The Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth Part 5

I never told you of the garden party at Schloss Sonnenburg the other day, and as it will give quite another aspect of Lucerne life from that of the National and Schloss Gessler, I will try to remember what happened. It is rather difficult, for so much transpires in the course of the day that I am apt to forget what I did the day before.

{_A Disagreeable Drive_}

In the first place Baroness Sonnenburg is an Englishwoman, and Sir Charles knows her quite well. So he offered to drive us out to the Schloss and introduce us, telling us it would be quite _comme il faut_, and that the Sonnenburgs would be only too delighted to meet us. The Vicomte occupied the vacant seat in the landau, and we started immediately after lunch, for we had over twenty miles to drive. To know what dust is you must come to Switzerland in August; the road was like driving through sand, we were powdered with it, a nasty, white, itchy powder, and the flies, having devoured the horses which flew along maddened with pain, came to add their sting and buzzing to our own sufferings from the dust. I nearly shrieked with the discomfort of it all, and longed for my balcony at the National. The Vicomte began to talk of love to me, but knowing the danger of such a subject I peevishly begged him to desist, and a huge bottle-green fly, with a most irritating buzz, having drawn blood from his cheek, the Vicomte became as peevish as I. It seemed as if the journey would never end, which made the thought of the return to Lucerne _epouvantable_, and we were none of us in a good mood when a great yellow and black building, whose walls were like a draught-board, suddenly loomed out of a forest of pine trees on the brow of a steep cliff.

{_Warm Welcome_}

When we drove up to the front door two footmen in livery helped us out of the carriage, and I could have cried from the nervousness that the drive had fretted me into. However, we found a maid with brushes and water and perfumes, and when we were at all presentable again, another carriage drove up with Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Isaacs and Rosalie, and their Austrian Count. They were in as bad a temper as we were from the dust and the flies, and I heard Mrs. Johnson say that if "Mrs. Sonnenburg hadn't been a baroness" she would never have come. We pa.s.sed down a long hall whose walls were covered with family portraits, more than enough to make up the twenty-four quarterings of the Sonnenburg arms. At the end of the hall was a room into which we were shown by a footman. A grand-looking man, who was introduced by Sir Charles as Baron Sonnenburg, gave us the warmest welcome in English, and led us across the room where we were presented to his wife and mother. Baroness Sonnenburg spoke English with an accent which was not affected, for she told us she had not been in England for over twenty years. She was one of the Trevorleys of Devonshire, and the present baronet is her first cousin. I doubt if she ever heard the name of Paquin, and I suppose her clothes are made by a seamstress in Lucerne, yet there was no disguising the gentility of her appearance and the breeding of her manners.

{_A Pretty Custom_}

Blanche and I, who, from constant observation of the people we mix with, are rapidly becoming Continental, curtseyed to the Dowager Baroness and kissed the hand she held out. I think it is such a pretty custom, and one we could adopt to advantage in England, where every trace of the manners of the _ancien regime_ has disappeared. Such a number of people were in the room that we did not get the chance I should have liked to converse with our hosts, and we sauntered into an enormous octagonal apartment, which we were told jutted sheer over the precipice on which the Schloss is built. The view from the windows was very fine and extensive, and it made one quite giddy to look down into the valley which is nine hundred feet below.

There was a visitors' book here which Sir Charles was signing for us when suddenly there were shrieks of surprise and everybody rushed to the windows. Through a cleft of pine woods standing out against the bright blue sky was a glittering, dazzling ma.s.s. It was the Jungfrau, Baron Sonnenburg said, and was only seen on rare occasions, and nothing could be more fortunate than that it should unveil its peerless loveliness to-day of all days for the benefit of his guests.

{_An Al Fresco Repast_}

An _al fresco_ repast was served on the old battlements which have been turned out into a _terra.s.se_. An awkward, blushing youth was brought up to me by Baron Sonnenburg and presented as his son, and I was told he was going to England in the autumn to learn English, of which he doesn't know a word. Two rather pretty, but shockingly badly-dressed girls, were talking to two Swiss officers, but the att.i.tudes of all were so stilted and forced that I am sure they were not enjoying the unusual liberty permitted on this occasion.

The d.u.c.h.esse de Vaudricourt whispered to me that they were Baroness Sonnenburg's daughters and were considered very English. I was on the point of asking her what she thought _I_ was, but thought better of it, and merely said, that from the extreme diffidence they displayed, I should have taken them for French girls whose _dot_ had not yet been settled.

{_The Wertzelmanns_}

The Wertzelmanns came late; they brought Madame Colorado, who looked perfectly angelic in a marvellous white crepe de chine, and a hat that killed you at a glance. They brought the news of the accident to the Vicomte de Narjac's automobile, and Mrs. Wertzelmann excitedly told a circle, who had gathered to admire her clothes and her jewels, that it was the sensation of the season, she had never heard of anything so dreadful. And Baron Sonnenburg, who had never seen either Blanche or the Vicomte before, and had forgotten their names already, was told how the Vicomte's automobile had run away and exploded, terribly mangling the croupier at the Kursaal, blowing the Vicomte and Miss Blaine, such a sweet English girl, to smithereens, and that the poor Marquise de Pivart had gone mad from the shock.

{_An Amusing Story_}

Mrs. Wertzelmann dwelt on the horrible details with a tenacity there was no shaking, and at every exclamation of pity uttered by her audience she but made the story more graphic. The Vicomte and Blanche, who all the while had listened quietly, un.o.bserved by Mrs. Wertzelmann, stuffed their mouths with handkerchiefs to keep from shrieking. But when the Vicomte heard that a boatman had found one of his arms clinging to a fragment of automobile in the lake, and that they were picking his brains off the walls of the Pension Thorvaldsen, he could contain himself no longer.

You should have seen Mrs. Wertzelmann's face when she saw Blanche and the Vicomte bursting with laughter, and she looked about the _terra.s.se_ as if she expected to see the Marquise and the croupier eating ices in Baron Sonnenburg's beach chairs; and later when we left I am sure she wondered why we drove off in the landau with the fly-bitten horses instead of in the automobile.

"If Maria once begins to tell a story," said Mr. Wertzelmann to me, "there is no stopping her. I knew she would end by putting her foot into it."

As Mrs. Wertzelmann's confusion was so great, and she volunteered no explanation, I fancy the Sonnenburgs, who do not go into Lucerne frequently, are wondering why the _Swiss and Nice Times_ have given no account of the terrible automobile disaster.

Don't ask me how we got back to Lucerne, but four more pitiable-looking objects you never would wish to see. We were utterly exhausted, and I never made any appearance the next day till lunch.

I am glad you are having such a good time at Croixmare. Give my kind regards to your G.o.dmamma and my best love to Heloise. I am glad you have been such a success; I pride myself that whether in England or in France _l'ingenue va bien_.--Your dearest Mamma.

LETTER XIV

HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE 1st September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_The Ball of the Season_}

The invitations are out to a _cotillon_ at Schloss Gessler on the 7th.

It is to be a grand affair, the favours are to come from the Maison Bail at Paris, the supper and the music from the National, and the money to pay for it all out of Mr. Wertzelmann's bank account, which it goes without saying is a big one.

{_Count Albert's Proposal_}

Everybody seems to have been invited, and Mr. Wertzelmann told me he intended that it should be remembered as the ball of the season. Old Mrs. Johnson came and sat next to me on the _quai_ this morning, and broke the news that Count Albert has proposed to Rosalie and been accepted. She didn't seem to like it when I said I felt sorry for the girl, because she was too good for Count Albert, who was old enough to be her father, and I advised her to look him up and all his antecedents at Vienna before the marriage ceremony. But she was quite satisfied that he was a real, live Count, because the "Schweitzerhof knew all about him." I shouldn't be surprised, however, that she takes my advice, for she is a shrewd old woman, but just fancy anyone taking a husband on a hotel guarantee!

A very pretty woman--a blonde, with a figure that the Venus de Milo might envy, and dressed, oh! la la! shades of Paquin and Worth!--pa.s.sed us several times, walking up and down the _quai_. Everybody turned round to stare at her, and everybody asked who she was, and the Princesse di Spezzia, who was talking to Comte Belladonna, put up her lorgnettes. The d.u.c.h.esse de Vaudricourt leaned over the arm of her chair and whispered to me:--

"Voila la plus belle courtisane de Florence. C'est une des bijoux de M.

le Prince di Spezzia. La fameuse Vittoria Lodi!"

{_Monsieur le Prince_}

Later on the Prince di Spezzia sauntered out of the National on the arm of the Marquis de Pivart, both dressed faultlessly as usual, _a l'Anglais_, and they actually stopped and spoke to the _demi-mondaine_.

The d.u.c.h.esse de Vaudricourt became quite excited over it, and gave me a regular _New-York-Herald-Paris-Edition_ of Monsieur le Prince. He is very English in appearance, but then Poole makes all his clothes, and he could easily pa.s.s for an Englishman, which I think would please him immensely. But why--why will these smart foreigners who affect English fashions always wear lavender or buff-coloured French kid gloves?

Perhaps you will say, for the same reason that Englishwomen who are for ever talking of Paris fashions wear English corsets. So under all the artificiality of civilisation national traits come out in a pair of gloves or a pair of stays!

The Prince looks as if he would improve on acquaintance, but I think it distinctly rude and bad form of him to stop and talk to such a woman as la belle Lodi within a stone's throw of his wife. The d.u.c.h.esse says he has been a _mauvais sujet_ since sixteen, when he disguised himself as a priest and confessed dozens of people, and if it hadn't been that his uncle was a Cardinal, he would have got into some very hot water. He drives with the Lodi daily in the Cascine at Florence, and makes her follow him wherever he goes. She has an apartment at the Schweitzerhof.

The Princesse doesn't seem to mind; I don't suppose it would make any difference if she did. She is always beautifully dressed, and spends most of her time staring at people through her lorgnettes.

{_Professor Chzweiczy_}

Poor Professor Chzweiczy (you can p.r.o.nounce this name to suit yourself, for n.o.body knows what it should be, and Blanche calls it Squeezey) sits every day on the _quai_; he holds the "Blot on the Brain" close in front of his face as if he were near-sighted. I think he must have a cast in his eyes, for they always seem to be looking over the top of the book at the people pa.s.sing. I am sure that if it were known that he is one of the greatest medical scientists of the day, he would be besieged like Liane de Pougy; but n.o.body ever even glances at him; they have got his name spelled wrong in the hotel visitors' list, and wedged in out of sight between some people whose names have a globe-trotting sound and who look like a party of Cook's "Specials."

{_Liane de Pougy_}

Liane de Pougy sits now in the garden of the National, for the crowds nearly suffocated her on the _quai_. She is very beautiful and dresses very quietly; you would never dream that she is as well known in Paris as a monument or a boulevard. A young Frenchman has for the last two days been doing his best to attract her attention by sitting near her, and pretending to read her "L'Insaisissable." I believe that since her arrival there are nearly as many copies of this _roman vecu_, as she calls it, as Baedekers at the National. It is hard to say which is the most interesting--herself or her book. I caught her looking at the old Marechale de Vichy-Pontoise yesterday with the most untranslatable expression. I am not quite sure but that in spite of her triumphs she would change places with the Marechale if she could, and wear the old harridan's moustache and the daguerreotype brooch of the late Marechal and feed Bijou and all. As it is, not a woman at the National would dream of speaking to her, and the Marechale would as soon think of strangling Bijou as of sitting down at the same table as the famous Liane.

{_A Comedy_}

Blanche has just come in to say that a Count Fosca has arrived at the National, having automobiled all the way from Paris, and that the Vicomte is completely _bouleverse_. She is laughing so over something that Therese is telling her that I cannot write any more.

I can only catch the words, "Mrs. Johnson," "Prince di Spezzia,"

"Ascenseur," "no lights." I leave it to you to make a comedy out of the missing links.--Your dearest Mamma.

LETTER XV

HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE 3rd September

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_A Mishap_}