PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK
PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK, Friday.
Dearest Mamma,—Octavia and I feel we are growing quite "rattled." (Do forgive me for using such a word, but it is American and describes us.) The telephone rings from the moment we wake until we go out, and reporters wait to pounce upon us if we leave our rooms. We are entertained at countless feasts, and to-morrow we are going down town to lunch at a city restaurant, after seeing the Stock Exchange, so I will tell you of that presently. We can't do or say a thing that a totally different and garbled version of it does not appear in the papers, often with pictures; and yesterday, while Octavia was out with me, she was made to have given an interview upon whether or no Mr. Roosevelt should propose a law to enforce American wives to each have at least six children! It is printed that she asked how many husbands they were allowed, and the reporter lady who writes the interview expresses herself as quite shocked; but Octavia said, when she read it this morning, that she thought whoever was speaking for her asked a very sensible question. What do you think, Mamma? Octavia is enchanted with all these things, and is keeping a large scrap book. But the one we like best was in the Sunday's paper, when there was a full sheet with dark hints as to our private lives by "One Who Knows."
All the history of the little dancer Ottalie Cheveny was tacked on to Octavia's past! The name sounding something the same is quite enough reason for its being Octavia's story here! Tom is having this one put with his collection for the smoking-room, because he says when Octavia "fluffs" (that, I think, means "ruffles") him, he will be able to look up at it and think of "what might have been!"
I am said to be here while a divorce is being arranged by my family because Harry has gone off to India with a fair haired widow!!! Think, Mamma, of his rage when I send him a copy. Isn't it lovely?
We are enjoying ourselves more than I can say, and they are perfect dears, most of the people who entertain us;—so gay and merry and kind;—and we are growing quite accustomed to the voices and the odd grammar and phrasing. At first you get a singing in your head from the noise of a room full of people speaking. They simply scream, and it makes a peculiar echo, as if the walls were metal. Everyone talks at once, and no one ever listens to anything the person near them says.
A ladies' lunch is like this: Octavia and I arrive at a gorgeous mansion, and are ushered into a marvellous Louis XV. morning room, with wonderful tapestry furniture and beautiful pictures arranged rather like a museum. There is never a look of the mistress of the house having settled anything herself, or chosen a pillow because the colours in a certain sofa required it; or, in fact, there is never the expression of any individuality of ownership; anyone could have just such another house if he or she were rich enough to give carte blanche to the best antique art shop; but the things all being really good and beautiful do not jar like the mixture at the Spleists did. Often whole rooms have been brought out, just as they were, from foreign palaces, panelling, pictures and all, and it gives such a quaint sense of unreality to feel the old atmosphere in this young, vigorous country. The hostess's bedroom and boudoir and bath room are often shown to us, and they are all masterpieces of decoration and luxury; and I can't think how they can keep on feeling as good as gold in them! Perfectly lovely luxurious surroundings always make me long for Harry to play with, or some other nice young man—did not they you, Mamma, when you were young and felt things?
About twenty other women are probably there besides us, all dressed in the most expensive magnificent afternoon frocks; and they all have lovely Cartier jewelled watches, and those beautiful black ribbon and diamond chains round their necks, like Harry gave me last birthday. No one wears old fashioned or ugly jewels, all are in exquisite taste, while the pearls at one lunch would have paid for a kingdom.
When everyone has been presented to us, being the strangers, luncheon is announced, and we go into a magnificent dining-room, sometimes with the blinds so much drawn that we have to have electric lights. The footmen are in full dress, with silk stockings, and one or two places they had them powdered, and that did make Octavia smile. I don't think one ought to have powder unless it has been the custom of the family for generations, do you, Mamma? Well, then, beside each person's plate, beyond the countless food implements lying on the lace-encrusted cloth, are lovely bunches of orchids, or whatever is the most rare and difficult to get; and cocktails have sometimes been handed in the salon before, and sometimes are handed in the dining-room, but at the ladies' lunches in very small glasses.
With such heaps of divorces, in a very large party you can't help having some what Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield (a perfect old darling of nearly eighty whom we lunched with on Wednesday) calls "court relations," together; by that meaning, supposing Mrs. A. has divorced Mr. A., and re-married Mr. B., who has been divorced by Mrs. B., who has re-married Mr. C., who happened to be a widower with grown up married daughters—then the daughters and the present Mrs. B., late Mrs. A., would be "court relations," and might meet at lunch. Mr. A. himself and his present wife would also be the late Mrs. B.'s and present Mrs. C.'s court relations. Do you understand, Mamma? It is the sort of ones connected with the case whom it would be unpleasant to speak about it to, but not the actual principals. And when I asked Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield why she called them "court relations" she said because the divorce court was their common ground of connection, and it was a very good reason, and quite as true as calling people blood relations in London or Paris! And that pleased Octavia very much, because she said it was the first subtle thing she had heard in New York. But I must get on with the lunch.
You begin your clam broth (such an "exquit" soup, as Ermyntrude would call it), and the lady next you says she has been "just crazy" to meet you, and heaps of nice things that make you pleased with yourself and ready to enjoy your food. You are just going to say something civil in return, and get a few words out, when your neighbour interrupts you with more nice things, and stacks of questions, and remarks about herself, all rather disconnected, and before you can speak again, the lady beyond, or even across the table, has interpolated with a sentence beginning always like this, "Now let me tell you something;" and long before she can get to the end of that, the person at her side has interrupted her. And so it goes on. It sounds as if I were telling you of another Mad Hatter's tea party, Mamma, but it is not at all; and it is wonderful how much sense you can get out of it, and what amusing and clever bright things they say, though at the end you feel a little confused; and what with the smell of the innumerable flowers and the steam heated rooms, and the cigarettes, I can't think how they have wits enough left to play bridge all the afternoon, as they do, with never a young man to wake them up. Of course it is amusing for Octavia and me to see all this, as we are merely visitors, but fancy, Mamma! doing it as a part of one's life! Dressing up and making oneself splendid and attractive to meet only women!
They are not the least interested in politics or the pursuits of their husbands or brothers, and hardly any of them have the duties we have to do, like opening bazaars and giving away prizes and being heads of all sorts of organisations, nor do they have quantities of tenants' welfare to look after, or be responsible for anything. Of course they must pass the time somehow, and they all have secretaries who take every sort of ordinary trouble of notes and letters and things off their shoulders, so they ought to be awfully happy, oughtn't they? But they often have nerves or some imaginary disease or fad, and are frightfully restless, and Octavia says it is because in the natural development of the female of any country, numbers of these are really at the stage when they should be doing manual labour, according to their ancestry, and so having nothing to occupy them and living in every dreamed-of luxury, they get nerves instead. But I think it is because they never have nice young men to play with, everyone being busy working down town in the day time. We are told that even when the husbands do come home before dinner they are too tired to talk much, and as I said before nearly all the men, married or single, make you feel as good as gold, so it is no wonder such numbers of beautiful Americans come to Europe. I am quite sure if we had to lead their life we would turn into the most awful creatures. It is greatly to their credit they remain so nice.
When you can get one or two alone to have a connected conversation they are perfectly charming, and often very cultivated, and nearly always knowing about music; but sometimes, supposing one is discussing a phaze of the Renaissance, say, they will suddenly speak of something as belonging to it of quite another period, and you feel perfectly nonplussed, it seems so remarkable with the clever things they have just said they can make such mistakes. Perhaps it's that they do not study any one subject very deeply.
One thing is noticeable and nice. The conversations everywhere are all absolutely "jeune fille"; never anything the least "risqué," though it is often amusing.
Among the "smart set" (do forgive this awful term, Mamma, but I mean by that the ones who are "in the swim" and whose society is the goal of the other's desire: I don't know what else to call them) they don't often tell you about the Mayflower and their ancestors; though on Wednesday a frightfully rich person who has only lately been admitted into this inner circle because her daughters have both married foreign Princes, said to me, she loved the English, and was indeed English herself and some distant connection of our King, being descended from Queen Elizabeth!!! It was rather unfortunate her having pitched upon our Virgin Queen, wasn't it, Mamma!? But perhaps as she had rather an Italian look it was the affair of the Venetian attaché, and when I suggested that to her, she gazed at me blankly and said, "Why, no, there never has been any side-tracking in our family; we've always been virtuous and always shall be."
Now that you know, generally, what a luncheon is, I must tell you of the particular one at Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield's. She is the dearest old lady you ever met, Mamma—witty and quaint and downright, with an immense chic—grey hair brushed up into the most elaborate coiffure, jet black eyes with the wickedest twinkle in them, and a strong cleft in a double chin. She is rather stout but has Paris clothes and perfect jewels. She is not a bit like English old ladies, sticking to their hideous early Victorian settings for their diamonds; hers are the very latest, and although she is seventy-eight, she crosses the ocean twice a year to have her frocks fitted, and see what is going on.
She was of a real old Southern family, before the war, very rich and aristocratic. She, of course, never mentions the Mayflower or the cavaliers, but you can read all about her ancestors in any history of America. She has such a strong sense of humour and the fitness of things, that she has adapted herself to the present, instead of remaining aloof and going to the wall as she told me so many of her friends and relations did.
We met at Mrs. Latour's (you know Valerie Latour, Lady Holloway's sister; when she is in England she often stays with us at Valmond). She took to Octavia and me at once, and we to her, and on Wednesday we lunched with her, and when Queen Elizabeth's descendant, Mrs. Clerehart, said what I told you, she caught my eye, and you never saw such a look of fun in a human eye, and we became great friends at once. She says one must take New York as it is, and one will find it a most amusing place. She never hesitates to say what she thinks anywhere, and lots of people hate her, and most of them are afraid of her, but all find it an honour when she will receive them.
"My dear," she said, "in my young days there were gentle people and common people, but now there is no distinction in society, only one of dollars and cents, and whether you get into the right swim or not. I receive all sorts, and some of the last risen are quite the nicest, and amuse me more than my own old friends!"
She says the young men in New York are mostly awful, according to her ideas, and nearly all drink too many cocktails, and that is what makes them so unreserved when they get to their clubs, so the women can't have them for lovers because they talk about it. She does not think it is because American women are so cold or so good that they are so virtuous, but because the men don't tempt them at all. Also she says it's being such a young nation they are still dreadfully provincial. But there are other and good qualities from being young, Mamma; it makes them have the kindest hearts, and be more generous and hospitable, so I think I like it as well as our old ones.
Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield said she had asked a sprinkling of all sorts to meet us, and it was then she explained about the court relations, because she found she had Mrs. Clem Busfield with the sister-in-law of Clem Busfield's new wife, and that inadvertently her secretary, who arranged the table, had put them side by side.
She sat in the middle, at the end of the table, with Octavia and me at her right and left, and it was beyond Octavia these two sat. She explained it all to me in so distinct a voice I was afraid they would hear, but she added that Julia Busfield was really a lady and would pull through all right!
"My dear," she said, "it is in these situations sometimes the parvenues show the yellow streak, these and being touchy. They don't always come up to the scratch, otherwise there is no difference in them, and that is the glory of our country."
Then she told me that is the way she judges their advance, according to their touchiness. They can't stand any chaff, she said, and if a stranger dares to make any criticism of Americans to them, they are up in arms at once and tear them to pieces! "Now, you in old countries, are amused or supremely indifferent if foreigners laugh at you," she said, "as we are in the South, but our parvenues in the East haven't got to that plane yet, and resent the slightest show of criticism or raillerie. You see they are not quite sure of themselves." Isn't that quaint of them, Mamma?
Then she asked me to look round the table and to tell her if I had ever seen a better looking set of women, and of course I had not; they were really charming and so exquisitely dressed, and the apparently most aristocratic of all she told me was the daughter of a Western miner and an English housemaid! And she even had a soft, sweet voice. I talked to her afterwards. Is it not too wonderful to think of what such parentage would make English people look! It must be climate and that splendid go ahead vitality—whatever it is, I do admire it. And as Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield seemed so human and not touchy I asked her why a number of the New York men did not appear to have caught the same appearance of wonderful refinement and breeding, and she said because the sort of life a man leads makes him look what he does far more than blood, and that the few that lived the life of English gentlemen looked like them, just as the rest who live the life of our city clerks look like them, minus our City clerks' Saturday interest in sport, and plus the cocktail. And this must be true, Mamma, because Mr. Renour, who was what all these people would call a rough Westerner, and would probably not speak to (until he became a trillionaire of course) was a nature's gentleman and looked out-door and hard; and if he had been dressed by Mr. Davis, and his hair cut by Mr. Charles, would have been as good looking as anyone in the world.
These "reasons why" do interest me so much, and I am always collecting them. But I must get back to what happened at lunch. I heard it from Octavia afterwards, who made a fearful bêtise.
We had met the new Mrs. Busfield the day before but had not been told a word of the story, so Octavia being vaguely aware that there were two brothers Busfield, thought this one, who for the sake of non-confusion I must speak of as "Julia," was the other brother's wife, and to be amiable told her how charming she thought "Arma" (the new wife) was, and how awfully devoted the husband seemed, and were they not very proud to have such a perfect beauty in the family!
"Julia" got crimson and coughed, and then the lady from the other side joined in telling Octavia that "Arma" was her sister-in-law, but no relation to this Mrs. Busfield! Octavia, of course, turned the conversation and spoke to the hostess, but she said the two beside her, in spite of not being on speaking terms chatted feverishly to each other for the rest of lunch to avoid pauses, in case, Octavia supposes, she should ask any more difficult questions. So you see, Mamma, even a person with as fine perceptions as Octavia can make awkward bêtises here. It is like steering among the Thousand Islands and hidden rocks and currents.
Mrs. Van B.-C.'s (the name is really too long to go on writing) house is perfectly awful. She told us so before we could even formulate the thought ourselves! It was done up about fourteen years ago, she said, when it was one of the first houses as high up on Fifth Avenue, and was the time of the most appalling taste in decoration. Every sort of gilding and dreadful Louis XV., and gorged cupids sitting on cannon ball clouds, with here and there a good picture and bit of china, and crimson brocade edged with plush for curtains!
She told us she did not mean to change it. It is comfortable, she said, and lots of her new people really admire it in their hearts! And it will last her time, and when her granddaughter comes into it it will no doubt be "down town" and turned into a shop, things move so fast.
After lunch we all came up to this fearful salon, and then we saw what a perfect hostess she is, moving from group to group and saying exactly the right thing in her crisp, old voice—there is nothing sleepy and Southern about her. At last she sat down by me and she told me such an exquisite story, showing the feeling after the war and the real aristocrats the Southerners were. Two old aunts of hers were left absolutely destitute, having been great heiresses, and to support themselves took in sewing, making dresses for their friends. Their overseer became immediately rich, and a year or so afterwards gave a grand ball for his daughter. The day before the ball an old and not bright friend called, and found Miss Barbara sewing a white satin frock and the tears dropping from her eyes. She pressed her hand in sympathy, and said she felt as badly as she did to see her making when she ought to be wearing, the frock; but Miss Barbara sat up straight and said, "It is not that; I like the work, but what do you think! Timothy Murran (the overseer) has had the impudence to send us an invitation!" Isn't this a dear story, Mamma, and should not we have loved and honoured those old ladies?
But Mrs. Van B.-C. says the modern people in New York would not in the least understand this subtle pride, and would only think them old fools, and she added—"which they probably were!"
She says we are not to judge of American men by most of those we have seen in New York as yet; that there are a section of elderly, refined and cultivated gentlemen, no longer interested in trade now, who were contemporaries of her daughter (the beautiful Duchesse de Ville Tranche, who died so tragically). She wants us to meet them.
But Octavia and I both told her we liked those we had seen very much indeed; they were so kind, only not naughty like Englishmen. And she had such a look in her eye as she said, "That is just it, my dear, and it makes all the difference."
You see, Mamma, I am not telling you of any of the people we know in England, because as I said before they are just like us, and not interesting in consequence. Octavia and I feel we want to see quite others, and next week perhaps we start for the West.
Heavens! The mail is going. I must stop!
Fondest love to my angels,
Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH
LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND
LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND, Saturday.
Dearest Mamma,—We are here for Sunday, but first I must tell you of the day "down town." We went with one of the interesting business men we have met lately, and we seemed to motor for miles along Fifth Avenue until one would think one was dreaming; all the houses seemed to be from fifteen to twenty-five stories high, and so the air rushes down the gorges the streets are, like a tornado, even if it is not a particularly windy day. It is a mercy American women have such lovely feet and nice shapes, because when they cross to a place called the Flat Iron Building the gusts do what they please with their garments. I am quite sure if the Roués' Club in Piccadilly could get itself removed to a house just here, those wicked old men would spend their days glued to the windows. Well, we passed Washington Square, which has a look of Russell or Bedford Squares, part of it, and beyond that I can't remember the names of the streets; it all was so crowded and intent and wonderful,—people racing and chasing after wealth, I suppose.
Finally we got to Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. And Wall Street is quite a little narrow, ordinary street, almost as mean as our Threadneedle or Lombard Streets! The Stock Exchange is the most beautiful building! I don't suppose you have ever been in one, Mamma, and I certainly shall never want to see another. Imagine a colossal room as high as a church, with a Greek roof and a gallery at one end, and down below countless human beings—men at highest tension dealing with stocks and shares, in a noise of hell which in groups here and there rose to a scream of exaltation or a roar of disappointment. How anyone could keep nerves or hearing sense, after a week of it, one cannot imagine. No wonder American men have nervous prostration, and are so often a little deaf. The floor was strewn with bits of paper, that they had used to make calculations on, and they had a lovely kind of game of snowballing with it now and then—I suppose to vary the monotony of shouting and screaming. The young ones would pelt each other. It must have been a nice change.—Then there were a lot of partitions with glass panels at the end of the room, and into these they kept rushing like rabbits into their holes, to send telegrams about the prices, I suppose. And all the while in a balcony half way up one of the great blank empty walls, a dear old white bearded gentleman sat and gazed in a benevolent way at the shrieking crowd below.
They told us he was there to keep order! But no one appeared to care a pin for his presence, and as he did not seem to mind, either, what row they made, we rather wondered what the occasions could be when he would exert his authority! Presently he went away to lunch, and as no one else took his place, they were able to make as much noise as they liked, though it did not seem any greater than before.
Can you imagine, Mamma, spending days in a place like that? No wonder when they get up town they don't want to talk. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield says everyone is too restless to stay quietly at home in the evenings, and when they have pulled themselves together with a cocktail they have to dress and go out to dine at some restaurant or with friends, and then the theatre. At first one thinks they are simply angels to their wives, working all day long down town like that—they seem a race of predestined husbands. If one wanted a husband who spent his entire day away from one and was too tired when he came in to talk of anything but a few sentences on Wall Street affairs, one would certainly choose a rich American, because he would load one with money and jewels, and absolutely obey one when he was at home, and let one spend most of the time in Europe. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield says all that is only a sop to Cerberus, to keep the wives from grumbling at not being made love to like women of other nations are; that all men are hunters, and while ours in England chase foxes and are thrilled with politics the New Yorkers hunt dollars, and it is the same thing. Wall Street is their adored mistress, and the wives are just their family. As you were married such ages ago I don't know if you quite understand what I mean about men, Mamma, and the effect they have on one. There are creatures who,—the moment they come into the room you know they are there. You know it isn't a woman. It is not an intellectual or soul feeling, but it is rather lovely, all the same, and although I am furious with Harry and intend to be horrid to him, I must say he has this power stronger than anyone I have ever met; when he is close to me I have a kind of creep of pleasure, and when he kisses those little curls at the back of my neck I feel thrills all down my back. Do you know what I mean, Mamma? I have divided men up into two lots. Those one could go to Australia alone with, and those one couldn't, and it does not matter in the least their age or looks or station or anything, it is just whether or no they have got this quality. Well, as far as I have seen, Valerie Latour's husband and one or two others are the only men who have it here in New York, although lots are very good looking and intelligent, and all are kind; but there is a didactic way of talking, a complete absence of subtlety or romance.—And even those it would be perfectly safe to go with; because they would not dream of making love to one, but they have the igniting quality in themselves. Some of the elder men over forty are really attractive and intensely clever, but as everyone is married, one would always have the bore of the wives' frowns if one played with them. How I do wander from what I was telling you!
Tom came with us to the Stock Exchange. We have to leave him at home when we go to the women's lunches, but he spends the time with Valerie Latour, and in the late afternoons he goes to the Clubs with the husbands, and he says they are awfully good fellows and many brilliantly amusing, and full of common sense; but at some of the clubs they have not got any unwritten laws as to manners, so now and then when they get rather drunk, they are astonishingly rude to one another. It is not considered a great disgrace for a young man to get tipsy here; the slang for it is to get "full." There are two grades, "fresh" and "full." When you are "fresh" you are just breezy and what we would call "above yourself;" but when you are "full," you can't speak plain, and are sometimes unsteady on your feet, so it is very unpleasant. You can be "fresh," too, without having drunk anything, if you have an uppish nature. Octavia and I were perfectly astonished the first time we heard it spoken of. A rather nice looking boy who was at dinner had apparently been "full" the night before, and the women on both sides of him chaffed him and scolded him as if it were a joke. I am glad it is still considered a disgrace in England, because when it does occur it is kept out of sight.
After the Stock Exchange we went to see the workings of one of the great journals. That was too wonderful, Mamma, everything happening in a vast room on one floor; compositing, typewriting, printing, and sorting. It is astonishing the tremendous power of concentrating the will to be able to think in that flurry and noise;—hundreds of clean-shaven young men in shirt-sleeves smoking cigars or cigarettes and doing their various duties. The types interested us so; physiognomy counts for nothing, apparently,—faces that might have been the first Napoleon or Tennyson or even Shakespeare,—doing the simple manual part of lifting the blocks of metal and attending to the machinery, older men, these;—and the Editor, who naturally must have been very clever, had a round moon face, tiny baby nose, two marbles stuffed in for eyes and the look of a boyish simpleton.
Tom was so enchanted because at the sporting editor's desk there were a party of prize fighters, the "world's light weight"—whatever that means, a half "coloured gentleman," that is what niggers are called—with such white teeth and wiry and slight; and two large bull dogs of men who were heavyweights. I felt obliged to ask them if they minded at all having their noses smashed in and black eyes, and if they felt nervous ever, and the little coloured gentleman grinned and said he only felt nervous over the money of the thing! He was not anxious about the art or fame! He just wanted to win. Is not that an extraordinary point of view, Mamma—To win? It is the national motto, it seems; how, does not matter so much; and that is what makes them so splendidly successful, and that is what the other nations who play games with them don't understand. They, poor old-fashioned things, are taking an interest in the sport part, and so scattering their forces, while the Americans are concentrating on the winning. And it is this quality which of course will make them the rulers of the world in time.
All the people were so courteous to us, and naturally Tom was more interested in this than any of the things we have yet seen. One reporter who showed us round had a whimsical sense of humour (not "American humour," that, as I told you before, is different) and we really enjoyed ourselves, and before we were out of the building they presented us with copies of the paper with accounts of our visit in the usual colossalised style. Was not that quick work, Mamma?
The things they put in the papers here are really terrible, and must be awfully exciting for the little boys and girls who read them going to school; every paltry scandal in enormous headlines, and the most intimate details of people's lives exposed and exaggerated, while the divorces and suicides fill every page. But if there is anything good happening, like sailors behaving well at sea and saving lives, or any fine but unsensational thing, it only gets a small notice. The poor reporters can't help it; they are dismissed unless they worry people for interviews and write "catchy" articles about them, so, of course, they can't stick to the truth; and as the people who read like to hear something spicy, they are obliged to give it all a lurid turn. The female ones are sometimes spiteful; I expect because women often can't help being so about everything. These wonderfully sensational papers have only developed in the last ten years, we are told, so they have not had time to see the effect it is going to have upon the coming generation.
The better people don't pay the least attention to anything that is printed, but of course ordinary people in any country would.
We lunched in the most fashionable restaurant down town, but I never can describe to you, Mamma, the noise and flurry and rush of it. As if countless men screaming at the top of their voices and every plate being rattled by scurrying waiters, were not enough, there was the loudest band as well! Unless you simply yelled you could not make your neighbour hear. I suppose it is listening to the other din at the Stock Exchange all the morning;—they would feel lonely if they had quiet to eat in.
Our party was augmented by a celebrated judge, and some other lawyers. We had been told he was most learned and a wonderful wit, and someone we should see as a representative American; half the people said he was a "crook," and the other half that he was the "only straight" judge; and when I asked what a "crook" was, our host told me the word explained itself, but that you would be called a crook by all the trusts if you gave judgment against them, just as, if you let them off, you would be the only honest judge. So whatever you were called did not amount to anything! The Judge was much younger than our judges, and had a moustache, and looked just like ordinary people, and not a bit dignified.
As he has to deliver long speeches when he is judging, one would have thought he might have liked a little rest and light conversation when he came out to lunch, especially as every man likes to talk to Octavia and me; but not a bit of it, he continued to lay down the law in a didactic way so that no one else could speak. He did not even pretend to be interested in us. What he said was all quite clever and splendidly put, but having to show politeness and listen with one's fork suspended in the air, lets the food get cold, and as it was excellent, all sorts of lovely American dishes, at last I just attended to that, and did not hear some of his speeches.
The band suddenly stopped and Octavia's voice saying, "Indeed" (all she could get in) rang out like the man on the Lusitania shouting orders down the megaphone; and when we got outside we all felt deaf and had sore throats.
The intense relief to come here out of all noise or hustle, to Valerie
Latour's for Sunday! But I am so tired now I will finish this to-morrow.
Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH.
LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND,
Sunday.
DEAREST MAMMA,—I am resting, so I can put another letter in with the one I wrote last night. We came here, as I said, after the down town luncheon, and it is so quaint going over on the ferry; we just sat in the motor we have hired while we are in New York, and it rolled on to a broad place on a huge flat steamer, with all the rest of the traffic, and the boat quietly steamed across the water, and when it touched the other side we drove off again. And presently as one gets past the station it looks like going into the wilds, but along the edges of the roads are small villas made of boards with shingle roofs; here the clerks (they pronounce it just as it is spelt) and small business people live, their little bits of land a few feet round each house not railed or hedged off, but simply mown grass marking them from public property.
Most of them are spruce and painted, and they can be moved if necessary. We met one coming down the road, the lace curtains in the windows and a cat looking out and brushing its whiskers. The house was set on rollers and being pulled along. Isn't it a splendid idea, Mamma? Fancy if I could have the east wing of Valmond, that was added in eighteen hundred, cut off and just trotted round to the north courtyard, where it would not show so much, how nice that would be; but everything is so dreadfully stable and solid with us, and here everything is transitory and can come and go in a night. All the country we came through looks the wilds, uncultivated, almost as if bears could live in the woods. Farms have been there, but now the land is too valuable and is only sold for building purposes. But the effect of wild is intense and makes the contrast of the over-cultivated avenue borders greater. Once inside the gates, the winding avenue begins, covered like all the avenues we have seen with fine granite gravel. But even in the wildest wild it is lit with electric light, and here and there a neat villa. This is typical of America, the contrivances of the brain of man forced upon primitive nature.
The house is simply charming; outside a beautiful colonial style, so suitable to the splendid trees and general look of the land, and inside all panelled, and everything in the most perfect taste, and not too grand. But it surprises me that Valerie, who has been so much in England, should still have the same want of the personal note in her house. Everything is beyond criticism, so perfect and suitable, but not in a single room, even her own sitting room, is there that strong sense of her as I think we all have in our rooms at home. I am sure, Mamma, you would know even the great state drawing-rooms at Chevenix were Octavia's, and there is not a corner of Valmond or Hurstbridge or even the town house, that I do not decide upon the arranging of. But here I don't think they would be bothered; and they only stay in their houses for so short a period, rushing from New York to Newport and the country to Europe, so none of the places feel like home. That is the only possible thing which spoils this one,—otherwise it is perfection. But then you see they could start fair by building it themselves; they had not to inherit a huge castle from their forefathers, with difficult drains to combat and an insufficient water supply, to say nothing of the trail of the serpent of fearful early Victorian taste over even the best things of the eighteenth century. The horrors that now live in the housemaids' bed rooms which I collected from the royal suite at Valmond!
It was a perfect joy to get here into peace, and we were allowed to rest quietly until dinner, and Valerie came and talked to me while I lay on the sofa. She said her husband was "crazy" about me, and she thought it would do him a great deal of good for me to play with him a little, and that she was crazy about Tom; so I said if she could find someone for Octavia it seemed a nice little chassé croisée and we ought all to be very happy together. Then she said she had someone coming down by a later train who ought to be just Octavia's affair, and who in the world do you think it is, Mamma? The Vicomte! Gaston de la Trémors!!!!
Think of what Harry will say when he hears! Isn't it too lovely? He will of course believe I made a rendezvous with him, considering the furious rage he was in when I got the Vicomte's letter. You remember, Mamma, he used to be in love with me at the Château de Croixmare, and always has been a red rag to a bull for Harry. When we met him by chance at Monte Carlo last year, the first time since my marriage, there was nearly a scene; and, as you know, his simple letter saying he would be in London, and might he see me, was the cause of Harry's and my quarrel. So now, when he finds poor Gaston is out here, he will be foaming with rage, and will of course come back from Africa at once, and probably beat me and shoot the Vicomte; so I had better have a little fun while I can. It has sent my spirits up to the skies; and I am so glad Agnès brought my loveliest garments here. You need not worry about me, Mamma, as I am sure you are beginning to! I really will be as good as gold, but I must amuse myself a little in this my only chance. I took such care dressing for dinner, and wore no jewels, because everyone here has such wonderful ones. And when I was going down the stairs I felt quite excited.
Gaston has not altered much, and I think I told you last year when we saw him his hair is not coupé en brosse now, so he is better looking, and he gets his clothes at an English tailor; and as Harry is not here to contrast him with, he really seemed very attractive and you couldn't for one instant feel he was your aunt or grandmother, or that you could go to Australia with him safely! And while all the nice American men—and Valerie only has the nicest—were saying bright pleasant things, he, who was behind my chair and apparently talking to Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield (she is here), managed to bend down and tell me he adored me, and had only come to America because he found I was not in London!
There was that lovely sense of having a secret, and although he sat on one side of Valerie, and Tom at the other, and I was miles away with the host—it was a huge dinner party—still his eyes said whatever eyes could say between bouquets of flowers. On my other hand was the father of one of the guests. Valerie had told us beforehand she considered him not of their world, but the daughter was charming and married to a youth who is one of their friends, so as he was staying with them she had to ask him too. Both Octavia and I wanted to have him next us because these characters are so much more interesting than just their world, who are the same as Englishmen, almost, with the sex taken out, and a more emphasised way of talking.
Octavia and I tossed up for him and I won and he was a gem,—a rugged powerful face and grey bushy hair and really well dressed. He had eyes that saw through one at once and beyond, and his hands were strong and well shaped, with the most exquisitely polished nails. He did not make horrid noises clearing his throat as lots of them do, and he was not the least deaf. Instantly we got on. He said if we were seeing America we were not to judge the nation by the men we should see in society in New York (each person we meet tells us this!); that we should go out West if we wanted to find the giant brains who make the country great.
"It's not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Latour's guests," he said, looking round the table; "they are what they are, good enough in their way, humming birds and mocking birds to flit among the flowers, and pretty poor at that when you compare them with Europeans; but they don't amount to anything for the nation. They couldn't evolve a scheme that would benefit a foot beyond their noses!" And when I asked him why he had allowed his daughter to marry one of them, he said with such a whimsical air, that women in America did what they "darned well pleased," and that he guessed that everyone had to "work out their own problem along that line."
"The Almighty played a trick on us," he said. "Putting the desire for one particular person into our heads, now and again in our lives leads to heaps of trouble, and don't benefit the race. If we'd no feelings we could select according to reason and evolve perfection in time."
Isn't that a splendid idea, Mamma? He went on to say he studied psychology a good deal, and he found to look at life from that standpoint was the most satisfactory way. He said it was no use mixing up sentiment and what you thought things ought to be with what things really were. "We've got to see the truth Ma'am, that's all," he said. Then he said, "these cotton wool ba-lambs" never saw the truth of anything from one year's end to another, and, "it ain't because it's too difficult, but because they have not got a red cent of brains to think for themselves!"
While he was saying all this he never took his eyes off me, and he spoke with quiet force. He went on and was too interesting expounding his theories along every line (I am getting American), and I looked up and caught Valerie's eye, and she collapsed with laughter; she thought it quite funny that I should find him thrilling. Presently I asked him what his views were about us in England, we of the leisure class, and he said he thought most of us were pretty sound because we did our duties and generally kept our heads.
"Now, I guess, Ma'am, your husband has quite a lot of business to do in a year?" and I said yes, that of course there was endless work in the management of a large estate, and politics, besides hunting and shooting, which was stern business with us! Then he told me with them the leisured class had no responsibilities, except to keep an eye on their brokers, and so they got into mischief.
"'Tisn't in the American blood to be idle," he said; "they can't keep straight if they are." After that I asked him what he thought about the English and American marriages among our nobility, and he got so vehement that he brought his hand down on the table and made such a clatter everyone looked.
It would take too long, Mamma, to repeat all his words, which were too quaint; but the sense of them, was that he would forbid them by law, because American girls to begin with had been brought up with the idea they were to be petted and bowed down to by all men, and no Englishman in his heart considered a woman his equal! And then to go on with, they did not know a thing of the duties of the position, or the tenue which is required to keep up the dignity of an old title, so when it came to the scratch they were found wanting. "Which of 'em's got prestige, I ask you, Ma'am, in your country? They may rub along all right, and when it is a question of society I guess they're queens, but which of 'em acts like the real thing in the country, or is respected by the people?"
I really did not know what to say, Mamma, so he went on. "They're all right sometimes till the rub, and they may do better if they've been educated in Europe—they are so mightily adaptable; but just an American girl like my Lola there,—I'd rather see her dead than married to your greatest Dook."
I said I knew numbers of perfect dears married in England, and he said, "Maybe, maybe, but if there comes a ruction, they won't grin and bear it in silence on account of the family as you would, they will take it into the courts, and come out on top, too; but it causes a talk and that is not good for prestige. You asked me about the thing in principle and I'm bound to tell you the truth. We aren't brought up on tradition in our country, and our girls don't know what noblesse oblige means; they consider natural feelings first; guess it's old fashioned anyway, but it is necessary in your old country, or the game won't work." I said I thought he held quite different views to the rest of his countrymen, who placed their women on a pedestal above the whole world. Then he blazed at me! "Don't you make any mistake about that. I'm with them there; I think our women are ahead, taking them all round, but that don't make them suited to old countries, any more than new wine in old bottles or new patches in old garments;—breaks the bottle and wears out the stuff."
I said I would not misunderstand him, but I was sure most of his own country-women at the table would be offended to hear his views, and again he said, "Maybe, maybe! Pretty empty heads; they can't reason; they only see what they want to, but I see the straight truth."
I am not clever enough to have argued with him properly, but I did ask him in his theorising if he did not think it was good for our old race to have the mixture of new blood; and he said no, that by the rules of breeding we wanted re-stocking from the primitive. "Your old families should take a strong country lass now and then. Let 'em marry their milk-maids and leave our hot-house plants alone. Have you read Burbank's books?" he added. "No? Well, read 'em; you'll understand then cause and effect; though his are all about plants. He's the greatest giant we've got in America, in my opinion."
You will think I am being a frightful bore, Mamma, telling you all this; and I can't give you the strange force and power of this man's personality, which made him so interesting; but I had to write it all because I am telling you everything which strikes me as American, and different to us, and we have nothing like this man at home; and when the lady at his other hand did claim his attention, Daniel Latour, after reproaching me for my shoulder being turned to him for so long, told me some of his history. Elias P. Arden, his name is, and he is a senator. He has had a remarkable career, rising from nothing, and being the bravest, coolest, hardest man in the mining camps. He is colossally rich, and his daughter Lola is perfectly lovely, and married to a silly young Vinerhorn, who has a country house close here.
It is so quaint how all the men stand in awe of their wives! Daniel Latour, even though he knows Valerie is a great friend of mine, and would not mind a bit, still kept glancing nervously across at her whenever he said anything a little go-ahead.
After dinner, of course, the Vicomte immediately came to me. Here the men leave the dining-room with us, like in France, and the Vicomte did not even go back with the others to smoke. But it was all done in such a clever way it attracted no attention.
Jack Brandon had turned up, you know, Lord Felixtowe's brother: he came with some people with whom he is spending the Sunday, and his methods to speak with the lady he admires were so different to the Vicomte's. Of course he had that extraordinary sans-gêne of all those men, that absolute unselfconsciousness which is not aware there is anyone else in the room but himself and the lady he is bent upon; but instead of being discreet, and making a semblance of taking an interest in the rest of the company, as the Vicomte did, he just sprawled into a chair near her, monopolised her conversation, and stared blankly in front of him whenever she spoke to any one else. And Tom was doing almost the same by Valerie. It is undoubtedly this quality of perfect ease and unconscious insolence which for some unaccountable reason is attractive in Englishmen. If it were assumed it would be insupportable impertinence, but as you know, Mamma, it is not in the least. They are perfectly unconscious of their behaviour; it is just that there is one woman they want to speak to in a room, so that is all they see; the rest of the people are merely furniture. Now, American men are always polite and unselfish, and almost self-conscious where women are concerned, whereas the French have too polished manners naturally to allow them to forget the general company.
I tried to keep Gaston from making love to me, and when he would go on, I said it bored me to death, and if he wanted to remain friends with me he must simply amuse me; and then to tease him I got up and went and talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining look in his keen eye—he was being stiffly deferential to one of the ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny griffon to play with it.
"They're bright as paint," he said to me when we sat down on a sofa, pointing to Mrs. Welsh. "Dainty, pretty creatures. I don't think women want brains, not man's brains, anyway." I am sure you would agree with this, Mamma, and I am sure he is right.
I said to him how extraordinarily generous all American husbands and fathers seemed to their women-kind, and what lovely clothes they had, and what heaps of money they must spend on them; and he said, "By the Lord, why shouldn't they? What's the use of money but to spend, and if that's what makes them happy, let 'em." Then he added, "I'm always grateful and kind of devotional towards women. It's only through them we ever get a taste of heaven on this used-up old earth, and it doesn't matter how low they've sunk, any of 'em would die for the man they really love. Whenever I hear a man speak a disparaging word of a woman, I know, no matter what his other qualifications are, he's a mean yellow dog underneath."
Did you ever hear of such a darling, chivalrous gentleman, Mamma? And his eyes got all soft, and I am sure, when he was younger, he had all the quality I told you of; and though it would have been safe to go to the moon with him because of his honour, he would have made you feel it would have been nice if he kissed you.
I told him I thought he was lovely, and he smiled rather sadly; and although he seems to have not much knowledge of literature in a dilettante sense, he has a great splendid mind; and if there are many more senators like him at Washington this country ought to be the best governed in the world. He makes you feel you are on a mountain top or in pine forests, or some vast space, and all the people of society such poor little things. But he is too kindly even to despise them really; and he looks at his daughter's weak, reedy husband with affectionate toleration as the last toy she wanted and had got. "Lola had a keen fancy for Randolph," he said. "She liked his being a swell, and if he's her joy, what's it to me that I could break his bones with one clasp of my hand?" And he put out his strong well kept fingers.
You know, Mamma, I do wonder if such a man could marry one of us, who understand that a really fine male creature is our superior and not meant to obey us, and who would appreciate all his splendid aims, and not think they were there just to buy us diamonds—I wonder what sort of children we should have? They ought to be absolutely superb, oughtn't they?
I was so thrilled with Mr. Elias P. Arden that I stayed on the sofa with him all the evening, and he told me every sort of interesting thing, and at last said he would like us to come and see the mining camps with him in the West. He is a president of the railway there, and he has a private car.
"I'll bring along a specimen of young man for your inspection, Ma'am," he said. "Nelson Renour, the finest young chap I've met in my life."
And when he said that, a great rush of remembrance came over me, and I felt I should love to see him again, and I told the Senator so, and how we had met him, and just then Tom joined us and we have arranged it all; when we have been to Philadelphia to stay with Kitty Bond for a day or two, we are going right out West, and shall all meet the private car at Los Angeles and go to the camps. "Lola" and her husband are coming, too, and anyone else we like; and the Vicomte immediately proposed himself, as he said he is deeply interested in mining and wants to invest some money. I think we shall have a superb time, don't you, Mamma? And I am longing to be off, but we have still some more social things to do, and go to one dance.
It is so late in the year all the balls are finished and lots of people have already gone to Europe. They are having this one on purpose for us, because Octavia said she wanted to see some young men and girls, and how they amuse themselves. The girls have a perfectly emancipated and glorious time, and are petted and spoilt to a degree. They don't come much to the ladies' lunches, but they have girls' lunches of their own, and their own motor cars and horses, or whatever else they want, and do not have to ask their mothers' leave about anything.
Among the married women there are two distinct sets here in the inner cream, the one which Valerie leads, and which has everything like England, and does not go in for any of those wonderful entertainments where elephants do the waiting with their trunks, or you sit in golden swings over a lake while swans swim with the food on trays on their backs—I am exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean. Valerie says all that is in shocking taste, which of course it is. She never has anything eccentric, only splendid presents at her cotillons, and all the diplomats from Washington come over, and the whole tone of her house is exactly as it is at home, except that many of them are brighter and more amusing than we are.
Then the other set is the "go one better set,"—that is the best way I can describe it. If one has a party one week, another must have a finer one the week after, and so on, until thousands and thousands of dollars are spent on flowers, for instance, for one afternoon; and in it nothing is like England. I believe it must be purely American, or perhaps one ought to say New York.
These two sets meet at Newport, but they won't speak to any others. I wish we were going to stay long enough to go there.
When all the dinner party had gone, Octavia and I and one of the other women who are staying in the house, went up with Valerie into her sitting room, and coseyed round the fire; but when Tom and the Vicomte knocked at the door, and wanted to come in, too, and cosey with us, Valerie looked the wee-est trifle shocked, and rather nervously put them off; and she said to me afterwards that the room opened right into her bedroom, and Daniel would have been awfully cross if they had come in! It is in tiny trifles like this that even Valerie is a fraction provincial. I suppose she had a Puritan ancestor. Puritans, as one knows, always have those odd minds that see something bad in everything.
This morning some of them went to church, but I was not in time. I was so tired I overslept myself and then stayed hours in my bath. The bath-rooms here are superb. Certainly the American plumbers are the best in the world. I can't imagine what the American women do when they marry foreign noblemen and go home with them to their old castles where they would be expected to wash in a dish.
When I got down I found Gaston pacing the library like a maniac. "Enfin, enfin," he cried, as he kissed my hand.
"Enfin what?" I said, and he told me he had been waiting here for me the whole morning, and they would soon be home from church and he would not get another chance to see me alone. So I just played with him a little, Mamma!—and it was too delightful being as provoking as possible and yet perfectly sage. Harry could not have really objected to a word I said, but all the same it drove Gaston crazy. I have never had a chance before, you know, because all these years, what with having babies and the fuss and time that takes, and Harry never leaving me for a moment, and glaring at every other man who came near, I did not know how enjoyable a little fencing could be. And when the rest did come back I only talked to Daniel Latour on purpose to tease Gaston, and I really amused myself.
Lots more people came to luncheon, and though it is in the wilds of the country, what we would call, they were all in lovely afternoon dresses, as if it were town and the height of the season. But we were so merry at lunch. A general conversation is far more bright and entertaining than at home.
After lunch we walked in the woods, and I can never tell you of the beauty of it, with the scent of Spring in the air, and the quaint wild flowers. It is their last Sunday down here; they go off to Europe next week.
Shoals more visitors for tea, among them a little bride who had already got her husband to heel. She talked all the time of what she was going to do and he did not speak a word. But it is only in that sort of way they are very emancipated, it seems, for while they are actually married they are as good as gold, as far as looking at anyone else is concerned. It is when they come to Europe they have flirtations like us. But as I said before, there would not be any zest, because you can get a divorce and marry the man so easily it makes it always une affaire de jeune fille.
Now I must dress for dinner, so good-bye, dear Mamma.
Kisses to my angels.
Your affectionate daughter,