Our inspection of the house took us all the morning. The kitchen, offices, servants' hall and rooms are enormous, and in very bad order. I should think it would take weeks to get it clean and habitable, and need an army of servants to keep it so. I am thinking rather sadly of my little hotel in Paris, so clean and bright, with not a dark corner anywhere.
We went out driving in the afternoon, and I had my first experience as Ambassadress, as the coachman drove down Constitution Hill—a right of way reserved for Royalties and the Corps Diplomatique. We went straight to Mrs. Brown, the famous milliner, in Bond Street, to get ourselves new hats, as ours were quite impossible after our very lively passage, and the housemaid at Albert Gate had a handsome present of two hats with drooping feathers and a strong smell of sea and salt. London was of course empty, but a few carriages were in the park, and it amused us to drive about and see all the shops, and the general look of the streets, so different from Paris.
We spent our evening quietly at home looking over our installation with W., horses, carriages, servants, and in fact the complete organisation of a big London house, which is so unlike a French one. I shall bring over all my French servants and add as many English as are necessary. I don't quite see Hubert, our French coachman, driving about the London streets, and keeping to the left. I should think we should have daily discussions with all the drivers in London; however, we must try. I wonder if I shall like being an Ambassadress, and I also wonder how long we shall stay here. My brother-in-law R. says perhaps two years.
We got back three days ago—started on a bright summer's day. The Ambassador and secretaries came down to the station to see us off, and W. promised to come over and spend Sunday. We had an ideal crossing—blue sky, bright sun, and few passengers, and, notwithstanding our hard experience in the first passage, we are glad to have been over and made acquaintance with the personnel of the Embassy, also to have seen the house and realized a little what I must bring over to give it a look of home.
This morning we have the news of the Comte de Chambord's death, and I am wondering if it will make any political complication. However, for years past he has only been a name—a most honourable one certainly—but one wants more than that to deal with the present state of France.
After all W. never came over. Although London was empty, he had always some business to attend to, and on Sunday usually went to see some friends in the country. Last Sunday he spent with Lord Granville at Walmer, which he said was delightful. The castle so close to the sea that the big ships passed almost under the windows; Granville himself a charming host. He knows France and the French well, having been a great deal in Paris as a boy when his father was British Ambassador to Louis Philippe (1830-4); Lord Palmerston was then British Foreign Secretary.
We are very busy these days making our "pacquets," as we leave in three days. I am sorry to go, as I have so much enjoyed the quiet life with the sisters and the children. We have seen few people, as we are not in the fashionable quarter, but we have become most intimate with all the fishing population. The young women and girls jibe at us when we go shrimp fishing, on terms of perfect equality—there are no distinctions in the sea—because we have not the sleight of hand necessary to jerk the shining, slippery little fish into the basket from the net. Some local swell, the Mayor, I think, came to see me the other day, and was told I was on the beach, so he came down and was much astonished when they pointed out to him Madame l'Ambassadrice in a hat and feathers, diamond ear-rings, very short skirts, and neither shoes nor stockings, walking up to her knees in the water with a fishing-net in one hand and a basket in the other, and followed by her little son and niece similarly equipped, all quite happy and engrossed with their sport. We have one or two country visits to make, and then I must have some time in Paris to dismantle my house and make my preparations for London.
To J. K.
Mersham Hatch, Ashford, Kent,
Wednesday, November 28, 1883.