Chapter 2

Avignon interested me. It looks so wally and fortified, but I am greatly disappointed, the romantic story of Pétrarque and his Laure is all nonsense. I find Laure had eleven children in about fifteen years, the guide said, and Pétrarque continued making sonnets to her, never minding that a bit. Now do you believe it, Mamma? A man to stay in love for twenty years with a woman who kept on having eleven children all the image of the husband as good as gold! I don't! Pétrarque was probably some tiresome prig like all poets, and thought her a suitable peg to hang his verses on.

Mr. Renour and I are so friendly. He is not with us now because he had to go to Monte Carlo, so he does not yet know I am going to America. He still thinks I am not married--and do you know, Mamma, I believe he is falling in love with me--and I feel rather mean--but I expect we shan't see him before we start, so it will not so much matter. This morning quantities of flowers came up to my room with his card, and just written underneath, "got to meet a man at Monte Carlo, shan't be gone long." I am leaving him a note thanking him and saying we are off to his country. I have signed it, "Elizabeth Valmond" of course, so that may illuminate him--but I still feel rather mean.

We are only to be away two months and I think the change will do me good, and I know you will take every care of Hurstbridge and Ermyntrude. I hate not having time to run over to see you and them, but Octavia says it can't possibly be done, and I am not to be silly; that two months is nothing, and I shall be back again at the original time you were to bring them to England--so I suppose she is right. I shall send Harry a cable to meet him at Zanzibar. He can't stop me then because we shall be on the sea, and if he is furious I shall be doubly pleased.

Aunt Maria and Uncle John have been so kind, but I can see are relieved Octavia is going to take me. They have grown more sentimental. At each place we come to they recollect some tender passage of their former trip. It seems Aunt Maria's hysterics ended at Folkstone. Octavia says she means really to see America and not only go to the houses of the smart people one knows when they are in England, because she is sure there are lots of other kinds quite as interesting and more original. We are to stay in New York and then go West. I shall not have a moment to write until I am on the ship, and trust I shall not be seasick.

Fondest love to my two angels and yourself,

Your affectionate daughter, ELIZABETH.

LUSITANIA

LUSITANIA. _Fourth day out_.

Dearest Mamma,--It is perfectly delightful being at sea--in this ship--because you don't really know you are on the hateful element. We have a charming suite with two real windows and beds, and even Agnès has not grumbled. There are lots of American on board, and really these travelling ones are quite as bad as the awful English people one meets on the Continent, only instead of having stick out teeth and elephants' feet, their general shapes are odd. It appears as if in the beginning Peter, or someone, called up to the Creator that so many thousands of arms and legs and bodies and heads were wanted to make this new nation, and so the requisite amount were pitched down and then joined up without anyone's worrying to get them en suite. Thus A seems to have received B's head with C's arms, his own body and D's legs--and so on; not the least thought shown in their construction. They seem rough-hewn--with foreheads too prominent or noses too big, or too square shoulders or too deep set eyes, nearly always too something--and the women the same; whereas the children (there are only a few of them fortunately) are really impossible. There is one family of the fattest boys you ever saw--simply like the pictures of the fat boy of Peckham, and a little girl of six called Matilda. Matilda is certainly over thirty in her conversation--she told me she was sick of ocean travelling--her eighth voyage; and she was sick of the Continent, too--you get no good candy there and her Momma did nothing but shop. She has the voice of a young peacock and the repartee of a Dublin car driver--absolutely "all there." They are fairly rich "store keepers" from Buffalo. The mother has nerves, the father dyspepsia and the nurse is seasick, so Matilda is quite her own mistress, and rushes over the entire ship conversing with everyone. She is most amusing for a short time, if it were not pathetic. She plays off one fat boy (cousins they are of hers) against the other, and one steward against another for biscuits and figs--with the most consummate skill. It is no wonder if this quality can be perfected so young by Americans that they can snatch all our best young men from us when they grow up.

I don't know how it is the most unattractive creatures of every nation seem to be the ones who travel. There is a family of English who have the next table to us, for instance; they make us blush for our country. The two young men are the most impossible bounders one could meet, and I am sure their names must be Percy and Ernest! When there was a dance last night they smoked pipes in the faces of their partners between the valses, and altogether were unspeakably aggressive. No American in the world would behave like that to women. I really think the English middle classes are the most odious--except, perhaps, the Germans--of any people on earth. And as these are the ones other nations see most of, no wonder they hate us.

Octavia is so entertained at everything. We have not spoken to anyone except one family who sit near us on the deck, and they have asked us to stay with them at their country place on the New Jersey shore. But--Oh! I forgot to tell you, Mamma, Mr. Renour is on board. Is it not a strange coincidence? He seemed very surprised to see us, and for a moment it was quite awkward when I introduced him to Octavia--because she, not being deaf like Aunt Maria, I knew would hear him calling me Lady Elizabeth and think it odd, and he would be certain to discover from her that I am married. So the best thing to do seemed to be to take a walk with him at once on the top deck and explain matters--this was just before dinner in the twilight.

He told me it was unkind to have given him the slip as we did, and that he had had "quite a worry" to "come up with" us--but if I imagined he was going to let me get out of range again I was mistaken! You can't think, Mamma, how difficult it was to screw up my courage to tell him I was married--he has such nice brown eyes;--and although his language is more remarkable than anything you ever heard, he is not the least little bit common. At last I blurted it out straight and explained and asked him to forgive me. He looked away at the sea for quite five minutes and his jaw was square as a box. Then he turned round and held out his hand. "Say," he said, "I expect you didn't mean to play a low down trick on me but it has hit pretty straight anyway. We'll shake hands and I reckon I'll keep out of your track for a day or so till I size up things and put them on the new elevation." And then he went away, saying, "Good evening, Lady Valmond." I could have cried, Mamma, I felt so small and paltry. He is a great big splendid creature and I wish I had not been so silly as to pretend in the beginning. Octavia thinks him delightful. He never appeared for two days--then he came up as if nothing had happened; only he looks at my hat or my chin or my feet now and never into my eyes as before, and he calls me Lady Valmond every other minute--and that is irritating. We shall get in to-morrow and this will be posted at Sandy Hook, so good-night, dearest Mamma.

Your affectionate daughter, ELIZABETH.

PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK

PLAZA HOTEL, _NEW YORK._

Dearest Mamma,--We are here now, so this is where to address your letters. We went to another hotel first but we could not stand the impudence of the servants, and having to shout down the telephone for everything instead of ringing a bell--and here it is much nicer and one is humanly waited on.

America is too quaint. Crowds of reporters came on board to interview us! We never dreamed that they would bother just private people, but it was because of the titles, I suppose. Tom was furious but Octavia was delighted. She said she wanted to see all the American customs and if talking to reporters was one of them, she wanted that, too. So she was sweetly gracious and never told them a word of truth.

They were perfectly polite, but they asked direct questions, how we liked America (we had not landed!), how long we were going to stay, what was our object in coming there, what we thought of the American divorce, etc., etc. All but two were the same type: very prominent foreheads, deep set eyes, white faces, origin South of France or Corsican mixed with Jew to look at, with the astounding American acuteness added, and all had the expression of a good terrier after a rat--the most intense concentration.

When we actually landed female ones attacked us, but Octavia who, as you know, doesn't really care for women, was not nearly so nice to them, and their articles in the papers about us are virulent!

"Lady Chevenix is a homely looking person with henna-assisted hair and the true British haughty manner," they put! They were not so disagreeable about me, but not flattering. Then they snap-shotted us, and Octavia really does look rather odd, as her nose got out of focus, I suppose, and appears like Mr. Punch's; underneath is written, "An English Peeress and Society Beauty." We laughed so!

New York Harbour is a wonderful sight, but you have read all about it often. The streets by it are awful, badly paved and hideous architecture, immense tall houses here and there, gaunt and staring like giants who have seen Medusa's head and been turned into stone. Farther up town the buildings are all much the same, so their huge height does not show so greatly as with a few lower ones in between.

Every creature in the street has got a purposeful determined air, and even the horses, many of them without blinkers, have it, too, I wonder if we shall catch it before we leave. Nobody appears English--I mean of origin, even if their name is Smith or Brown; every other nation, with the strong stamp of "American" dominating whatever country they originally hailed from, but not English. They have all the appearance of rushing to some special place, not just taking a walk to nowhere.

You would have to come here to understand the insolence of the servants in most places. We naturally ordered tea (down the telephone) when we arrived, and presently a waiter brought a teapot and two cups and nothing else; and when we remonstrated he picked his teeth and grinned and said, "If you don't ask for what you want you won't get it. You said tea, and you've got tea, you never mentioned sugar and milk." Then he bounced off, and when the lift boy whistled as he brought me up, and the Irish chambermaid began to chat to Octavia, she said she could not bear it any longer, and Tom must go out and find another hotel. So late last night we got here, which is charming; perhaps the attendants are paid extra for manners. But even here they call Octavia "Lady Chevenix" and me "Lady Valmond" every minute--never just "My Lady" like at home, and I am sure they would rather die than say "Your Ladyship!"

Mr. Renour had to leave us; we were so sorry, but he got a telegram as we landed, saying the superintendent of his mine had been shot and there was "trouble" out there, so he had to fly off at once. However, we have promised to go and stay with him presently and he is going to show us all the mining camps.

To-day we have rested, and quantities of the people one knows in London sent us flowers, and they are the best I have ever seen--roses so enormous they look like peonies, and on colossal stalks--in fact, everything is twice the size of at home.

We are going to dine at Sherry's to-night with a party. It is the fashionable restaurant, and I will finish when I come back.

1:30 A.M.

Everything is so amusing! and we have had a delightful evening. It is more like Paris than England, because one wears a hat at dinner, which I always think looks so much better in a restaurant. The party was about eighteen, and I sat next the host. American men; as far as I have yet seen, are of quite another sex to English or French--I mean you feel more as if you were out with kind Aunts or Grandmothers or benevolent Uncles than just men. They don't try to make the least love to you or say things with two meanings, and they are perfectly brotherly and serious, unless they are telling anecdotes with American humour--and that is not subtle. It is something that makes you laugh the moment you hear it, you have not to think a scrap. When they are not practically English, like the ones we see in London every season, they wear such funny clothes--often velvet collars on their coats! and the shoulders padded out so that every man is perfectly square; but everything looks extraordinarily well sewn and ironed and everybody is clean shaven; and Octavia says it takes at least two hundred years of gently bred ancestors to look like a gentleman clean shaven in evening dress, so perhaps that is why lots of them have the appearance of actors. Tom, with his ugly face and his long lean limbs, seemed as some other species of animal, or a Derby winner let loose among a pen of prize hackneys and cobs. Many of them are splendid of their kind, but it is perfectly absurd to pretend they look thoroughbred. One would not expect it of animals, with their mixed ancestry, so why of human beings.

Octavia says they would be insulted to hear me saying that, but I am sure they are far too sensible and logical; for if you were a mixture of cart horse, hunter, thoroughbred, Shetland and cob, you might have the good qualities of all and be a magnificent splendid creature, but you could not expect to look like one of the direct descendants of the Godolphin Arabian, could you, Mamma?

I don't mind that part in the least, but I would rather they had a more outdoor expression. As I looked round the room numbers of their faces seemed pasty, and their shapes thick through, and soft, as if they would bruise easily if one touched them, and lived a good deal in the dark. Also they don't have "flowers and honey" on their hair, so it does not shine and keep tidy, and it is not brushed smartly; and after our lovely guardsmen they look a little ungroomed about the head. This, of course, is only my first impression, after seeing the fashionable restaurant one evening. I may be quite wrong, generally speaking.

The women are so exquisitely dressed that it is difficult to form an opinion. They have whatever is the latest fashion, perfectly made; all their hair is done exactly alike in the way it is worn in Paris. Their figures have the last "look" and their jewels are simply divine. With all this beyond criticism, it is very difficult to say whether they are beautiful or not, naturally; the general effect is so perfect. They, as far as grooming and superlative "turnedoutness" is concerned (I had to make a new word), are the counterpart of our guardsmen.

The food was exquisite and we had terrapin and canvas back ducks; and they are both the best things you ever tasted, only when you cut the duck you have to look the other way, and take the first bite with your eyes shut, because it has only run through the kitchen. And one would prefer to have the terrapin alone in one's room, because of the bones--a greater test in nice eating than the bunch of grapes which were given to the young diplomat in the story book.

But to begin with, I have not told you of the cocktail! I had to have one. You are handed it before anything else, while you are waiting for the soup, and it tastes like ipecacuanha wine mixed with brandy and something bitter and a touch of orange; but you have not swallowed it five minutes when you feel you have not a care in the world and nothing matters. You can't think, Mamma, how insidious and delightful--but of course I could not possibly have drunk anything after it, and I was so surprised to see everyone else swallowing champagne all through dinner; so I suppose it is a thing one gets accustomed to.

Now I am very sleepy, so good-night, dear Mamma.

Kisses to my angels.

Your affectionate daughter, ELIZABETH.

SPLEISTVILLE

SPLEISTVILLE, _Up the Hudson_.

Dearest Mamma,--A whole week since we landed! and we are terribly amused ("terribly" is American for "much"); and do you know that describes almost everything in comparison to at home. Everything is "colossalised"--events, fortunes, accidents, climate, conversation, ambitions--everything is in the extreme--all en-gros, not en-detail. They can't even have a tram run off a line, which in England or France might kill one or two people, without its making a holocaust of half a street full. Even in their hospitality they are twice the size of other nations, simply too kind and generous for words. They have loaded us with invitations; we have been out morning, noon and night.