Part 3 (1/2)
The firstat the Alexandra Hotel, To coffee and fruit and a roll brought to his bed
I wanted to go down to the dining room My husband said it was not done and I would be lonesoet up with the chickens But it was not done in London The secondthe early sun was too much for me I dressed, left the hotel, and walked for several hours before a perfect servant brought shi+ning plates andhusky football player's bedside I have livedbreakfast brought toTo back for luncheon I picked up a London lanced at the personal coluet hold of the London Times All of human nature and the ups and downs of ed jewels of broken-down nobility, froames and tickets for sale to relatives wanted, and those es from home or to home I read the news of the war We in America did not know there was a war But Greece and Crete were at each other's throats, and Turkey was standing waiting to crowd the little ancient nation into Armenia or off the map There was the Indian famine--We did not talk about it at home, but it had first place in the London paper
And the Queen's birthday,--it was to be celebrated by feeding the poor of East London and paying the debts of the hospitals There was so so huland,” I said, and that first impression balanced the scale many a time later when I did not love her
The third or fourth day brought an invitation to dine at a famous house on Grosvenor Square--with a duke!
I pestered my husband with questions What should I wear? What should I talk about? He just laughed
The paper had reported a ”levee ordered by the queen”, describing the gowns and jeorn by the ladies
I had little jewelry--a diaave me before ere old beads, which were fashi+onable in America I put them all on with ave me one look and said, ”Why do you wear all that junk?” I took off one of the brooches and the string of gold beads
When our carriage drew up to the house on Grosvenor Square, liveried servants stood at each side of the door, liveried servants guided us inside There was a gold carpet, paintings of ladies and gentleeous attire, and ot all of this grandeur listening to the na-room: Mr Gladstone and Mrs Gladstone, Lord Rosebery and the Marquis of Salisbury, Mrs Hu fatter and older than I had expected, officers, colonels, viscounts, and ladies, and then Tom and Mary--but they were not called off that way I wanted to ht even be near hi captain of the Scots Greys
Mr Gladstone was on the other side of the table It was a huge table,My husband was soht at the other end Mr Gladstoneraised for the victiood form to be silent in the presence of death, especially when death is colossal, and the English never fail to follow good form There was a sudden lull at our end of the table
It was I who broke that silence I was touched by the generosity of England, and said so Sinceto India, sending relief to Greece and Ar the Queen's Jubilee by feeding the poor I addressedwords to Mr
Gladstone
Either my sincerity or the e that is done” moved Mr Gladstone's sympathy
He slad you see these good points of England” It was about thethat was ever done to land it is bad forhbor on the right or to one's neighbor on the left; but the line across the table is foreign soil and ht ot to tell you They never talk across the table in England” I chided hiland, as in Ah to be ” after that I told hi man had broken one of her priceless Sevres after-dinner coffee cups, dropped hers on the floor to meet him on the same level ”Any woman who, to put any one at ease, will break a priceless Sevres cup is heroic,” I said
His answer, though flippant, was pleasant: ”Any man ould not smile across the table at a lovely woman is a fool”
Mr Gladstone alore a flower in his button-hole, a big, loose collar that never fitted, a floppy black necktie, and trousers that needed a valet's attention He was the greatest coard of conventions I had ever seen
The event next in importance to a presentation at court was a tea at which the tea planter Sir Thouests He was not Sir Tho contributed twenty-five thousand pounds to the fund collected by the Princess of Wales to feed the poor of London in commemoration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee
The Earl of Lathom, then the Lord Chamberlain, who looked like Santa Claus and suests; so were Mr
and Mrs Gladstone Since the night he had talked to me across the table I always felt that Mr Gladstone was land
He had a sense of hu the tea king to a tea?” That a his hair in the ht I repeated , he said: ”That's not the way to get on in England It 's too Becky Sharpish”
And then came the day of the queen's salon Victoria did not often have audiences, the Prince of Wales or so levees and receiving presentations in her name
Tom had warned me that there were certain clothes to be worn at a presentation I asked one of my American friends at the embassy, who directed , it see dress, with long white gloves, and to reht hand
The hairdresser asked aboutwhat Tom had said about ”junk”, I said I would wear no jewels She was horrified, I would have to wear some, she insisted, if only a necklace of pearls She tactfully suggested that if my jewels had not arrived I could rent them from Mr Somebody on the Strand It was frequently done, she said, by foreigners