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-a-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 n.o.body 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 _elan_ 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 Heloise 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 t.i.tlis as the moonbeams fell on it.
Without any preamble the Marquis burst into the most pa.s.sionate 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 frappe, and called a waiter and ordered a gla.s.s 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 d.u.c.h.esse de Vaudricourt was disappointed; I believe she expected to get diamonds. The Vicomte de Narjac and the Russian with an unp.r.o.nounceable name and a _grande pa.s.sion_ 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 tete-a-tete tables on the battlements, as Mr. Wertzelmann persists in calling the _terra.s.se_. 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 _menage_ very well on his salary; we were to have rooms in the Via Tornabuoni over a Bon Marche 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 _betise_. 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 b.a.l.l.s. 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 Marechale. 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 villegiature_ 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, la la!--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 _maitre d"hotel_, 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-cla.s.s 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 Therese 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 Cafe 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 Gutsch, and said in chaff that he believed Madame Colorado was the "_dame voilee_" 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 _temoins_, 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 d.u.c.h.esse 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 _temoins_ over to Berne in his automobile, and they all signed doc.u.ments 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 _conge_ 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. n.o.body 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.