_Park Lane_.
[Illustration: THE LAST STRAW.]
Dearest DAPHNE,--Juno ffarrington's wedding to the Oldcastles' boy,
Portcullis, the other day, quite the best done of Allotment Weddings
that are having a little vogue just now. Juno's white satin gown was
embroidered with mustard and cress and spring onions in their natural
colours, her veil was kept in place by a coronal of lettuce leaves,
and, instead of a Prayer-Book or a posy, she carried a little
ivory-and-silver spade. The effect was _absolutely!_ The 'maids had on
Olga's latest in Allotment Wedding frocks, carried out in potato-brown
charmeuse and cabbage-green chiffon; also they'd garden-hats, tied
under the chin with ribbon-grass and with a big cluster of radishes at
the left side, and each of them carried a bunch of small salad and a
darling little crystal-and-silver watering-pot (Portcullis's gifts).
The Duke of Southlands gave his daughter away, and Juno _insisted_ on
his wearing a smock-frock and carrying a trowel, and just as the dear
Bishop said, "Who giveth this woman?" the poor old darling dropped his
trowel with a crash and rather spoilt things.
The wedding-cake was a great big war loaf stuck with flags. Juno cut
it in old-fashioned style with Portcullis's sword. While we were doing
ourselves well with war-bread and margarine, boiled eggs and plenty of
champagne, the Controller of Wedding Breakfasts blew in (it's a new
post, and he's two hundred and fifty able-bodied young assistants).
He was curious to see what we were having, and cautioned us against
throwing any rice after our bride and 'groom. "But how absurd, you
ricky person!" chipped in Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, who, of course, is
Juno's great-aunt. "_We_ never throw rice at our wedding-people!
_That_'s only done by the outlying tribes of barbarians." It was a
pity she attracted his notice, for he was down on her directly for
having on a toque almost entirely made of young turnips and carrots.
He said it was "an infraction of rule 150, cap. 4,500 of the Safety of
the Empire Act, forbidding the use of the people's food for personal
adornment."
The Allotment expression, which is the correct one now, is a look of
interest and expectation, because what one's planted is coming up.
_Some_ people rather spoil their Allotment expression by a _puzzled_
look. _Et pourquoi_? dear, they've _quite_ forgotten what they
planted, and, though they _pretend_ they know _exactly_ what it is
that's coming up, they really haven't the slightest!
My last photo is considered to show the Allotment expression in utter
perfection. (It's been in _People of Position, Mayfair Murmurs_, and
several other weeklies.) I'm standing in my potato-patch (my Allotment
toilette is finished off by a pair of _enthralling_ little hob-nailed
boots!) and I'm holding a rake and a hoe and a digging-fork in one
hand and a garden-hose in the other; there's a wheel-barrow beside me,
and I'm looking at the potato-plants with the _true_ Allotment smile,
my dearest. I sent a copy of this picky to Norty, and under it I wrote
those famous last words of some celebrated Frenchman (I forget whether
it was MOLIÈRE or MIRABEAU or NAPOLEON): "_Je vais chercher un grand
peut-être!_"
Wee-Wee is frightfully worried about Bo-Bo being so overworked. He
used to be at the head of the Department for Telling People What to
Do, and he and his five hundred assistants were worked half dead;
and _now_ he's at the head of a still newer department, the one for
Telling People What They're _Not_ to Do, and, though he's eight
hundred clerks to help him, Wee-Wee says the strain is too great for
words. He goes to Whitehall at ten every day and comes back at three!
And then he has the Long-Ago treatment that's being used so much now
for war-frayed nerves. The idea is to get people as far away from the
present as poss. So when Bo-Bo comes in from Whitehall he lies down on
a fearful old worm-eaten oak settle in a dim room hung with moth-eaten
tapestry, and Wee-Wee reads CHAUCER to him, and sings ghastly little
folk-songs, accompanying herself on a thing called a _crwth_--(it's a
tremendously primitive sort of harp, but I can't believe that even a
_crwth_ meant to make such a horrible noise as Wee-Wee makes on it!).
Myself, I don't consider Bo-Bo a bit the better for the Long-Ago
treatment, and there's certainly a wild look in his eyes that wasn't
there before!
_M'amie_, would you like to hear the simply _odious_ storyette of
Somebody's Cousin? Well, so you shall. Somebody is by way of being an
intimate foe of mine, and Somebody's Cousin has long been a thorn in
the flesh and a shaking of the head to his people. Before the War
he belonged to the League for Taking Everything Lying Down, the
Fellowship for Preventing People from Standing up against Foreign
Aggression, and the Brotherhood for Giving up All Our Advantages to
Aliens. He was of military age, and when war came, after giving vent
to some completely detestable sentiments, he crossed to the U.S. and
naturalised himself there, constantly attacking the country that was
unlucky enough to produce him.
[Illustration: _Recruit_. "EXCUSE ME, SIR, I FEEL GREATLY EXHAUSTED BY
THIS EXERCISE."
_Instructor_. "DO YOU, DEARIE? WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY AT?
KISS-IN-THE-RING?"]
When the U.S. came in, he shed his citizenship in a hurry, fled to
South America, and naturalised himself in a republic that had sworn
by all its gods to keep out of the War _à tout prix_. This republic,
however, changed its mind later and followed its big northern brother
into the War, _et voilà_! Somebody's Cousin was at a loose end again.
He afterwards naturalised himself in half-a-dozen small far-away
nations that all finally came in, and _then, chérie_, he drifted down
to the islands of the South Pacific (the favourite ocean of _his_
sort!) and had himself made an Ollyoola. (The Ollyoolas are a tribe
that has _never in all its past history_ been known to go to war). He
was made an Ollyoola with all the native rites, dancing and shrieking
and so on, and he wore the correct Ollyoola dress (a few shells and
his hair trained on sticks to stand straight up).
And _now_ comes the point of this storyette: Only a few weeks after
Somebody's Cousin had become a full-blooded Ollyoola (I think
that's the proper phrase), the Ollyoolas suddenly fell out with the
Patti-Tattis (on the next island) and went to war, for _absolutely the
first time_, with a _ferocity_, my Daphne, that seems to have been
saving up through all their centuries of peacefulness!
Nothing's been heard since of Somebody's Cousin!
Ever thine,
BLANCHE.
* * * * *
"AIRMEN'S ORDEAL IN THE NORTH SEA.