BLANCHE'S LETTERS.
PEACE AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS.
Park Lane.
DEAREST DAPHNE,—Already everyone's got peace-strain and what state we shall all be in by the time it's actually signed I haven't the dimmest. People have their own ideas of how they mean to celebrate it, and when they find that other people have the same ideas and mean to do the same things at the same time there are alarums and excursions, and things are said, and quite several people who were dear friends during the War don't speak now owing to the peace!
Par exemple, marches and processions being so much in the air, I'd planned a lovely Procession of Knitters; two enormous gilt knitting-needles to be carried by the leaders and a banner with "We Knitted our Way to Victory!" and myself on a triumphal car dressed in white silk-knitting. And then, just as everything was being arranged at our "Knitters' Peace Procession" committee meetings, I found that Beryl Clarges had stolen my idea and was arranging a "Crochet Peace Procession," with an immense gilt crochet-hook to be carried in front, and a banner with some nonsense about crochet on it, and herself on a triumphal car dressed in crochet!
I said exactly what I thought before I left off speaking to her.
Then, again, everyone wants to give a dance on peace night. I'd settled to give a big affair with some perfectly new departures, and all the nicest people I wanted have said, "Sorry, dearest, but I'm giving one myself that night." I've no patience with the silliness and selfishness of everybody.
Talking of dances, one's getting a bit dégoûtée of Jazz bands and steps. When ces autres get hold of anything it always begins to leave off being amusing. There's really a new step, however, the Peace Leap, that hasn't yet been quite usé and spoilt by the outlying tribes. The origin of it was a little funny. Chippy Havilland was at one of Kickshaw's Jazz dinners one night, where people fly out of their seats to one-step and two-step between the courses and during the courses and all the time. Well, while Chippy was eating his fish the band struck up that catchy Jazz-stagger, "She's corns on her toes," and Chippy, his mouth full of fish, jumped up and began to dance. Of course several fish-bones flew down his throat, and while he was choking he did such fearful and wonderful things that the whole room, not dreaming the poor dear was at his dernier soupir, broke out clapping and shouting and then imitated him, and by the time Chippy felt better he found himself famous and everybody doing the Peace Leap, which has completely cut out the Jazz-stagger, the Wolf's Prowl and everything else.
Oh, my dearest, who do you think are among the crowd of married people who're going to celebrate peace by dissolving partnership? The Algy Mallowdenes! Our prize couple! The flitchiest of Dunmow Flitch pairs! The turtlest of turtle—doves! Whenever people spoke of marriage as played out other people always weighed in with, "Well, but look at the Algy Mallowdenes."
They married on war-bread and Government cheese and kisses (unrationed). Seriously, though, m'amie, I believe they'd scarcely anything beyond his two thousand pounds a year as Permanent Irremovable Assistant Under-Secretary at the No-Use-Coming-Here Office. Certainly an "official residence" and a staff of servants were allowed 'em, but when poor Lallie asked to have a ball-room built, and Algy said he simply must have a billiard-room and smoke-room added, one of those fearful red-flag creatures got up in the House just as the money was going to be voted and made such an uproar that the matter was dropped.
And then, having heaps of spare time at the No-Use-Coming-Here Office, Algy began to write novels and found himself at once. You've read some of them, of course? Life with a big L, my dear. Every kind of world while you wait, the upper, the under, and the half. Lallie was very glad of the money that came rolling in, but I believe she said wistfully, "How does my gentle quiet Algy know so much about this, that and the other?" And her gentle quiet Algy made answer: "Intuition, dear; imagination; the novelist's temperament."
By-and-by, however, she began to hear of his being seen at the Umpty Club and Gaston's, chatting with Pearl Preston (one of those people, you know, Daphne, who're immensely talked about but never mentioned). And then a "certain liveliness" set in at the official residence of the Permanent Irremovable Assistant Under-Secretary.
"You silly little goosey!" said Algy; "don't you see that it's not as a man who admires her but as a novelist who's studying her that I talk to Pearl Preston? She's my next heroine. A heroine like that is a sine quâ non in a novel of the Modernist school."
But Lallie couldn't see the dif between a man and a novelist, and Algy couldn't write his best seller without studying its heroine, and so—and so—at last our poor prize couple are in that long list that an overworked judge complained of the other day. And if you ask for the moral I suppose it's "Don't try to study character where there isn't any."
This is emphatically a season for arms, my Daphne, which seems quite a good little idea for peace-time! Faces and figures don't count; it's the arm, the whole arm and nothing but the arm! There are all sorts of stunts for attracting attention to round white arms, and if one has the other kind one had better go and do a rest-cure. Your Blanche is beyond criticism in that respect, as you know, and the other night at the opera I'd a succès fou with a big black-enamel beetle, held in place by an invisible platinum chain, crawling on my upper arm.
Lady Manoeuvrer is simply ravie de joie at the rage for arms, for her Daffodil, who's been a great worry to her (she's the only clever one, you know, all the others being pretty), has the best arms of the whole bunch. She's taken Madame Fallalerie's course, "The Fascination of the Arms," and is made to flourish hers about from morn to night, poor child, till she sometimes does a small weep from sheer exhaustion. The other day at Kempford Races, in a no-sleeved coatee with a black sticking-plaster racehorse in full gallop on her upper arm, she attracted plenty of attention and had two offers, I hear. Arms and the man, again!
À propos, Lady Manoeuvrer told me yesterday she'd sent a thank-offering to one of the hospitals. "But how sweet of you!" I said. "For the restoration of Peace, I suppose?" "No, dearest," she whispered; "for the restoration of the London Season!"
Ever thine, BLANCHE.
"LETTS TAKE RIGA."
Daily Mail.
Yes, and let's keep it.
Manager (introducing music-hall turn). "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, KHAGOOLA WILL NOW PROCEED TO GIVE HIS ASTOUNDING CLAIRVOYANT, MEMORY AND SECOND SIGHT ACT, AND WILL ANSWER ANY QUESTION THAT ANY MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE MAY PUT TO HIM."
Voice from Gallery. "TELL US WHERE THERE'S A 'OUSE TO LET."