I wondered if there were others at the great board who were equally uncertain as to what to do with the carefully concealed dainties. Looking down to the other side of the table, I saw our friend Mr. Blank, of Virginia, hesitatingly regarding the pile of paper which the waiter was holding toward him. Presently, as if resigned to his fate, he took up the trowel and began to devote considerable energy to an attempt to dig out the contents of the package nearest him, when, as I glanced toward him, he looked up, full of self-consciousness, and turned his gaze directly upon me. His expression told plainly of growing consternation.
I shook my head in withering pseudo-rebuke and swiftly indicated to him “to take a whole one.” Fortunately, he was quick-witted and caught my meaning, and, taking the hint, took likewise the cream without further mishap. After dinner we retired to the green-room, where, as was the custom, coffee and liqueurs were served. Here Mr. Blank approached, and, shaking my hand most gratefully, he whispered, “God bless my soul, Mrs. Clay! You’re the sweetest woman in the world! But for your goodness, heaven only knows what would have happened! Perhaps,” and he sipped his liqueur contemplatively, “perhaps I might have been struggling with that, that problem yet!”
I met Mme. de Bodisco many times during her widowhood, and was present at old St. John’s when her second marriage, with Captain Scott of Her British Majesty’s Life Guards, was celebrated. It was early in the Buchanan administration, and the bride was given away by the President. While St. John’s, I may add, was often referred to as a fashionable centre, yet much of genuine piety throve there, too.
Mme. de Bodisco, who, during her widowhood, had continued her belleship and had received, it was said, many offers of marriage from distinguished men, capitulated at last to the young guardsman just named. Great therefore was the interest in the second nuptials of so popular a beauty. Old St. John’s was crowded with the most distinguished personages in the capital. The aisles of the old edifice are narrow, and the march of the bride and the President to the altar was memorable, not only because of the distinction, but also by reason of the imposing proportions of both principals in it. In fact, the plumpness of the stately bride and the President’s ample figure, made the walk, side by side, an almost impossible feat. The difficulty was overcome, however, by the tactfulness of the President, who led the lady slightly in advance of himself until the chancel was reached. Here the slender young groom, garbed in the scarlet and gold uniform of his rank, stepped forward to claim her, and, though it was seen that he stood upon a hassock in order to lessen the difference in height between himself and his bride, it was everywhere admitted that Captain Scott was a handsome and gallant groom, and worthy the prize he had won.
This was Mme. de Bodisco’s last appearance in Washington. With her husband she went to India, where, it was said, the climate soon made havoc of her health and beauty; but her fame lingered long on the lips of her hosts of admirers in Washington. Nor did the name of de Bodisco disappear from the social list, for, though his sons were sent to Russia, there to be educated, Waldemar de Bodisco, nephew of the late Minister, long continued to be the most popular leader of the German in Washington.
Throughout the fifties, and indeed for several preceding decades, the foreign representatives and their suites formed a very important element in society in the capital. In some degree their members, the majority of whom were travelled and accomplished, and many representative of the highest culture in Europe, were our critics, if not our mentors. The standard of education was higher in Europe fifty years ago than in our own land, and to be a favourite at the foreign legations was equivalent to a certificate of accomplishment and social charms. An acquaintance with the languages necessarily was not the least of these.
The celebrated Octavia Walton, afterward famous as Mme. Le Vert, won her first social distinction in Washington, where, chaperoned by Mrs. C. C. Clay, Sr., a recognition of her grace and beauty, her intellectuality and charming manner was instantaneous. At a time when a knowledge of the foreign tongues was seldom acquired by American women, Miss Walton, who spoke French, Spanish and Italian with ease, speedily became the favourite of the Legations, and thence began her fame which afterward became international.
During my early residence in Washington, Addie Cutts (who became first the wife of Stephen A. Douglas and some years after his death married General Williams) was the admired of all foreigners. Miss Cutts was the niece of Mrs. Greenhow, a wealthy and brilliant woman of the capital, and, when she became Mrs. Douglas, held a remarkable sway for years. As a linguist Miss Cutts was reputed to be greatly gifted. If she spoke the many languages of which she was said to be mistress but half so eloquently as she uttered her own when, in 1865, she appealed to President Johnson on behalf of “her loved friend” my husband, the explanation of her remarkable nightly levees of the late fifties is readily found.
Though never, strictly speaking, a member of our “mess,” Mrs. Douglas and I were always firm friends. While she was still Miss Cutts, and feeling keenly the deprivations that fall to the lot of the beautiful daughter of a poor department clerk,[[1]] she once complained to me poutingly of the cost of gloves.
“Nonsense,” I answered. “Were I Addie Cutts, with hands that might have been chiselled by Phidias, I would never disguise them in gloves, whatever the fashion!”