not choose them, but simply gave the Maison Bail _carte blanche_. The
Duchesse de Vaudricourt was disappointed; I believe she expected to get
diamonds. The Vicomte de Narjac and the Russian with an unpronounceable
name and a _grande passion_ for Mrs. Wertzelmann, who, I hope, knows how
to contain himself better than the Marquis, led the _cotillon_. They did
it awfully well, as if they had never done anything else all their
lives. They went somewhere and changed their clothes, and came back with
Louis Quinze perukes, crimson satin coats, with lace fichus and black
knee-breeches and stockings, and diamond buckles in their pumps. They
really looked quite smart, while an Englishman would have felt
self-conscious and foolish, and looked it.
At two o'clock the dancing ceased, and supper was served at tête-à-tête
tables on the battlements, as Mr. Wertzelmann persists in calling the
_terrasse_. The supper was delicious, and there was a waiter to each
chair; the Hungarian band came out and played, and paper balloons, in
the shape of monsters with lights inside, were sent up in the air from
the lawn.
It was awfully jolly and gay, and poor Stefano took too much champagne.
It made his eyes burn like coals; he began by telling me in Italian that
he should never forget me for my kindness in presenting him to the
Princesse di Spezzia--they left Lucerne yesterday, and so did the
Lodi--and ended by declaring he adored me. He was so fearfully earnest,
and his voice was so subdued and tender, and he never attempted any
liberties that I almost wished he would. I am sure he ought to have
been born the Marquis, and the Marquis behind a counter. He wanted me to
marry him, and told me how many lira they paid him at the shop a month,
and that we could keep a _ménage_ very well on his salary; we were to
have rooms in the Via Tornabuoni over a Bon Marché he knew of, and dine
once a week in the Cascine, and look at the smart people. It was too
absurd. But he meant it, and when I told him No firmly, two tears came
into his eyes, and he had such a Lion of Lucerne look that I almost
laughed. And he is only seventeen! Poor Stefano! if they make love like
him in Italy, I wonder how the women ever refuse. But your mamma,
Elizabeth, knows her world too well to do a _bêtise_. Stefano and his
love-making was just the last finishing touch to a delightful revel.
When he gets the champagne out of his eyes and the Hungarian band out of
his brain, he will forget me. But I think it is a mistake to admit
people of such very inferior rank into our society, even if they speak
grammatically and read Alfieri.
Comte Belladonna wilted at midnight; he danced once with Rosalie, and
would have given anything afterwards to go back to the National. He is
made more for afternoon-tea and dinner parties than for balls. He hinted
several times to Mrs. Johnson that they should go, but she is as hard as
nails, and waited till the end. When he finally did go, the sun was
rising in the Alps; he not only looked his eighty years, but had
dwindled till he looked like the boy in the Struwelpter who faded away
from starvation. I expect he wished he had never come, like the
Maréchale. Ah well, it has been a jolly jaunt, and in spite of the
dissipation I feel the better for the change. We shall both be in
England together. I wonder if you have enjoyed Croixmare as much as
Blanche and I have enjoyed Lucerne. I am so glad we didn't go to
Scarborough. Au revoir.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XVIII
CLARIDGE'S HOTEL, LONDON
14th September
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_In London_}
Blanche and I are stopping here for a few days before going home. After
all the gaiety of Lucerne Blanche declared it would give her the blues
to drop suddenly back into Somersetshire, with its biking and tennis and
gossip, so we decided to break the fall in London. Of course, town is
still _en villégiature_ as the French say, but I like it, as one can be
so much freer than in the Season.
Bond Street is _triste_ in the mornings, and as for the Park, oh, là
là!--the only people one sees there are the hospital nurses and the
policemen. We don't get up till eleven, and then go straight to Paquin,
till one. The first day we had lunch at Prince's, but there were such
funny-looking people there that we have been to the Trocadero since. I
am sure those who were at Prince's were there because they had heard it
was fashionable. The _maître d'hôtel_, who was chef to the bishop of
St. Esau, told me that there hadn't been even a baronet across the
threshold for two months. I am sure the people came from Leeds and
Birmingham, and they stared at one another as if they expected to read
Burke or Debrett written on their faces. At the Trocadero the music is
good, and though you would never dream of calling the people smart, yet
they are interesting. The women look like problem-plays, and I am sure
the men spend their time between Sandown Park and St. John's Wood.
{_At the Empire_}
We went once to the Empire, but it was awfully stupid, and I never want
to go again. Being September, the boxes were empty, and only a few of
the orchestra stalls were taken, but the gallery and the pit seemed
full, and the Aubrey Beardsley women were walking about just as usual.
But such a performance! Blanche and I never laughed once for the night;
we were told afterwards that you are not supposed to expect anything
funny at the first-class music halls now-a-days; if you want to laugh
you must go to the cheap places. A fat woman in tights and a stage
smile had some performing parrots and birds, and one or two people in
evening-dress, who have left the chorus of the Opera to star, sang
something, and there was a huge ballet whose chief features appear to be
the time and cost it takes to produce--that was all. You couldn't
imagine anything more deadly dull, and a man near us slept all through
the ballet. Blanche and I felt utterly exhausted after it; it was so
boring. They say the Palace and the Alhambra are not a bit different;
only the Palace, in place of the ballet has a Biograph, which wiggles
and makes you feel cross-eyed.
{_At Claridge's_}
We found it much jollier to spend the evenings in the drawing-room at
Claridge's. I don't know why we came to such a place, and I certainly
never will again. There are very few people stopping in the hotel, a
couple of Grand Dukes, some Americans, and the Duchess of Rougemont, who
is up in town for a few days. This morning Something Pasha, with a fez,
arrived from Cairo, and Eleanora, Countess of Merryone and her boy
husband. I am sure it is a love-match, for he won't let her out of his
sight, and looks at her as if she were something good to eat. She must
be fully twenty-five years older than he and looks it, for he hasn't a
hair on his face, and blushes when you speak to him. But she keeps her
youth, and when the Society papers call her beautiful they speak the
truth for once.
{_Countess of Merryone_}
I remember her quite well when I was your age; she was known then as the
beautiful Lady Merryone, and Society was divided into two parties, one
of which declared that she was the most beautiful woman in England, and
the other that Mrs. Palsgrave was. Their photographs were in all the
shop windows, and their portraits in every Academy, and fashions were
named after them. There was the Palsgrave toque and the Merryone bolero,
and everything they did was chronicled in the papers, just as if it
mattered. Each tried to outdo the other, and Mrs. Palsgrave, who had the
most beautiful feet you ever saw out of marble, went to an historical
fancy-ball as Cleopatra, and her feet were absolutely bare. Her
portrait was afterwards painted in the costume, but it was hung at the
salon, as it was considered too indecent for the Academy. And what a
sensation it was when Mr. Palsgrave blew his brains out in the height of
a London Season, and left so many debts that Mrs. Palsgrave to get rid
of them went on the stage, where a Serene Highness saw her and fell in
love with her, and married her. They say you wouldn't recognise her now,
she has changed so; she lives somewhere in Germany and is as grey as a
badger and as red as a lobster and bloated with beer.
But Eleanora, Countess of Merryone, is still to the fore. Merryone, who
was old enough to be her grandfather, died of a fit of jealousy; then
she turned Roman Catholic and went into a convent, but it sounds better
in books than it is in practice, and she came out again in six months
and married a Bishop within a year of Merryone's death, and buried him
within another year. She has been a Primrose Dame and a Temperance
lecturer and a Theosophist, and kept a stud at Newmarket, and edited a
daily, and started for the North Pole but turned back at Iceland, and
now she has married this boy. And she isn't a lunatic at large, but a
woman who ought to have borne children, and had cares and anxieties.
{_Disguising Age_}
It makes me feel quite old, when I think of her and Mrs. Palsgrave, and
see all the changes of the last eighteen years. But I won't think of
time and the Burial Service yet awhile. I saw Valmond in Piccadilly
to-day, and I believe I could catch him myself if I tried, for I haven't
got a grey hair, at least Thérèse manages to hide them; and I haven't
got a moustache, and my eyes haven't got wrinkles round the corners, and
my neck hasn't begun to shrink. I am only thirty-five, Elizabeth, and a
Society belle's star sets late.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XIX
CLARIDGE'S HOTEL, LONDON
16th September
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_L'Affaire Colorado_}
We met Sir Charles Bevon in Regent Street this morning. He had just
arrived from the continent, and looked it, for he wore a Glengarry cap
and a yellow and brown check travelling suit, and carried on his arm a
hideous ulster-looking thing that had stripes all over it. He said he
was going to the Café Royal to lunch, and asked us if we would join him,
and, as we wanted to hear what had happened at Lucerne after we left, we
accepted his invitation.
The Wertzelmanns' ball ended the season; when Sir Charles left a week
after us the National was almost empty. The great sensation that
followed the ball was what he called "l'affaire Colorado." You remember
my mentioning the angelically beautiful creature stopping at Schloss
Gessler? Well, it seems Count Fosca gave a breakfast-party at the
Gütsch, and said in chaff that he believed Madame Colorado was the
"_dame voilée_" of the Dreyfus Affair. This was repeated, and Madame
Colorado, it seems, nearly died of mortification. Her brother was
telegraphed for, and he came over at once from St. Moritz and challenged
Count Fosca. He was a tiny little man, with red hair and a pale face,
and looked as if Fosca's pistols would blow him to atoms. He asked Sir
Charles and Mr. Vanduzen to be his _témoins_, but both of course
refused. Mr. Vanduzen got positively funky, and said his Government
would take away his pension, if he had anything to do with duelling. So
Madame Colorado's brother asked the Marquis and the Vicomte, who jumped
at the chance. I don't know whom Fosca asked. The duel excited no end of
talk and scandal. The most awful things were said about Madame Colorado
and Mr. Wertzelmann, and poor Madame Colorado, who had had such an
unhappy marriage, and had thought of entering a convent, was simply
picked to pieces. Every one made the _affaire_ his or her own business,
and the Duchesse de Vaudricourt declared that Madame Colorado had
behaved so badly with a priest that the nuns wouldn't have her at any
price. The upshot of it all was that, after the greatest publicity and
scurrility, Count Fosca apologised, said his words had been entirely
misquoted, that he had the greatest respect for Madame Colorado, and he
took her brother and the _témoins_ over to Berne in his automobile, and
they all signed documents before the French Minister.
Sir Charles said that after that, Madame Colorado and her brother left
Lucerne with Mrs. Wertzelmann, and Mr. Wertzelmann went to Berne to
transact some diplomatic business. Sir Charles left himself immediately
afterwards, and spent some days in Paris, where he met the Vicomte, who
told him that Mrs. Isaacs had come back and broken off the engagement
between Rosalie and Count Albert. As far as the Vicomte could ascertain
she had been to Vienna to make enquiries about the Count, and found out
to her horror that he had a wife and several children, and that he
wasn't divorced. Mrs. Johnson gave the Count his _congé_ and threatened
him with all sorts of condign vengeance, but Sir Charles said Count
Albert probably laughed, as no doubt it was not the first time he had
tried the same little game.
{_Society at Lucerne_}
It was fun for a fortnight, but I am sure the society at Lucerne would
have bored me if I had stopped much longer. Of course it hasn't got the
backbone of ours at home, and all sorts of people mix in it, as you see,
from millionaires to clerks. All that is asked of one is to be amusing,
and, if you are an American, to spend your money. Nobody knows anything
really about anybody else, and, as everybody wants to be distracted,
there are no scruples as to the means employed. I should not like to see
Lucerne customs adopted in England, but after all one meets the same
sort of people in London, and, to give the devil his due, I believe that
the Hotel National set is no worse than Lord Valmond's or Mrs. Smith's.
{_Domestics_}
Sir Charles thinks we ought to try a winter at Rome. But I shall settle
down quietly at Monk's Folly for some time to come. There is one thing
I would willingly exchange with our Continental friends, and that is the
domestics in our smart hotels. Here, in England, they give themselves
the airs of royal servants, and condescend to wait on us inferior
mortals; they make me feel positively uncomfortable with their impudent
solemnity. I hear Blanche warning me from the next room not to miss the
train, so good-bye till I get home.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XX
MONK'S FOLLY, 18th September
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_At Home_}
Home once more! I never knew how much I had missed it till I got back. I
wonder how I ever left it, everything is so comfortable and refined. I
feel quite clean again--I mean morally clean, and that's a sensation
that we in our station and particular set get so seldom. I believe the
return to an English home is a moral douche. I feel virtuous; I went to
hear Mr. Frame preach in the morning and almost went again this evening.
I half made up my mind to put aside Paquin and make a guy of myself, I
felt so good; but a glimpse of Lady Beatrice in church this morning with
a Taunton milliner's dream on her back, put me off, and as soon as I had
taken a tiny blue pill and driven the hypochondria of Lucerne
dissipation away, I shall be my old self again--the self you know,
Elizabeth, all Paquin and Henry Arthur Jones.
{_Tipping_}
What an awful imposition tipping is. Servants won't look at small change
now-a-days, and when I gave the boy who works the lift five shillings,
his "Thank you" sounded just like "Damn you." Mrs. Chevington, who came
over this afternoon, told me of an experience she had the last time she
was in town, but I am sure I should never have had the courage to do
what she did. She was only three days in some hotel in the West End; she
had tipped the chamber-maid, the man in the lift, the _maître d'hôtel_,
the waiter, and sent a half-sovereign in to the cook, and was waiting
for a hansom, when up rushed a man she had never seen before to help her
into it. He took off his hat and was very polite; hotel-porter was
written all over him, and she supposed she ought to tip him, but said
her gorge rose at it, as he had never done anything for her. However,
she put a half-crown in his hat, and he never said "Thank you," which
made her so savage that she took it back again. The result was that at
Paddington the cabman thought she was stingy, and he was so abusive
that she had to call a policeman, and compel the man to take the right
fare.
But then Mrs. Chevington is masterful, and doesn't mind attracting a
crowd and being insulted, while I should have fainted with
mortification. I am sending you a cheque expressly for tips, for I know
that in country houses they are even more grasping than in hotels. I
wish Royalty would stop it, for I don't think any other means will ever
avail.
{_Uneventful Things_}
Blanche came over to supper, and to spend the night, for she said she
wanted to talk of the National and old times, and at home it was nothing
but tennis, bicycles, and church. Things have been rather uneventful
while we were away; we missed some races at Bath, to which the Parkers
took a Pullman-full of people. Lady Beatrice gave a dance, and there was
a Sunday-school feast at Braxome, when the boys pulled up all of Lady
Beatrice's geraniums, and threw stones on the roof of the stables for
the fun of hearing the horses plunge in the stalls, and, to Mr. Frame's
terror, when Lady Beatrice scolded them, they made faces at her.
{_Monsieur Malorme_}
The Blaines have had to send away Monsieur Malorme; he made love to
Daisy, and when she told him it was impertinent, he was so cut up that
one of the footmen found him trying to hang himself with his
handkerchief from a nail in the wall of his room, having first taken
down a snow-storm that Mrs. Elaine had painted when she was twelve. But
the only damage he succeeded in doing was to put his foot through the
canvas, and pull down half the wall. The Blaines have since heard that
he did a similar thing when coaching the Duke of FitzArthur. Since then,
Daisy has received threatening letters in a female hand from Soho,
giving her the choice between being summoned as a co-respondent, and
paying ten guineas. Poor Mrs. Blaine has been awfully upset about it,
and has put the matter in Mr. Rumple's hands.
I don't think there is any more gossip to tell you, save that Tom
Carterville, who was at Eton with Charlie Carriston, and went out with
the Yeomanry to South Africa, has come back. Lady Beatrice is so glad to
have him home safe and sound that she intends to return thanks to the
Almighty by entertaining a good deal.
{_Society Papers_}
Mrs. Chevington told me in the afternoon that she had read in one of the
Society papers that the Smiths have taken a house in Park Lane, and that
Mr. Wertz, the African millionaire you met at Nazeby, is engaged to
marry Cushla O'Cork, the Irish agitatress. But then, you know, the
Society papers will say anything to fill up their columns, and it must
be so hard to find something new and true every week. I like your habit
of always practising the _ingénue_, even in your letters to me, it helps
you to act it the better. I hope you will meet Lord Valmond soon again,
but of course you will, as he is sure to be visiting at the same houses.
Write me all that happens, just as I write to you. There is nothing so
nice as a letter full of what other people are doing.--Your dearest
Mamma.
LETTER XXI
MONK'S FOLLY, 29th October
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_The Hockey Season_}
The hockey season has begun here, and the game is played somewhere every
day. Of course, I only go to look on, and can't imagine myself, in a
short skirt and thick boots, rushing about a damp field. Yesterday the
Blaines had a party, and I have been having twinges of neuralgia all day
from it, for it was awfully wet and cold. Mrs. Blaine and I sat on an
iron roller, till we were chilled to the bone. There was a fog so thick
that nobody knew which side they belonged to, and Lady Beatrice, who
really at her age ought to stop, got a blow on her forehead just above
the nose. The play only stopped a minute for people to shout, "Dear Lady
Beatrice, hope you are not hurt!" and Tom Carterville took advantage of
the momentary distraction to sneak a goal. Mrs. Blaine took Lady
Beatrice indoors, and, as Lady Beatrice described it to me, she filled
a basin with blood. She showed me her ankles, and there wasn't a bit of
white skin from the knees down, but she said hockey was great fun, and
kept her in health. They always put her to keep goal, for she is so fat
it is only one chance in a hundred that a ball will pass her.
{_Father Ribbit_}
Father Ribbit came to look on, and walked back to the house with me when
the match was over. He said tea was the best part of hockey, and I
agreed with him; he tried nearly everything on the tea-table, and talked
with his mouth full of chocolate cake about the price of incense. I
really can't understand how the Blaines go to his church, but Blanche
says it is on account of her mother, who thinks Low Church schismatic.
You should have seen Father Ribbit glare at Mr. Frame when he came into
the room, looking in his hockey things as if he had been mending the
roads. Father Ribbit wears a silk neckcloth with I.H.S. embroidered on
it, and Blanche says he puts ashes on his head in Holy Week. Mrs.
Dorking, who is a Roman Catholic, told me nothing made her laugh so
much as a High Church Anglican; they were always doing odd things, which
the Low Church people called "Popish Practices," but in reality nothing
was more erroneous, and that she had heard that no two Ritualist priests
did the same things. Mrs. Blaine had induced her once to go to Father
Ribbit's, and assured her she wouldn't find any difference between her
own service and his. Mrs. Dorking said she stuffed her handkerchief into
her mouth to keep from shrieking, for Father Ribbit seemed to be making
up rites as he went along, and didn't at all look or act like a real
priest. Lady Beatrice, who happened to overhear us, and looks on Rome
and Ritualism as the abomination of abomination, said she wished Henry
the Eighth was alive, and that she would as soon think of inviting "that
Ribbit to Braxome as a play-actor."
Tom Carterville is much improved since he went to South Africa. Before
he went out he was only an overgrown boy, but the experience has made
him quite manly. His mother is always telling people in his hearing what
dangers he ran, and how brave he was. Like everybody else, she likes to
play Aunt Sally with the poor War Office, but her grievance is that Tom
hasn't been recommended for the V.C. Tom declares he never ran any
danger at all, for he was never sent to the front, and never saw a Boer
the whole time; and he didn't even get enteric, or kicked by a horse.
But Lady Beatrice fairly beams, and says it's his modesty, and she
wishes he had been shut up in Ladysmith, for she knows he would have
found a way to raise the siege, and Tom looks quite foolish, and says,
"Damn!"
{_A Maid's Audacity_}
One of the maids at Braxome dressed up in his khaki uniform the other
day, and went into the kitchen, where she frightened the servants out of
their wits at her audacity. It seems Lady Beatrice went to the servants'
hall that day, a thing she has never been known to do before, and
arrived there in time to hear the butler say to the maid:
"What would you do if Mr. Tom should catch you in his uniform?" To which
the girl replied, suiting the action to her words, "I should salute
him!"
Tom, who told me the story and put a _double entendre_ in it, like a
horrid boy, said it would be hard to say whether the servants were more
horrified to see his mother, or his mother at the unheard-of fastness of
the upper housemaid, who, he added, was a pretty little wench, and
brought him his tea in the mornings before he got out of bed.
{_Troublesome Servants_}