Amelia was delighted, and smiled broadly at the footman who attended the mayor and whose mien was so serious behind a long waxed mustache.
From the tumult that was Southampton Amelia was taken to London by Hubert Scott Pain, director of Imperial Airways. They rode in his Rolls-Royce, which was the same color as her “yellow peril” back in Boston. Amelia was still wearing her heavy flying suit, her only wardrobe, and one brightly colored scarf. Her other scarf had been snatched by an eager souvenir hunter. As they drove along they were met on the road by people returning home from the Ascot races; the racing fans, having heard about the flight, waved at the famed woman flier. AE smiled and raised her hand. She was anxious to get to London and out of her flying clothes. Having but a toothbrush and comb, she looked forward to a whole new outfit.
Rolling into Winchester, the Rolls passed the cathedral. Amelia asked if they might stop. She wanted to see the famed resting place of Canute, the shrine of William of Wykeham who built Windsor Castle, and the place where Alfred the Great was crowned and buried. She might not come by this way again, she explained.
AE went inside. The stillness of the cathedral came over her like a cloak. Here the followers of William the Conqueror had built a monument in thankfulness to God. Amelia walked silently through the church, stopping occasionally to admire the interior. She loved the skill and zeal, but not the faith, that marked this marble prayer of arches, like hands joined and raised.
She planned to stay in London for only a short time, but she remained for two weeks. With Hilton Railey as her escort, she was caught up in a succession of teas, parties, exhibitions, testimonials, and visits. She met hundreds of people, all of them full of compliments for what she had done. As in Wales, she felt embarrassed: it was Stultz and Gordon who deserved the praise, not she.
Captain Railey was proud of his charge. At every occasion she was gracious, charming, modest. He never agreed with Amelia when after a compliment from him she insisted that she was plain and unattractive. For whenever he escorted her from Mrs. Guest’s Park Lane home she was quietly triumphant, tall and lovely in a straight-lined, long-waisted black dress, with matching coat and cloche hat, gloves, and pointed silver-buckled shoes.
One of the high points of the London visit was the meeting with Lady Astor. Amelia found her American-born hostess both “gracious and brilliant.” Lady Astor was not particularly impressed by Amelia’s transatlantic flight. “I’m not interested in you a bit because you crossed the Atlantic by air,” she said frankly. “I want to hear about your settlement work.”
AE was pleased to find someone who treated her as other than the false celebrity she considered herself to be. She spent the rest of the day with Lady Astor discussing Denison House in Boston and its model in London, Toynbee Hall.
Inevitably, like all visitors to London, Amelia watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace; then, later, she saw a Tattoo at Aldershot, where RAF fliers performed in the air while the soldiers went through their maneuvers on the ground. Amelia wished she were in one of the planes, with the men in the sky. At a flying exhibition she would much rather be a performer than a spectator.
During an interview with newspaper reporters, AE was asked: “Should you like to meet the Prince of Wales?”