_Sunday._
DEAREST MAMMA,--I am resting, so I can put another letter in with the
one I wrote last night. We came here, as I said, after the down town
luncheon, and it is so quaint going over on the ferry; we just sat in
the motor we have hired while we are in New York, and it rolled on to a
broad place on a huge flat steamer, with all the rest of the traffic,
and the boat quietly steamed across the water, and when it touched the
other side we drove off again. And presently as one gets past the
station it looks like going into the wilds, but along the edges of the
roads are small villas made of boards with shingle roofs; here the
clerks (they pronounce it just as it is spelt) and small business
people live, their little bits of land a few feet round each house not
railed or hedged off, but simply mown grass marking them from public
property.
Most of them are spruce and painted, and they can be moved if
necessary. We met one coming down the road, the lace curtains in the
windows and a cat looking out and brushing its whiskers. The house was
set on rollers and being pulled along. Isn't it a splendid idea, Mamma?
Fancy if I could have the east wing of Valmond, that was added in
eighteen hundred, cut off and just trotted round to the north
courtyard, where it would not show so much, how nice that would be; but
everything is so dreadfully stable and solid with us, and here
everything is transitory and can come and go in a night. All the
country we came through looks the wilds, uncultivated, almost as if
bears could live in the woods. Farms have been there, but now the land
is too valuable and is only sold for building purposes. But the effect
of wild is intense and makes the contrast of the over-cultivated avenue
borders greater. Once inside the gates, the winding avenue begins,
covered like all the avenues we have seen with fine granite gravel. But
even in the wildest wild it is lit with electric light, and here and
there a neat villa. This is typical of America, the contrivances of the
brain of man forced upon primitive nature.
The house is simply charming; outside a beautiful colonial style, so
suitable to the splendid trees and general look of the land, and inside
all panelled, and everything in the most perfect taste, and not too
grand. But it surprises me that Valerie, who has been so much in
England, should still have the same want of the personal note in her
house. Everything is beyond criticism, so perfect and suitable, but not
in a single room, even her own sitting room, is there that strong sense
of her as I think we all have in our rooms at home. I am sure, Mamma,
you would know even the great state drawing-rooms at Chevenix were
Octavia's, and there is not a corner of Valmond or Hurstbridge or even
the town house, that I do not decide upon the arranging of. But here I
don't think they would be bothered; and they only stay in their houses
for so short a period, rushing from New York to Newport and the country
to Europe, so none of the places feel like home. That is the only
possible thing which spoils this one,--otherwise it is perfection. But
then you see they could start fair by building it themselves; they had
not to inherit a huge castle from their forefathers, with difficult
drains to combat and an insufficient water supply, to say nothing of
the trail of the serpent of fearful early Victorian taste over even the
best things of the eighteenth century. The _horrors_ that now live in
the housemaids' bed rooms which I collected from the royal suite at
Valmond!
It was a perfect joy to get here into peace, and we were allowed to
rest quietly until dinner, and Valerie came and talked to me while I
lay on the sofa. She said her husband was "crazy" about me, and she
thought it would do him a great deal of good for me to play with him a
little, and that she was crazy about Tom; so I said if she could find
someone for Octavia it seemed a nice little chassé croisée and we ought
all to be very happy together. Then she said she had someone coming
down by a later train who ought to be just Octavia's affair, and who in
the world do you think it is, Mamma? The Vicomte! Gaston de la
Trémors!!!!
Think of what Harry will say when he hears! Isn't it too lovely? He
will of course believe I made a rendezvous with him, considering the
furious rage he was in when I got the Vicomte's letter. You remember,
Mamma, he used to be in love with me at the Château de Croixmare, and
always has been a red rag to a bull for Harry. When we met him by
chance at Monte Carlo last year, the first time since my marriage,
there was nearly a scene; and, as you know, his simple letter saying he
would be in London, and might he see me, was the cause of Harry's and
my quarrel. So now, when he finds poor Gaston is out here, he will be
foaming with rage, and will of course come back from Africa at once,
and probably beat me and shoot the Vicomte; so I had better have a
little fun while I can. It has sent my spirits up to the skies; and I
am so glad Agnès brought my loveliest garments here. You need not worry
about me, Mamma, as I am sure you are beginning to! I really will be as
good as gold, but I must amuse myself a little in this my only chance.
I took such care dressing for dinner, and wore no jewels, because
everyone here has such wonderful ones. And when I was going down the
stairs I felt quite excited.
Gaston has not altered much, and I think I told you last year when we
saw him his hair is not coupé en brosse now, so he is better looking,
and he gets his clothes at an English tailor; and as Harry is not here
to contrast him with, he really seemed very attractive and you couldn't
for one instant feel he was your aunt or grandmother, or that you could
go to Australia with him safely! And while all the nice American
men--and Valerie only has the nicest--were saying bright pleasant
things, he, who was behind my chair and apparently talking to Mrs. Van
Brounker-Courtfield (she is here), managed to bend down and tell me he
adored me, and had only come to America because he found I was not in
London!
There was that lovely sense of having a secret, and although he sat on
one side of Valerie, and Tom at the other, and I was miles away with
the host--it was a huge dinner party--still his eyes said whatever eyes
could say between bouquets of flowers. On my other hand was the father
of one of the guests. Valerie had told us beforehand she considered him
not of their world, but the daughter was charming and married to a
youth who is one of their friends, so as he was staying with them she
had to ask him too. Both Octavia and I wanted to have him next us
because these characters are so much more interesting than just their
world, who are the same as Englishmen, almost, with the sex taken out,
and a more emphasised way of talking.
Octavia and I tossed up for him and I won and he was a gem,--a rugged
powerful face and grey bushy hair and really well dressed. He had eyes
that saw through one at once and beyond, and his hands were strong and
well shaped, with the most exquisitely polished nails. He did not make
horrid noises clearing his throat as lots of them do, and he was not
the least deaf. Instantly we got on. He said if we were seeing America
we were not to judge the nation by the men we should see in society in
New York (each person we meet tells us this!); that we should go out
West if we wanted to find the giant brains who make the country great.
"It's not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Latour's guests," he said,
looking round the table; "they are what they are, good enough in their
way, humming birds and mocking birds to flit among the flowers, and
pretty poor at that when you compare them with Europeans; but they
don't amount to anything for the nation. They couldn't evolve a scheme
that would benefit a foot beyond their noses!" And when I asked him why
he had allowed his daughter to marry one of them, he said with such a
whimsical air, that women in America did what they "darned well
pleased," and that he guessed that everyone had to "work out their own
problem along that line."
"The Almighty played a trick on us," he said. "Putting the desire for
one particular person into our heads, now and again in our lives leads
to heaps of trouble, and don't benefit the race. If we'd no feelings we
could select according to reason and evolve perfection in time."
Isn't that a splendid idea, Mamma? He went on to say he studied
psychology a good deal, and he found to look at life from that
standpoint was the most satisfactory way. He said it was no use mixing
up sentiment and what you thought things ought to be with what things
really were. "We've got to see the truth Ma'am, that's all," he said.
Then he said, "these cotton wool ba-lambs" never saw the truth of
anything from one year's end to another, and, "it ain't because it's
too difficult, but because they have not got a red cent of brains to
think for themselves!"
While he was saying all this he never took his eyes off me, and he
spoke with quiet force. He went on and was too interesting expounding
his theories along every line (I am getting American), and I looked up
and caught Valerie's eye, and she collapsed with laughter; she thought
it quite funny that I should find him thrilling. Presently I asked him
what his views were about us in England, we of the leisure class, and
he said he thought most of us were pretty sound because we did our
duties and generally kept our heads.
"Now, I guess, Ma'am, your husband has quite a lot of business to do in
a year?" and I said yes, that of course there was endless work in the
management of a large estate, and politics, besides hunting and
shooting, which was stern business with us! Then he told me with them
the leisured class had no responsibilities, except to keep an eye on
their brokers, and so they got into mischief.
"'Tisn't in the American blood to be idle," he said; "they can't keep
straight if they are." After that I asked him what he thought about the
English and American marriages among our nobility, and he got so
vehement that he brought his hand down on the table and made such a
clatter everyone looked.
It would take too long, Mamma, to repeat all his words, which were too
quaint; but the sense of them, was that he would forbid them by law,
because American girls to begin with had been brought up with the idea
they were to be petted and bowed down to by all men, and no Englishman
in his heart considered a woman his equal! And then to go on with, they
did not know a thing of the duties of the position, or the tenue which
is required to keep up the dignity of an old title, so when it came to
the scratch they were found wanting. "Which of 'em's got prestige, I
ask you, Ma'am, in your country? They may rub along all right, and when
it is a question of society I guess they're queens, but which of 'em
acts like the real thing in the country, or is respected by the
people?"
I really did not know what to say, Mamma, so he went on. "They're all
right sometimes till the rub, and they may do better if they've been
educated in Europe--they are so mightily adaptable; but just an
American girl like my Lola there,--I'd rather see her dead than married
to your greatest Dook."
I said I knew numbers of perfect dears married in England, and he said,
"Maybe, maybe, but if there comes a ruction, they won't grin and bear
it in silence on account of the family as you would, they will take it
into the courts, and come out on top, too; but it causes a talk and
that is not good for prestige. You asked me about the thing in
principle and I'm bound to tell you the truth. We aren't brought up on
tradition in our country, and our girls don't know what noblesse oblige
means; they consider natural feelings first; guess it's old fashioned
anyway, but it is necessary in your old country, or the game won't
work." I said I thought he held quite different views to the rest of
his countrymen, who placed their women on a pedestal above the whole
world. Then he blazed at me! "Don't you make any mistake about that.
I'm with them there; I think our women are ahead, taking them all
round, but that don't make them suited to old countries, any more than
new wine in old bottles or new patches in old garments;--breaks the
bottle and wears out the stuff."
I said I would not misunderstand him, but I was sure most of his own
country-women at the table would be offended to hear his views, and
again he said, "Maybe, maybe! Pretty empty heads; they can't reason;
they only see what they want to, but I see the straight truth."
I am not clever enough to have argued with him properly, but I did ask
him in his theorising if he did not think it was good for our old race
to have the mixture of new blood; and he said no, that by the rules of
breeding we wanted re-stocking from the primitive. "Your old families
should take a strong country lass now and then. Let 'em marry their
milk-maids and leave our hot-house plants alone. Have you read
Burbank's books?" he added. "No? Well, read 'em; you'll understand then
cause and effect; though his are all about plants. He's the greatest
giant we've got in America, in my opinion."
You will think I am being a frightful bore, Mamma, telling you all
this; and I can't give you the strange force and power of this man's
personality, which made him so interesting; but I had to write it all
because I am telling you everything which strikes me as American, and
different to us, and we have nothing like this man at home; and when
the lady at his other hand did claim his attention, Daniel Latour,
after reproaching me for my shoulder being turned to him for so long,
told me some of his history. Elias P. Arden, his name is, and he is a
senator. He has had a remarkable career, rising from nothing, and being
the bravest, coolest, hardest man in the mining camps. He is colossally
rich, and his daughter Lola is perfectly lovely, and married to a silly
young Vinerhorn, who has a country house close here.
It is so quaint how all the men stand in awe of their wives! Daniel
Latour, even though he knows Valerie is a great friend of mine, and
would not mind a bit, still kept glancing nervously across at her
whenever he said anything a little go-ahead.
After dinner, of course, the Vicomte immediately came to me. Here the
men leave the dining-room with us, like in France, and the Vicomte did
not even go back with the others to smoke. But it was all done in such
a clever way it attracted no attention.
Jack Brandon had turned up, you know, Lord Felixtowe's brother: he came
with some people with whom he is spending the Sunday, and his methods
to speak with the lady he admires were so different to the Vicomte's.
Of course he had that extraordinary sans-gêne of all those men, that
absolute unselfconsciousness which is not aware there is anyone else in
the room but himself and the lady he is bent upon; but instead of being
discreet, and making a semblance of taking an interest in the rest of
the company, as the Vicomte did, he just sprawled into a chair near
her, monopolised her conversation, and stared blankly in front of him
whenever she spoke to any one else. And Tom was doing almost the same
by Valerie. It is undoubtedly this quality of perfect ease and
unconscious insolence which for some unaccountable reason is attractive
in Englishmen. If it were assumed it would be insupportable
impertinence, but as you know, Mamma, it is not in the least. They are
perfectly unconscious of their behaviour; it is just that there is one
woman they want to speak to in a room, so that is all they see; the
rest of the people are merely furniture. Now, American men are always
polite and unselfish, and almost self-conscious where women are
concerned, whereas the French have too polished manners naturally to
allow them to forget the general company.
I tried to keep Gaston from making love to me, and when he would go on,
I said it bored me to death, and if he wanted to remain friends with me
he must simply amuse me; and then to tease him I got up and went and
talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining
look in his keen eye--he was being stiffly deferential to one of the
ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked
like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny griffon to play with it.
"They're bright as paint," he said to me when we sat down on a sofa,
pointing to Mrs. Welsh. "Dainty, pretty creatures. I don't think women
want brains, not man's brains, anyway." I am sure you would agree with
this, Mamma, and I am sure he is right.
I said to him how extraordinarily generous all American husbands and
fathers seemed to their women-kind, and what lovely clothes they had,
and what heaps of money they must spend on them; and he said, "By the
Lord, why shouldn't they? What's the use of money but to spend, and if
that's what makes them happy, let 'em." Then he added, "I'm always
grateful and kind of devotional towards women. It's only through them
we ever get a taste of heaven on this used-up old earth, and it doesn't
matter how low they've sunk, any of 'em would die for the man they
really love. Whenever I hear a man speak a disparaging word of a woman,
I know, no matter what his other qualifications are, he's a mean yellow
dog underneath."
Did you ever hear of such a darling, chivalrous gentleman, Mamma? And
his eyes got all soft, and I am _sure_, when he was younger, he had all
the quality I told you of; and though it would have been safe to go to
the moon with him because of his honour, he would have made _you_ feel
it would have been nice if he kissed you.
I told him I thought he was lovely, and he smiled rather sadly; and
although he seems to have not much knowledge of literature in a
dilettante sense, he has a great splendid mind; and if there are many
more senators like him at Washington this country ought to be the best
governed in the world. He makes you feel you are on a mountain top or
in pine forests, or some vast space, and all the people of society such
poor little things. But he is too kindly even to despise them really;
and he looks at his daughter's weak, reedy husband with affectionate
toleration as the last toy she wanted and had got. "Lola had a keen
fancy for Randolph," he said. "She liked his being a swell, and if he's
her joy, what's it to me that I could break his bones with one clasp of
my hand?" And he put out his strong well kept fingers.
You know, Mamma, I do wonder if such a man could marry one of us, who
understand that a really fine male creature is our superior and not
meant to obey us, and who would appreciate all his splendid aims, and
not think they were there just to buy us diamonds--I wonder what sort
of children we should have? They ought to be absolutely superb,
oughtn't they?
I was so thrilled with Mr. Elias P. Arden that I stayed on the sofa
with him all the evening, and he told me every sort of interesting
thing, and at last said he would like us to come and see the mining
camps with him in the West. He is a president of the railway there, and
he has a private car.
"I'll bring along a specimen of young man for your inspection, Ma'am,"
he said. "Nelson Renour, the finest young chap I've met in my life."
And when he said that, a great rush of remembrance came over me, and I
felt I should love to see him again, and I told the Senator so, and how
we had met him, and just then Tom joined us and we have arranged it
all; when we have been to Philadelphia to stay with Kitty Bond for a
day or two, we are going right out West, and shall all meet the private
car at Los Angeles and go to the camps. "Lola" and her husband are
coming, too, and anyone else we like; and the Vicomte immediately
proposed himself, as he said he is deeply interested in mining and
wants to invest some money. I think we shall have a superb time, don't
you, Mamma? And I am longing to be off, but we have still some more
social things to do, and go to one dance.
It is so late in the year all the balls are finished and lots of people
have already gone to Europe. They are having this one on purpose for
us, because Octavia said she wanted to see some young men and girls,
and how they amuse themselves. The girls have a perfectly emancipated
and glorious time, and are petted and spoilt to a degree. They don't
come much to the ladies' lunches, but they have girls' lunches of their
own, and their own motor cars and horses, or whatever else they want,
and do not have to ask their mothers' leave about anything.
Among the married women there are two distinct sets here in the inner
cream, the one which Valerie leads, and which has everything like
England, and does not go in for any of those wonderful entertainments
where elephants do the waiting with their trunks, or you sit in golden
swings over a lake while swans swim with the food on trays on their
backs--I am exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean. Valerie
says all that is in shocking taste, which of course it is. She never
has anything eccentric, only splendid presents at her cotillons, and
all the diplomats from Washington come over, and the whole tone of her
house is exactly as it is at home, except that many of them are
brighter and more amusing than we are.
Then the other set is the "go one better set,"--that is the best way I
can describe it. If one has a party one week, another must have a finer
one the week after, and so on, until thousands and thousands of dollars
are spent on flowers, for instance, for one afternoon; and in it
nothing is like England. I believe it must be purely American, or
perhaps one ought to say New York.
These two sets meet at Newport, but they won't speak to any others. I
wish we were going to stay long enough to go there.
When all the dinner party had gone, Octavia and I and one of the other
women who are staying in the house, went up with Valerie into her
sitting room, and coseyed round the fire; but when Tom and the Vicomte
knocked at the door, and wanted to come in, too, and cosey with us,
Valerie looked the wee-est trifle shocked, and rather nervously put
them off; and she said to me afterwards that the room opened right into
her bedroom, and Daniel would have been awfully cross if they had come
in! It is in tiny trifles like this that even Valerie is a fraction
provincial. I suppose she had a Puritan ancestor. Puritans, as one
knows, always have those odd minds that see something bad in
everything.
This morning some of them went to church, but I was not in time. I was
so tired I overslept myself and then stayed hours in my bath. The
bath-rooms here are superb. Certainly the American plumbers are the
best in the world. I can't imagine what the American women do when they
marry foreign noblemen and go home with them to their old castles where
they would be expected to wash in a dish.
When I got down I found Gaston pacing the library like a maniac.
_"Enfin, enfin,"_ he cried, as he kissed my hand.
"_Enfin_ what?" I said, and he told me he had been waiting here for me
the whole morning, and they would soon be home from church and he would
not get another chance to see me alone. So I just played with him a
little, Mamma!--and it was too delightful being as provoking as
possible and yet perfectly sage. Harry could not have really objected
to a word I said, but all the same it drove Gaston crazy. I have never
had a chance before, you know, because all these years, what with
having babies and the fuss and time that takes, and Harry never leaving
me for a moment, and glaring at every other man who came near, I did
not know how enjoyable a little fencing could be. And when the rest did
come back I only talked to Daniel Latour on purpose to tease Gaston,
and I really amused myself.
Lots more people came to luncheon, and though it is in the wilds of the
country, what we would call, they were all in lovely afternoon dresses,
as if it were town and the height of the season. But we were so merry
at lunch. A general conversation is far more bright and entertaining
than at home.
After lunch we walked in the woods, and I can never tell you of the
beauty of it, with the scent of Spring in the air, and the quaint wild
flowers. It is their last Sunday down here; they go off to Europe next
week.
Shoals more visitors for tea, among them a little bride who had already
got her husband to heel. She talked all the time of what _she_ was
going to do and he did not speak a word. But it is only in that sort of
way they are very emancipated, it seems, for while they are actually
married they are as good as gold, as far as looking at anyone else is
concerned. It is when they come to Europe they have flirtations like
us. But as I said before, there would not be any zest, because you can
get a divorce and marry the man so easily it makes it always _une
affaire de jeune fille_.
Now I must dress for dinner, so good-bye, dear Mamma.
Kisses to my angels.
Your affectionate daughter,