Title: The Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth
Author: Glyn, Elinor, 1864-1943
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note:

    Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without
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    within {braces}. The oe ligature is represented by [oe].



                              THE LETTERS
                             OF HER MOTHER
                              TO ELIZABETH


                                [Device]


                       JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
                     LONDON & NEW YORK · _MDCCCCI_



                           _Copyright, 1901_
                              BY JOHN LANE


                             FIFTH EDITION


                     UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
                      AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.



NOTE


Every one who has read "The Visits of Elizabeth," in which a girl of
seventeen describes her adventures to her mother in a series of
entertaining and clever letters, has instinctively asked the question:
"What sort of woman was Elizabeth's Mother?"

Perhaps an answer that will satisfy all will be found in the following
"Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth."



THE LETTERS OF HER MOTHER TO ELIZABETH



LETTER I


                                                 MONK'S FOLLY, 27th July

DEAREST ELIZABETH:

I am glad you reached Nazeby without any mishap. Your letter was quite
refreshing, but, darling, do be more careful of your grammar. Remember,
one never talks grammar now-a-days in Society, it isn't done; it is
considered very Newnham and Girton and patronising, but one should
always know how to write one's language. Because the fashion might
change some day, and it would be so _parvenu_ to have to pick it up.

As I told you before you started on your round of visits, you will have
a capital opportunity of making a good match. You are young, very
pretty, of the bluest blood in the three kingdoms, and have a
fortune--to be sure this latter advantage, while it would be more than
a sufficient _dot_ to catch a twelfth-century French duke, would be
considered by an impecunious British peer quite beneath contempt. Your
trump card, Elizabeth, is your manner, and I count upon that to do more
for you than all the other attributes put together. Nature and my
training have made you a perfect specimen of an _ingénue_, and I beseech
you, darling, do me credit. Please forgive the coarseness of what I have
said, it is only a little plain speaking between us; I shan't refer to
it again; I know I can trust you.

{_These Horrid Smiths_}

From what you write I gather that the Marquis of Valmond is _épris_ with
Mrs. Smith. Horrid woman! the Chevingtons have met her. Mrs. Chevington
was here this morning to enquire after my neuralgia. She said that Mr.
Smith met his wife in Johannesburg five years ago before he "arrived."
He used to wear overalls, and carry a pick on his shoulder, and spent
his days digging in the earth, but he stopped at sunset, as I should
think he well might, and invariably went to the same inn to refresh
himself, where Mrs. Smith's mother cooked his dinner and Mrs. Smith
herself gave him what she called a "corpse-reviver" from behind the bar.
At night, a great many men who dug in the earth with Mr. Smith would
come for "corpse-revivers," and they called Mrs. Smith "Polly," and the
mother "old girl." And one day Mr. Smith found a nugget as big as a
roc's egg when he was digging in the earth, and after that he stopped.
The funny part was that "Polly" always said he would never find
anything, and he had a wager with her that if he did she should marry
him. So that is the story of their courtship and marriage, and they have
millions. Mrs. Chevington vouches for the truth of it all, for Algy
Chevington was out in Johannesburg at the time, and he dug in the same
hole with Mr. Smith and knows all about him and "Polly," only Algy never
found anything, for the flowers in Mrs. Chevington's hat were in the
bonnet she wore all last spring. But let us leave these horrid Smiths; I
am sure they are horrid. I can't understand how Lady Cecilia puts up
with them. Mrs. Chevington says she hears Sir Trevor is one of the
directors in the Yerburg Mine. Algy called him a guinea-pig, and said he
wished he was one.

{_An Eligible Parti_}

Lord Valmond has fifty thousand a year and six places besides the house
in Grosvenor Square. You will hardly meet a more eligible _parti_; I
hear he is very fast; they say he gave Betty Milbanke, the snake-dancer
at the Palace, all the diamonds she wears. If he is anything like his
father was, he must be both good-looking and fascinating. The late
Marquis was the handsomest man save one that I have ever seen, and could
have married any of the Duchess of Rougemont's daughters if he had been
a valet instead of a marquis, and the Duchess was the proudest woman in
England. The girl who gets this Valmond will not only be lucky but
clever; the way to attract him is to snub him; the fools that have
hitherto angled for him have always put cake on their hooks; but, if I
were fishing in the water in which My Lord Valmond disported himself, I
should bait my hook with a common worm. It is something he has never
yet seen.

{_The African Millionaire_}

Tell me more about Mr. Wertz, the African millionaire; is he the man who
is building the Venetian _palazzo_ in Belgrave Square? If so, it was
rumoured last season that he was to be made a baron. They blackballed
him at the Jockey Club in Paris, and even the Empire nobility who live
in _appartements_ in the Champs Élysées refused to know him; that is why
he came to England. He is a gentleman, if he is a Jew; the family belong
to the tribe of Levi. Algy Chevington, who knows everything about
everybody, says his Holbeins are priceless, and that the Pope offered to
make him a Papal Count if he would part with a "Flight into Egypt" known
as the Wertz Raphael. But of course even a knighthood is better than a
Papal Count, and if Mr. Wertz gives his Holbeins to the National Gallery
he is sure to be created something.

You cannot be too careful of the unmarried girls you know; Miss La
Touche is certainly not the sort of person for you to be intimate with.
The Rooses, of course, are quite correct, they will make capital foils
for you; beside Jane Roose is amiable, and has been out so many seasons
that her advice will be useful. Be sure, however, to do the very
opposite to what she tells you.

{_Lady Beatrice Carterville_}

If the weather is fine to-morrow, I am going to drive over in the
afternoon to call on Lady Beatrice Carterville. She has a house-party,
and the people who come to her are sure to be odd and amusing. My
neuralgia has been better these last few days. The things I ordered from
Paquin have come at last; the mauve crêpe de chine with the valenciennes
lace flounces is lovely; the hat and parasol are creations, as the
Society papers say. Love to Lady Cecilia and the tips of my fingers to
Sir Trevor.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER II


                                                 MONK'S FOLLY, 29th July

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Lady Beatrice's Tea_}

{_A Live Authoress_}

I felt so well yesterday that I drove over in the afternoon to Lady
Beatrice's to tea. I felt I must show myself as Paquin made me to
someone. It was so warm that tea was served on the terrace; the view of
the Quantocks steaming in the distance over the tops of the oaks in the
park was charming. There were a great many people present, and when I
arrived, Lady Beatrice exclaimed at the courage I showed in coming when
the sun was so hot and the road so dusty. She presided at the tea-table
in white piqué and a sailor hat which rested on the bridge of her nose.
She is as fat as Lady Theodosia Doran and plays tennis; the rouge on her
neck had stained her collar, quite a four-inch collar too, and there
were finger marks of rouge on her bodice. She introduces everybody,
which, while it is not the thing, certainly makes one more comfortable
than the fashion at present in vogue. I always like to know the names
of the people I am talking to. Everybody talked about the weather and
the dust, and it was deadly dull till Lady Beatrice said she wanted to
play tennis. She went off to play singles with Mr. Frame, the Low Church
curate, and looked so funny, bounding about the lawn like a big rubber
ball, that I nearly screamed. Most of the people strolled up and down
the terrace, or leaned over the balustrade above the lake. I sat under
my parasol in a Madeira chair, and was talked to by such a curious
woman, a Mrs. Beverley Fruit. It was interesting to meet a real live
authoress after having read her works. I remember when Mrs. Fruit's
first novel came out ten years ago it created a great sensation, but I
must confess the sensation was confined to middle-class people and the
Universities. Of course, everybody in Society bought it. It was all
about Radicals and a silly Low Church curate who threw up his living
because he didn't believe in God, and went to London and lived in the
slums. Mr. Gladstone wrote a review of it, and they dramatised it in
America. Mrs. Fruit has since written several other books, and each one
is more bitter against Society than the last, so you may fancy how
nervous I felt at being left with such a woman. But, darling, she isn't
at all like her books. I was quite charmed with her; she was dressed so
well, and looked quite like a lady; she lives in Berkeley Square and has
a place in Essex. In the last election she canvassed the county for the
Conservatives, and the Duchess of Rougemont is very, very fond of her.
Lady Beatrice tells me that Mrs. Beverley Fruit's son, who is private
secretary to a Cabinet Minister, is actually going to marry one of the
Duchess's daughters, Lady Mabel, the one with the projecting teeth and
the squint. And I am sure I think it is very brave of Mr. Fruit Junior,
for Lady Mabel is both ugly and stupid. However, the connection is a
good one for the Fruits, who have made their fortune out of books, which
I think is decidedly less vulgar than pale ale or furniture. Mrs. Fruit
is staying with Lady Beatrice.

{_Lady Ann Fairfax_}

Lady Ann Fairfax, the _Daily Sensation's_ War correspondent, is also
stopping at Braxome Towers. She told me that she had been through three
sieges, and never felt happier than when "sniping," whatever that may
be. She lived three months in a bomb-proof shelter on quarter rations,
was once taken prisoner, and when exchanged was sent through the lines
barefoot and with only a blanket round her. She is bringing out a book
to be called "What I have been through," and I shall certainly buy it.
She is rather pretty and dresses beautifully, and is very amusing; you
could listen to her for hours; her stories are like shilling shockers,
with a bit of Henty thrown in to give them style. She was quite breezy,
and I was sorry when Lady Beatrice shouted triumphantly, "Six love, Mr.
Frame!" and came up puffing like a porpoise, her hair soppy on the
temples and gutters on her cheeks.

Lady Beatrice was in an awfully good humour, for Mr. Frame beat the
Somerset champion last week, but, poor man! he would not dare to even
dream of beating Lady Beatrice. She only suffers him to eat her
cucumber sandwiches and drink her Mazawattee for the pleasure of beating
him.

The drive home in the twilight was very pleasant. I brought Captain
Bennett of the Coldstreams and the Earl of Mortimer as far as the Club
in Taunton. They are playing for Gloucester, but, as I dislike cricket
as much as you do, I shan't go to see the match. I know my frock was
admired at Braxome to-day; poor Mr. Frame, who sat and ate ices near me
after his thrashing, would never meet my glance directly, and I
overheard Lady Beatrice tell Mrs. Beverley Fruit that I spent altogether
too much on dress, while Lady Beatrice always looks as if she considered
the expenditure of a five-pound note on her person an extravagance.
Dear, dear Paquin!

{_The Missing Handkerchief_}

I am awfully provoked with myself, the lace handkerchief I wore to-day
is missing. I am sure it was in my hand when we left Braxome, for I
remember sniffing "parfum d'Arabie" in the carriage. It is really quite
provoking.--Your dearest Mamma.

       *       *       *       *       *

{_The Handkerchief Found_}

_P. S._--I have just received a note from Captain Bennett saying he
found my handkerchief sticking to his coat when he got into the Club,
and asking if he may restore it to me in person to-morrow.



LETTER III


                                                MONK'S FOLLY, 1st August

DEAREST ELIZABETH:

{_A Mature Young Man_}

_L'ingénue va bien._ I am so glad you managed to put that odious Mrs.
Smith in her place. It is really too revolutionary to be forced to
accept such people, but what you tell me about her and Lord Valmond
surprises me. I can quite understand a woman of her stamp liking the
admiration of Valmond, for he is young and good-looking, and a marquis,
but what can he see in her? He is one of those young men who mature
quickly; at fifteen he could tell whether a woman put on her chemise or
her petticoat first, and at one and twenty he knew the Rake's Catechism
by heart. But I have always heard that he was intelligent, and his
people were never afraid of his doing something foolish. He takes his
_menus plaisirs_ like a gentleman, but why he should be so devoted to
this Mrs. Smith I cannot conceive. She is not pretty, she is not witty;
Lord Valmond is rich, surely he does not want to borrow money from her.
I shall be glad when you leave Nazeby Hall; it is one thing to catch a
marquis, and another thing to get scratched in the effort. You must
leave at once, otherwise you will be forced to play your trump card--the
art of being an _ingénue_. Leave at once, Valmond will be sure to
follow. The slap on the cheek was excellent; no man ever forgets a woman
who has left the print of her fingers on his face, he will either hate
her or love her. If the man _is_ a man and was in the wrong, he will be
forced to admire the woman who could protect herself against him. Leave
Nazeby, Elizabeth; Valmond is a man and a gentleman, let him know that
you are a lady and virtuous.

{_The Handkerchief Returned_}

{_Captain Bennett_}

This morning, just before lunch, Fifine and I were dozing on the lawn
under the big Japanese umbrella, when James came to tell me that Captain
Bennett was in the drawing-room. Of course he came to return my
handkerchief--it was very polite of him to bring it himself, especially
as he rode all the way from Taunton in a blazing sun, along a road
lying under nearly a foot of dust. Naturally, I could not let him go
back without lunch, and afterwards, when I thought he would go, he asked
me to let him look over my songs, as he wanted something to sing at a
smoker to-night, which the Yeomanry are giving for him and the Earl of
Mortimer. He tried nearly all, and tea was brought in before he got one
to suit his voice, which is really a very good one. He is a very
gentlemanly man, and has a shy way of looking at one, that is quite
naïve in a soldier. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I had a
daughter seventeen, until I showed him your photograph. He seemed so
astonished that I was obliged to tax him with being extremely ungallant.
I asked him if he expected a woman to be old at thirty-five because she
happened to marry at seventeen, and he gave me such a look that I felt
quite uncomfortable. His eyes were not at all shy, but looked like
sparks of blue fire. Just then there was the sound of a carriage driving
up, and Mrs. Chevington and the Blaine girls rushed into the room. Fell
in would be more correct, for so few Englishwomen know how to enter a
room quickly and gracefully. They didn't know Captain Bennett, and as I
thought I had had enough of him for one day, I wouldn't introduce him.

He has a horrid way of shaking hands, and left the print of my opal ring
on my middle finger. I told him to keep the songs as long as he wished,
but he is so awfully polite he said he would return them to-morrow. When
he had gone, Daisy Blaine asked me if I had heard that he said in the
Taunton Club he intended to marry money, which I thought very spiteful
of her.

Mrs. Chevington was greatly agitated by the report that an American
family have taken Astley Court. She said that everybody is asking Lady
Beatrice Carterville if she is going to call on them. I believe, if Lady
Beatrice should marry Mr. Frame, Mrs. Chevington would find an excuse
for her. Whenever she passes the lions at Braxome Lodge, Mrs. Chevington
is pervaded with the most sacred emotions--she has admitted as much to
me. There are some people to whom blue blood is more intoxicating than
champagne, and who look on a pedigree as a reservoir which you can never
exhaust. The odd part of it is, that Mrs. Chevington is not a snob, she
is merely common or garden respectable.

{_The Ghost_}

The Blaine girls asked a great many questions about you, and if it was
true that the ghost walked every night at Nazeby (Mrs. Chevington had
told them about your letter which I read to her). Blanche Blaine said
she wouldn't visit such a house as Nazeby for all the possible husbands
it might contain, which I think was rude of her, but admitted, when I
seemed cross, that once she had a similar experience at Great Ruin
Castle. Her adventure was more sensational than yours, for Mrs.
Maltravers, who had the room next to her, told her their corridor was
haunted and that several people who on hearing noises had come out of
their rooms to see what it was, had gone mad. But the ghost has yet to
walk who can frighten Blanche Blaine. Immediately after Mrs. Maltravers,
who had seen Blanche into her bed-room to reassure her, she said, had
kissed her good-night and left, Blanche opened her door softly and
peeped cautiously into the corridor, and while she looked she distinctly
saw the ghost advancing towards her; and the ghost carried a candle in
one hand, and wore crimson plush knee-breeches and white stockings and
its hair was powdered. And while Blanche was uncertain whether to scream
or faint the ghost vanished into Mrs. Maltravers' room. Blanche said she
waited to hear Mrs. Maltravers scream, but as not a sound came from her
room, Blanche believed her imagination had got the better of her, so she
bolted her door and went to bed.

The weather has been so fine that my neuralgia has entirely gone, and I
am accepting all invitations. Write me when you reach Eaton Place.--Your
dearest Mamma.



LETTER IV


                                                MONK'S FOLLY, 3rd August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Parkers Arrive_}

Mrs. Chevington walked over yesterday before tea expressly to tell me,
she said, that Mr. Phineas T. Parker and family, of New York, had
arrived at Astley Court, having travelled down from London in a special
Pullman attached to the Bristol express. I saw two of them this morning
in Taunton going into St. Mary's with Baedekers, and Lady Beatrice
called on them this afternoon, and by the end of the month the Parkers
will be a county family. They are fabulously rich; I forget how many
hundred million dollars Mr. Parker is worth, and of course nobody asks
how he made his money. Algy says they are all kings in America and it
doesn't matter, but as for that it doesn't matter in England either,
where at the most the millionaires are only barons.

Nobody can talk of anything but their arrival, and everybody is singing
Lady Beatrice's praises for having called on them so soon. Captain
Bennett, who came this afternoon to bring back the songs and stupidly
left two behind, says she should be canonised. Mr. Parker and his son
have already been proposed and seconded at the Taunton Club; they have
been asked to dine at the mess on guest-night; and both Father Ribbit
and Mr. Frame, the High Church rector and Low Church curate, have
offered them pews under the pulpit, and asked them to subscribe
respectively to the Convent School of the Passionate Nuns and the Daily
Soup Dispensary. But rumour has it that the Parkers are Baptists, and
are going to the chapel in Holmes' the grocer's back-yard. I shall drive
Mrs. Chevington over to Astley to-morrow and leave your card with mine.

On coming home from Taunton this morning, Perkins drove by Braxome. You
know part of the road runs through the park, and I saw Lady Beatrice's
equestrian cook out for an airing on a brown cob, with a couple of
Gordon setters sniffing its hoofs. She really looked quite lady-like.
Mrs. Chevington says her habit was made at Redfern's. Lady Beatrice
found her in the Want column of the _Standard_.

"Young woman desires situation in County Family, as cook, housemaid, or
companion; cook preferred. Must have use of horse daily. Highest
references."

Lady Beatrice is delighted with her, and she will hunt with the West
Somerset Harriers this coming season.

{_Captain Bennett Dislocates his Thumb_}

Captain Bennett dislocated his thumb at cricket to-day, and is _hors de
combat_ for the rest of the match. When he came back with the songs this
afternoon he was suffering such pain that he asked me if I would mind
putting on a fresh bandage for him. I told him that the sight of blood
always made me faint, but he assured me the skin was not broken, so I
took off the old bandage and put on a new one. It seemed to give him
great relief, and he said I would make a splendid nurse, and looked at
me with that queer blue fire look his eyes always have, when their
expression is not as timid as a bashful boy's. He is awfully stupid at
conversation, and one has to do all the talking. I asked him if they
fed him properly at the Club, for he always looked so hungry whenever I
met him. He replied that he was literally starving, but that nothing so
material as food would satisfy his hunger, and that blue fire look came
back into his eyes.

{_Captain Bennett in Delirium_}

I thought he was becoming delirious from the pain of his thumb, and I
begged him to go home and send for the doctor. Then he did so strange a
thing that I am sure it was done in delirium; he asked me to feel how
fast his pulse was beating--it went tick-tock like a Waterbury
watch--and he put his arm with the bad thumb round my waist, and called
me an angel in the back of his throat and was hot all over. So I knew he
had fever. I wasn't a bit afraid, for I have wonderful presence of mind,
as you know. I have been told it is best to humour people in delirium,
so I said I was sure I was an angel, for everybody told me so, and that
if he would kindly stop crushing the jet spangles on my cream-coloured
crepon bodice I would act like an angel to him. He instantly obeyed, and
I rose and rang for James and told him that Captain Bennett was too ill
to ride back to Taunton. Whereupon, before I could finish speaking,
James asked if he should tell Perkins to get ready the brougham or
dog-cart, and if I thought a glass of barley-water would do Captain
Bennett good.

{_An Ideal Servant_}

Such a treasure, James. Really an ideal servant; knows exactly what one
wants without one's having the trouble to order it. I can't understand
how Lord Froom parted with him.

{_Monsieur Malorme_}

Just then Monsieur Malorme, whom the Blaines have engaged to talk French
with Bertie before he joins the Embassy in Paris, came over with a note
from Blanche asking me to a garden party on Saturday. I made Captain
Bennett drink the barley-water, which I think must have done him good,
because he sat very quiet till James came to say Perkins was ready.
Monsieur Malorme is a very good-looking young man for a Frenchman,
almost as good-looking as Captain Bennett; he has beautiful teeth and
hands, but a horrid way of looking out of his eyes, as if he had just
winked at you. He is a Provençal and quite a gentleman; Blanche said
they felt obliged to have him eat with them, for he was very superior
and accustomed to the best society. When he was coaching the Duke of
FitzArthur he always followed the Melton Mowbray pack, and took the
Dowager Duchess in to dinner when the family were alone.

I found him quite entertaining and he made Captain Bennett laugh quite
naturally, so I knew the barley-water had acted, and I said so. I told
Captain Bennett that I would send a groom into Taunton with his horse,
and he could take that opportunity to return the rest of my songs, if he
had done with them. When he went away, he gave me such a blue fire look
and squeezed my hand so horridly that I thought he was going to be
delirious again.

Remembering what Blanche had said of Monsieur Malorme's superiority, I
took an interest in his pursuits, asked him how long he had been in
England, what he thought of our customs, and if he found Bertie an apt
pupil. He replied that he had been a year in England, that he found life
in Grosvenor Square _plus ravissante qu'à Paris_, and that the English
women were _comme les volcanes ayant leurs cimes dans la neige_, and
that Bairtee was _précoce_, which I knew was a horrid French lie, for
you know it is only because Mrs. Blaine's uncle is in the Cabinet that
Bertie, whose chin and forehead seem to be racing to see which can get
away from the other the fastest, ever got that secretaryship in the Rue
St. Honoré.

{_The Phonograph_}

James brought in whiskey and soda and cigarettes, and Monsieur Malorme,
who is really quite amusing, became communicative. He assured me that
Daisy Blaine was something for which there seems to be no word in
French, for he substituted as an equivalent a gesture made by putting
the thumb and forefinger to the lips and wafting a kiss into the air. I
also gathered that he was at work on a French-English grammar, which was
to revolutionise all methods of teaching at present in vogue. It seems
that Monsieur Malorme speaks the grammar into phonographs, and one buys
the phonograph instead of the book. Lord St. Noodle is quite delighted
with the idea, and has promised to speak into the phonograph before the
grammar begins; and Monsieur Malorme hopes to persuade the French
Ambassador and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to recommend it in the
same way. To overcome the difficulty of speaking into each phonograph
separately, Monsieur Malorme proposes to hire a room and fill it with
phonographs, so that all will catch the voice at the same time. He grew
quite _farouche_ over it, and let one of my Bohemian goblets, which
contained his whiskey and soda, fall and break. And he looked at me like
Captain Bennett when the delirium was coming on, so I excused myself as
having to dress for dinner, and left James to show him out. I expect to
hear from you at Heaviland Manor to-morrow. I feel sure Lord Valmond
will follow you, for he has a place near, which makes the excuse very
plausible.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER V


                                                MONK'S FOLLY, 5th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Dinner-party_}

Last night Lady Beatrice gave a dinner for the Parkers. I wore the blue
brocade with the Peter Lely bodice, and that odious Mr. Rumple took me
in. I am sure Lady Beatrice decided on it at the last moment to spite
me, because she overheard me ask Mr. Frame how such a champion as he
liked being beaten by her ladyship every day. Captain Bennett sat on the
other side of me and Mr. Frame was opposite, so I devoted myself
entirely to them, and left Mr. Rumple to lap up his soup like a horse in
a water-trough. Society is falling off terribly now-a-days; we are no
longer county but provincial families. I really don't see why because
Mr. Rumple is Lady Beatrice's lawyer that she should invite him to dine
when she has a party, but of course we have no really smart set down
here, and one sends into Taunton for a lawyer or a doctor to fill up a
vacant place at a dinner-table, just as one sends in for meat or
candles. Mr. Rumple is fat and pasty, and has a beard; his only topics
of conversation were the assizes and the war. I asked him why he didn't
volunteer, and he looked at me with a Dover to Calais smile, and said
what did I think would become of his practice. And I replied, "I believe
you are a Pro-Boer, Mr. Rumple." He turned green like a gooseberry, and
then purple, and Lady Beatrice cried sharply, "What is that you are, Mr.
Rumple?" "Pro-Boer," he faltered, echoing my words, and everybody was
upon him at once like a pack of wolves. He isn't really anything of the
sort, but a Tory who believes that because Lady Beatrice was a duke's
daughter she is part of the Constitution. Algy Chevington says he is a
rising man, but I prefer to know such people when the process is
complete, for this rising is only another term for moulting, which is
decidedly unpleasant to witness in the male species of the respectable
middle-class.

In the drawing-room, before the men joined us, Mrs. Parker sang "The
Star-Spangled Banner" and "Marching through Georgia," and Lady Beatrice
actually joined in the chorus. Mrs. Parker's dress was _not_ made at
Paquin's, and she only wore one decent ring. Miss Parker, however, kept
up the family's reputation for wealth, and wore ropes of diamonds round
her neck, which made poor Lady Beatrice in her black and yellow satin
and amethysts look positively dowdy. Mr. Parker _père_ is, I think,
inclined to be jovial if he got the chance. He has small bright eyes,
and has lost two fingers on his left hand in the course of his "rising"
process. He called me madam continually, and asked me if I thought Lady
Beatrice would ever marry, which struck me as so absurd that I laughed
outright. "Do you want her for your son?" I said. "God forbid!" he
replied, and I thought he was going to poke me in the waist with one of
the stumps of his right hand.

Lady Beatrice, as you know, would have fifty fits of the most violent
epileptic form if a woman attempted to smoke in her presence, and as I
saw Blanche Blaine walking up and down on the terrace with a cigar in
her cheek I was on the point of joining her when I remembered my
neuralgia, but I sent Mr. Parker out to her as he said he found it
"darned poky" to have to listen to his wife's voice.

{_Captain Bennett Apologises_}

{_Captain Bennett's Threat_}

{"_Family Herald_"}

Captain Bennett at once took the vacant place, and began to apologise
most profusely for his behaviour two days ago. He looked really
miserable, and there wasn't any more blue fire in his eyes. He has to go
back to Windsor to-morrow, and I shan't see him again. He wanted to know
if I was sorry and if I would let him come back, and then to my
amazement he declared he loved me. It was a most unfair advantage, and I
told him so; we were sitting in the middle of Lady Beatrice's
drawing-room. Mr. Frame and Lady Beatrice were looking at us as hard as
they could, and I am sure Daisy Blaine heard every word he said. I
begged him to stop, but he said recklessly he didn't care if the whole
room heard; that I had encouraged him and broken his heart. He had never
loved a woman before, and if I wouldn't have him he was going to hell,
and it would all be at my door. I think it was villainously low down of
him, and at that moment I would have preferred Mr. Rumple to be sitting
next me. I got up to go away, but he had hold of my skirt and said I
should hear him out, and as I didn't care to leave yards of Paquin in
his hands I submitted. Captain Bennett is a perfect brute, and I am sure
he had drunk too much of Lady Beatrice's champagne. And to think how
deceived I had been in him! I thought him such a nice, manly young
fellow, with such good manners, and such a straight back and long legs,
so smart and handsome; and he was so insulting and threatening, and had
hold of my skirt so that I couldn't budge. How I hate him. As if I would
ever dream of marrying a _parvenu_, even if his fortune would build a
line of battle ships. When he finally let me move, he said he was going
back to Windsor to blow out his brains. I told him with my sweetest
smile, for Lady Beatrice scented something and was glaring at me, that
if I were he I would do something original, and that I was sure he
hadn't a bit of originality about him, for he talked just like the
_Family Herald_. He laughed and said he would like to choke me, and that
I had not seen the last of him, and he would have me on my knees at his
feet yet. A really horrid young man. I wish he would go to South Africa;
I am sure nobody would miss him.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER VI


                                               MONK'S FOLLY, 10th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Graftons_}

I felt particularly virtuous this morning, and drove over to Romford to
see old Admiral and Mrs. Grafton. Such a dear Darby and Joan pair, so
different from the foot-in-the-grave old couples one meets now-a-days.
The Admiral was pruning roses in the dearest little garden when I drove
up; he hobbled up with a wheeze and muddy fingers and opened the
carriage door before Alfred had time to dismount from the box. He
welcomed me to Romford with an old-school bow, and gave me an elbow to
shake because his hands were full of lumps of Somersetshire clay. He
asked me to sit down in the dining-room (they always shut up the
drawing-room in the summer, and it is as damp as a church), while he
called his wife. Mrs. Grafton, who is a dear, kissed me on both cheeks,
and asked after my neuralgia and you. Although it was awfully hot, she
was wearing the Queen's Indian shawl; they keep the rooms so dark that I
nearly sat down on the Angora cat, which was sleeping in the most
comfortable chair in the room. While the Admiral was washing his hands
and choking with asthma in the next room, Mrs. Grafton told me about the
rheumatism in her left shoulder, and that she had thought at first that
I was the chiropodist they were expecting from Taunton.

They insisted on my seeing the kitchen garden, and were very proud that
their Brussels sprouts took the first prize at the Bath Vegetable Show
in the Spring. I saw the pigs being fed, and the Admiral told me that
one of his sows had been given him by the Dowager Marchioness of Ealing,
who had brought it to him in her arms wrapped in cotton-wool when it was
a week old. The Admiral amuses himself with carpentering, and has had
one of the conservatories fitted up as a tool-house, but since he
mistook one of his thumbs for a shaving and nearly planed it off, he
hasn't been able to finish the table for the butler's pantry. Mrs.
Grafton made him show me his artificial ice-machine, and he frappéed a
Veuve Clicquot for me, but the vacuum or something didn't work and the
neck of the bottle broke. Then we went back to the dining-room, where
the Angora cat was sharpening its claws in the lace curtains. The
Admiral said, "Damn that beast, Maria!" but Mrs. Grafton gave him such a
look, and said, "Oh, Arthur! how can you when he has been so ill lately.
Puss, puss, purr-r, purr-r."

A servant brought in some port wine and biscuits, and the Admiral asked
me if I cared to see his views of places on the Pacific station. We came
to a photograph of a woman in a mantilla, whom the Admiral said was the
belle of Lima, and he sighed and chuckled. "Those were days to remember;
we were the fastest ship in the Navy, and when we went out of commission
there wasn't a pair of black eyes from Valparaiso to Vancouver that
didn't shed tears." Then Mrs. Grafton told me of the voyage she made out
to the station, when she was the only woman on the steamer, and how two
men quarrelled over her in Colon harbour, and another threatened to
throw himself in among the man-eaters at Barbados, because she hadn't
spoken to him for a whole day. The Admiral looked very savage, and
wheezed terribly and called her Mrs. Grafton. They were too delightfully
Jo Anderson, my jo, John. I could have spent the whole morning with
them, for it is so refreshing to find people natural and sincerely
attached to each other. They never spoke a word of scandal during the
whole visit; and when I left, Mrs. Grafton gave me a beautiful bouquet
of Maréchal Niels and said if she were a man she knew she would break
her heart over me, and the dear old Admiral insisted on helping me into
the carriage and gave me such a charming Early Victorian salute.

I know they only said nice things of me when I was out of sight, and I
wish there were more people like them in the county.

{_The Parkers' Dinner-party_}

Blanche Blaine came to tea in the afternoon; two of her fingers are
iodined and she had a leather strap round her wrist; she says she
sprained her hand at tennis yesterday and can't grip her racquet. Daisy
biked over to Exeter this morning with Mr. Frame to represent Taunton in
the mixed doubles and ladies' singles. The Duchess of Windermere is to
give the prizes. Lady Beatrice is furious because the Committee decided
at the last moment to scratch her name in the ladies' doubles. I think
it is quite time she gave up tennis, for she can't hit a ball and
disputes every point and looks such a fright. She was so mad when she
heard she had been scratched, that she refused to go over to Exeter, or
to let any of her house-party go. The Parkers took a party in a special
Pullman; Blanche thinks they own it, for they always have it wherever
they go. The Duchess of Windermere has invited them to sit under the
marquee with her.

I was sorry I could not go to their dinner-party last night. Blanche
says it was awfully well done. The chef from Prince's and an army of
waiters came down from London. The plate was superb, china was only used
with soup and fruit--Dresden and Sèvres; the handles of the knives and
forks were gold, studded with rubies, those of the spoons were silver
and ebony. The favours must have cost a small fortune. Lady Beatrice,
who went in with Mr. Parker, got a diamond aigrette; Blanche got two
volumes of Tennyson's poems in calf; there must have been some mistake
in the order, for there were not enough favours to go round, and Mr.
Rumple, who sat next to Blanche, found a ten-pound note under the roll
in his napkin.

As usual, Mrs. Parker wore a high-necked dress and no jewels; Miss
Parker was _à la Paquin_ and went in to dinner with the Duke of
Clandevil. There was no attempt at precedence, and Lord Froom was in a
towering rage that Mrs. Parker went in with Mr. Frame. But I think it
was very bad taste of him, as his favour was a gold watch, with the
Froom crest and motto in diamonds, and as the Parkers are foreigners and
kings in their own country every excuse should be made for them.

Clandevil is stopping at Astley Court, and rumour has it his engagement
to Miss Parker will soon be made public. I pity her, for she seems a
decent sort, and we all know what the duke is. He is five years younger
than she, and only the ha'penny papers published his cross-examination
in the Ventry divorce. But I suppose even an American king's daughter
would not refuse an English duke, and Mrs. Parker was heard to tell Mr.
Frame with a sigh that it would cost such a lot to stop the leaks in a
seven-acre roof.

{_Mr. Parker Junior_}

Mr. Parker, Junior, is very retiring and can hardly be got to speak or
do anything. Blanche thinks him stupid, but Mrs. Chevington says he has
what she calls "a head for business," for he never goes to the Stock
Exchange without causing a panic. Considering the food and the presents,
the dinner was a huge success, but Mr. Parker would persist in telling
Lady Beatrice how he had made his money, and that fifty years ago, "when
you and I were young, Lady Beatrice, I was a barefoot newsboy in
Broadway."

{_Boys Troublesome_}

You amuse me with your account of the Westaways. I don't pity Lady
Westaway very much for having such a daughter-in-law; if she had used
tact with Billy he would probably have listened to reason. I am so glad,
darling, that you are a girl and not a boy; boys are such a source of
anxiety in families of our station. They are always getting into
trouble, and they pick up such vulgar tastes. Why is it, I wonder, that
one never hears of girls marrying beneath them, but it takes all the
ingenuity we possess to keep the boys out of _mésalliance_. Billy
Westaway is a fool, and there are so many like him.

Between us, I would rather have a son as bad as Clandevil than one as
silly as Billy Westaway; but if it came to marrying one of them I should
prefer it to be the other way about.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER VII


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       18th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Lucerne_}

How surprised you will be to see the above address. Blanche Blaine and I
came here on the spur of the moment, the day after you left for
Croixmare.

{_Glacier Garden_}

Blanche came over in the morning, and asked me if I would go with her to
Lucerne for a fortnight. The idea struck me as rather lively, and we
went up to London that night in time to catch the Club train for Paris
the next day. We were lucky to get rooms at the National, for they are
turning people away to-day. We have apartments on the second floor, with
a lovely view of the lake and Pilatus; the only blot on the landscape is
the yacht belonging to the hotel. As I write in my balcony, I can see it
over the tops of the chestnuts on the _quai_ bobbing alongside of the
jetty with a huge "Quaker Oats" on the sail. The weather is perfect,
and the air makes you feel as if you were breathing champagne. This
morning we went to see the Lion, to get it over as Blanche said. We saw
hundreds in the shop-windows before we got there, and they all looked so
sorry for themselves, as if they thought, "We can't help it they made us
like this, go a little higher up and you'll see the real thing." The
real thing is made of plaster, and you pay fifty centimes to see it in a
_boutique_, where they sell Swiss quartz and post-cards. The gigantic
thing carved out of the rock is really quite imposing, but the crowds
vulgarise it so that it no longer has the atmosphere of meditation and
romance Thorvaldsen meant it to have. A party of "personally conducteds"
were doing it with Baedekers in their hands and edelweiss in their hats,
and they made such funny comments, and asked such quaint questions about
it, I am sure that they had never heard of it before, and most of them
bought post-cards and wrote on them with stylographs. Then they all went
into the Glacier Garden, and the water was turned on to show them
glacial action on the rocks.

{_At Hugenin's_}

On the way back, Blanche and I stopped at Hugenin's, and had champagne
frappé and meringues at a table on the pavement under an awning, and
some people dressed as Tyrolese peasants yodelled in the garden of a
café across the street. Crowds of people passed us; some were very
smartly dressed, but most of the women wore bicycle skirts with buttons
in the back and felt hats with a feather at the side, and carried
edelweiss. Blanche said Continental life made her feel wicked, and she
bought a package of Turkish cigarettes from such a good-looking Italian
boy, with a performing monkey, and a basket on his arm filled with
post-cards of the Lion and Pilatus cigarettes. He was so delighted that
he made the monkey go through his tricks, and some horrid men in dress
suits came and stood about with their hands in their pockets and no hats
on their heads. I think they must have been waiters, for presently a
gong sounded and they all bolted into the Lucernerhof. The Italian boy
gave us such a graceful bow when we went away that Blanche felt sure he
was a Count in disguise. She said she had heard that poor Italian
noblemen wandered about the Continental watering-places in the summer
with monkeys, just like the poor Baronets who sing Christy Minstrel
songs to banjos on the sands at Brighton, and that you could always tell
them by their manners. She was sure of it, because Sir Dennis O'Desmond
had told her he had made quite a lot of money that way one year.

{_The Hungarian Band_}

We got back to the National just in time to change for lunch. Thérèse
had our frocks and curling-irons ready for us, and was in such a temper
because her meals were not to be served in her room. We had lunch in the
big _salle-à-manger_, which is also the ball-room; the food was
excellent and very well served; all the people looked smart, but we
didn't know any of them. The Hungarian band played, and the conductor
was such a handsome man; he wore a blue jacket trimmed with astrachan
and silver buttons, and black satin knee-breeches with blue stockings.
He was very tall and finely proportioned, with flashing black eyes and
curly hair. Blanche, who is always jumping to conclusions, believes he
is the man who eloped with the Princess de Chimay.

After lunch, we had coffee and liqueur and cigarettes in the hall. The
chairs were luxurious, and as all the doors and windows were open it was
delightfully breezy; there was no glare, and it was great fun watching
the people.

{_Dip in the Lake_}

At three o'clock Blanche went across to the baths and had a dip in the
lake, and I drew a sofa in front of my balcony and had a snooze in the
shade. When Blanche came back she said the bathing was perfect, but that
the boards which separated the "Herren" from the "Frauen" were riddled
with holes, and that as far as privacy was concerned the two sexes might
as well have bathed together. She insisted on having tea on the
_terrasse_ of the Kursaal where she heard a band playing. When we got
there the place was deserted save for some men who were drinking beer at
a table with a very _démodér_ woman and little child. We afterwards
recognised them as the croupiers who ran the Petits Chevaux. Later on
all the tables were taken. The people were mostly cheap Germans and
Americans, and they encored the Boer Volkslied which the orchestra
played with great spirit. It was the first time I had heard the
Transvaal National Anthem. It is like a trek in the spirit of the
Marseillaise; you could hear the bullock carts rumbling over the veldt.

{_At the Cathedral_}

At six o'clock we went to the Cathedral to hear the organ. Every seat
was taken, and the music was superb; the prima donna from the Dresden
Opera sang. The twilight gradually faded into darkness, and they didn't
light the candles. The effect of the _vox humana_ was very solemn, and
the music seemed to be far away up in the darkness like a chorus of
angels chanting. I felt very good.

The smart people were very smart, at dinner, and all seemed to know one
another. They took the best seats in the verandah afterwards, and
watched the flash-light and illuminations on the Stanzerhorn. We are
going to spend the day on the lake to-morrow.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER VIII


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       20th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Fluëlen_}

{_Bicyclists_}

Yesterday Blanche and I went to Fluëlen. The boat was crowded, but we
got two comfortable seats in front of the wheel and had a perfect view.
The scenery was indescribably lovely, and the air was so clear that we
could actually see the people walking about on the top of the Rigi. Some
Swiss peasants got on at Brunen, and they all had goitre; one was such a
good-looking young fellow about twenty; his neck looked positively
uncomfortable, but he didn't seem to mind it at all. Nearly all the
hotels are du Lac or des Alpes, and have _terrasses_ planted with
chestnuts, and there was always excitement when the steamer stopped. Two
bicycle fiends got off at Brunen; they were English, and we saw them
afterwards scorching along the Axenstrasse in clouds of dust, evidently
trying to get to Fluëlen before us. It seemed so ludicrous to see
bicycles in such a country as Switzerland, that I told Blanche that I
was sure that people only brought them there out of a sort of bravado,
and that they didn't really enjoy themselves. An American who was
sitting near, overheard, and said in quite an offended way that he had
biked over the Brunig from Interlaken to Lucerne, and was going over the
Furka in the same manner. I replied, I believed if there was a road to
the top of Titlis one would find a pair of knickerbockers astride a
pneumatic trying to make the ascent. He smiled contemptuously, and said
it was evident I had never ridden. I told him I had tried to learn, and
had bought an Elswick, but that the day it arrived a new stable-boy rode
it into Taunton without my knowledge, and punctured the tire, which was
a blessing in disguise if it had saved me from making an exhibition of
myself on a Swiss pass. He became quite talkative after this, and
pointed out a great many things of interest like a Baedeker, without the
bother of having to find the places. We saw the Tellsplatte and chapel,
and the American told us that there were as many arrows that had killed
Gessler in various parts of Switzerland as bits of the True Cross in
European churches. We thought of returning in the same steamer and
having lunch on board, but he told us we ought to go to Altdorf and see
the new Tell monument, and that we could get lunch at an inn there. So
we thought while we were about it we might as well do all there was to
be done, and return by a later boat.

{_At Fluëlen_}

At Fluëlen we had great difficulty in getting seats in any of the brakes
that run to Altdorf, as everybody made a rush for them at once. However,
Blanche got a bit of iron bar on the box-seat, and was held on by a
German with an alpenstock and edelweiss, who linked his arm in hers,
while I was smothered between a Cook's guide, who looked fagged out, and
a garrulous female, who told me she came from Chicago and had been
hungry ever since she left. She said they didn't know how to make pie in
Europe, and had never heard of it; her family seemed specially addicted
to pie, and greatly missed this delicacy on their travels. She had a
letter that morning from her son, a portion of which she read to me: he
was doing the capitals of Europe in three weeks, and had been fortunate
in finding pie in Constantinople, quite an American pie, only it was
made of pumpkin instead of Howard squash.

Our brake stopped at a des Alpes, and the proprietor came out and made
us welcome in the fashion they have on the Continent, as if he were
playing the host in a private house. My Chicago acquaintance at once
asked for the _menu_, and you should have seen her face when she found
there was no pie on it.

{_An Omelette Soufflée_}

As I was very hungry, I had the _table d'hôte_ lunch, which was very
good, but Blanche ordered hers _à la carte_. The only French thing on
the _menu_ that Blanche fancied was _omelette soufflée_. It took twenty
minutes to make, and when it came it looked like a mountain. I told
Blanche they must have thought her capacity enormous, but when she put
her spoon into it, it gave a sort of sigh and collapsed, and before
Blanche could get it on her plate there was only as much as you scrape
up in a table-spoon.

As the _table d'hôte_ courses were all consumed and time was pressing,
she had to content herself with French rolls and honey.

{_The Tell Monument_}

Before we left Altdorf the two Englishmen whom we had seen scorching
over the Axenstrasse arrived. I never saw such objects, they were fairly
reeking with perspiration and covered in white dust. They looked
positively filthy. I heard one asking the proprietor of the hotel if he
could buy a valve in Altdorf, and they both abused the Swiss roads as if
they had expected to find them like the Macadam in Hyde Park. The Tell
monument was quite worth coming to see, but I think its situation in the
tiny _platz_ of the picturesque village, which the immense mountains
seem ready to crush, makes it more imposing than it really is. I am sure
if it were in a city one would hardly notice it.

{_A Bunch of Edelweiss_}

Blanche was awfully "Cooky," and bought two post-cards with it on to
send to Daisy and Mrs. Chevington. At Fluëlen, too, she bought a bunch
of edelweiss from a Swiss doll with goitre, and stuck it into the bow
on her sailor-hat. We were quite tired when we got back to Lucerne, and
had dinner in our rooms, for Thérèse had gone to bed with a _migraine_
and neglected to put out our frocks or have our baths ready. I expect to
hear from you to-morrow, and that you are enjoying yourself at
Croixmare.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER IX


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       22nd August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_On the Quai_}

This morning between twelve and one, Blanche and I were strolling on the
_quai_ when we met Sir Charles Bevon. He seemed glad to see us, and
asked if we knew any of the people in society here, and when we told him
we had only been in Lucerne four days and that he was the first person
we had met that we knew, he invited us to dine with him at the
Schweitzerhof to-night. It is from this dinner we have just come, and I
must tell you about it before I go to bed.

{_Anglophobia_}

Sir Charles asked the Marquis and the Marquise de Pivart, the Vicomte de
Narjac, and Mr. Vanduzen, an American naval officer _en retraite_, to
meet us. I sat between the Marquis and Mr. Vanduzen. The Marquis looks
like a little black monkey, with a beard _à Henri Deux_, but his manners
are so elegant one never thinks of his looks. He knows the De
Croixmares very well, and when I asked him what he thought of Héloise he
turned so red and looked so uncomfortable that I at once felt that
Jean's charming Comtesse had _brisé son c[oe]ur_ at some period of their
acquaintance. He dropped the subject as soon as possible, and quite
rudely began to talk of the war, and said that England was the Jew among
nations. I cooled his Anglophobia for him by remarking that I would much
prefer to have him talk of the Comtesse de Croixmare than attack my
country. He seemed positively afraid of me after that, so I am sure
there must be something between him and Héloise that he doesn't want his
wife to know. He got so moody and silent that I told him I thought him
very rude, and devoted myself through the rest of dinner to Mr.
Vanduzen, who is elderly and "natty." Mr. Vanduzen is quite amusing, but
I wish he wouldn't call people by their full names as if they were a
species he was labelling for a museum, such as, "Really, Miss Blanche
Blaine, you amaze me." "It was very warm to-day, was it not, Madame la
Marquise de Pivart?" "Have you made the ascent of Pilatus, Sir Charles
Bevon?" You know the style of man, Elizabeth, you must have met one or
two like him at Nazeby or Hazeldene. If they are English they are called
snobs, but when they come from the Land of Canaan on the other side of
the pond they are put down quite likely as "so American."

{_The Marquise_}

The Marquise is a fascinating creature, she knows the full value of her
figure as one of her attractions, and she clothes it accordingly. Her
bust is like alabaster, the neck and shoulders are perfect; her eyes are
rather wide apart, which gives her a naïve expression; her smile is
simplicity itself, and she talks with a tabloid voice. Sir Charles
seemed to admire her, for he addressed nearly all his conversation to
her, and he poked me so hard under the table once or twice that I was
compelled to say, "The table leg is on the other side, Sir Charles," and
he gave the Marquise such a reproachful glance.

Blanche had the Vicomte all to herself, and he seemed to like it. He has
an automobile and talked of nothing else, and Sir Charles says he does
nothing else in Paris. He is going to take Blanche and the Marquise in
it to-morrow for a spin in the valley of the Reuss.

Everybody talked at once, as they always do on the Continent, and the
effort to be general was quite fatiguing to me who am accustomed to the
English method of monopolising one's neighbours. The foreign custom
certainly gives more "go" to a dinner, but I think when I am not the
hostess I prefer conversation _à deux_.

{_Don Carlos_}

After dinner we had coffee in the salon instead of outside on the
verandah, for Sir Charles said we ought to see Don Carlos and suite go
in to dinner. The suite were already in the salon, and they occupied the
most comfortable chairs and looked rather sulky, which I suppose was
from having to wait so long for their dinner. Don Carlos has thirty
rooms on the first floor, but he will neither take his meals in private
or at the usual hour with everybody else. He makes quite a point of
dinner, and has it in the _salle-à-manger_ when the general public have
finished. He must be a great advertisement for the Schweitzerhof, for
crowds come nightly to see him and the Duchess go in to dinner. When
they entered the salon there was as much etiquette among the suite as if
they were at a _levée_. They formed themselves in a line in order of
precedence; the men all kissed the Duchess's hand and the ladies
curtseyed, then Don Carlos gave his arm to his wife and led the way to
dinner. As the door of the _salle-à-manger_ was open we could see them
eating; everybody talked at once, and the suite ate as if it was the
only dinner they had had for a week. I am sure they were hungry.

Don Carlos is a splendid-looking Spaniard, with exile written all over
him; whether natural or cultivated, the pose was perfect--the sadness
and abstraction, the forced amusement, the far-away look in the
eyes--but it wasn't melodramatic, and you didn't feel like laughing. The
Duchess of Madrid was _reine aux bouts des ongles_ and an ideal consort
for a banished monarch. She must have been very beautiful at one period
of her life, and is still strikingly fine-looking. She was dressed as
the great ladies on the Continent know how to dress, and wore some
lovely diamonds. She had the same melancholy far-away expression as Don
Carlos, and they both seemed rather bored, as if they had had too much
of the suite, who are really nothing but pensioners. Sir Charles says
they have not a peseta to bless themselves with, and live entirely on
the bounty of Don Carlos. They follow him wherever he goes and form a
sort of court for him; they are nothing but a pack of conspirators and
professional revolutionists who dare not go back to Spain, and as they
have all been broken in the Carlist cause, and still continue to
intrigue and make themselves useful, Don Carlos has to put up with them.
And I must say I think he does it right royally, keeping up a fine old
Bourbon custom, for these people can still say, like the needy noblesse
in Louis XIV.'s time, that they "bank with the king."

{_The Kursaal_}

When we had "done" Don Carlos and his dinner-party, Sir Charles
suggested that we should go to the Kursaal and try our luck at Petits
Chevaux. We found the room crowded, and most of the people looked like
those I saw at the Monico in London the night Algy Chevington took me
there for supper, when he couldn't get a table at the Trocadero. At
first we couldn't get near the tables, but the Marquise went and stood
behind the croupier, and got him a place for her. Then a man, who I am
sure was a High Church curate, for he had cut off his coat collar and
let his hair grow long like a French abbé, offered me his seat if I
would touch his money for him. But he gave me bad luck till he was
cleared out, and then I began to win. It was such fun, and I raked in
quantities of gold and some five-franc pieces made of lead. The Marquise
and I won, but the others had no luck, and I saw the Marquis somewhere
in the back drinking beer with an impossible female, and I told him so
afterwards, and that I thought it was very rude to the ladies in his
party, and he looked as if he would like to choke me. The Vicomte told
Blanche that he believed the croupier tampered with the machinery and
could make any horse win he liked, and the croupier heard. For an
instant I thought there was going to be a "scene," but the Marquise said
such a _cochon_ as the croupier wouldn't dare to strike the Vicomte, who
it seems spends the time he can spare from automobiling in Paris in
duelling. "Mais, comme il est sale, ce croupier," the Marquise said to
me, and then added that the croupiers at Monte Carlo were as beautiful
as Lucifer, and that a friend of hers, a Comtesse Jean d'Outremer, had
eloped with one. A _bêtise_ she called it. I told Sir Charles after that
that I thought we had better go, and they all walked with us as far as
the National. The Marquis and the Vicomte kissed my hand, and Sir
Charles told me to call on the Marquise to-morrow, as she expected it.
My kindest regard to Madame de Croixmare and the family at the
château.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER X


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       24th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Smart People_}

This morning Blanche and I were sitting in the wicker chairs under the
chestnuts on the _quai_ in front of the National, when Sir Charles and
the Vicomte passed. They both stopped and chatted for a while, then the
Vicomte saw some very smart people who were sitting near and introduced
us to them. They were the Duchesse de Vaudricourt and Mrs. Wertzelmann,
the wife of the American Minister. The Duchesse is Empire and the
Wertzelmanns are _nouveaux riches_, but they are at the very top of all
the society here. A great many other people came up to speak to them;
Blanche and I were introduced, and, as Sir Charles said, before you
could say "Jack Robinson" we were _rangé_. As we both had on Paquin we
felt quite as well turned out as the other women, who were beautifully
dressed. You should have seen the people on the _quai_ stare as they
passed.

{_Telling Fortunes_}

Blanche made quite a sensation by telling fortunes, and everybody wanted
their hands read. She did it awfully well, and told the right things to
the right people. She told the Duchesse de Vaudricourt, who is fifty if
she is a day, but makes up twenty-five, that the only tragedy in her
life would be her death, and to beware of a _beau sabreur_ who carried
her photograph in a locket on his watch chain. When pressed as to the
reason she should be cautious of this unknown, Blanche told her that he
was destined to perish in a duel over her. The Duchesse was delighted,
for it is said that she longs for the _éclat_ of men killing themselves
over her, but that up to the present no one has ever even fought about
her. Mrs. Wertzelmann was to have her portrait, which has been painted
by Constant, hung in the Luxembourg, and to marry her daughter to a
Serene Highness, both of which Sir Charles had told us were her supreme
desires. The Vicomte had a very interesting personality, and was
irresistible with women and greatly respected by men, and was to die in
a collision of automobiles, which made him turn rather green. Mr.
Wertzelmann, the American Minister, who had joined us, held out a hand
like a working-man's, and asked Blanche what was going to happen to him.
She said she saw great things in the lines, and something else which she
thought could only be confided to his ear in private.

He was so excited, and Blanche wrinkled her eyes at him in the prettiest
way, that he insisted on taking her to the verandah of the National, and
hearing the rest of his fortune in private. I don't know what Blanche
told him, but he ordered champagne frappé, and when they came back his
face fairly beamed.

Mrs. Wertzelmann was very gracious, and said that though we hadn't
called she wanted us to come out to-morrow afternoon to her villa to a
garden-party; that she hated ceremony and etiquette and calling, and we
might leave our cards when we came. For it seems it is the custom here
for strangers to make the first call, but it is really very silly
calling at all, for nobody ever seems to be at home, and one meets the
same people half-a-dozen times a day at the National, which is the
rendezvous of the smart set.

{_Comte Belladonna_}

{_Advertising Custom_}

It is the thing to have tea in the garden of the National, where the
Hungarian band plays from four to six. It is very _recherché_, and the
prices are so high that the _canaille_, as the Marquise de Pivart calls
the tourists, don't come. So this afternoon we met the same set again,
and also a dear little old man, over eighty, who had the most perfect
manners, and was dressed faultlessly. In fact the Marquise told me that
his only occupation was dressing and paying compliments. His name is
Comte Belladonna, and he has a face like the carving on a cameo. He is
the most _distingué_ person here, and was something to Victor Emanuel,
and has seen only the best society all his life. He is quite poor, and
has a pension which just about pays for his gloves and handkerchiefs,
but everybody adores him; he gives tone to everything, and nothing is
complete without his presence. He is like the old beaux we used to see
at Cannes and Biarritz, and it is a wonder how at his age he manages to
keep pace with his invitations. Sir Charles says he has a room on the
top floor of the National which he gets for nothing, for his name is
always put first on the list of the hotel guests in the papers as an
advertisement.

There is an Austrian nobleman at the Schweitzerhof who is accommodated
there in the same way for the use of his name in the visitors' list, and
I think it is very convenient, for it saves all the worry of trying to
make ends meet, and one is actually paid for existing, and supported in
the best style. I am sure if the Irish peers knew that there was such a
custom in vogue they would move it should be adopted at Scarborough and
Harrogate, and the other places, only, of course, we haven't any _villes
de luxe_ at home as they have on the Continent.

Comte Belladonna spends his summers at the National and his winters in
Rome, where the Marquise says the Government, in consideration for his
past services to the State, have given him a post in a _bureau_, where
all that he has to do is to occasionally sign his name to documents of
which he never reads the contents. He is quite the most youthful old boy
I have ever met; he doesn't rise at six and walk ten miles before
breakfast like old Lord Merriman, who hunts with the West Somerset
Harriers in all weathers and golfs on the Quantocks. Comte Belladonna
rises at eleven like a gilded youth, clothes himself in the most
faultless flannels, and descends to the wicker chairs under the
chestnuts on the _quai_, where he reads the "Osservatore Romano," and
chats with the _beau monde_ of Lucerne who gather there; at one he
lunches like an epicure, after which he is ready for any social
amusement. He is a charming polished beau, a master of ceremonies, a
courtier, and he at present affects an American girl of nineteen, who is
quite ready to play May to his January. But Comte Belladonna belongs to
the country of Machiavelli, and _la belle Américaine_ has only her face
for her fortune.

{_Dinner at a Café_}

To-night we dined at a café with the Vicomte de Narjac; Sir Charles and
the Wertzelmanns were the only others of the party. A troupe of Swedish
singers sang and danced and passed round a tambourine, and after dinner
we went to the Kursaal theatre to see "Puppenfee."--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XI


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       26th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The De Pivarts' Villa_}

Such a jolly time as we had yesterday! In the morning before lunch
Blanche and I clambered up the hill behind the National to call on the
De Pivarts. They live in a mite of a box of a villa. It is at the end of
a street so steep that you feel as if you were going to pitch head-first
down it when you begin to descend. The De Pivarts were not at home,
according to a man-servant who came to the door in his shirt sleeves and
without a collar, and took our cards in fingers that I am sure had
previously been engaged in blacking the Marquis's boots or lighting the
kitchen fire. But as we came up the hill we saw a man like the Marquis
_en déshabille_ leaning out of the tiny balcony, and we distinctly heard
a female exclaim: "Mon Dieu, je suis perdu! Il n'y a pas des Geraudels!
Marie, vite, vite, descendez à la ville pour chercher une boîte."

So we knew where the Marquise got her voice from.

In spite of the villa being so high up, the air seemed quite stuffy, for
the hill is full of six-francs-a-day pensions, where there are enough
Baedekers to start a library, and where they ring _ranz des vaches_
instead of dinner-gongs.

{_Lunch at the Gütsch_}

We intended to lunch at the National, but Sir Charles met us on the
_quai_ and said he had been hunting all over the town for us, as he
wanted us to lunch with him at the Gütsch, and go on to the
Wertzelmanns' afterwards. In front of the Schweitzerhof we found the
Vicomte, who had been automobiling all the morning, and Sir Charles
asked him to join us.

The Gütsch is much higher than the De Pivarts' villa, and you reach it
by a funicular which creeps straight up the side of the hill like a
lift. The view was lovely and so was the cooking; we had a table in
front of a huge window overlooking the _terrasse_. Afterwards we
strolled in the glades of the pine forest where the light was like the
pictures called "Studies in Colour," which one sees in the Academy and
nowhere else.

{_Morale of Lucerne Society_}

Blanche and Sir Charles were in front, while the Vicomte and I, owing to
the Vicomte's laziness, were considerably in the rear. For once he
talked of something else than his automobile, but his conversation was
not very edifying, save as giving me a pretty vivid idea of the _morale_
of Lucerne society. The Vicomte talked the most outrageous scandal, but
in so witty a way that it was impossible to take offence. He knew the
_histoire_ of everybody, which, if true, proves that Continental
society, especially at a _ville d'eaux_, is very much the same as in
English country houses where the people are smart. As he spoke in French
he sailed straight into the wind, where an Englishman would have tacked
a half-a-dozen times before reaching port. The voyage was quite
exciting, and when I expected him every moment to be wrecked on the
rocks of a Moulin Rouge episode he dexterously dropped anchor in calm
water. When we got back to the Gütsch I felt as if I had been listening
to one of Gyp's spiciest novels in which I knew all the characters.
They manage these things differently in England, and when Mrs. Smith
looks purry-purry, puss-puss at Lord Valmond you may be sure that each
sees the ghost of a conscience, and it has the face of Sir Francis
Jeune.

{_Schloss Gessler_}

From the Gütsch we went straight to Schloss Gessler in the Vicomte's
automobile. We tore through Lucerne at top speed; it was great fun, and
the Vicomte said there was no danger, for the road was straight, and
that nobody would dare get in the way. Going up the hill outside of the
town somebody's Maltese terrier with bells round its neck came tearing
after us and got under the wheels. But we didn't stop, and as we turned
into the avenue leading to the Schloss one of Mr. Wertzelmann's geese
committed suicide by throwing itself in front of the automobile.

Nothing could have been more hospitable than the welcome the
Wertzelmanns gave us. Everybody we knew was there, and many more whom we
didn't. Mr. Wertzelmann took me to see the ruins, but all that is left
is a bit of stone wall, which looks as if it had begun with the
intention of encircling a kitchen-garden, but had decided to visit the
stables, and never got any further. Mr. Wertzelmann told me it had once
sheltered Gessler, hence the name of the Schloss, but that the place had
recently been restored by a Swiss engineer who had made a fortune out of
funiculars. Certainly in its present state Schloss Gessler is very fine,
and the view from the terrace, which Mr. Wertzelmann insisted were the
old battlements, was lovely.

We saw Mrs. Wertzelmann's portrait by Constant and heard the price it
cost; we also went down to the jetty, and as many as could got into the
steam launch and went for a spin on the lake. Blanche was among the
number, but I preferred to remain on the lawn where the Marquise was
playing croquet. Her maid had evidently found the Geraudels, for her
voice was more tabloid than ever. Some people who looked as if they
lived in pensions, and were no doubt Americans, who had come to pay
their respects to their Minister and his handsome wife, strolled about
the grounds aimlessly and looked uncomfortable. One of them carried on a
polite conversation with a lackey who spoke English, and whom he
addressed as "Sir." But the Wertzelmanns devoted their whole attention
to their personal friends, and left the representatives of their nation
to amuse themselves in their own way.

Mr. Vanduzen brought the Duchesse de Vaudricourt and Comte Belladonna in
the cab with him, and I overheard him squabbling with the cabman over
the fare, for, from what passed between them, I judged that the Duchesse
had been a second thought with Mr. Vanduzen, who had only arranged with
the cabman for himself and the Comte. The cabman evidently won, and Mr.
Vanduzen arrived on the lawn so perturbed that he forgot to kiss Mrs.
Wertzelmann's hand, a custom he has affected since taking up his
residence abroad.

{_An Austrian Nobleman_}

Behind Mr. Vanduzen's cab there drove up a very smart landau belonging
to Mrs. Solomon G. Isaacs of St. Louis, who is stopping at the National
with her mother and daughter. The Austrian nobleman, whose name heads
the Schweitzerhof visitors' list, for which they give him his room and
food when the latter article is not supplied to him by Mrs. Isaacs, with
whose daughter he is _épris_, came with them. He is even _plus
distingué_ than Comte Belladonna, for it is whispered he was a friend of
Crown Prince Rudolph's, and knows so much about his death that the
Emperor has requested him to live out of Austria. Mrs. Isaacs, who is a
widow, well _conservée_, would, I think, sooner than let him slip out of
the family, take him herself, but he prefers the daughter, who is an
extremely beautiful and innocent girl of seventeen. The disposal of the
dollars, of which they appear to possess millions, rests with Mrs.
Isaacs's mother, an impossible old woman, who looks as if she had
acquired the etiquette of the salon after a very thorough knowledge of
that of the kitchen. Her thirst for information is apparently
unquenchable, and I heard her ask Count Albert if he was related to a
_hofdame_ at Vienna, whose name I forget. He replied that his maternal
grandmother was a Hohenzollern and his great-uncle had married a
Hapsburg, which information so delighted Mrs. Johnson that she smacked
her lips as if she were tasting some of the sauces she used to make in
the good old days. I believe, old as she is, that she would marry Count
Albert herself if he asked her; and I am sure that _he_ would not
hesitate to do so, if he were certain the fortune was entirely hers.

{_Madame Colorado_}

Mrs. Wertzelmann has a very pretty French woman stopping at Schloss
Gessler, a Madame Colorado; she is really lovely, and has the dearest
little girl in the world. Madame Colorado knows all the people you have
met at Croixmare. On the way back to the National the Vicomte told me
she was angelic, as I can well believe; she was married to a brute of a
Chilian, who happily killed himself and left her free; she at one time
thought of taking the veil, and the Vicomte says her charities in Paris
are enormous and that the breath of scandal has never touched her name.
I feel quite drawn to her, and shall try to know her better.

{_The Schweitzerhof_}

To-night after dinner several of us went down to the Schweitzerhof to
see the fireworks and hear the music. As everybody was in the salon
waiting to see Don Carlos and his Duchesse pass through on their way to
dinner, we got splendid seats on the balcony. The night was
superb.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XII


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       28th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_New People_}

The season is in full swing, and yesterday a number of new people
"descended," as the French say, at the National. First in importance
were the Prince and Princesse di Spezzia from Florence; the Maréchale de
Vichy-Pontoise; Mademoiselle Liane de Pougy of the Folies Bergère; and
Professor Chzweiczy, who has discovered the bacillus of paralysis, and
whose great scientific work "The Blot on the Brain" has been translated
into all the European languages. This morning there was an enormous
crowd on the _quai_ in front of the hotel; Blanche said she was sure a
crowned head had arrived, but I thought it was more likely that someone
had had a fit, for we could see a circle had been formed round something
or someone, people were tiptoeing and crushing one another, and I
expected a _sergent de ville_ to cry every moment, "Air! air!" as they
did in Regent Street that morning when we were coming out of Fuller's
and found the Duchesse of Rougemont's footman foaming on the pavement.
But Blanche insisted it was an emperor, and she was backed up by
Thérèse, who said it was just like the crowds she had seen in Paris when
the Czar came. We found everybody we knew sitting in the hall of the
hotel and in very bad humour, because it was awfully hot and stuffy, and
the waiters had brought all the chairs inside lest they should be broken
by the crowd. I asked the Marquise what had happened, and she said, with
a shrug, it was only Liane de Pougy taking the air under the chestnuts.
Professor Chzweiczy sat in the same spot all the afternoon reading "The
Blot on the Brain," and the letters on the cover were so big that the
Vicomte said you could distinguish them across the _quai_, but nobody
paid any attention to him.

{_Signor Stefano Crestfallen_}

The Princesse di Spezzia held quite a court in the hall, and stared at
everybody through her lorgnettes; they say she is at the head of
Florentine society and a young Italian, who has a _magasin_ on the
_quai_ Schweitzerhof, and comes to the dances at the National because
men are scarce, has begged Mr. Vanduzen to present him. But Mr. Vanduzen
refused, and Signor Stefano went off crestfallen, finding it, I daresay,
quite impossible to reconcile the selling of precious stones behind a
counter with his social ambitions.

Blanche spent the morning yesterday automobiling with the Vicomte and
the Marquise, while I remained in the verandah to rest, as we were to
drive after lunch with Sir Charles to a Schloss twenty miles away to a
garden party. Mrs. Johnson kept me company, and told me that Count
Albert had gone to the Rigi for the day with Mrs. Isaacs and Rosalie.
She said they had been presented at Berlin and Brussels, and had
intended to enjoy the same experience at Dresden last winter, as they
had letters to the Minister there, but he made some paltry objection and
she had not pressed the matter, though she added that she had written to
the Senator, to whom the Minister owed his place, and that he would
make it hot for him.

{_Shopping and Sightseeing_}

I asked her if they had been to London, and she said only for a week,
and had never had such a dull time, as they knew nobody, and her room at
the Carlton was so cold it gave her rheumatism. They did some shopping
and sight-seeing, and had gone from the Bank to Shepherd's Bush in the
Tu'penny Tube, but she preferred the Elevated in New York, because of
the scenery. However, Mrs. Johnson told me quite in confidence, that if
Count Albert didn't propose to Rosalie, they thought of going to London
next year for the season, and she asked me if I could recommend a
Countess who would run them, and she wanted to know if there was any
institution to which she could write and engage one, for she had heard
in St. Louis that poor Countesses did quite a business that way. I told
her we were not so progressive in England as in the States, and that I
did not think there was as yet any association of distressed gentlewomen
where one could hire a Countess for the London season, but that perhaps
if she wrote to the editor of one of the Society papers, I daresay he
could provide a suitable person who would get her access to the best
houses. Mrs. Johnson at once pulled a note-book out of her pocket, and
jotted down the names of two or three papers I gave her, then she looked
at me rather shrewdly, and asked what I thought would be the fee. I said
I didn't think she could do the London season the way she would want to
much under ten thousand pounds all told.

"Well," she said, "Count Albert won't cost us as much as that, and if we
secure him we shan't go to London. From what I can find out Continental
society is less expensive than English and just as good."

{_Automobile Accident_}

Blanche returned just before lunch in a great state of excitement: it
seems that in going up the hill to the De Pivarts, something went wrong
with the automobile, and it began to descend backwards at a frightful
pace; the Marquise screamed so loud that a number of people, not knowing
what was the matter, rushed into the middle of the road, and the
automobile knocked down one who happened to be the croupier at the
Kursaal, and he was so badly hurt he had to be taken to the hospital.
Just as they expected to batter down a wall at the foot of the hill, and
perish horribly, the automobile suddenly stopped; they jumped out
instantly, and it was just in time, for it at once blew up with such a
noise, that the porter at the Pension Thorvaldsen took it for the one
o'clock gun and began sounding the dinner-gong.

Blanche says that the Vicomte took it quite coolly; he declared he
always knew the automobile would end like that, and he should compel the
company in Paris to give him another, as they had guaranteed it to run
without accident for a year. The Marquise fainted, and when Blanche left
her she was in hysterics in the Pension Thorvaldsen; it all happened so
quickly, that Blanche said it was all over before she could realise the
danger. She was not even shaken.

{_Maréchale de Vichy-Pontoise_}

At lunch the _maître d'hôtel_ made a mistake and put some Germans at the
table occupied by the Maréchale de Vichy-Pontoise, and when she hobbled
in, leaning on her cane, and followed by Bijou, her pug, there was no
place for her to sit. She was in a towering rage, and shook her stick at
the _maître d'hôtel_, and Bijou looked as if he contemplated making his
lunch off the waiter's leg. A seat was eventually found for her at our
table, and another for Bijou, who finished his chop in the Maréchale's
lap. She glared at us several times as if she thought it was an
impertinence for us to sit at the same table with her, and she
frightened the waiters out of their wits and found fault with
everything. I am sure she is horribly old, for Sir Charles says she was
no chicken in the last year of the Empire, when her salon was the most
_suivi_ in Paris. Her _coiffure_ is jet black, and her eyebrows are bald
and pencilled in arches. She is awfully badly made up, but, as Blanche
says, it would take tons of rouge to hide the gutters on her face which
is lined like a railway-map. All her clothes are made in the fashion of
1870; she is covered at all times with jewels and wears a daguerreotype
brooch of the late Maréchal.

But, of course, she is _très grande dame_, and everyone tries to mollify
her, and they wait on her and Bijou hand and foot, and the Duchesse de
Vaudricourt, who hates her because the Maréchale asked her before the
Vicomte and Mr. Vanduzen if she remembered a certain ball at the
Tuileries in '68, calls her "Ma chère maréchale."

{_Time to Retire_}

Thérèse has rapped twice to ask if I am ready to retire, so unless she
should pull my hair out by the roots to spite me for keeping her up so
late I must say good-night.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XIII


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                       30th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Sonnenburgs_}

I never told you of the garden party at Schloss Sonnenburg the other
day, and as it will give quite another aspect of Lucerne life from that
of the National and Schloss Gessler, I will try to remember what
happened. It is rather difficult, for so much transpires in the course
of the day that I am apt to forget what I did the day before.

{_A Disagreeable Drive_}

In the first place Baroness Sonnenburg is an Englishwoman, and Sir
Charles knows her quite well. So he offered to drive us out to the
Schloss and introduce us, telling us it would be quite _comme il faut_,
and that the Sonnenburgs would be only too delighted to meet us. The
Vicomte occupied the vacant seat in the landau, and we started
immediately after lunch, for we had over twenty miles to drive. To know
what dust is you must come to Switzerland in August; the road was like
driving through sand, we were powdered with it, a nasty, white, itchy
powder, and the flies, having devoured the horses which flew along
maddened with pain, came to add their sting and buzzing to our own
sufferings from the dust. I nearly shrieked with the discomfort of it
all, and longed for my balcony at the National. The Vicomte began to
talk of love to me, but knowing the danger of such a subject I peevishly
begged him to desist, and a huge bottle-green fly, with a most
irritating buzz, having drawn blood from his cheek, the Vicomte became
as peevish as I. It seemed as if the journey would never end, which made
the thought of the return to Lucerne _épouvantable_, and we were none of
us in a good mood when a great yellow and black building, whose walls
were like a draught-board, suddenly loomed out of a forest of pine trees
on the brow of a steep cliff.

{_Warm Welcome_}

When we drove up to the front door two footmen in livery helped us out
of the carriage, and I could have cried from the nervousness that the
drive had fretted me into. However, we found a maid with brushes and
water and perfumes, and when we were at all presentable again, another
carriage drove up with Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Isaacs and Rosalie, and their
Austrian Count. They were in as bad a temper as we were from the dust
and the flies, and I heard Mrs. Johnson say that if "Mrs. Sonnenburg
hadn't been a baroness" she would never have come. We passed down a long
hall whose walls were covered with family portraits, more than enough to
make up the twenty-four quarterings of the Sonnenburg arms. At the end
of the hall was a room into which we were shown by a footman. A
grand-looking man, who was introduced by Sir Charles as Baron
Sonnenburg, gave us the warmest welcome in English, and led us across
the room where we were presented to his wife and mother. Baroness
Sonnenburg spoke English with an accent which was not affected, for she
told us she had not been in England for over twenty years. She was one
of the Trevorleys of Devonshire, and the present baronet is her first
cousin. I doubt if she ever heard the name of Paquin, and I suppose her
clothes are made by a seamstress in Lucerne, yet there was no
disguising the gentility of her appearance and the breeding of her
manners.

{_A Pretty Custom_}

Blanche and I, who, from constant observation of the people we mix with,
are rapidly becoming Continental, curtseyed to the Dowager Baroness and
kissed the hand she held out. I think it is such a pretty custom, and
one we could adopt to advantage in England, where every trace of the
manners of the _ancien régime_ has disappeared. Such a number of people
were in the room that we did not get the chance I should have liked to
converse with our hosts, and we sauntered into an enormous octagonal
apartment, which we were told jutted sheer over the precipice on which
the Schloss is built. The view from the windows was very fine and
extensive, and it made one quite giddy to look down into the valley
which is nine hundred feet below.

There was a visitors' book here which Sir Charles was signing for us
when suddenly there were shrieks of surprise and everybody rushed to the
windows. Through a cleft of pine woods standing out against the bright
blue sky was a glittering, dazzling mass. It was the Jungfrau, Baron
Sonnenburg said, and was only seen on rare occasions, and nothing could
be more fortunate than that it should unveil its peerless loveliness
to-day of all days for the benefit of his guests.

{_An Al Fresco Repast_}

An _al fresco_ repast was served on the old battlements which have been
turned out into a _terrasse_. An awkward, blushing youth was brought up
to me by Baron Sonnenburg and presented as his son, and I was told he
was going to England in the autumn to learn English, of which he doesn't
know a word. Two rather pretty, but shockingly badly-dressed girls, were
talking to two Swiss officers, but the attitudes of all were so stilted
and forced that I am sure they were not enjoying the unusual liberty
permitted on this occasion.

The Duchesse de Vaudricourt whispered to me that they were Baroness
Sonnenburg's daughters and were considered very English. I was on the
point of asking her what she thought _I_ was, but thought better of it,
and merely said, that from the extreme diffidence they displayed, I
should have taken them for French girls whose _dot_ had not yet been
settled.

{_The Wertzelmanns_}

The Wertzelmanns came late; they brought Madame Colorado, who looked
perfectly angelic in a marvellous white crêpe de chine, and a hat that
killed you at a glance. They brought the news of the accident to the
Vicomte de Narjac's automobile, and Mrs. Wertzelmann excitedly told a
circle, who had gathered to admire her clothes and her jewels, that it
was the sensation of the season, she had never heard of anything so
dreadful. And Baron Sonnenburg, who had never seen either Blanche or the
Vicomte before, and had forgotten their names already, was told how the
Vicomte's automobile had run away and exploded, terribly mangling the
croupier at the Kursaal, blowing the Vicomte and Miss Blaine, such a
sweet English girl, to smithereens, and that the poor Marquise de Pivart
had gone mad from the shock.

{_An Amusing Story_}

Mrs. Wertzelmann dwelt on the horrible details with a tenacity there was
no shaking, and at every exclamation of pity uttered by her audience she
but made the story more graphic. The Vicomte and Blanche, who all the
while had listened quietly, unobserved by Mrs. Wertzelmann, stuffed
their mouths with handkerchiefs to keep from shrieking. But when the
Vicomte heard that a boatman had found one of his arms clinging to a
fragment of automobile in the lake, and that they were picking his
brains off the walls of the Pension Thorvaldsen, he could contain
himself no longer.

You should have seen Mrs. Wertzelmann's face when she saw Blanche and
the Vicomte bursting with laughter, and she looked about the _terrasse_
as if she expected to see the Marquise and the croupier eating ices in
Baron Sonnenburg's beach chairs; and later when we left I am sure she
wondered why we drove off in the landau with the fly-bitten horses
instead of in the automobile.

"If Maria once begins to tell a story," said Mr. Wertzelmann to me,
"there is no stopping her. I knew she would end by putting her foot into
it."

As Mrs. Wertzelmann's confusion was so great, and she volunteered no
explanation, I fancy the Sonnenburgs, who do not go into Lucerne
frequently, are wondering why the _Swiss and Nice Times_ have given no
account of the terrible automobile disaster.

Don't ask me how we got back to Lucerne, but four more pitiable-looking
objects you never would wish to see. We were utterly exhausted, and I
never made any appearance the next day till lunch.

I am glad you are having such a good time at Croixmare. Give my kind
regards to your Godmamma and my best love to Héloise. I am glad you have
been such a success; I pride myself that whether in England or in France
_l'ingénue va bien_.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XIV


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                      1st September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Ball of the Season_}

The invitations are out to a _cotillon_ at Schloss Gessler on the 7th.
It is to be a grand affair, the favours are to come from the Maison Bail
at Paris, the supper and the music from the National, and the money to
pay for it all out of Mr. Wertzelmann's bank account, which it goes
without saying is a big one.

{_Count Albert's Proposal_}

Everybody seems to have been invited, and Mr. Wertzelmann told me he
intended that it should be remembered as the ball of the season. Old
Mrs. Johnson came and sat next to me on the _quai_ this morning, and
broke the news that Count Albert has proposed to Rosalie and been
accepted. She didn't seem to like it when I said I felt sorry for the
girl, because she was too good for Count Albert, who was old enough to
be her father, and I advised her to look him up and all his antecedents
at Vienna before the marriage ceremony. But she was quite satisfied that
he was a real, live Count, because the "Schweitzerhof knew all about
him." I shouldn't be surprised, however, that she takes my advice, for
she is a shrewd old woman, but just fancy anyone taking a husband on a
hotel guarantee!

A very pretty woman--a blonde, with a figure that the Venus de Milo
might envy, and dressed, oh! là là! shades of Paquin and Worth!--passed
us several times, walking up and down the _quai_. Everybody turned round
to stare at her, and everybody asked who she was, and the Princesse di
Spezzia, who was talking to Comte Belladonna, put up her lorgnettes. The
Duchesse de Vaudricourt leaned over the arm of her chair and whispered
to me:--

"Voilà la plus belle courtisane de Florence. C'est une des bijoux de M.
le Prince di Spezzia. La fameuse Vittoria Lodi!"

{_Monsieur le Prince_}

Later on the Prince di Spezzia sauntered out of the National on the arm
of the Marquis de Pivart, both dressed faultlessly as usual, _à
l'Anglais_, and they actually stopped and spoke to the _demi-mondaine_.
The Duchesse de Vaudricourt became quite excited over it, and gave me a
regular _New-York-Herald-Paris-Edition_ of Monsieur le Prince. He is
very English in appearance, but then Poole makes all his clothes, and he
could easily pass for an Englishman, which I think would please him
immensely. But why--why will these smart foreigners who affect English
fashions always wear lavender or buff-coloured French kid gloves?
Perhaps you will say, for the same reason that Englishwomen who are for
ever talking of Paris fashions wear English corsets. So under all the
artificiality of civilisation national traits come out in a pair of
gloves or a pair of stays!

The Prince looks as if he would improve on acquaintance, but I think it
distinctly rude and bad form of him to stop and talk to such a woman as
la belle Lodi within a stone's throw of his wife. The Duchesse says he
has been a _mauvais sujet_ since sixteen, when he disguised himself as a
priest and confessed dozens of people, and if it hadn't been that his
uncle was a Cardinal, he would have got into some very hot water. He
drives with the Lodi daily in the Cascine at Florence, and makes her
follow him wherever he goes. She has an apartment at the Schweitzerhof.
The Princesse doesn't seem to mind; I don't suppose it would make any
difference if she did. She is always beautifully dressed, and spends
most of her time staring at people through her lorgnettes.

{_Professor Chzweiczy_}

Poor Professor Chzweiczy (you can pronounce this name to suit yourself,
for nobody knows what it should be, and Blanche calls it Squeezey) sits
every day on the _quai_; he holds the "Blot on the Brain" close in front
of his face as if he were near-sighted. I think he must have a cast in
his eyes, for they always seem to be looking over the top of the book at
the people passing. I am sure that if it were known that he is one of
the greatest medical scientists of the day, he would be besieged like
Liane de Pougy; but nobody ever even glances at him; they have got his
name spelled wrong in the hotel visitors' list, and wedged in out of
sight between some people whose names have a globe-trotting sound and
who look like a party of Cook's "Specials."

{_Liane de Pougy_}

Liane de Pougy sits now in the garden of the National, for the crowds
nearly suffocated her on the _quai_. She is very beautiful and dresses
very quietly; you would never dream that she is as well known in Paris
as a monument or a boulevard. A young Frenchman has for the last two
days been doing his best to attract her attention by sitting near her,
and pretending to read her "L'Insaisissable." I believe that since her
arrival there are nearly as many copies of this _roman vécu_, as she
calls it, as Baedekers at the National. It is hard to say which is the
most interesting--herself or her book. I caught her looking at the old
Maréchale de Vichy-Pontoise yesterday with the most untranslatable
expression. I am not quite sure but that in spite of her triumphs she
would change places with the Maréchale if she could, and wear the old
harridan's moustache and the daguerreotype brooch of the late Maréchal
and feed Bijou and all. As it is, not a woman at the National would
dream of speaking to her, and the Maréchale would as soon think of
strangling Bijou as of sitting down at the same table as the famous
Liane.

{_A Comedy_}

Blanche has just come in to say that a Count Fosca has arrived at the
National, having automobiled all the way from Paris, and that the
Vicomte is completely _bouleversé_. She is laughing so over something
that Thérèse is telling her that I cannot write any more.

I can only catch the words, "Mrs. Johnson," "Prince di Spezzia,"
"Ascenseur," "no lights." I leave it to you to make a comedy out of the
missing links.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XV


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                      3rd September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_A Mishap_}

It rained yesterday for the first time since we have been in Lucerne. As
I was looking at the lake which the wind had turned into an ocean with
waves mountains high, I saw Comte Belladonna soaked to the skin hurrying
along the _quai_ to the hotel. Poor little old beau! He had got himself
up as usual in spotless flannels, patent-leather boots, straw hat, and
lavender kids, and was coming from the direction of the pension where
his inamorata lives--the pretty, portionless American girl--when the
rain had overtaken him. His legs, unaccustomed to the unusual exercise
of running, seemed inclined one moment to run into the flower-beds on
the _quai_ and another to contemplate a plunge into the lake. Sheets of
water fell from the brim of his straw hat, his gloves and his boots were
irretrievably spoilt, and his flannels had that heavy, soppy look that
bathing-suits have. He was as full of water as a sponge, and I am sure
he would have been the better for a squeeze.

I called Blanche to look at him, and we both agreed that he would catch
a chill after such a wetting that would carry him off. But when we went
down to lunch we found him dry and chirpy, and paying his _devoirs_ to
the Princesse di Spezzia, as if he had made his toilet for the first
time that day.

{_A Funny Thing_}

A funny thing happened in the afternoon in connection with the old
beau's wetting that would have covered anybody else but such a
consummate old courtier with ridicule. After lunch it cleared off, and
the sun came out very hot and dried up things so quickly that everybody
had tea as usual in the garden of the hotel. The Hungarian band had just
finished playing a valse of Waldeuffel, and the Maréchale de
Vichy-Pontoise had hobbled out into the garden and settled herself
comfortably in her favourite seat next to the Princesse di Spezzia when
something slowly descended from the sky performing curious evolutions.
Everybody speculated as to what it could be and where it came from,
when it calmly lighted on the head of the Maréchale, who gave a wizened
shriek, and having disengaged herself from it shied it away savagely
with the end of her stick. Bijou at once seized it in his mouth, and
having gambolled about the grass with it proceeded to improvise it into
a broom and sweep up the gravel path with it. The difficulty of getting
him to relinquish his possession of it caused a great deal of merriment,
and the young man who reads "L'Insaisissable" and ogles Liane de Pougy
at the same time suddenly put his foot on it with such force that Bijou,
who was scampering off as hard as he could go with an end in his mouth,
was brought up short, and, having turned a rather violent somersault in
the air, let go and went off whimpering to the Maréchale, who looked as
if she could have eaten the young Frenchman. He picked up Bijou's
mysterious plaything and held it up, so that everybody could see--a
white flannel jacket, or what was left of it, of the jauntiest cut in
the world. No one claiming it, he handed it to a waiter who discovered
on a tag the _chiffre_ of Comte Belladonna! Instead of at once
withdrawing with the garment he informed the Comte that it belonged to
him. The Comte, who knew it all the time and had not cared to make
himself the butt of the National, examined it, shook his head, examined
it again, and bursting into a laugh exclaimed to the Princesse di
Spezzia with the utmost self-possession:--

"My dear Princesse, alas! this rag is indeed mine. This morning,
spotless and sweet-smelling, I arrayed my old bones in it, and its mate,
whose legs you may see dangling out of that window up there under the
roof; but, as if envious of the figure I cut in it, the elements having
determined to deprive me of it, flooded me out of it. Not being an
American millionaire, I hung it out of my window to dry, and the wind
did the rest. Heaven grant that the trousers do not come to look after
the jacket. Pity me, Princesse, I had worn it but once; it was cut at
'Old England.' Here, garçon, it is yours now."

It was not the words, which were funny enough, but the manner in which
they were uttered, that made every one laugh _with_ the Comte instead of
_at_ him.

{_Signor Stefano_}

The Princesse is a dear; she proved to-night that she is really a
_grande dame_, and that it is neither her name nor her pose which makes
her one. Young Signor Stefano, a shopkeeper, we would call him in
England, came again to the National to-night to dance. The proprietor,
who is very anxious that these dances should be a success, has given
him, and two or three other young fellows like him, the entrée. Of
course, according to the Continental custom, they can ask any one they
like to dance, but a natural and creditable diffidence has kept them
from forcing themselves upon any of the smart set, and they are
generally to be seen reversing and chasséeing with the people from the
pensions, who sit at one end of the ball-room and stare at the other.

{_Stefano Recognised_}

Young Stefano is very good-looking, and dances divinely, and has
attracted the attention of all of us women, and everybody who has been
in the _magasin_, where he is in charge of the precious stone
department, has remarked his quiet gentlemanly behaviour. I think I
wrote you that he asked Mr. Vanduzen to present him to the Princesse di
Spezzia and was refused, and I must say when he came into the room
to-night he looked so much a gentleman and so handsome that I horrified
Mr. Vanduzen by telling him to bring Stefano to me.

{_Princesse di Spezzia_}

He was covered with confusion when he was introduced, and when we danced
he bumped me into two or three people, for he held me as if he were
afraid of me, and we took up as much room as four people. I made him sit
next me and talked to him, and cleverly turned the conversation on to
the Princesse di Spezzia. He said very modestly that desire had got the
better of him the other night, and he had presumed to be presented to
her and had been snubbed, as he deserved. His _magasin_ is transferred
to Florence for the winter; he is a Florentine, and has often seen the
Princesse in the Cascine and admired her very much; he told me that he
had no desire to meet her as an equal, that he knew he was only a _petit
bourgeois_, but that he would have been proud to be presented to such a
great lady. I surprised him by saying I would ask the Princesse if she
had any objection, and if not it would be easy enough to gratify his
small desire. His thanks were profuse, and when I got a chance I told
the Princesse the story. She was furious with Mr. Vanduzen and has cut
him dead since; she wondered how he dared to refuse to present any one
to her without her permission, and she declared it was one of the
greatest pleasures of her position to have the people of Florence
presented to her and admire her. She chatted for some time with Stefano
and gave him permission to address her at any time he chose without any
fear of being snubbed. I watched her closely all the time; her manner
was totally free from patronage, but it let Stefano know that she was
what he had always thought, the Princesse di Spezzia, the greatest lady
in Florence.

She has immensely flattered his pride by her recognition and preserved
her own dignity, and Blanche and I have agreed that in point of manners
and etiquette she could teach any of our great ladies in England how to
hold themselves.

We think she is a dear, and wish we knew how to dress as she does and to
stare through lorgnettes and to endure horrid bores such as the
Maréchale. I wish the Prince appreciated her more; he plays the devil
devilishly well. Sir Charles says there is no question of doubt but that
the family was a noble one in the days of the Roman Empire. Adieu.--Your
dearest Mamma.



LETTER XVI


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                      5th September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Vicomte_}

Mrs. Isaacs (who, by the way, is not one of the children of Israel, if
her husband was) went yesterday to Berne. The Vicomte says she carried
the Almanac de Gotha instead of Baedeker, and that the porter at the
hotel who bought her ticket declared that her ultimate destination is
Vienna. So that I suppose they are looking up Count Albert.

The Vicomte has been like a bear with a sore head ever since Count Fosca
automobiled from Paris. He behaves so childishly, as if no one in the
world should have an automobile but himself. He spends several hours a
day fencing with an Italian; you know duelling is his other occupation
in Paris, and I expect he is going to take it up seriously till he gets
a new automobile. He glares at Count Fosca and mutters "So" under his
breath like a German, and I am expecting to hear daily that they are
going to fight, and all over an automobile!

{_Ball at Schloss Gessler_}

But people are too much excited over the ball at Schloss Gessler on the
day after to-morrow to pay much attention to the Vicomte and his
grievances. Mr. Wertzelmann told me to-day that if people talked so much
about the ball before it came off he wondered what they would say about
it after. He never did things by halves, and this was a ball which
should be remembered for years to come. It is to cost thousands of
francs, and if the Russian _boyar_ (don't ask me his name, I know it has
an itch at the end of it) who is Mrs. Wertzelmann's devoted admirer, and
practically runs Schloss Gessler, does his duty properly, I have no
doubt it will be, as Mr. Wertzelmann says, something to remember.

It will be the end of the season here, and, as we have stayed longer
than we intended, we shall hurry home after it. We really have managed
to do other things besides frivol. We have seen the Lion and we have
been to Fluëlen and drove to Schloss Sonnenburg, but there was little
of the country or scenery we saw on that occasion, owing to the flies
and the dust. Yesterday we added to our knowledge of the Lake of the
Four Cantons by spending the night on the top of the Stanzerhorn.

{_The Stanzerhorn_}

Quite late in the afternoon Sir Charles came over to the National to ask
us if we would come with him then and there to see the sunset and
sunrise in the Alps from the Stanzerhorn. He assured us we would find a
good hotel and that it was worth the trouble, and as we had nothing
better to do we went. Thérèse filled two handbags with necessaries and
we caught the last boat from Lucerne. There was nobody we knew on the
boat, and Blanche said she felt game for anything, and game we were
before we saw our comfortable rooms at the National again and our
indispensable Thérèse and dear, dear Paquin.

As Sir Charles had described it as a "rough and ready jaunt," and "a
picnic in the clouds," and turned up at the National in snuff-coloured
"knickers" that looked as if Bijou had been introducing them to the
gravel-path, and carrying a brand-new alpenstock with "Lucerne" and
"Gütsch" and "Sonnenburg" burnt into it, we decided to wear our serge
walking skirts and men's shirts and straw-hats. Blanche looked very well
in hers, for it is a style that suits her, but I nearly wept at my own
reflection, and I was delighted there was to be no one else of the party
but Sir Charles. Blanche said my skirt was positively indecent; it came
just to the tops of my boots, and was really made for bicycling and not
for walking. I felt like a Gordon Highlander, and Blanche declared that
if the skirt was a plaid I would have looked like one. Thérèse too went
into fits of laughter, and said she was sure that Sir Charles would not
recognise me. I was half inclined to give up the excursion, but Blanche
said it was ridiculous, and that I couldn't possibly take Paquin to the
top of the Stanzerhorn, and that I looked charming from my waist up.

I tried to discover a blush somewhere in my veins when we stood in the
hall of the hotel, but somehow I couldn't find one. Fortunately for my
vanity we got on to the steamboat without being recognised, and I made
a mental vow that I would never employ a Taunton seamstress again. The
Italian boy with the monkey and the post-cards that we saw the first day
we arrived, and whom Blanche declared was a nobleman in disguise, was on
board. He went second-class, and was talking to a Swiss peasant with
goitre just below us. The monkey travelled first all the way to
Alpnacht, for the steamboat people didn't dare touch it; it ate apples
at Blanche's feet when it wasn't frightening people out of their wits by
bounding about the deck. The disguised nobleman, who can't be more than
seventeen, recognised us, and gave such a smile and bow! Blanche put a
franc into the tin cup round the monkey's neck, and when we got off at
Stanz the boy brushed off the gangplank before we stepped on it, with
his cap, though the plank was spotless. As Blanche said, it gave her
quite a Sir-Walter-Raleigh-Queen-Elizabeth-and-the-Cloak feeling, and we
declared he was the most picturesque tramp we had ever seen, but Sir
Charles, who hasn't a scrap of romance in him, said he looked as if he
belonged to an Anarchist Society.

Stanz is a funny little town, and people only come to it to leave it.
Some Germans with ropes and pick-axes over their shoulders, and who
looked as if they meant business, got off at Stanz, and as one makes the
ascent of Titlis from here, we concluded that was their destination. Sir
Charles made us walk to the little _platz_ to see the statue to Arnold
von Winkelreid, but we preferred Tell's at Altdorf. The funicular to the
top of the Stanzerhorn makes one feel goose-pimply all over; it is not
only steep, but when you get near the top you look out of the car window
over a sheer precipice of two thousand feet. There are two cars attached
to an endless cable, and while one creeps up the mountain like a horrid
antediluvian bug the other crawls down. If the cable should break, one
would catapult little Stanz to atoms and the other would Jules Verne
itself to the top of the Stanzerhorn.

When we got to the two thousand feet place a German woman fainted, and I
felt as if I were about to develop heart failure. But Blanche and Sir
Charles leaned out of the windows and raved over the scenery, while an
American woman read Baedeker out loud to another. As soon as we reached
the top, we went to the hotel and got rooms, but discovered to our
horror that we had left our bags at Stanz and that we couldn't get them
that night. We both gave it to Sir Charles, I can tell you, but he only
laughed and said the proprietor's wife would fit us out all right. We at
once went in search of this individual, and you may imagine our
consternation when I tell you that the proprietor was a bachelor, or a
widower--I believe he tried to explain which it was, but we fairly
shrieked with horror--and moreover the only females belonging to the
hotel were some Swiss girls with symptoms of goitre.

The proprietor was bland and apologetic, and told Sir Charles that he
would see we were provided with the necessary articles before we went to
bed. With this we had to be content, and went out upon a sort of
promenade where there was a telescope and a man to explain the views. He
seemed to have learnt his "patter" by heart, for when he was
interrupted he had to begin all over. Five minutes before sunset begins
they ring a gong and everybody climbs up a tiny peak where you can see
only snow mountains and the lake like a cloud far below. We waited for
half an hour and saw nothing else; the man of the telescope said it was
the only failure of the season. It got frightfully cold all of a sudden,
and we went back to the hotel wishing we were at the National.

They gave us a remarkably good _table d'hôte_ dinner, considering how
remote we were from everything. The people were mostly Germans, and
there was such a curious German-American woman who sat next me. If she
had been decently dressed she would have been quite pretty; she was very
confidential, as strange Americans are inclined to be, and gave us her
history from the time she was five. She fairly astounded me by saying
she was known as Patsy Bolivar, the champion lady swimmer of the world,
and she showed me several photographs of herself which she carries about
with her, and also one of the gold belt she won in New York. Quite
contrary to the usual run of celebrities, she was modest, and did not
appear at all offended that I had never heard of her before.

After dinner we all went to watch the flash-light at work, and saw it
turned on to the Stanz and Lucerne, in red, white, and blue. As the
sunrise was to be very early we went to bed at nine in time to be ready
for it. Blanche and I had connecting rooms, and we found on the pillows
of our beds two spotless and neatly folded _robes de nuit_, and a
hair-brush and a comb on the dressing-table, and we blessed monsieur le
propriétaire. But imagine our horror, when we were ready to put on our
host's garments, to find that they were in reality his own! They reached
just above our knees, and had "Ricardo" embroidered in red cotton on the
buttons. There was nothing to do but to make the best of it, and as it
was terribly cold we hastily got into bed in our proprietor's
night-shirts, and slept soundly till we heard a hideous gong and knew
that it was four o'clock and sunrise. We dressed quickly, and clambered
on to the little peak again, where we found everybody shivering and
jumping about to keep warm, and while we waited the sun rose. I won't
attempt to describe it, for I am neither Walter Scott nor Baedeker, and
if you want to know what it is like you must come to Switzerland
yourself and spend the night on a mountain.

We had delicious coffee and rolls before leaving: Sir Charles paid the
bill for us. Would you believe it, they actually took off a franc each
for the failure of the sunset the previous day. I thought it exceedingly
honourable, and different from the grasping way they have at hotels in
England where they have only one way of making coffee and omelette, and
that is _à l'Anglaise_. We didn't dare thank the proprietor for the
things he had lent us, and he said, with such a nice smile to me, as we
left:--

"Madame est-elle bien dormie? Les rêves étaient-ils doux? J'espère ça."

Horrid man!

Thérèse was waiting for us when we got back, and had our baths and
Paquin ready.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XVII


                                                 HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE
                                                      7th September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Wertzelmann Ball_}

This is our last day here, and we leave by the express for Paris
to-night. Mr. Wertzelmann said he was going to give a ball that would be
remembered, and he has kept his promise. I hardly know where to begin to
tell you all about it. I had one offer of marriage and one of elopement,
and got home at six in the morning.

First of all, Blanche and I, looking every bit as well dressed as any of
the smart women here, drove out to Schloss Gessler by ourselves. Comte
Belladonna and Mr. Vanduzen hinted outrageously for the two vacant
seats, but we didn't intend to have our frocks crushed to save them a
few francs, and wouldn't take their hints.

The Comte eventually got Mrs. Isaacs' seat in Mrs. Johnson's landau, but
Mr. Vanduzen had to hire, and just as he was about to drive off the
Duchesse de Vaudricourt rushed up and begged him for a seat, as she
couldn't get a cab in the town. Thérèse told me this morning that the
Duchesse has no maid, and that her room is above the _escalier de
service_ next to the Comte's, so I fancy they keep _her_ at the National
too as an advertisement for the sake of her name, though it's only Louis
Philippe.

When we arrived at Schloss Gessler the scene was undeniably lovely; the
grounds were like fairy-land, and Mr. Wertzelmann had had the electric
light brought out from Lucerne, and had tried to turn a part of the lake
into a Venetian canal. Mrs. Wertzelmann, in the most lovely costume I
ever saw, received in the great hall. She never looked handsomer; her
dress was made entirely of point lace over white silk, and made as only
Worth or Paquin ever make for American millionaires. Round her neck was
a serpent of diamonds holding in its open jaws an immense emerald. Both
she and Mr. Wertzelmann received their guests with the most perfect
sincerity and hospitality. There was not a scrap of affectation about
them; it must be nice to be so rich that you can afford to be natural.
Mr. Wertzelmann wore on the lapel of his dress-coat something like a
button, with the American flag on it as a badge; all the foreigners wore
decorations; don't ask me what they were,--if they were not Garters or
Black Eagles, they looked as well. Even Sir Charles wore an Ashantee
medal; he went in his uniform especially at Mr. Wertzelmann's request,
who said he wanted a bit of colour in the room, only Sir Charles's tunic
is not scarlet, and he looked somewhat like a commissionaire.

Madame Colorado was angelic as usual--what a lovely nun she would make!
She was helping the Wertzelmanns to receive, and she looked after the
Americans from the _pensions_ that the Minister felt obliged to invite.
It was great fun watching the guests arrive, and as we got there early
we saw everybody; the Hungarian band from the National came out in a
char-à-banc, but the supper was sent out in the afternoon. The ball-room
was draped with the American and Swiss flags, and the national anthems
of the two countries were played before the dancing began. There was no
"state set" as we have in England, and nobody paid any attention to
precedence. Mrs. Wertzelmann opened the ball with young Stefano. There
was something higgledy-piggledy yet very splendid about the whole
function; it went with far more spirit than such things go with us;
people had come to enjoy themselves, and not to be martyrised by stupid
formalities and etiquette. The musicians played ravishingly; they seemed
to be intoxicated with their music, and sometimes they couldn't contain
themselves but sang to the waltzes. There was an _élan_ in the air. Mrs.
Wertzelmann's portrait by Constant had electric lights all round the
frame, and there was a champagne fountain in the refreshment room. The
gaiety was almost barbaric in its extravagance, and was contagious. The
men said the most outrageous things. The Marquis de Pivart, who had not
paid much attention to me since I chaffed him about Héloise that night
at the Schweitzerhof, danced with me three times running; he dances
well, but held me so tight I could hardly breathe, and his breath was
so hot on my neck it burnt. He asked me if I would like to go down to
the lake to see the illumination; the night was splendid and very warm,
there was no dew, and you could see the snow on Titlis as the moonbeams
fell on it.

Without any preamble the Marquis burst into the most passionate
declarations. He told me he had loved me in secret since the first time
he had met me; would I flee with him then and there, catch the night
train for Berne and Paris, live like Alfred de Musset and George Sand,
and a lot more idiotic bosh; and he put his arms round me, and before I
could release myself he bit me on the neck. I was so frightened that for
the first time in my life, Elizabeth, I lost my presence of mind--I
screamed. I don't know whether any one heard or saw, and I don't care. I
told him he was a brute and I hated him, and I rushed as hard as I could
under a huge Bengal light where I could easily be seen. I trembled so I
could scarcely stand, and some of the wax from the candle dripped upon
me. He came up with excuses and more protestations of love, but I said
if he didn't leave me at once I should scream for help, and I must have
looked as if I meant it, for he muttered something in his horrid black
beard and went away. Then I went back to the ball-room and found
Blanche. I told her what had happened, and asked her if she could see
the marks of his teeth. She said the place only looked a tiny bit red,
and we went to the dressing-room, where I powdered it.

After that I told Blanche that I shouldn't feel safe except with the
dowagers. They sat in a room by themselves and had waiters bringing them
champagne and ices, and they talked the most outrageous scandal. I sat
down beside Mrs. Johnson; she said I looked pale and recommended some
champagne frappé, and called a waiter and ordered a glass for me and one
for herself. She was very talkative and fairly peppered her conversation
with French words, though she wouldn't understand you if you said,
"Comment vous portez-vous?"

She told me that the Wertzelmanns were _parvenus_--mushrooms, she called
them--and Mr. W. had made his money out of oil, and that they had never
been into Society till they came abroad. She was very communicative also
on the subject of Rosalie's marriage, which she said was to take place
in Paris in the autumn and would be a very grand affair. As for Count
Albert she hadn't enough praise for him, and he was so devoted and
attentive in coming often to see if she wanted anything that I am sure
he knows where the dollars are to come from. I tried to find out what
had taken Mrs. Isaacs away so suddenly, but Mrs. Johnson is cunning, she
smelt a rat, and the only reason I could extract was "business."

She made one amusing break. Mrs. Wertzelmann came in to see if all was
going well with the chaperones, and exclaimed when she saw me among
them. Mrs. Johnson, who evidently hates her, began to put on "side," and
talked about her hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, which she rented
from the Duc de Quatre Bras, and described a ball she had given there to
which all the _demi monde_ had come. Funny as this was, it was made
still funnier by the fact that Mrs. Wertzelmann, who knows no more of
French than Mrs. Johnson, didn't see the joke.

I had by this time recovered sufficiently to go back to the ball-room,
where, as it was on the stroke of midnight, the _cotillon_ was about to
commence. Young Stefano came up and asked me to dance it with him. The
Marquis had the grace not to put in an appearance; I believe he was
playing baccarat in the card-room.

The favours were very pretty and appropriate, as the Wertzelmanns did
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_}

I am almost inclined to make my peace with those bores who are always
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_}

We had a champagne supper when everybody had gone; it was awfully good,
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_}

The Clandevil-Parker _noces_ took place to-day with great ostentation,
as you may imagine. You will read the report of it to-morrow in the
_Morning Post_, but I shall probably be able to give you a more graphic
account of it. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of St. Esau at
twelve o'clock, at St. George's, Hanover Square, assisted by other
prelates of more or less note in the ecclesiastical world. There was a
thick yellow fog that made several people arrive at the church after
everything was over, and prevented the crowd from congregating as it
would otherwise have done. Blanche and I had excellent seats, as we
arrived early; the bride was late owing to the fog, and Clandevil looked
awfully bored. Following the American custom, there had been a
full-dress rehearsal of the ceremony the day before, and the first five
rows of pews had been taken out, and the altar banked with plants. The
bridesmaids were all earls' daughters, and the best man was that
notorious rake, the Honourable Ralph Swift; everyone was remarking at
his cleverness in keeping out of jail. You will read all about the
costumes in the _Post_; the bride looked well; the lace on her dress
belonged to Marie Antoinette, and the dress itself was an exact
duplication of that worn by the Queen of Holland at her Coronation,
saving of course the royal mantle. Breakfast was served afterwards at
the Dowager Duchess of Clandevil's in Eton Place, where the wedding
presents were on show! Their value, apart from Mr. Parker's settlement
on the bride, of a square mile of New York with a rental of two million
dollars annually, is estimated at five hundred thousand dollars, the
more costly gifts coming from across the Atlantic. Mrs. Parker gave her
daughter a Holbein; Clandevil gave his bride a tiara of emeralds; the
Dowager Duchess gave a hot-water bottle; Royalty sent the bride a lace
handkerchief, and the bridegroom a horse-shoe scarf pin set with
brilliants; the Hon. Ralph Swift gave a solid silver napkin ring; Mr.
Sweetson gave a necklace of diamonds as big as walnuts; Mrs. Dot gave a
dessert set of Sèvres specially made with the Clandevil arms on it. The
Marchioness of Tuke, Clandevil's only sister, gave a solid silver
inkstand, and Lady Doreen Fitz Mortimer and the Countess of Warbeck gave
a bog-oak blotting-pad, with a tortoise-shell paper knife; the tenants
at Clandevil gave a gold loving-cup, and the servants an oak chest of
damask sheets; the clerks in Mr. Parker's office in New York sent five
pieces of twelfth-century tapestry, and from various people in America
there came many magnificent things. But Mr. Parker, Junior, the brother,
who is in Chicago, made a panic on the Stock Exchange, and sent his
profits; the cheque was put to the new Duchess's account at Coutts'. The
happy pair left for Clandevil Castle, Tipperary, where the honeymoon
will be spent. The Duchess will be presented on her marriage at the
first drawing-room.

Mr. Parker seemed delighted, and talked a good deal after the breakfast
of "my son the Duke;" Mrs. Parker seemed depressed, and when she kissed
her daughter good-bye, said, "My child, I hope you will be happy." Mr.
Sweetson talked to me for some time on triumphant democracy, and the
effete monarchies of the old world, his favourite subjects. He said it
was cheaper to buy dukes in America than in England, but admitted the
price fluctuated, and depended entirely on supply, which not
infrequently ran short of the demand. The atmosphere of wealth was
overpowering; Blanche said she felt as if she were trampling on
diamonds. Everybody thinks it will be a most happy match, for there is
no pretence at love on either side, and each has got what each most
desired. Flaxie Frizzle, the skirt-dancer, and her two children came to
the church: everybody remarked how much the boy looked like his father.

{_The Wedding_}

I should have mentioned that the food and drink were beyond cavil. Mr.
Parker told me he always got his "fizz" from the Russian Court, as the
best brands were sent there from France. I cannot think of any more to
tell you of the wedding; the crowd and the confusion were so great, I
found it difficult to take in all that happened.

Blanche and I returned to the Carlton at three o'clock, and went
straight to bed to sleep off the effects. When we went to dinner at
eight, we saw the Vicomte de Narjac at one of the tables; we had a long
chat with him afterwards. He came over to London to purchase an English
automobile, and returns to Paris in a couple of days. We told him of the
grand wedding we had been to, and he said he had seen a beautifully
dressed woman helped out of a hansom, and carried upstairs unconscious,
and when he enquired what had happened, the porter had told him in
French that she was one of the _invitées aux épousailles de M. le duc de
Clandevil avec une des plus grandes héritières du Nouveau Monde_.
Blanche and I set Thérèse to find out who it could have been, and she
says it was the Marchioness of Portcullis; we noticed at the breakfast
that she and Mr. Sweetson were drinking neat brandy, and wondered at the
time what would be the result. The Vicomte was stupefied; he thought
she was a demi-mondaine.

{_The Lucerne Set_}

{_Mrs. Porter_}

We asked the Vicomte all about the Lucerne set. He says Mr. Wertzelmann
has been transferred to St. Petersburg, and that Madame Colorado has
gone to spend the winter at the American Embassy; she was such a dear
friend of Mrs. Wertzelmann's. The De Pivarts are in Paris; the Marquis
has a _procès_ running in the Courts against the Swiss Government, and
hopes he will make enough out of it to start a stud in the spring. It
seems the Marquise was arrested on a steamboat on Lake Geneva, being
mistaken for Mrs. Phineas Porter, the beautiful American, whose husband
shot Monsieur Dupont in the Hotel Beau Rivage. And the New York _Paris
Herald_ has been full of it. Mrs. Phineas Porter lives in Paris, and Mr.
Phineas Porter in Chicago; he comes over every year, and, on this
occasion, said good-bye to his wife and left for Havre, but returned
secretly, and found Mrs. Porter had disappeared. He traced her and
Dupont, who is a prominent member of the Jockey Club, to Geneva. He
arrived late at night, knocked on his wife's door at the Beau Rivage,
who thought he was the chamber-maid, and forced himself in. Mrs. Porter
shrieked, and Dupont, who had retired for the night, jumped out of bed,
and was chased by Mr. Porter with a loaded revolver through the whole
suite of apartments into the last room, and Dupont, caught in a _cul de
sac_ as it were, hid behind an arm-chair, where Mr. Porter killed him.
As you may imagine, the affair created a scandal, for the people are so
well known in Society. Mr. Porter was arrested by the police, and is now
on trial. In the confusion Mrs. Porter disappeared, and has up to the
present baffled all attempts to find her. The Marquise de Pivart is said
to be the image of her, and, as she was embarking about a week after the
affair on a steamboat, to spend the day at Chillon, she was arrested by
the stupid Swiss police. The Vicomte says the Swiss authorities
apologised most humbly when they discovered their mistake, but both the
Marquis and the Marquise would not be satisfied with anything less than
heavy damages. The _procès_ has added to the Porter-Dupont _esclandre_,
and the reputation of the Marquise has been torn to shreds. The Vicomte
says it is very amusing to read the accounts in the _Paris Herald_, and
everybody says the Marquis could get a divorce as well as the Marquise,
but they swore the deepest affection for one another in the courts, and
will swear anything for the chance of touching the pockets of the Swiss
Government. They are always seen together just like the _ouvriers_ on
Sundays at Nogent-sur-Marne. The Vicomte added that the sacrifices they
were making of their private feelings were well worth one hundred
thousand francs, the sum they claim as damages.

{_A Roman Prince_}

{_Elasticity of Conscience_}

{_A Prayer for Paquin_}

Old Mrs. Johnson has found a Roman Prince in the place of Count Albert
for Rosalie Isaacs. The Vicomte says he is all that can be desired. He
has a palazzo like a fortress at Rome, with a priceless collection of
Greek marbles which he can't sell, and was so poor that he spent one
winter on the Via Corniche, with a monkey and an organ that he borrowed
from his former steward, who had just returned from tramping in America
with enough to start himself in a small business. But the Prince is not
bogus; he has the right to stand in the presence of the King of Italy,
and best of all he is a Bourbon _sur la côté gauche_. The Vicomte thinks
he cost infinitely less than Clandevil cost the Parkers, and Rosalie's
wedding this winter in Rome will be much more magnificent, for the Pope
will marry her, and the Royal Family will be present. Mrs. Johnson must
be _très fière_ of her success. But, as Blanche remarked, the
extraordinary part of these American marriages is the elasticity of the
religious conscience. The Parkers are Baptists, yet Mr. Parker has been
restoring Gothic churches, and Miss Parker, who has been "dipped," was
married by the Bishop of St. Esau. And Mrs. Johnson, who told me in
Lucerne that she belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, after marrying her
daughter to a Jew and her granddaughter to a Roman Catholic, will
actually receive the Papal benediction! But of course, as I told
Blanche, one must be _à la mode_, and that I asked the Bishop of St.
Esau at the wedding if he would not put in a prayer for Paquin in the
Litany after "and all the nobility."

Well, my darling, I must say good-night; it is frightfully late, and the
champagne that came from the Russian Court that I had this morning, has
given me just a wee bit of a _migraine_.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XXIX


                                                       THE CARLTON HOTEL
                                                         15th November

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_A Rainy Day_}

{_At Lunch_}

Yesterday it rained as it only can rain in London in November, and when
it stopped for a few minutes there was such a nasty fog. We had
breakfast in bed, and didn't get up till quite twelve; it was such a
miserable day we didn't know what to do with ourselves, so we went
down-stairs and sat in that jolly place with the glass roof and the
palms, and there was quite a good band playing. There were very few
people there, as it isn't the season, but about one o'clock a great many
people began to come for lunch. Most of the men looked like Jews, and
they all wore gold rings with crests on their little fingers. I am sure
they were company-promoters, for presently Lord de Manton arrived with
poor, tottering Lord Ardath, and joined some of the Israelite people,
and they all went in to lunch together. Little Dolly Daydreams of the
Tivoli drove up in a hansom with that young simpleton, Percy Felton, of
the Scots Greys. We could see them through the glass doors as they got
out of the cab; she lifted her skirt up to her knee to keep it out of
the wet, and he kissed her on the ear right in front of the porter. Lady
Ann Fairfax, the war-special, had lunch with six khaki men, and they
made such a noise at their table we could hear them laughing where we
were. Medina, Viscountess Frogmore, and Mrs. Beverley Fruit came
together and sat down near us for a few minutes when they were joined by
the Bishop of St. Esau and the three had lunch together. The Viscountess
was in deep mourning, her crape veil trailed on the ground behind her,
and she looked very melancholy; you know her son fell at Magersfontein.
A smart-looking curate, evidently late, rushed up after they sat down.
Blanche says she thinks he is a protégé of the Bishop's, he paid the
greatest deference to both the Bishop and Lady Frogmore after lunch when
they were having coffee outside in the glass place where the band is. I
am sure we shall hear of him one of these days.

{_A Conversation_}

A lank man, with long hair and a flabby face, and a woman who looked the
wife of the editor of a newspaper, took the seats next us vacated by
Lady Frogmore and Mrs. Fruit. The man criticised Mrs. Fruit's books;
Blanche whispered to me that she thought he must be an unsuccessful
author, for he hadn't a good word to say for either Mrs. Fruit or her
works. The conversation turned on to "An Englishwoman's Love Letters."
The woman said she was dying to know who wrote them; the man became
quite mysterious, with a could-if-I-would air. She playfully tapped him
on the arm with the handle of her umbrella, and guessed _he_ was the
author. He looked very self-satisfied, and admitted he knew who the
author was, but was bound by frightful oaths never to divulge the
secret. But the woman wouldn't believe him; she declared if he hadn't
written the book, he didn't know who did, for she was constantly hearing
people say they knew the author and the reason he did not wish his
identity disclosed.

Then the conversation drifted on to Exeter Hall, and Labouchere and
Stead and the Society notes in the _Daily Sensation_, and the War in
South Africa, and the man talked of some poems he had written, and what
the critics had said of them, and the woman listened. When he had
exhausted himself, the woman began. She talked of high life just like a
pocket peerage; she told anecdotes of Royalty, which she said were
perfectly true; she knew what peers gambled, who married actresses, who
were divorced, who had a _ménage_ in St. John's Wood, and she knew what
peeresses dyed their hair, and where they did it, and what they said and
what they thought. She even mentioned Lady Beatrice's name, and said
that it was rumoured Tom Carterville had gone back to South Africa,
because he was displeased that his mother intended to marry a Low Church
curate. Poor Lady Beatrice! She also mentioned me, and that I was the
best dressed woman in Society (dear Paquin), and that it was considered
very improper of me to let you visit at the places you did. I am sure
she was the wife of a journalist, for she knew so much more about
Society than Society knew about itself or her.

{_Lunch with the Vicomte_}

Just as Blanche and I were about to go to lunch, the Vicomte arrived. He
looked immaculate and quite good-looking for a Frenchman; he had been
inspecting automobiles the whole morning, and he was as hungry as a
lion. We had lunch together in a corner, where we could see everybody;
after lunch, the Vicomte had an engagement at the French Embassy, but he
said he would be back to dine with us, and take us to a music hall. As
the weather had mended, I said I would go to Alice Hughes to have my
photograph taken, as I should have to pay if I did not keep the
appointment; Blanche went to Marshall & Snelgrove to spend the
afternoon. While I was waiting at the "studio," old Lady Blubber came
in; she showed me her proofs, and was delighted with them. They didn't
look the least bit like her; all the flabby rings under her eyes were
smoothed out, and her mouth was made straight and the lump taken off
the bridge of her nose. She said she should order three dozen, that
they were the best likeness she had ever had taken! After that I went to
a tea-shop in Bond Street, and came back to the Carlton to find that
Thérèse had taken the afternoon out. As I can't, as you know, do the
slightest thing for myself, I was absolutely helpless, so I just got
into a wrapper, and read "Gyp" in front of the fire. By and bye Thérèse
came; she was spattered with mud as if she had been spending the day in
Fleet Street, and she brought with her a strong odour of malt.

{_Thérèse Takes an Afternoon out_}

When I scolded her, ever so gently, for going out without leave, she
flew into a rage, and wanted to know if I wished a month's notice. Then
she began to weep and pity herself, and her cheeks were the colour of
lobsters, and she behaved very strangely. I told her to get my bath
ready, and she fell asleep while it was filling, and the water
overflowed and did no end of damage. I got very angry, and accused her
of being drunk, which she indignantly denied, saying she had only been
to see her mother who lives in Soho. I sent her to bed after that, and
Blanche laced me up and did my hair, but I felt like a fright for the
rest of the night.

{_Goes to the Theatre_}

Dinner was rather tame, as there were so few people in the room, but of
course one can't expect the season to last all the year round. The
Vicomte had, after great difficulty, managed to get seats for "Mr. and
Mrs. Daventry." Between the acts we heard people discussing who wrote
it, and in fact, it is as much of an enigma as the authorship of "An
Englishwoman's Love Letters." Blanche thinks the same person wrote both.

The Vicomte thought the play very "polite," and was astonished that it
had created such a sensation. He said we ought to see "La Dame aux
Maximes" and "Demie-Vierge," both now running in Paris. We all agreed
that the play was thoroughly representative of Society, but the
unnatural parts were Daventry's suicide and the elopement of his wife
with Ashurst. People don't do these things in our set. The company was
excellent, and Blanche and I both wished we were Mrs. Pat Campbell to
have love made to us so delightfully every night by young Du Maurier.
Even the Vicomte said they didn't do it better in France, and he is sure
Du Maurier did it so well, because he was half French.

{_Supper at the Savoy_}

We had supper at the Savoy. The usual sight. At a table near us was an
actress _très décolletée_; six of our _jeunesse frivole_ were squabbling
for her smiles. We left before the lights were turned out, because the
people behave so badly in the corridor. The Vicomte leaves for Paris
to-morrow; he is so much nicer in England than abroad.--Your dearest
Mamma.



LETTER XXX


                                                       THE CARLTON HOTEL
                                                         17th November

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Elizabeth's Engagement_}

Hail, Marchioness of Valmond, all hail! Your letter gave me the greatest
possible pleasure. You have made the match I desired for you, and I do
not know who deserves the greatest credit for it--you who hooked this
fine fish, Octavia who helped you to land it, or I who taught you how to
fish, and then sent you to the pool where my lord trout disported
himself. But apart from chaffing, Elizabeth, I am sincerely glad for
you, because Valmond really seems to love you, and as men go, he will
make you a good husband. As soon as your visit to Octavia is over, you
must come straight to me; we will go to Paris for the trousseau and to
Rome for the winter; a little delay and absence will do Valmond good,
and then, darling, we will come to England and start the season with
your _noces_, which shall be done as befits a Marquis and Marchioness
of Valmond.

He wrote me to-day, as did Octavia; I am replying by this same post to
both. Assure them both of my unfaltering affection.

I had intended going back to Monk's Folly, but, since the news in your
letter, I have decided to stop in town till you come in a day or two.
Blanche sends her congratulations; she has gone home, as Daisy wanted a
rest. Mrs. Blaine is on the high road to recovery, and they will most
likely go to Rome with us.

{_The Bazaar_}

Blanche left last night, after going with me to the Bazaar for
Distressed Gentlewomen. It was held at Mauve House, lent by the Duke of
Mauve, and was under the patronage of the Duke and Duchess, but
organised by Mr. Albert D. Beake, editor and proprietor of "White Lies,"
said to be the most successful of all the Society papers. The Bazaar was
opened by Royalty, and Mr. Beake must have cleared a large sum for the
Distressed Gentlewomen as well as advertised his paper and juggled
himself and wife into Society for once at any rate. His wife is the
woman I wrote you about the other day, who came to the Carlton to lunch,
and talked so much about Society. I said at the time she was an editor's
wife. Mr. Beake was everywhere, but his wife had a stall with the
Duchess of Mauve, who looked awfully bored.

{_Lady Hildegarde_}

One of the features of the bazaar was the Stage Stall. Mr. Beake had got
most of the best known actors and actresses to take part. It was a huge
success; the people were three deep round the stall, crushing to see the
professionals; they sold everything. It was rather odd to observe the
stall immediately next to the stage one. Lady Hildegarde Merrioneath
presided, and was assisted by some young and pretty girls. The crowd did
not know who they were, and they hardly sold a thing. Lady Hildegarde,
who is the most refined and aristocratic woman I know, with that mixture
of Vere de Vere and sweetness which so often marks our best born women,
stood in the back of her stall, looking rather amused at the complete
desertion of it. Here was the type of the real aristocrat, the real
great lady, and the _parvenus_ couldn't see it! I felt like telling the
people that they were blind and fools, that if they had any taste, any
appreciation, any refinement, all the other stalls would be deserted to
overwhelm Lady Hildegarde's. Mr. Beake, running about with a china pig
in his hands, which he was trying to raffle, noticed that Lady
Hildegarde was not a success, and he actually had the impudence to
patronise her. I suppose his vulgar commercial head was turned with the
thought that the bazaar was his work, and that his wife was side by side
with a real live duchess. Lady Hildegarde replied with some conventional
remark, and her smile seemed to me more amused than ever, as if it were
all very funny and not worth being angry about. For, after all, she was
Lady Hildegarde Merrioneath, and Mr. Beake was only Mr. Beake, and his
actors and actresses stars whose lights went out. I shall never forget
the picture Lady Hildegarde made in her deserted stall, side by side
with the crowded booth of the actors. It made me think of the French
Revolution, and the noblesse going to the guillotine in the tumbrils,
so far above her surroundings, was Lady Hildegarde.

{_The Existing Régime_}

A little more pushing and shoving and playing the "Charity trick," and
Mr. and Mrs. Beake will be like the Vane-Corduroys, if, for all I know,
they are not already _rangé_. But, as Blanche said, the sentiments that
pervade the mind of Mr. Beake and his kidney are the mainstay of our
national life and the existing régime, and it doesn't do to guard the
portals to the high born too closely. As a future marchioness, I pray
you shudder when you read the Sunday papers at Chevenix Castle with the
detailed account of Mr. Beake's bazaar.

Blanche and I bought nothing, nor did the few of our set who were there,
which as usual left the charity to the crowd.

I saw Blanche off at Paddington, and wished I had decided to go with
her; you need not be surprised if you get a telegram from me to-morrow
to say I have gone home. It is wretchedly dull by myself, and I can't
take Thérèse with me everywhere; besides I have to come up to my room
early, as it is not proper for me to sit in the public rooms by myself
at night.

{_Talks of Marrying again_}

Thérèse, in brushing out my hair to-night, asked me why I didn't marry
again; she said that she knew men admired me, for one of the
Vane-Corduroys' footmen at Shotover had told her I was a woman to drive
men mad. Thérèse of course gauges the value of men's admiration from the
footman class, but I think I have not yet got to the shady side of
beauty, and that perhaps it is just as well Valmond saw you before he
met me. As money will never be a consideration, and I have social
position, and as I am not yet forty-five, I shall not marry for love, so
I shall keep my freedom, which I enjoy so much.

Once again, my darling, I congratulate you, and wish you all happiness.
Good-night.--Your dearest Mamma.



LETTER XXXI


                                             MONK'S FOLLY, 19th November

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Home again_}

Simply couldn't endure it in town in November by myself, so came home
to-day. Yesterday, after Blanche left, I counted up the things I could
do by myself in order to kill time. In spite of London being so big,
there are so few things one can do by oneself to amuse oneself. The
early post brought me the proofs from Alice Hughes; Paquin comes out
splendidly, but I look silly in the one in which I am standing near a
balustrade, holding a sheaf of wheat. I have ordered a dozen of myself
in a garden, under a lovely old tree, with a stuffed greyhound at my
side. It looks awfully natural, and you would never dream I was more
than twenty. I thought the proofs had been sent me by mistake, till I
recognised my frock, and then when you look at them a long time, you see
how really like you they are. They are just the thing to send one's
acquaintances.

{_Lady Sophia Dashton's Novel_}

The morning was so foggy that I couldn't go out, so I put on a very
_chic_ costume, and sat in the glass-roof place which they call a
"garden," and read Lady Sophia Dashton's novel. It is all about the
Roman Emperors and the catacombs, and the love of a princess and a
slave. The language is so beautiful, and the descriptions are wonderful:
they seem as if they would never end, and you forget all about the
story. The book has been well reviewed, and Lady Sophia has taken up
literature seriously. I have heard she is making a great deal of money
out of it. Mr. Beake will publish anything she writes--all the
illustrated papers have got her portrait this week--and there are
stories of hers now running in two of the leading Society papers. She
began to write for pleasure, but has received such encouragement that
she decided to win the laurel. Everybody in Society has bought her book.
The whole family are talented. Her father's speeches in the House of
Lords on the London drains have been edited at 7s. 6d., with the family
arms on the cover; the _Times_ said they had the "ring of Burke in
them," and Lady Sophia's brother's "Poems in odd Moments," which have
appeared in the "Temple of Folly," are to be brought out in book form. I
forget the name of Lady Sophia's novel; Mrs. Jack Strawe, in
recommending it to me the day of Miss Parker's wedding, said she didn't
know the name, and that very few people did, but when ordering it, it
was only necessary to mention Lady Sophia Dashton's name, and the
bookseller would know what you meant.

I sent Thérèse to Mudie's for it, and told her to ask for any other
books that were being widely read, as I like to be posted on what is
being talked of. She brought back somebody's work on Aristotle, with an
introduction by the Duke of Mauve, and Mrs. Katurah P. Glob's "There is
no Death." Mrs. Glob is a Christian Scientist, and states in her preface
that she is the seventh daughter of a seventh son. I could only get as
far as what she had to say on vaccination; I make out that she preferred
to "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," rather than to incur
the penalty of the law.

{_Dry Books_}

After struggling the whole morning with Glob and Aristotle and Lady
Sophia, and wondering how learned people were, and how they found time
to acquire so much knowledge, I had lunch. Crême velours, sole
princesse, noisettes Souvaroff, pommes nouvelles, etc., with Félix
Boubel, carte d'or, took the dry taste of the books completely out of my
mouth.

Having spent such a morning improving my mind at the Carlton, I thought
I deserved some relaxation in the afternoon.

{_At the Aquarium_}

_Que faire?_ Should I consult Salambo, the well-known Oriental lady in
Bond Street, as to the future? Should I go to Exeter Hall and observe
the Ranter on his native heath? Should I go to St. James Hall and revel
in Alice Gome's superb voice? I did none of these things; I took Thérèse
with me and drove to that popular place of amusement, the Aquarium, as I
had never been there, and I wanted to see the fishes. Alas! How sadly we
English take our pleasures! The only fish at the Aquarium are some
monsters of _papier maché_ and a lonely _piscis vulgaris_ condemned to
solitary confinement in a slimy tank. Thérèse thought she would like to
see the sword-swallowers, so I took seats, and while we waited, such a
funny man told us he would impersonate celebrities in quick change. He
did a lot of men with beards and long hair, and held up bits of
cardboard to let us know who they were, and he called himself Meyerbeer
and Rossini, and, as Thérèse said, without the cardboard you wouldn't
have known which was which. Then he did Lord Roberts and Baden-Powell
and the Prince of Wales; and when I saw him put on his Lord Roberts' wig
and jerk the antimacassar off an arm-chair, I knew that he would
impersonate the Queen. And he did, and you can have no idea how
grotesque it was, and the curtain dropped and nobody applauded.

The sword-swallower did some amazing things, and smacked his lips, as if
the swords tasted nice. His wife swallowed an electric light, and then
he told us of a trick he could do which no one had ever done before in
England, namely, to swallow a sword and hang weights on to the hilt, but
he didn't do it, as he said he had a sore throat. I wouldn't wait for
the lady who dives from a trapeze into a tank, or drop pennies into
slots, or have my photo taken while I waited, though I let Thérèse have
six shots at a Boer behind a kopje in the shooting gallery, but she
nearly killed the attendant after the third shot.

{_A Rustic Footman_}

Thérèse was so frightened, and began to scream in French, that we had a
crowd round us in no time, and a policeman came up and took our names.
After that I decided the Carlton was the best place for me, till I could
get my things packed and go home. When I got back to the hotel, I found
some letters and a ten of diamonds on the table in my room. At a loss to
know what significance it could have, I asked the porter how it came
into my room. He said it had been left by a footman, but I was none the
wiser till this morning, when I received a note from the Honourable Mrs.
Maxolme, explaining that her footman was a simple honest rustic whom she
had brought up from the country with her, and who was new to his duties.
She had spent the afternoon paying calls, and before starting had
explained that it was merely a case of leaving cards, and she told the
youth to take charge of them and bring a sufficient number. She had paid
all the calls, when she suddenly remembered I was stopping at the
Carlton and she drove there. The footman gave the card to the porter,
and then Mrs. Maxolme drove to a house where she wished to leave two
cards, and called the footman and told him. But it seems he had
exhausted all he had brought, and horrified Mrs. Maxolme by saying that
he had none left, as he had only brought from the ace to the king of
diamonds. Poor Mrs. Maxolme has been writing to everybody since to
explain, and as she simply could not write personally so many letters,
she wrote one and had the rest type-written.

{_Threatened with Influenza_}

Now, darling, I want you to come home at once and tell Valmond to bring
you, as I wish to see him. I don't want to frighten you, but the fogs
and the dissipation of attempting the London season in November have
made me ill. I arrived here with a sore throat and a backache, and sent
at once for Dr. Smart. As I write, I have a mustard-plaster on my chest
and my feet in hot water, and I have just swallowed a dose of ammoniated
quinine. I think I am in for influenza. I feel a perfect wreck.--Your
dearest Mamma.

       *       *       *       *       *

_P. S._--Dr. Smart has just left; he says if I will go to bed for
forty-eight hours, he will try to let me go to Lady Beatrice's big
dinner on Saturday. He is such a dear, and has such white teeth and soft
hands, he drove all my fears away with such a pooh, pooh! But when he
had gone, I heard Thérèse tell the maid that I was threatened with
pleuro-pneumonia and had a chill on the liver. So exaggerative these
French! I cannot write any more; my hand is trembling so I can hardly
hold the pen, and I believe I am roasting with fever. Bring the tea-gown
I ordered at Paquin's when you come. I am longing to see you and
Valmond. Don't alarm yourself about me; I am really as hard as
nails--and influenza is _à la mode_.



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