The Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth Part 6

It rained yesterday for the first time since we have been in Lucerne. As I was looking at the lake which the wind had turned into an ocean with waves mountains high, I saw Comte Belladonna soaked to the skin hurrying along the _quai_ to the hotel. Poor little old beau! He had got himself up as usual in spotless flannels, patent-leather boots, straw hat, and lavender kids, and was coming from the direction of the pension where his inamorata lives--the pretty, portionless American girl--when the rain had overtaken him. His legs, unaccustomed to the unusual exercise of running, seemed inclined one moment to run into the flower-beds on the _quai_ and another to contemplate a plunge into the lake. Sheets of water fell from the brim of his straw hat, his gloves and his boots were irretrievably spoilt, and his flannels had that heavy, soppy look that bathing-suits have. He was as full of water as a sponge, and I am sure he would have been the better for a squeeze.

I called Blanche to look at him, and we both agreed that he would catch a chill after such a wetting that would carry him off. But when we went down to lunch we found him dry and chirpy, and paying his _devoirs_ to the Princesse di Spezzia, as if he had made his toilet for the first time that day.

{_A Funny Thing_}

A funny thing happened in the afternoon in connection with the old beau's wetting that would have covered anybody else but such a consummate old courtier with ridicule. After lunch it cleared off, and the sun came out very hot and dried up things so quickly that everybody had tea as usual in the garden of the hotel. The Hungarian band had just finished playing a valse of Waldeuffel, and the Marechale de Vichy-Pontoise had hobbled out into the garden and settled herself comfortably in her favourite seat next to the Princesse di Spezzia when something slowly descended from the sky performing curious evolutions.

Everybody speculated as to what it could be and where it came from, when it calmly lighted on the head of the Marechale, who gave a wizened shriek, and having disengaged herself from it s.h.i.+ed it away savagely with the end of her stick. Bijou at once seized it in his mouth, and having gambolled about the gra.s.s with it proceeded to improvise it into a broom and sweep up the gravel path with it. The difficulty of getting him to relinquish his possession of it caused a great deal of merriment, and the young man who reads "L'Insaisissable" and ogles Liane de Pougy at the same time suddenly put his foot on it with such force that Bijou, who was scampering off as hard as he could go with an end in his mouth, was brought up short, and, having turned a rather violent somersault in the air, let go and went off whimpering to the Marechale, who looked as if she could have eaten the young Frenchman. He picked up Bijou's mysterious plaything and held it up, so that everybody could see--a white flannel jacket, or what was left of it, of the jauntiest cut in the world. No one claiming it, he handed it to a waiter who discovered on a tag the _chiffre_ of Comte Belladonna! Instead of at once withdrawing with the garment he informed the Comte that it belonged to him. The Comte, who knew it all the time and had not cared to make himself the b.u.t.t of the National, examined it, shook his head, examined it again, and bursting into a laugh exclaimed to the Princesse di Spezzia with the utmost self-possession:--

"My dear Princesse, alas! this rag is indeed mine. This morning, spotless and sweet-smelling, I arrayed my old bones in it, and its mate, whose legs you may see dangling out of that window up there under the roof; but, as if envious of the figure I cut in it, the elements having determined to deprive me of it, flooded me out of it. Not being an American millionaire, I hung it out of my window to dry, and the wind did the rest. Heaven grant that the trousers do not come to look after the jacket. Pity me, Princesse, I had worn it but once; it was cut at 'Old England.' Here, garcon, it is yours now."

It was not the words, which were funny enough, but the manner in which they were uttered, that made every one laugh _with_ the Comte instead of _at_ him.

{_Signor Stefano_}

The Princesse is a dear; she proved to-night that she is really a _grande dame_, and that it is neither her name nor her pose which makes her one. Young Signor Stefano, a shopkeeper, we would call him in England, came again to the National to-night to dance. The proprietor, who is very anxious that these dances should be a success, has given him, and two or three other young fellows like him, the entree. Of course, according to the Continental custom, they can ask any one they like to dance, but a natural and creditable diffidence has kept them from forcing themselves upon any of the smart set, and they are generally to be seen reversing and cha.s.seeing with the people from the pensions, who sit at one end of the ball-room and stare at the other.

{_Stefano Recognised_}

Young Stefano is very good-looking, and dances divinely, and has attracted the attention of all of us women, and everybody who has been in the _magasin_, where he is in charge of the precious stone department, has remarked his quiet gentlemanly behaviour. I think I wrote you that he asked Mr. Vanduzen to present him to the Princesse di Spezzia and was refused, and I must say when he came into the room to-night he looked so much a gentleman and so handsome that I horrified Mr. Vanduzen by telling him to bring Stefano to me.

{_Princesse di Spezzia_}

He was covered with confusion when he was introduced, and when we danced he b.u.mped me into two or three people, for he held me as if he were afraid of me, and we took up as much room as four people. I made him sit next me and talked to him, and cleverly turned the conversation on to the Princesse di Spezzia. He said very modestly that desire had got the better of him the other night, and he had presumed to be presented to her and had been snubbed, as he deserved. His _magasin_ is transferred to Florence for the winter; he is a Florentine, and has often seen the Princesse in the Cascine and admired her very much; he told me that he had no desire to meet her as an equal, that he knew he was only a _pet.i.t bourgeois_, but that he would have been proud to be presented to such a great lady. I surprised him by saying I would ask the Princesse if she had any objection, and if not it would be easy enough to gratify his small desire. His thanks were profuse, and when I got a chance I told the Princesse the story. She was furious with Mr. Vanduzen and has cut him dead since; she wondered how he dared to refuse to present any one to her without her permission, and she declared it was one of the greatest pleasures of her position to have the people of Florence presented to her and admire her. She chatted for some time with Stefano and gave him permission to address her at any time he chose without any fear of being snubbed. I watched her closely all the time; her manner was totally free from patronage, but it let Stefano know that she was what he had always thought, the Princesse di Spezzia, the greatest lady in Florence.

She has immensely flattered his pride by her recognition and preserved her own dignity, and Blanche and I have agreed that in point of manners and etiquette she could teach any of our great ladies in England how to hold themselves.

We think she is a dear, and wish we knew how to dress as she does and to stare through lorgnettes and to endure horrid bores such as the Marechale. I wish the Prince appreciated her more; he plays the devil devilishly well. Sir Charles says there is no question of doubt but that the family was a n.o.ble one in the days of the Roman Empire. Adieu.--Your dearest Mamma.

LETTER XVI

HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE 5th September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Vicomte_}

Mrs. Isaacs (who, by the way, is not one of the children of Israel, if her husband was) went yesterday to Berne. The Vicomte says she carried the Almanac de Gotha instead of Baedeker, and that the porter at the hotel who bought her ticket declared that her ultimate destination is Vienna. So that I suppose they are looking up Count Albert.

The Vicomte has been like a bear with a sore head ever since Count Fosca automobiled from Paris. He behaves so childishly, as if no one in the world should have an automobile but himself. He spends several hours a day fencing with an Italian; you know duelling is his other occupation in Paris, and I expect he is going to take it up seriously till he gets a new automobile. He glares at Count Fosca and mutters "So" under his breath like a German, and I am expecting to hear daily that they are going to fight, and all over an automobile!

{_Ball at Schloss Gessler_}

But people are too much excited over the ball at Schloss Gessler on the day after to-morrow to pay much attention to the Vicomte and his grievances. Mr. Wertzelmann told me to-day that if people talked so much about the ball before it came off he wondered what they would say about it after. He never did things by halves, and this was a ball which should be remembered for years to come. It is to cost thousands of francs, and if the Russian _boyar_ (don't ask me his name, I know it has an itch at the end of it) who is Mrs. Wertzelmann's devoted admirer, and practically runs Schloss Gessler, does his duty properly, I have no doubt it will be, as Mr. Wertzelmann says, something to remember.

It will be the end of the season here, and, as we have stayed longer than we intended, we shall hurry home after it. We really have managed to do other things besides frivol. We have seen the Lion and we have been to Fluelen and drove to Schloss Sonnenburg, but there was little of the country or scenery we saw on that occasion, owing to the flies and the dust. Yesterday we added to our knowledge of the Lake of the Four Cantons by spending the night on the top of the Stanzerhorn.

{_The Stanzerhorn_}

Quite late in the afternoon Sir Charles came over to the National to ask us if we would come with him then and there to see the sunset and sunrise in the Alps from the Stanzerhorn. He a.s.sured us we would find a good hotel and that it was worth the trouble, and as we had nothing better to do we went. Therese filled two handbags with necessaries and we caught the last boat from Lucerne. There was n.o.body we knew on the boat, and Blanche said she felt game for anything, and game we were before we saw our comfortable rooms at the National again and our indispensable Therese and dear, dear Paquin.

As Sir Charles had described it as a "rough and ready jaunt," and "a picnic in the clouds," and turned up at the National in snuff-coloured "knickers" that looked as if Bijou had been introducing them to the gravel-path, and carrying a brand-new alpenstock with "Lucerne" and "Gutsch" and "Sonnenburg" burnt into it, we decided to wear our serge walking skirts and men's s.h.i.+rts and straw-hats. Blanche looked very well in hers, for it is a style that suits her, but I nearly wept at my own reflection, and I was delighted there was to be no one else of the party but Sir Charles. Blanche said my skirt was positively indecent; it came just to the tops of my boots, and was really made for bicycling and not for walking. I felt like a Gordon Highlander, and Blanche declared that if the skirt was a plaid I would have looked like one. Therese too went into fits of laughter, and said she was sure that Sir Charles would not recognise me. I was half inclined to give up the excursion, but Blanche said it was ridiculous, and that I couldn't possibly take Paquin to the top of the Stanzerhorn, and that I looked charming from my waist up.

I tried to discover a blush somewhere in my veins when we stood in the hall of the hotel, but somehow I couldn't find one. Fortunately for my vanity we got on to the steamboat without being recognised, and I made a mental vow that I would never employ a Taunton seamstress again. The Italian boy with the monkey and the post-cards that we saw the first day we arrived, and whom Blanche declared was a n.o.bleman in disguise, was on board. He went second-cla.s.s, and was talking to a Swiss peasant with goitre just below us. The monkey travelled first all the way to Alpnacht, for the steamboat people didn't dare touch it; it ate apples at Blanche's feet when it wasn't frightening people out of their wits by bounding about the deck. The disguised n.o.bleman, who can't be more than seventeen, recognised us, and gave such a smile and bow! Blanche put a franc into the tin cup round the monkey's neck, and when we got off at Stanz the boy brushed off the gangplank before we stepped on it, with his cap, though the plank was spotless. As Blanche said, it gave her quite a Sir-Walter-Raleigh-Queen-Elizabeth-and-the-Cloak feeling, and we declared he was the most picturesque tramp we had ever seen, but Sir Charles, who hasn't a sc.r.a.p of romance in him, said he looked as if he belonged to an Anarchist Society.

Stanz is a funny little town, and people only come to it to leave it.

Some Germans with ropes and pick-axes over their shoulders, and who looked as if they meant business, got off at Stanz, and as one makes the ascent of t.i.tlis from here, we concluded that was their destination. Sir Charles made us walk to the little _platz_ to see the statue to Arnold von Winkelreid, but we preferred Tell's at Altdorf. The funicular to the top of the Stanzerhorn makes one feel goose-pimply all over; it is not only steep, but when you get near the top you look out of the car window over a sheer precipice of two thousand feet. There are two cars attached to an endless cable, and while one creeps up the mountain like a horrid antediluvian bug the other crawls down. If the cable should break, one would catapult little Stanz to atoms and the other would Jules Verne itself to the top of the Stanzerhorn.

When we got to the two thousand feet place a German woman fainted, and I felt as if I were about to develop heart failure. But Blanche and Sir Charles leaned out of the windows and raved over the scenery, while an American woman read Baedeker out loud to another. As soon as we reached the top, we went to the hotel and got rooms, but discovered to our horror that we had left our bags at Stanz and that we couldn't get them that night. We both gave it to Sir Charles, I can tell you, but he only laughed and said the proprietor's wife would fit us out all right. We at once went in search of this individual, and you may imagine our consternation when I tell you that the proprietor was a bachelor, or a widower--I believe he tried to explain which it was, but we fairly shrieked with horror--and moreover the only females belonging to the hotel were some Swiss girls with symptoms of goitre.

The proprietor was bland and apologetic, and told Sir Charles that he would see we were provided with the necessary articles before we went to bed. With this we had to be content, and went out upon a sort of promenade where there was a telescope and a man to explain the views. He seemed to have learnt his "patter" by heart, for when he was interrupted he had to begin all over. Five minutes before sunset begins they ring a gong and everybody climbs up a tiny peak where you can see only snow mountains and the lake like a cloud far below. We waited for half an hour and saw nothing else; the man of the telescope said it was the only failure of the season. It got frightfully cold all of a sudden, and we went back to the hotel wis.h.i.+ng we were at the National.

They gave us a remarkably good _table d'hote_ dinner, considering how remote we were from everything. The people were mostly Germans, and there was such a curious German-American woman who sat next me. If she had been decently dressed she would have been quite pretty; she was very confidential, as strange Americans are inclined to be, and gave us her history from the time she was five. She fairly astounded me by saying she was known as Patsy Bolivar, the champion lady swimmer of the world, and she showed me several photographs of herself which she carries about with her, and also one of the gold belt she won in New York. Quite contrary to the usual run of celebrities, she was modest, and did not appear at all offended that I had never heard of her before.

After dinner we all went to watch the flash-light at work, and saw it turned on to the Stanz and Lucerne, in red, white, and blue. As the sunrise was to be very early we went to bed at nine in time to be ready for it. Blanche and I had connecting rooms, and we found on the pillows of our beds two spotless and neatly folded _robes de nuit_, and a hair-brush and a comb on the dressing-table, and we blessed monsieur le proprietaire. But imagine our horror, when we were ready to put on our host's garments, to find that they were in reality his own! They reached just above our knees, and had "Ricardo" embroidered in red cotton on the b.u.t.tons. There was nothing to do but to make the best of it, and as it was terribly cold we hastily got into bed in our proprietor's night-s.h.i.+rts, and slept soundly till we heard a hideous gong and knew that it was four o'clock and sunrise. We dressed quickly, and clambered on to the little peak again, where we found everybody s.h.i.+vering and jumping about to keep warm, and while we waited the sun rose. I won't attempt to describe it, for I am neither Walter Scott nor Baedeker, and if you want to know what it is like you must come to Switzerland yourself and spend the night on a mountain.

We had delicious coffee and rolls before leaving: Sir Charles paid the bill for us. Would you believe it, they actually took off a franc each for the failure of the sunset the previous day. I thought it exceedingly honourable, and different from the grasping way they have at hotels in England where they have only one way of making coffee and omelette, and that is _a l'Anglaise_. We didn't dare thank the proprietor for the things he had lent us, and he said, with such a nice smile to me, as we left:--

"Madame est-elle bien dormie? Les reves etaient-ils doux? J'espere ca."

Horrid man!

Therese was waiting for us when we got back, and had our baths and Paquin ready.--Your dearest Mamma.

LETTER XVII

HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE 7th September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Wertzelmann Ball_}

This is our last day here, and we leave by the express for Paris to-night. Mr. Wertzelmann said he was going to give a ball that would be remembered, and he has kept his promise. I hardly know where to begin to tell you all about it. I had one offer of marriage and one of elopement, and got home at six in the morning.

First of all, Blanche and I, looking every bit as well dressed as any of the smart women here, drove out to Schloss Gessler by ourselves. Comte Belladonna and Mr. Vanduzen hinted outrageously for the two vacant seats, but we didn't intend to have our frocks crushed to save them a few francs, and wouldn't take their hints.

The Comte eventually got Mrs. Isaacs' seat in Mrs. Johnson's landau, but Mr. Vanduzen had to hire, and just as he was about to drive off the d.u.c.h.esse de Vaudricourt rushed up and begged him for a seat, as she couldn't get a cab in the town. Therese told me this morning that the d.u.c.h.esse has no maid, and that her room is above the _escalier de service_ next to the Comte's, so I fancy they keep _her_ at the National too as an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the sake of her name, though it's only Louis Philippe.

When we arrived at Schloss Gessler the scene was undeniably lovely; the grounds were like fairy-land, and Mr. Wertzelmann had had the electric light brought out from Lucerne, and had tried to turn a part of the lake into a Venetian ca.n.a.l. Mrs. Wertzelmann, in the most lovely costume I ever saw, received in the great hall. She never looked handsomer; her dress was made entirely of point lace over white silk, and made as only Worth or Paquin ever make for American millionaires. Round her neck was a serpent of diamonds holding in its open jaws an immense emerald. Both she and Mr. Wertzelmann received their guests with the most perfect sincerity and hospitality. There was not a sc.r.a.p of affectation about them; it must be nice to be so rich that you can afford to be natural.

Mr. Wertzelmann wore on the lapel of his dress-coat something like a b.u.t.ton, with the American flag on it as a badge; all the foreigners wore decorations; don't ask me what they were,--if they were not Garters or Black Eagles, they looked as well. Even Sir Charles wore an Ashantee medal; he went in his uniform especially at Mr. Wertzelmann's request, who said he wanted a bit of colour in the room, only Sir Charles's tunic is not scarlet, and he looked somewhat like a commissionaire.