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 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.
Monk's Folly, 6th November
Darling Elizabeth:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Monk's Folly, 8th November
Darling Elizabeth:
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 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.
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.
Monk's Folly, 11th November
Darling Elizabeth:
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Carlton Hotel
Midnight, 13th November
Darling Elizabeth:
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 Wedding Presentsof 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.
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.
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 Mrs. PorterPorter, 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.
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 Elasticity of Conscienceis 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 A Prayer for Paquinput 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.
The Carlton Hotel
15th November
Darling Elizabeth:
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 At Lunchwent 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 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.
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.