and the Vane-Corduroys' _chef_ did the devilled oysters _à la reine de
Serbie_. Mr. Sweetson has gone back to London, so fortunately I didn't
have my appetite taken away. He is giving a big dinner at the Carlton to
the Copper Trust Directors in honour of a _coup_ he made on the Stock
Exchange by wire. I don't exactly understand what it is, but I believe
he bought all the copper in the world, and that the value of the common
or garden penny will go up. Mrs. Dot came, and after what happened the
other night at Astley, I was particularly civil to her. She was quite
good-natured, and took the olive branch. She asked me if I could
recommend a dentist in Taunton; it seems that when she goes to bed she
always puts her false teeth in a glass of water, and one of the maids
threw them away in the slops by mistake. Fortunately she keeps two sets,
upper and lower, but the spare plate was made in a great hurry and
bruises her gums. I told her Fellowes in Taunton advertised to make a
set while you wait, but I didn't know how long he made you wait, and she
is going to him to-day. She told me a story about a Baron Finck von
Finckelstein whom she met in America, quite by chance, in a restaurant
where he was a waiter. The Baron has a ruin on the Rhine, and the family
had become so impoverished that he decided to go to America, where he
landed literally in his shirt-sleeves, and on account of his elegant
manners, Mrs. Dot said, he of course got a situation as waiter in a
restaurant; and the proprietor made an awfully good thing out of him,
for he got one of the New York Sunday papers to devote a column to the
Baron and the restaurant. It was a capital advertisement; the article
was illustrated, and there were cuts of Schloss Finckelstein, the ruin
on the Rhine, of the Baron as he landed in New York, of the Baron
waiting in the restaurant, and of the proprietor. Mrs. Dot said that
there was such a rush for tables that one had to go awfully early to get
one, and that the Baron must have made quite a good thing out of it, for
nobody would have dared give him less than a dollar tip. As the Baron
couldn't wait on everybody, the proprietor had _édition de luxe_ menus
printed with the Finckelstein twenty-four quarterings on them which you
could take away as souvenirs. And Tom Carterville, who was sitting next
to me, said he knew the De Mantons had made a mistake in not going to
America. Mrs. Dot quite jumped at the idea; she knew the family would do
well, and that they would very likely get an engagement all together to
travel about the country with Barnum's. She was sure that a whole
family of Norman Conquest aristocrats would draw just like the Baby
Venus or the Missing Link. Tom looked sheepish, and I believe Mrs. Dot
is not as simple as she seems, and was getting at him.
{_A Subscription Ball_}
There is a subscription ball at the Carterville Arms in Taunton
to-night. The tickets are four shillings. Lady Beatrice is the
patroness, and the money will be given to the Soldiers' Widows' and
Orphans' Fund. Of course everybody will go, and Paquin sent me such a
dream of a frock this morning. I wish you could meet me in town next
week for the Clandevil-Parker wedding, but of course if Lord Valmond is
in your neighbourhood it would be folly for you to leave. I have written
to Octavia to bring him to the scratch. She is so clever and such a
dear, and knows how to help you just as if I myself were with you. I am
expecting daily to hear you have caught him. Best of luck from--Your
dearest Mamma.
* * * * *
{_An Accident_}
_P. S._ 6.30 P.M.--Mrs. Chevington came to tea this afternoon and
brought the news that Mr. Vane-Corduroy was rabbit shooting this
morning and blew off two of his fingers. It seems his man gave him ball
cartridge by mistake, and the bullet hit Lady Beatrice's horse as she
was driving past the field in which Mr. Vane-Corduroy was shooting at
the time of the accident. Poor Lady Beatrice was frightened out of her
wits, and Mr. Vane-Corduroy, who saw her passing and heard her scream,
thought he had killed her. Mrs. Chevington says she thinks the
Vane-Corduroys were more worried over killing Lady Beatrice's horse than
over Mr. Vane-Corduroy's missing fingers. Mrs. Vane-Corduroy at once
despatched a note to Braxome, full of the profoundest apologies, and
saying they had taken the liberty of wiring instantly to Tattersall's to
send down a horse to replace the one Mr. Vane-Corduroy was so
unfortunate as to kill. Mrs. Chevington was at Braxome when the letter
arrived. She says Tom told his mother that she should accept the new
horse, as it would be undoubtedly superior to the old crock that jogged
her about the country, and he thought that before Cockney millionaires
turned country gentlemen they ought to take lessons at a shooting
gallery.
* * * * *
{_The Ball_}
_P. S. S._ 2.30 A.M.--I have just got home from the ball at the
Carterville Arms, and as I find your letter has not been posted, and I
am not very sleepy, I will add a postscript to it before going to sleep.
The ball was a financial success, and the Mayor told Lady Beatrice her
patronage was invaluable. He took her in to supper, and in his speech he
spoke of nothing but her ladyship's virtues. As Tom said, he made you
feel that the ball had been given expressly for her benefit, and not at
all for the Soldiers' Widows and Orphans. Of course, the Vane-Corduroys
were not present, and there was an alarming rumour at one time that Mr.
Vane-Corduroy was bleeding to death. Everybody came up to Lady Beatrice,
and congratulated her on her narrow escape. In fact, at supper the Mayor
quite drew tears to the Taunton people's eyes when he referred to it.
Lady Beatrice tried to look unconcerned, as if she deprecated the
Mayor's fine compliments, but when in a faltering voice he declared how
the whole countryside would miss "good, honest, steady old Jock, who had
for so many years drawn her ladyship about on her errands of mercy,"
Lady Beatrice burst into tears, and the Mayor became so affected at the
havoc he had wrought, that he wished "the bullet of the London mushroom"
(poor Mr. Vane-Corduroy bleeding to death at Shotover!) had lodged in
his own magisterial breast. Mr. Parker whispered to me that the Veuve
Clicquot was sweeter than usual.
{_Tom Proposes_}
There was a daïs at one end of the ball-room, and here Lady Beatrice
received the "canïle" as Mr. Parker expressed it. She wore purple velvet
and amethysts, and looked perfectly monstrous, and the room was so hot
that beads of perspiration formed on her temples, and made little lanes
in the rouge on her cheeks. Nevertheless, in spite of her appearance,
Lady Beatrice can be quite _grande dame_ when she wishes, and she did
the honours of the evening in the most dignified way. And I suppose if
you are a duke's daughter, and have such a place as Braxome Towers and
twenty thousand a year, you can afford to look like a scarecrow. The
floors were awfully good, and all my partners danced well. But, would
you believe it, that silly boy, Tom Carterville, actually proposed to
me, and was quite serious about it too! We were sitting in a sort of
ante-room by ourselves, and Tom, who is anything but shy, suddenly
became as awkward and bashful as a school-girl, and blurted out how
madly he loved me, and had ever since he saw me at Braxome the day he
got back from South Africa. He looked just like his mother, and I could
hardly keep from laughing, and tried to turn all he said into a joke.
Then he got quite hot and perspiry and breathed hard, and he begged me
to accept him; he had never loved any one as he did me, and he didn't
ever think of or mind the difference in our ages. He acted just like
they do in Miss Braddon, and accused me of having given him every
encouragement, and wondered how God could make a woman so fair and so
false. He took me by the hands and looked into my eyes, then dropped
them and groaned, and wished they'd sent him to the Front in South
Africa. I knew he meant all he said too, because he was so earnest, and
I could have half pitied him if he hadn't looked so much like Lady
Beatrice. He made me feel so uncomfortable, for I thought someone would
come into the room every minute, and I begged him to take me back to the
ball-room and not be a silly boy. He laughed such a queer laugh; it had
a sort of sob in it, and he said quite fiercely that I didn't know how I
had wounded him, but that he loved me all the same, and that if he
remained in Somersetshire and was near me all the time, the wound would
never heal; and he intends to go out to South Africa at once, and is
going up to London to-morrow, for he wanted plenty of action and
excitement and danger to help him pull himself together again.
{_Tom Rejected_}
I begged him on no account, if he loved me, to tell his mother, for she
would never speak to me again. He said, did I really have such a poor
opinion of him, and it hurt him cruelly, for he was a gentleman and a
man of honour. I told him he could kiss me just once, if he liked, for
he was so very much in earnest, and that we should part friends. But he
wouldn't, for he said the memory of it would haunt him.
When we got back to the ball-room people stared at us awfully hard, and
I heard that odious Mrs. Fordythe tell someone, "He is too good for that
frivolous little Paquin doll." I am sure she meant me. I do wish boys
wouldn't fall in love with one, for they are so serious and earnest and
masterful, and make one feel as if one had really done them an injury. I
whispered to Tom before he left me, right in the midst of a horrid lot
of frumpy chaperones, that I hoped he would come back safe from South
Africa, and he said I was rubbing it in, and he hoped the first bullet
would strike home. I really thought someone would hear, he spoke so
loud. And there is no telling, Elizabeth, if Tom had been older and not
so much like his mother, I might have taken him, for Braxome and twenty
thousand a year are not to be found at one's feet every day. But, as it
is, it is quite out of the question, and I charge you not to mention a
word of this to anyone, for it would be sure to get back here, and
people say such nasty things. Good-night.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XXVI
MONK'S FOLLY, 8th November
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_Typhoid Fever_}
Mrs. Blaine and six others of Father Ribbit's flock are down with
typhoid fever. Dr. Smart and the sanitary inspector have traced it to
the Communion wine at St. Leo's. The London papers have got hold of the
story, and yesterday's _Daily Sensation_ had an article on it headed
"Bacteria in the Chalice," "Typhoid in a Cup of Holy Wine." Mr. Parker
says it beats anything he ever read in an American paper, and thinks we
have nothing more to learn in that line from Yankee journalism.
Naturally it has been a nasty knock for the Ritualists, and will
frighten people away from the sacrament at St. Leo's. Father Ribbit
wrote to the Taunton papers to-day about it, and said that he will
henceforth advocate the "separate vessel" system, which he understands
is in vogue in America, and he is soliciting subscriptions for fifty
chalices.
At Mr. Frame's, Lady Beatrice, to whom the cup is always passed first,
set the fashion of wiping the rim with her handkerchief, which
precaution has, till the present, been efficacious. The Chevingtons, the
Blaines, and the best families who go to St. Leo's, are going to provide
their own communion cups, but, as Mr. Parker said, it will be
interesting to note the strength of Father Ribbit's head, for he has to
drink all the wine that is left over that not a drop may be wasted, as
of course it is sacred. Altogether, the typhoid at St. Leo's has opened
some curious speculation, and has for the moment put all other topics
out of consideration.
Mr. Vane-Corduroy has been pronounced out of danger; his mangled fingers
have been successfully amputated. He will not be able to go up to town
to-morrow to the wedding of Miss Parker, but the doctor says he must go
to the Riviera for a change as soon as possible, as the shock to his
system has been a great one. So after this week Shotover will be shut
up.
{_Tom Enlists_}
Tom Carterville left for London the day after the ball, as he said, and
Lady Beatrice was in consternation on getting a telegram from him saying
he would sail for the Cape in the new draft of Yeomanry in a week's
time. As I feel that I am in a measure responsible for the grief at
Braxome and Tom's exile, I wrote him a nice little note to-day, and
enclosed a bunch of forget-me-nots and my photo.
I hardly see anything of Blanche now-a-days; since she and Daisy have
taken up theatricals so seriously they have no time for dropping in for
tea as they used. Of course, now that Mrs. Blaine is ill, they will be
busier than ever, though Mrs. Chevington, who was here this morning,
says that they are both still at work rehearsing the "Second Mrs.
Tanqueray." Daisy's head seems quite turned by the praise she got in
that non-professional drawing-room thing, "My Lord in Livery." She told
Mrs. Chevington she always knew she had acting in her, and she wants to
go up to London and go on the stage. But that is always the way with
amateurs. They begin with one of these pieces peculiar to Church
entertainments that one never sees, save in country school-rooms, and
they immediately afterwards try Sheridan or Pinero. One hardly knows
which is duller to watch.
{_A Droll Performance_}
And talking of plays reminds me that I was particularly asked by Lady
Beatrice to go to the Taunton Orphan Asylum this afternoon and see the
children do "The Merchant of Venice." It was the drollest performance I
ever remember attending. When I got there I found two long files, one of
boys, the other of girls, waiting in a corridor outside of the hall. A
caretaker, with a nose like Job Trotter's, was keeping the "sexes
separated," and the children, who were anywhere from five years of age
up to ten, were jabbering like a lot of rooks. I instinctively wondered
what would happen if Mr. Trotter's authority was withdrawn for a few
minutes. While I waited for the door of the hall to be opened, Lady
Beatrice and the matron arrived, and Lady Beatrice, who wore a sort of
short bicycle skirt, and a felt hat with a pheasant's feather in it, and
looked as if she ought to have carried a bunch of edelweiss and an
alpenstock with a chamois-horn handle, exclaimed, in her voice which is
always down in her boots:--
"Ah, my little dears! Each good little boy and girl is going to be given
an apple and a bun, and each bad little boy and girl will get a slice of
bread without any butter. Now I hope you will all be good little boys
and girls."
"Yes, please, ladyship," they all piped in unison, and the matron let us
all into the hall.
I don't know whether it was droller to watch the brats murder
Shakespeare, or the marked interest taken in the performance by Lady
Beatrice, the matron, and some of the patronesses. Shylock was too
absurd; he was about ten and wore a funny little goatee. He nor any of
the others understood a word of what they were saying; they had learnt
it by heart like the alphabet, and recited it in shrill sing-song. When
Master Shylock called for the scales, they brought him a pair such as
you see in doll's houses, and when he sharpened his little knife, Lady
Beatrice's "little dears" stood up in their seats with excitement and
squeaked like a lot of guinea-pigs. But even more comical than the
children mouthing Shakespeare was the fact of the stage-manager of a
London theatre, that Lady Beatrice has had down once a week for the last
two months to coach the little actors, coming before the curtain and
making a speech, in which he told a lie that was so big I should have
thought he would have been afraid he would be struck down like Ananias.
He had the cheek to tell us that the Shylock with the goatee and the
doll's scales was an undeveloped Roscius--and Lady Beatrice and the
matron believed him.
The matron told me that Shakespeare was such a refining influence and
that the children were so much improved by his plays, and she was quite
horrified when I replied I thought a pantomime would do them more good.
After the performance the "little dears" sat down at long tables and
devoured apples and buns, and squeaked like guinea-pigs.
Lady Beatrice said it was a huge success, and that they would try, "As
You Like It," next year. When Mr. Parker said that Britons as a race
had no sense of humour Lady Beatrice should have told him to go with me
to see her "little dears" interpret Shakespeare. I am sure he would have
changed his mind.--Your dearest Mamma.
LETTER XXVII
MONK'S FOLLY, 11th November
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_The Doraines_}
Am so glad to hear Valmond has turned up at Chevenix Castle. You have it
all your own way now. I hear it was the Doraines who gave the
Vane-Corduroys their first start last year. It seems the Doraines were
in awfully low water and at their wit's ends what to do. Mrs. Chevington
says they had almost decided to go to Boulogne when Lord Doraine met Sir
Dennis O'Desmond and advised them to go to Bayswater, for he said that
three months there had pulled him straight. It seems you take a house in
a terrace, go to the nearest church, and buy groceries and meat in the
neighbourhood, and everybody calls. That's the way the Doraines found
the Vane-Corduroys. Mrs. Vane-Corduroy was presented by Lady Doraine; it
cost an enormous sum, and Lord Doraine told Algy Chevington he was
making quite a tidy income in Bayswater terraces. I should think Lord
de Manton might follow his example, but I suppose he is too old for
Society. Lady de Manton has gone up to London to him. She is not going
as stewardess to Jamaica: Lord de Manton has got "put on" to something,
it's to do with a Government Contract; and is very secret and
mysterious. They have taken a maisonette in Chelsea, and I am so glad
for poor Lady de Manton, for they treated her quite like one of
themselves at her boarding-house at Weston-super-mare.
{_Society Beauties_}
Your account of the ball was amusing; Octavia looked after you, as I
knew she would, and managed to play Valmond very cleverly for you. She
wrote me herself to say he was so firmly hooked that he would be landed
now without any difficulty. I can't help smiling at your being surprised
to find that the Society beauties that the papers rave about are _quite,
quite old_, and not really beautiful at all. Did you think that "age
could not wither them, nor custom stale their infinite variety"? Nor was
I at all surprised to hear that they flirted with boys; they always do
at their age; it's their chief amusement to pick out the nicest and
handsomest boys and make men of the world of them. Dolly Tenderdown may
only look fifteen and behave "grown-up," but, depend on it, he knows as
much of life as Lord Valmond. Those pretty youngsters have a very quick
intelligence, and between the mess-room and the ball-room there is not
much that they have not learnt. Immaculate to look at, my experience of
them is that they are anything but clean. Tom Carterville belonged to
another genus. The Dolly Tenderdown kind only grows when you fertilise
the soil, but your Tom Cartervilles grow wild in any soil and in all
seasons.
{_Boys in Society_}
I wish boys could be kept out of Society till they are really grown-up,
they are such a nuisance. They never know how to preserve their
equilibrium, for they are either intense, and make martyrs of themselves
like Stefano and Tom, or horrid, fast, impertinent creatures like Dolly.
And there are so many boys in Society now-a-days.
The whole Parker family are at Claridge's, and the Pullman is to take
the Taunton guests up to town to-morrow. I shall stop at the Carlton,
and remain in London for a few nights, and it is so much gayer there
than at the Buckingham Palace _dépendances_. It is an awful time of the
year for a wedding, but I suppose Miss Parker thinks that if she
postpones it, Clandevil may find another bride still richer than
herself. Lady Beatrice is not going; she says nothing but family
business would take her to town in November. I think the Parkers feel
hurt about it, because Lady Beatrice would give a sort of backbone to
the marriage feast that nobody else would.
{_Hospital Nurses_}
Mrs. Blaine has been pronounced out of danger, but the girls have had to
give up the "Second Mrs. Tanqueray." The hospital nurse from Bath has
been so much trouble that they have had to send her back, and Daisy is
nursing her mother. It seems the nurse was very pretty, and Berty, who
has never been known to speak to a girl, was found in the dining-room
with her at midnight with champagne and biscuits. Blanche said, not
between them, for they were sitting so close together there wasn't any
room, but in front of them. And poor Mrs. Blaine at 105°, and no
nourishment had passed her lips for hours. Blanche will go up to the
wedding with me.
Talking of hospital nurses, it seems the Vane-Corduroys had trouble with
theirs too. She wasn't pretty and flirtatious, but middle-aged and
"bossy," really to my mind more objectionable than the Blaines'. She had
not been at Shotover an hour before she took the measure of the
household; the doctor said Mr. Vane-Corduroy must be kept quiet, and the
nurse refused to allow even his wife to see him. He was kept as isolated
as if he had had the plague, and to amuse him nurse read "Paradise Lost"
aloud to him. She terrorised Mrs. Vane-Corduroy, who fairly quaked in
her presence; she kept the servants constantly doing things for her, had
her meals served her whenever she fancied them, had the grooms riding
into Taunton at all hours of the day and night, and made her power felt
thoroughly, besides being paid I don't know how many guineas a day, and
if everything was not done just as she wished it and at once, she
threatened that Mr. Vane-Corduroy would die as a consequence. Her
credentials were so good that even the doctor was afraid of her, but on
the second day she fell foul of the _chef_. His suite of rooms was next
to hers, and he was composing a _menu_ at the piano, which, as it was
after midnight, disturbed nurse a good deal. She complained to Mrs.
Vane-Corduroy the next day, and poor Mrs. Vane-Corduroy, who is terribly
afraid of her _chef_, was driven nearly distracted; nurse even sought
out the _chef_ himself and ordered him to obey her, and his reply was a
gesture more rude than effective, and even went so far as to threaten
her if she interfered with his province. That night for dinner there was
something with a delicious port-wine sauce, and nurse, who never touches
spirits in any shape, didn't know what she was eating, it was so
disguised. It upset her equilibrium completely, first, by making her
very merry and then by making her horribly sick. She was so firmly
convinced that the _chef_ had made an attempt to poison her that she
went off the first thing the next day in high dudgeon, to the
inexpressible relief of everybody at Shotover.
I have a love of a frock and hat for the wedding. I will write you next
from London and let you know how the wedding went off.--Your dearest
Mamma.
LETTER XXVIII
THE CARLTON HOTEL
Midnight, 13th November
DARLING ELIZABETH:
{_The Wedding_}
{_Wedding Presents_}