Though this”—Mr. Foster held up his laden fork—“this is quite savory, I must admit. My compliments to your cook.”
“I shall be sure to relay them,” Lady Donner said.
“Yet, however savory it might be,” he continued, “we are eating a creature with a soul bestowed upon it by our common Creator. We acknowledge it with our very name for the flesh we partake of at this table.”
“Dinner?” Mrs. Williams said lightly, to a ripple of amusement.
Mr. Foster dipped his head and lifted his glass in silent toast. “I was thinking rather of ensouled flesh.”
Mrs. Breen looked up from her plate. “I should think First Feast would be meaningless absent ensouled flesh, Mr. Foster,” she said. “It would be a trivial occasion if we were eating boiled ham.”
The bishop laughed. “These are souls of a very low order.”
“He that has pity upon the poor lends unto the Lord,” Mr. Foster said.
“The Lord also commands us to eat of his body, yes? There is a scripture for every occasion, Mr. Foster. The Catholics believe in transubstantiation, as you know.” Lord Stanton helped himself to a morsel of stripling. “Ours is an anthropophagic faith.”
“My understanding is that the Church of England reads the verse metaphorically.”
“Call me High Church, then,” Lord Stanton said, stifling a belch. There was general laughter at this sally, a sense that the bishop had scored a point.
Mr. Foster was unperturbed. “Are you suggesting that our Savior enjoins us to eat our fellow men?”