After that I told Blanche that I shouldn't feel safe except with the dowagers. They sat in a room by themselves and had waiters bringing them champagne and ices, and they talked the most outrageous scandal. I sat down beside Mrs. Johnson; she said I looked pale and recommended some champagne frappé, and called a waiter and ordered a glass for me and one for herself. She was very talkative and fairly peppered her conversation with French words, though she wouldn't understand you if you said, "Comment vous portez-vous?"
She told me that the Wertzelmanns were parvenus—mushrooms, she called them—and Mr. W. had made his money out of oil, and that they had never been into Society till they came abroad. She was very communicative also on the subject of Rosalie's marriage, which she said was to take place in Paris in the autumn and would be a very grand affair. As for Count Albert she hadn't enough praise for him, and he was so devoted and attentive in coming often to see if she wanted anything that I am sure he knows where the dollars are to come from. I tried to find out what had taken Mrs. Isaacs away so suddenly, but Mrs. Johnson is cunning, she smelt a rat, and the only reason I could extract was "business."
She made one amusing break. Mrs. Wertzelmann came in to see if all was going well with the chaperones, and exclaimed when she saw me among them. Mrs. Johnson, who evidently hates her, began to put on "side," and talked about her hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, which she rented from the Duc de Quatre Bras, and described a ball she had given there to which all the demi monde had come. Funny as this was, it was made still funnier by the fact that Mrs. Wertzelmann, who knows no more of French than Mrs. Johnson, didn't see the joke.
I had by this time recovered sufficiently to go back to the ball-room, where, as it was on the stroke of midnight, the cotillon was about to commence. Young Stefano came up and asked me to dance it with him. The Marquis had the grace not to put in an appearance; I believe he was playing baccarat in the card-room.
The favours were very pretty and appropriate, as the Wertzelmanns did not choose them, but simply gave the Maison Bail carte blanche. The Duchesse de Vaudricourt was disappointed; I believe she expected to get diamonds. The Vicomte de Narjac and the Russian with an unpronounceable name and a grande passion for Mrs. Wertzelmann, who, I hope, knows how to contain himself better than the Marquis, led the cotillon. They did it awfully well, as if they had never done anything else all their lives. They went somewhere and changed their clothes, and came back with Louis Quinze perukes, crimson satin coats, with lace fichus and black knee-breeches and stockings, and diamond buckles in their pumps. They really looked quite smart, while an Englishman would have felt self-conscious and foolish, and looked it.
At two o'clock the dancing ceased, and supper was served at tête-à-tête tables on the battlements, as Mr. Wertzelmann persists in calling the terrasse. The supper was delicious, and there was a waiter to each chair; the Hungarian band came out and played, and paper balloons, in the shape of monsters with lights inside, were sent up in the air from the lawn.
It was awfully jolly and gay, and poor Stefano took too much champagne. It made his eyes burn like coals; he began by telling me in Italian that he should never forget me for my kindness in presenting him to the Princesse di Spezzia—they left Lucerne yesterday, and so did the Lodi—and ended by declaring he adored me. He was so fearfully earnest, and his voice was so subdued and tender, and he never attempted any liberties that I almost wished he would. I am sure he ought to have been born the Marquis, and the Marquis behind a counter. He wanted me to marry him, and told me how many lira they paid him at the shop a month, and that we could keep a ménage very well on his salary; we were to have rooms in the Via Tornabuoni over a Bon Marché he knew of, and dine once a week in the Cascine, and look at the smart people. It was too absurd. But he meant it, and when I told him No firmly, two tears came into his eyes, and he had such a Lion of Lucerne look that I almost laughed. And he is only seventeen! Poor Stefano! if they make love like him in Italy, I wonder how the women ever refuse. But your mamma, Elizabeth, knows her world too well to do a bêtise. Stefano and his love-making was just the last finishing touch to a delightful revel. When he gets the champagne out of his eyes and the Hungarian band out of his brain, he will forget me. But I think it is a mistake to admit people of such very inferior rank into our society, even if they speak grammatically and read Alfieri.
Comte Belladonna wilted at midnight; he danced once with Rosalie, and would have given anything afterwards to go back to the National. He is made more for afternoon-tea and dinner parties than for balls. He hinted several times to Mrs. Johnson that they should go, but she is as hard as nails, and waited till the end. When he finally did go, the sun was rising in the Alps; he not only looked his eighty years, but had dwindled till he looked like the boy in the Struwelpter who faded away from starvation. I expect he wished he had never come, like the Maréchale. Ah well, it has been a jolly jaunt, and in spite of the dissipation I feel the better for the change. We shall both be in England together. I wonder if you have enjoyed Croixmare as much as Blanche and I have enjoyed Lucerne. I am so glad we didn't go to Scarborough. Au revoir.—Your dearest Mamma.