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, 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."
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.
Hotel National, Lucerne
18th August
Darling Elizabeth:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Hotel National, Lucerne
20th August
Darling Elizabeth:
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 Bicyclistsstopped. 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Hotel National, Lucerne
22nd August
Darling Elizabeth:
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.
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 cœur 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 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.
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."
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.
Hotel National, Lucerne
24th August
Darling Elizabeth:
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.
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.
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 Advertising Custompace 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.
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.
Hotel National, Lucerne
26th August
Darling Elizabeth:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hotel National, Lucerne
28th August
Darling Elizabeth:
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.