The aristocrats

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

I will describe Miss Simpson next, for as Mrs. Laurence is always the last to arrive or to call on a new-comer, I will reserve for her the éclat she covets. Miss Simpson is extremely handsome, tall, massive, with brown strong-looking hair, grey eyes with an expression of haughty surprise—as if lesser mortals were in the habit of taking liberties with her—a goodish complexion, a rather thick round profile, and a small hard mouth with a downward bend. Success is emblazoned upon her, as well as gratified power and ambition. She began life, I am informed by one of her enthusiastic admirers, as a clerk in a bank “out West,” but soon—feeling that her education and gifts fitted her for the higher life—“came East” and engaged in journalism. I cannot express the pride with which—Mrs. Chenoweth, I think it was—told me that Miss Simpson had never brushed her skirts against yellow journalism; although she came here quite unknown and from that hybrid region known as the “West,” it appears that her instincts were aristocratic from the first. She made herself invaluable on one of the “very best papers,” gradually wedged her way—I fear that expression is my own—into conservative circles, dropping such acquaintances as were detrimental, and finally graduated as a full-fledged editor of a woman’s magazine, capitalised by an eccentric but appreciative millionairess. It was only a year or so ago, however, that she “arrived” in this upper and rarefied stratum, and is here not as a member, but as the guest of Mrs. Chenoweth. It must be a jolly sensation to have striven for something so high above your reach and finally achieved it. What contempt for those left below, what constant self-gratulation. Miss Simpson quite chilled me with the silent hauteur of her manner, the level dissecting rays of her fine eyes. She holds herself aloft, as it were, with the rigid spine of the traditional queen; but let me confide to you, Polly dear, she looks like a successful business woman, tout même, not at all like what I fancy she wishes to resemble. And if she is a success as a business person I will venture to say she is a failure as a woman. Her ambition has been so positive, so undeviating, so remorseless (I have listened to six biographies of her), that the human attributes have withered up just as unused muscles do. I asked Bertie what he thought of her, and he said he had more respect for a harlot, as women had been created for two offices only—mothers and strumpets. “If a woman fills neither of these offices she is a failure and had better be dead.” That is a nice primitive view and I’d enjoy hearing it exploded in the midst of this select camp. They exult in Miss Simpson’s virtue—it is monumental—and has flourished like a green bay tree in spite of New York and its mysterious temptations. Personally, I should say her virtue was purely a negative quality due to absence of temptation, within and without. So far, she is rather in this well-uniformed set than of it; she speaks with a slight twang and expresses herself in rather shoppy language. But she is ambitious and determined, and no doubt will adapt herself in time.

Mrs. Laurence! She was of those who called after dinner. She was in full evening dress—black—and came into the room with a rustling of skirts I never have known equalled. I should say that her train had at least six inner silk flounces and it switched about on the bare floor like an angry tiger’s tail. I think she changed her seat seven times and always with that portentous rustling. I noticed that this occurred whenever some one else had spoken consecutively for five minutes. She is a pretty woman, and the old word “elegant” exactly expresses her; our grandmothers would have called her “most genteel.” She has a cloud of cendré hair, softly curled, and the pretty contrast of baby blue eyes, although they, as well as her red thin lips, are petulant in expression. Her features are delicate to the vanishing point and her figure very graceful. She is, undoubtedly, an old hand at aristocracy, for her voice, in spite of its fretful note, is exquisitely trained, her language polished in the extreme, with every comma and semicolon in its proper place; and her manner quite that of the grande dame of the American novel. She mentioned eighteen people of title she had met in England—among them Milly Seton—and alluded, with a fretful sigh, to her many visits in England’s “enchanting homes.”

“I wish I could marry an Englishman,” she said, with her little pout, “I have had so many offers from my own countrymen but not one from an Englishman—I think it is too bad! Of course I shall marry again, I’m so feminine and I hate work—I always am so amused when the critics rave over my quick brilliant style and verbal felicities; I grind out every sentence and hate the very sight of the paper. I want to marry a rich man who will pet me and leave me nothing to do but to be charming and to dress exquisitely. That is all a woman ever was made for, not to write tiresome books that other people think clever. Of course, I am glad I am such a success; but I’m sure I’d a great deal rather be you. You look the real thing, and we are all just creditable imitations. I am sure I was English once—in a former state—I feel so at home when I am in one of your old castles, surrounded by people who are all that I should like to be, and I am such a success with them; I could not be more so if I were to the manor born; I am sure I cannot understand why some flower of nobility has not fairly flung himself and his hereditary acres at my feet.”

All this before Bertie, and it reads like the most engaging candour; but as she fairly breathes insincerity and self-consciousness one does not believe anything she says, and I think she knows it. When she left, I asked Bertie if she was feminine enough to suit him, and he said that she was a cat, whose proper place was in a fancy basket in the drawing-room; no English Tom, at least, would ever invite her on to the roof. Bertie is coarse at times, but nobody can deny that he is expressive.

Polly, are these people merely snobs? What do you make of them? You write me, you dear thing, that my letters are profoundly interesting to you and that I pop the people I meet right into your imagination. I am so glad, for they certainly interest me. It is like living in a novel—an American one, it is true, but fresh and new, and full of unsolved problems to the mere outsider. They certainly are not snobs in the old meaning of the word, not in the least like those of their country who work so hard to be taken up by us, and imitate our manners and pronunciation. No, they are either snobs and something more, or not snobs at all, but a different manifestation of the struggle for the Ideal. That sounds better, at all events; let them go at that.

Mr. Rogers told me that they all admired me very much, but found me rather “cold and haughty.” I could not help laughing aloud, and of course Mr. Rogers understands. You know how shy and frightened of strangers I am, a failing I never shall get over. I suppose that makes me sit cold and rigid when, in reality, I would give a good deal to talk as fast as they do—and as I can when I know and like people well enough. I did feel myself growing stiffer and stiffer as Mrs. Hammond gushed, but that was quite natural, it seems to me. Agatha was rather bewildered at first by their facile and unrestrained speech, but she likes them all, dear soul. She takes them on their face value, and they each gave her material to admire without looking for it.

July 4th.

Yesterday I went to the Club House to dinner; Mr. Rogers rowed me over and back. The dining-room is rather pretty, with three long tables. Mr. Rogers sits at the head of the middle table and I sat on his right. Mrs. Laurence was very “brilliant.” Every time she began to speak, and that was usually, everybody stopped talking and leaned forward. “I would not miss a word,” whispered my neighbour. “Her wit lives on the tip of her tongue and never sleeps.” I cannot transcribe her brilliancy, Polly dear, because it is of the quality known as elusive, not the old-fashioned kind that you repeat and hand down to your grand-children. She delivered her witticisms, too, at the rate of one every three minutes, and I should like to know who could keep track of them. I wondered if her fascinating, fretful, spoilt-darling voice has not something to do with the belief that she is witty and unique. For, Polly, I must admit it, she bored me to death, and at times I felt like protesting. But I scarcely opened my mouth; and I don’t doubt they think I am stupid and have a typical English lack of the sense of humour. But I do not blame Mrs. Laurence, and do not dislike her as much as I did, for she is merely a hot-house product, forced into an abnormal artificial growth by these foolish people, who must have their lion, or the times would be out of joint.

The great Mr. Rolfs sat opposite me, but he does not go in for brilliancy; to amuse, he doubtless holds, is beneath the dignity of a great mind. He ate his excellent dinner in a ponderous and solemn manner, oblivious of the admiring eyes riveted upon him when Mrs. Laurence was not speaking; his vision introspective, as if he still pondered the last of the Almighty’s confidences, and, when spoken to, responding with a sweet but absent graciousness. I wanted to throw my ice-cream at him—only it was very good ice-cream, made of crushed strawberries, and would have been wasted on such a muff.

In the fine large cosy living-room afterward they played intellectual games. My dear, I thought I should die. I could not leave in common decency before ten o’clock, and for a mortal hour I listened to the brilliant Mrs. Laurence exhibit the most wonderful fertility, ingenuity, and resource, switching her noisy tail round the polished floor till it hissed like a harassed snake. She was in white embroidered mousseline de soie and silk—Oh, much and noisy silk—and she wore turquoises, and altogether looked like an advertisement for the calling of letters. Her rival, Mr. Rolfs, had retreated from the field—probably to the roof—and I don’t exaggerate when I say that the others never took their eyes off her, with the exception of some of the men, who went to sleep. Finally, I could stand it no longer, and I went over and sat down by Miss Simpson, who seemed to be as much out of it as I was, and who, since she had failed to catch the spirit of the thing, was endeavouring to look superior to contemptible frivolities.