Hence I may disappoint the many in these pages; but I hope to earn the gratitude of the few, by respecting their important confidences.
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM GAY TO GRAVE
A TRUCE to work. Even adversity has its sweets. After tasks should come whatever pleases best, the toiler has earned a play-hour. A lover of pageant, I will now describe what to me is one of the interesting sights in London, namely a reception at the Foreign Office. The invitations are issued “by His Majesty and His Ministers,” for ten-thirty, but before ten o’clock a line of carriages is slowly wending its way to Whitehall, through Downing Street, into the courtyard of the Foreign Office.
It is the King’s Birthday, Parliament has risen, all the men of note in the country are dining at official dinners. They have all donned their best uniforms, Court dress, decorations, and ribbons, and presently are making their way up the gaily decorated staircase.
One must own to a feeling of disappointment on driving up, for the entrance door is meagre and indifferent, and the downstairs cloak-rooms are not imposing. Nevertheless, the dividing staircase once reached, all is changed. At its foot is the famous marble statue of the late Lord Salisbury by Herbert Hampton, the cast for which I had gazed on so often when my own bust was being modelled. The well is not so large as in Stafford House, nor so imposing as in Dorchester House, so the spectators do not stand all round, but on one side only; besides, the aspect is somewhat contracted. Still, half-way up the Foreign Minister, with several officials and a sprinkling of ladies, stands and receives. Those who have the entrée pass up the stairs on his left hand; those without it pass up on his right.
Masses of flowers festoon the marble balustrade; their scent is heavy in the air. What a strange crowd it is! Some of the most renowned men and women in Europe are present. Gorgeous ladies in magnificent gowns, with sparkling tiaras, are escorted by gentlemen ablaze with stars and orders. Then come a humble little Labour Member in a blue serge coat, and his wife in an ill-fitting blouse. At the top of the stairs the crowd disperses to the Great Hall, where the one and only picture represents William III. Beyond this is the room used in the last Administration for Cabinet meetings—for this particular reception took place in 1907—and where also Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had just given his full-dress dinner. Here refreshments were served, and here also the band of the Grenadier Guards played during the evening.
Among the visitors were Ambassadors from foreign States, besides diplomats attached to the various Embassies, with their wives, Ministers and Ladies of the Legations, Consuls and Consuls-General of foreign countries, heads of Departments, and Chiefs of Government Offices; representatives of the Army, Navy, Church, Art, Literature, Drama, etc.
The decorations worn by the men certainly improve their appearance and add to the brilliancy of the scene, but stars own sharp, angular points, which have a way of scratching bare arms, as the writer knows to her cost.