talking servants. Mine have been troubling me so much lately that I feel
quite martyrised. I ordered the carriage to go to Taunton the other
morning, and got myself ready, when, would you believe, that Perkins
sent in to say that I couldn't go, as the roads were too heavy and the
horses would slip! I sent for him and implored him to relent, and he
finally let Alfred drive me in the dog-cart, and Alfred drove so fast, I
thought I should be pitched out. I call it quite unkind of Perkins, and
he has been with us ten years too. Then, again, the other morning Tom
Carterville came to ask me if I could lend him any golf balls, and
Thérèse told me afterwards that she found James peeping through the
keyhole, and when she remonstrated, he threatened to blackmail me; now
I know why Lord Froom got rid of him, and I have given him notice. But
the worst of all, Elizabeth, is the new page. You know how hard it is to
get one at all. Well, finally, in despair, I followed Mrs. Chevington's
advice and sent to the workhouse in Bath for a boy. They sent me such a
pretty little fellow, about twelve years old. I had him measured for his
livery, and he looked such a dear in it, and was picking up his duties
so quickly, but I have had to send him back to Bath to his workhouse.
The kitchen cat had kittens, and cook, very foolishly, gave them to the
boy, and told him to get rid of them. Some little while later, I heard a
horrid miaouing on the lawn, and went to the window to see what it was.
I found the new page digging a hole in the geranium beds, and something
sputtering about in the earth. Fancy, Elizabeth, he was burying the poor
little kittens _alive_, the little monster! Of course I couldn't keep
him after that, could I?
So you see, darling, even if you are a pretty and rich widow, and only
live for Paquin and a good time, you still have your troubles. Lady
Beatrice says the question of servants is more troublesome than Home
Rule, and I agree with her.
Give my love to Lady Theodosia, but don't tell her that I am glad she
doesn't live in this part of the country.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XXII
MONK'S FOLLY, 31st October
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_Tom Carterville Calls_}
Tom Carterville came again this morning to ask if I would lend him Jerry
to ride to Wellington, as the equestrian cook has lamed the three
saddle-horses at Braxome. I sent to ask Perkins for permission, and
after I got it, Tom didn't seem in a hurry to go, and stopped so long
that I had to ask him to lunch, and then he waited till tea. He is an
amusing boy, but I wish he didn't look so much like his mother. When he
is a little older he is going to be enormous. You know he was at Eton
with Charlie Carriston, and declares there wasn't a greater sneak in the
school.
{_Daintree Affair_}
I told him about Cora de la Haye and the diamond necklace, and Tom says
she is just the sort of woman to make trouble, and that Lady Carriston
had better put on her life-preserver, for there is going to be a storm
of Charlie's brewing. He told me all about the Daintree affair; he
called Daintree a rotter, and says he will never marry the girl.
You know Lady Daintree went to the War Office herself, and refused to
leave till they promised to order Daintree out to South Africa at once.
The girl is suing for breach of promise,--ten thousand pounds
damages,--Tom says that the Daintree barony will never stand it, for it
hasn't recovered from the late lord's plunging on the turf. He says that
Connie Metcalfe is good enough for Daintree, who is an awful mug, and
that a Gaiety girl would make as good a ladyship as a _coryphée_ at the
Empire. It seems to me that Lady Daintree is herself to blame for it
all; if she had used tact with her son and brought him up sensibly, she
wouldn't have to eat her pride now.
I asked Tom if he intended to follow the fashion and marry in the
theatrical world, and have Lady Beatrice begging the War Office to send
him to the Front, so that he might die sooner than disgrace her. He
looked at me with a queer expression and said he preferred to follow the
other fashion now in vogue, and marry a beauty twice his age. I told
him I believed he was thinking of Miss Tancred of Exeter, the temperance
lecturer, who read "L'Assommoir" to the Braxome tenantry last week, and
who wears short hair, green goggles and a bicycle skirt, and is fifty,
if she is a day. Tom laughed, and said I had hit the right nail on the
head. A jolly youngster, and might do for you, Elizabeth, if Valmond
turns sour. He will have Braxome and twenty thousand a year when Lady
Beatrice dies.
{_Dinner at Astley Court_}
To-night I dined at Astley Court; the Parkers have a large house-party.
Miss Parker is to marry Clandevil in ten days, the invitations have been
out some time; it is to be a very grand affair. Both she and the Duke
appear bored with one another already, and Mr. Parker has been heard to
say to a compatriot that his daughter had made him promise her a title,
and that he had bought her an English duke; it was a bit off colour, but
good at the price.
{_An Odious Man_}
I went in to dinner with an odious man, a Mr. Sweetson; he is Mr.
Parker's partner in America, and was so patronising. He wore a button
with the American flag on it, just like Mr. Wertzelmann the night of the
ball at Schloss Gessler, and underneath it there was another one of
white enamel with "Let her go, Gallagher," in black letters on it. I
wonder what it could have meant; I would have asked him, but I thought
it might seem rude. The people at Croixmare couldn't have eaten worse
than Mr. Sweetson; he put his napkin in his collar, and it was well he
did, for he spilled his soup all over it, and he sucked his teeth when
he had finished. I asked him what he thought of England, and he replied
that he preferred to spend his money in his own country, and couldn't
see how a man like Mr. Parker, who had the brains to make the big
fortune he had, could settle down in one of the effete countries of the
Old World. And he added if he had his way he would put the Monroe
Doctrine into force and drive Europe altogether out of America. He
became quite _farouche_, and I am sure he is an Irish-American, for they
say they hate us more than the other Americans. Algy Chevington told me
that Mr. Sweetson is a Tammany Tiger, whatever that is; at any rate it
isn't anything nice, and I am sure Mr. Parker had better put him to eat
in the servants' hall hereafter. He is some relation to Mrs. Parker, for
he called her Cousin Petunia; Clandevil looked as if he could have
strangled him, and Algy says Mr. Parker must have put down millions in
hard cash, or Clandevil would never go through with the marriage.
Mr. Sweetson stepped on Lady Beatrice's yellow brocade after dinner, and
ripped out fully a yard of stitches. You should have seen the glance she
gave him; it was more terrible than the one she bestowed on Mr. Frame
the day he was unlucky enough to beat her at tennis. Mr. Sweetson was
awfully embarrassed; if it had been anyone less objectionable, I should
have felt sorry for him. He only made matters worse by asking her what
it cost, for he would send her ladyship a dress the following day at
double the price. Lady Beatrice put up her _pince-nez_, and stared at
him without uttering a word; then she sailed across the room and sat
down beside Mrs. Chevington. "Cousin Petunia" told Mr. Sweetson that if
he wanted to smoke, he would find the gentlemen in the billiard-room. He
took the hint.
{_Mrs. Dot_}
Tom Carterville came and sat down next to me, and made me nearly choke
with the funny things he said about the Parkers, and he believes his
mother will drop them. There is such a garrulous old lady stopping at
Astley, Mrs. Dot; Tom took her in to supper. She came across the room
and joined us. She began to talk about the nobility, and told us she
considered she belonged to it, for though she was an American, she could
trace her ancestry back to the Scottish Chiefs, and she asked Tom what
he thought it would cost to have Burke put her in the peerage among the
collateral branches. Then she told us she was descended also from
Admiral Coligny. Poor dear Coligny, she called him, and she certainly
would have been a Roman Catholic, if it hadn't been for Coligny. Tom
asked her quite innocently if she had left Coligny in America, and when
he intended to come over. "When he comes to Astley, Mrs. Dot," he said,
"be sure you let me know, I'll give him a run with the West Somerset
Harriers."
"He's _dead_! Mr. Carterville," she fairly shrieked.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought from the way you spoke that
he was in New York or Chicago, making money like all nice Americans."
"Oh, is it possible, Mr. Carterville," she went on, "that you have never
heard of Coligny, poor dear Coligny, who was killed in the St.
Bartholomew Massacre!"
"With all due respect to your relation," Tom said, "I never heard of the
sad catastrophe; I don't read any but the sporting papers. I suppose the
what-do-you-call-it massacre was in one of your little wars on the
frontier. I hope they didn't get his scalp, Mrs. Dot."
Miss Parker, who was sitting quite near and heard every word, turned
round and said, "Don't you see they are making fun of you, Aunt?" Mrs.
Dot turned very red and simpered, and Tom and I felt as if we were
looking for the North Pole.
I do call it unkind for people to make you feel uncomfortable in their
houses. These Parkers are not at all like the Wertzelmanns and the other
Americans I met at Lucerne. And I am sure if Lady Beatrice does call on
them, that Lady Archibald Fairoaks and the Marchioness of Runymede, who
are the nicest kind of Americans, wouldn't. Good-night, darling, I shall
expect to hear from you to-morrow.--Your dearest Mamma.
* * * * *
{_Novel-reading Servants_}
_P. S._--When I got back from Astley to-night, I had the greatest
difficulty to get into the house. No one answered the bell, and finally
Perkins, who has a key to the kitchen, let me in that way. I went into
the dining-room and rang and called; still no one came. I then went
upstairs and found Thérèse, the two maids, the cook, and the new page,
sitting round a blazing wood fire in my bed-room, and cook was reading
"The Master Christian" to them aloud!
I cried from pure vexation, for one can't send all one's servants away
at the same time. I am sure I can't see why the lower classes should
have novelists, but they have everything just like us now-a-days. And
when I was in town last month, at Claridge's, the Duchess of Rougemont
told me she didn't know what the world was coming to, for her maid
belonged to a Corelli Society, and she had actually sat next her own
footman at a Paderewski Recital the last time the pianist was in
London.
LETTER XXIII
MONK'S FOLLY, 2nd November
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_Theatricals_}
The Blaines had some theatricals yesterday in St. Leo's school-house, to
raise money to give Father Ribbit a host. In spite of the weather being
horrid I went. They acted "My Lord in Livery," and a manager came down
from a West End theatre to stage it. They only cleared two guineas when
all expenses were paid, which of course won't buy a host, though Mrs.
Blaine suggested they might find a second-hand one cheap in an old
curiosity shop. I thought the acting was atrocious, but they were all
mightily pleased with themselves, and are now thinking of playing "The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray," and renting the Taunton theatre. But that is
always the way with amateurs.
{_Church and Theatricals_}
Lady Beatrice is getting up tableaux at Braxome in opposition, and Mr.
Frame came to-day to ask me to help. Tom brought me a nice note from
his mother, imploring me to say Yes, and I have consented, and there is
to be a lunch at Braxome to-morrow to decide on what we shall do. Lady
Beatrice says she feels it her duty to use all her influence with the
Bishop to have Father Ribbit tried by the Ecclesiastical Court. There is
every sign of a church war, for Mrs. Blaine declares she will write to
her uncle, who is in the Cabinet, to back up Father Ribbit. And it's
nothing but church and theatricals; as you know down here in the country
it is always church and something else. I shall do all I can to fan the
fire, and Tom has promised to help me, for we are so terribly dull,
anything will serve to wake us up a bit.
{_The De Mantons_}
I have called on the Vane-Corduroys, who have leased Shotover Park from
the De Mantons. Poor Lady de Manton cried when she left it, and is
living in a boarding-house on the Parade at Weston-super-mare; old Lord
de Manton has gone up to London, where he thinks he can get a
Chairmanship of a City Company for the sake of his name. The Honourable
Agatha has gone out to South Africa on a hospital ship, and her brother,
the Honourable de Montgomery de Manton, whom, you remember, we met once
on the Promenade at Cannes, and I wouldn't let you bow to him because he
was walking with such an impossible woman, has joined the Imperial
Yeomanry as a trooper. The family seems quite broken up; it is rather a
pity, as they had been at Shotover since the Conquest. Mrs. Blaine says
it is all due to Kaffirs; that Lord de Manton would set up as a
stockbroker, and you know what a mess he got the lunatic asylum accounts
into the year he was treasurer. But, as Mrs. Blaine says, he will
probably be back at Shotover within a year, for he is just the sort of
man they like to get on directorates in London, and that is such a
paying profession now-a-days. He told Lady Beatrice that if worse became
worst with him he knew the Colonial Office would give him an island to
govern. He didn't seem very depressed when he left, but Lady de Manton
was completely _bouleversée_. Tom told me that she had written to his
mother to say that Weston-super-mare was intolerable; they gave her
Brussels sprouts and boiled beef six days running; she wanted Lady
Beatrice to help her get the post of stewardess on one of the new West
Indian line steamers to Jamaica; she makes a point of the fact that she
was never sick when crossing the Channel. She seems willing to do
anything till poor Lord de Manton "arrives."
{_The Vane-Corduroys_}
How I digress! I started to tell you of the Vane-Corduroys, and I
shunted off to the De Mantons; you will think me as garrulous as an old
maid.
I don't know how the Vane-Corduroys got their money, but I think it was
out of "Sparklets," though Tom says he is sure he has seen "Corduroy's
Lung Tonic" on the signboards at the Underground stations. Lady
Beatrice, who takes up every new person out of sheer curiosity, called,
and of course everybody else had to. But Lady Beatrice, who always has a
reason for everything she does, said that she did it for Lady de
Manton's sake, who had told her that if the Vane-Corduroys were properly
_rangé_, it would help Lord de Manton in the City. Mr. Vane-Corduroy is
the very type of a company-promoter; you know what I mean--they are
always paunchy, and wear frock-coats, and top-hats, and have a
President-of-a-Republic air. Mrs. Vane-Corduroy has dyed hair, the
colour of tawny port, and she dresses like the ready-made models at
Peter Robinson's. She looks exactly like a doll, and all the time I was
talking to her, I felt that if I pinched her waist, she would say "Made
in England." I am sure you wind her up with a key. They have completely
changed the drawing-room at Shotover--you remember what a splendid air
there was about it, with the old, worm-eaten Flemish tapestry, and the
oak panelling--well, they have had the upholsterers down from Maple's,
and it is now spick-and-span Louis Quinze; there are foot-stools in
front of all the chairs, and the De Manton ancestors have all got new
gilt frames. They have two children, a boy and a girl. The girl is about
twelve, and has a French governess, a strange-looking woman, something
like Louise Michel, with a moustache. Mrs. Vane-Corduroy told me she
had the highest references, and that she had come to them from a Russian
Grand-Duke's family. The boy is at Eton.
I asked them how they thought they would like Somersetshire. Mrs.
Vane-Corduroy said she missed town--there was no Church Parade, no
Prince's, no Bond Street, and no dear little Dog Cemetery, like the one
in the Park. She thought the latter was such a peaceful spot, and she
felt quite happy to think that Fido would rest there till the
Resurrection, under his little Carrara marble cross. It was evidently a
very depressing subject, and Mr. Vane-Corduroy hastened to change it by
saying that his wife found the country a bit lonely just at first, but
people had been very kind in calling on them, and that he was sure they
would like it immensely, as he intended to fill the house with people
from town, and that they should always spend the season at their house
in Grosvenor Square, and part of the winter at Nice; and when they were
not visiting, they would either be yachting, or at their shooting-box in
the highlands. In fact, he gave me to understand that they would
probably never be more than a couple of months in the year at Shotover.
They have taken seats at Father Ribbit's, and they have subscribed most
liberally to all the local charities. I must say I think it rather an
imposition, for they hadn't been in the county a week, before they were
inundated with appeals for money; but, as Lady Beatrice says, that if
such people will mix in our set, they must pay for it, and besides,
their names and the sums they give are published in the Taunton papers,
so that it is not as if they were not getting any return for their
money.
{_A Eulogy_}
I suppose it does pay in the end, for the Rector of St. William's
preached a regular eulogy on Mr. Parker last Sunday, who is restoring
the whole church, for he found some old dilapidated tablets in it with
"Parker" on them, and he is sure they are his ancestors. He had a letter
of thanks from the Bishop about it, and the _Times_ devoted a column to
it; said it was such things that drew America and England together, and
that Mr. Parker's love of architecture was only equalled by his
knowledge of it, and that St. William's restored would be an everlasting
monument, in Early English Gothic, to his memory. And I don't believe
Mr. Parker knows a gargoyle from a reredos.
I must stop now, darling, for Mrs. Chevington has just called, and I
must go down and see her. I shall expect to hear from you
to-morrow.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XXIV
MONK'S FOLLY, 4th November
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_A Frightful Thing_}
Such a frightful thing happened yesterday. The Vane-Corduroys came to
return my call in their motor-car, and it blew up at the front door. One
of the wheels fell into the conservatory, and the groom was picked up
insensible on the lawn. He had to be brought into the house, where he
has been ever since, and is likely to be for some days, for Dr. Smart
says if he is moved in his present state he will die. Fortunately for
the Vane-Corduroys they had just entered the house, or they might have
been killed. You never heard such a noise; it sounded like a cannonade,
and Perkins says it will cost me at least one hundred pounds to repair
the damage. The Vane-Corduroys apologised profusely, and looked as if
they wished they had been blown up along with the groom to hide their
confusion. Perkins and the gardener have been picking up bits of
motor-car all over the grounds to-day. I had to send the Vane-Corduroys
back to Shotover in the victoria.
{_Rehearsal of Tableaux_}
We had a rehearsal of the tableaux at Braxome in the evening. Lady
Beatrice looked absurd as Britannia; she posed herself after the tail of
a penny; Mr. Parker as Uncle Sam, and Mr. Vane-Corduroy as John Bull,
shaking hands, were quite good, but Mr. Frame, who was working the red,
white, and blue light, set fire to himself, and might have been burned
to death, but for his presence of mind. He put himself out by wrapping
himself in Lady Beatrice's Gobelin tapestry, which she had specially
made in Paris last year. You should have seen Lady Beatrice's face, and
she called him "Frame," as she always does when she is angry with him,
and she told him he might have waited till they brought some water to
throw over him. Mrs. Vane-Corduroy, as Lady Macbeth going to murder
Duncan, would have been effective, if she hadn't laughed in the middle
of it. Everybody said that Tom and I in "The Black Brunswicker's
Farewell" were the best, but Tom squeezed me so, I could hardly breathe,
and when the curtain dropped he said we must do it over again for an
encore.
We think the tableaux will be a great success, for all the tickets on
sale at Mr. Dill's, the chemist, have been sold, and he wrote to ask
Lady Beatrice if he could have some more printed. Mrs. Parker told Lady
Beatrice it was awfully good of her to give her drawing-room over to the
"peasantry," as she calls the Taunton people.
{_An Excellent Chef_}
To-day the Vane-Corduroys had a lunch-party. They have an excellent
_chef_. Mr. Vane-Corduroy said he was five years with the Duchess of
Rougemont, and only left because the Duchess refused to pay for the
tuning of his piano. I think the Vane-Corduroys are afraid of him.
Thérèse tells me that he has a room fitted up as a studio at Shotover,
and that he exhibits every year at the Salon, and only cooks from the
love of it. He has his meals in his own apartments. Mrs. Vane-Corduroy
showed me several photographs of Fido, and one of his grave in the Dog
Cemetery; he was run over by a 'bus in the Bayswater road; and Mrs.
Vane-Corduroy shed tears when she told me of it, and she said she went
into mourning for him for three months, and a Royal Academician is at
present at work on his portrait from one of the photographs. She intends
to have it hung in the Academy next year, and when I suggested that
sometimes the best pictures of the best artists were rejected, she said
that Mr. Vane-Corduroy had seen about it already, for he had put the
Duke of Rougemont on to something good in the City, and the Duke had
promised that he would see the picture was hung, and not skied either.
{_Two Visitors_}
Two women are visiting at Shotover, friends of Mrs. Vane-Corduroy. They
look as if they were made at Marshall & Snelgrove; they wore pearl
necklaces over their tailor-made walking suits, and long gold chains
with uncut sapphires, and their fingers are covered in rings. I forget
what Mrs. Vane-Corduroy called them, but she said they were old friends
of hers, and such clever girls. It seems they were left rather poorly
off, and to gain a living began by giving dancing lessons to some
people in Maida Vale. They succeeded so well that they now have an
"Academy" in Mayfair, and go about the country as well, giving private
instruction; their brother had a gymnasium in Brighton, but got the war
fever at Ladysmith time, and went out to the front in Paget's Horse, and
the sisters are now running the gymnasium--a School for Physical
Culture, Mrs. Vane-Corduroy called it. She says that is why they know so
many people we do, Elizabeth, for they spoke of Lord Valmond, and Mr.
Wertz, and the Smiths, and the Duke of Clandevil, as if they were on
quite intimate terms with them. I have no doubt it is very creditable of
them to earn their living, but it seems strange to meet them in Society.
Really everything is changing now-a-days. I am thinking of telling Lady
Beatrice and suggesting to her that they should do Indian clubs or
cannon balls after the tableaux, and it would be quite easy to get out a
man from Taunton to put up a trapeze in the drawing-room at
Braxome.--With love from your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XXV
MONK'S FOLLY, 6th November
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_The Tableaux_}
The tableaux were a great success, and Lady Beatrice gave the Taunton
people sandwiches and ginger-beer afterwards in the dining-room. Only
one of her Sèvres dishes was broken, and Mr. Frame dropped a Bohemian
goblet that was made in 1530, and had belonged to Wallenstein. He was so
frightened that he didn't dare tell Lady Beatrice, and she believes one
of the footmen did it.
{_The Baron_}