The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
is most extraordinary.
The outside of the house is brownish red sandstone, and is a wonderful mixture of all styles.
There is no room in it where there is any look of what we call "home," and not one shabby thing. Mrs. Spleist has a "boudoir"--and it is a boudoir! It is as if you went into the best shop and said, "I want a boudoir;" just as you would, "I want a hat," and paid for it and brought it home with you. Natalie has a sitting-room, and it is just the same. They are not quite far enough up yet on the social ladder to have every corner of the establishment done by Duveen, and the result is truly appalling.
The food is wonderful, extraordinarily good; but although the footmen are English they don't wait anything like as well as if they had remained at home; and Octavia's old maid, Wilbor, told her the hurly burly downstairs is beyond description; snatching their meals anywhere, with no time or etiquette or housekeeper's room; all, everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. And the absolutely disrespectful way they speak of their master and mistress--machines to make money out of, they seem to think--perfectly astonished Wilbor, who highly disapproves of it all. Agns, having a French woman's eye to the main chance, says, "N'importe, ici on gagne beaucoup d'argent!" So probably she will leave me before we return.
What volumes I have written, dearest Mamma!
Best love from your,
Affectionate daughter, ELIZABETH.
PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK
PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK, _Friday._
Dearest Mamma,--Octavia and I feel we are growing quite "rattled." (Do forgive me for using such a word, but it is American and describes us.) The telephone rings from the moment we wake until we go out, and reporters wait to pounce upon us if we leave our rooms. We are entertained at countless feasts, and to-morrow we are going down town to lunch at a city restaurant, after seeing the Stock Exchange, so I will tell you of that presently. We can't do or say a thing that a totally different and garbled version of it does not appear in the papers, often with pictures; and yesterday, while Octavia was out with me, she was made to have given an interview upon whether or no Mr. Roosevelt should propose a law to enforce American wives to each have at least six children! It is printed that she asked how many husbands they were allowed, and the reporter lady who writes the interview expresses herself as quite shocked; but Octavia said, when she read it this morning, that she thought whoever was speaking for her asked a very sensible question. What do you think, Mamma? Octavia is enchanted with all these things, and is keeping a large scrap book. But the one we like best was in the Sunday's paper, when there was a full sheet with dark hints as to our private lives by "One Who Knows."
All the history of the little dancer Ottalie Cheveny was tacked on to Octavia's past! The name sounding something the same is quite enough reason for its being Octavia's story here! Tom is having this one put with his collection for the smoking-room, because he says when Octavia "fluffs" (that, I think, means "ruffles") him, he will be able to look up at it and think of "what might have been!"
I am said to be here while a divorce is being arranged by my family because Harry has gone off to India with a fair haired widow!!! Think, Mamma, of his rage when I send him a copy. Isn't it lovely?
We are enjoying ourselves more than I can say, and they are perfect dears, most of the people who entertain us;--so gay and merry and kind;--and we are growing quite accustomed to the voices and the odd grammar and phrasing. At first you get a singing in your head from the noise of a room full of people speaking. They simply scream, and it makes a peculiar echo, as if the walls were metal. Everyone talks at once, and no one ever listens to anything the person near them says.
A ladies' lunch is like this: Octavia and I arrive at a gorgeous mansion, and are ushered into a marvellous Louis XV. morning room, with wonderful tapestry furniture and beautiful pictures arranged rather like a museum. There is never a look of the mistress of the house having settled anything herself, or chosen a pillow because the colours in a certain sofa required it; or, in fact, there is never the expression of any individuality of ownership; anyone could have just such another house if he or she were rich enough to give carte blanche to the best antique art shop; but the things all being really good and beautiful do not jar like the mixture at the Spleists did. Often whole rooms have been brought out, just as they were, from foreign palaces, panelling, pictures and all, and it gives such a quaint sense of unreality to feel the old atmosphere in this young, vigorous country. The hostess's bedroom and boudoir and bath room are often shown to us, and they are all masterpieces of decoration and luxury; and I can't think how they can keep on feeling as good as gold in them! Perfectly lovely luxurious surroundings always make me long for Harry to play with, or some other nice young man--did not they you, Mamma, when you were young and felt things?
About twenty other women are probably there besides us, all dressed in the most expensive magnificent afternoon frocks; and they all have lovely Cartier jewelled watches, and those beautiful black ribbon and diamond chains round their necks, like Harry gave me last birthday. No one wears old fashioned or ugly jewels, all are in exquisite taste, while the pearls at one lunch would have paid for a kingdom.
When everyone has been presented to us, being the strangers, luncheon is announced, and we go into a magnificent dining-room, sometimes with the blinds so much drawn that we have to have electric lights. The footmen are in full dress, with silk stockings, and one or two places they had them powdered, and that did make Octavia smile. I don't think one ought to have powder unless it has been the custom of the family for generations, do you, Mamma? Well, then, beside each person's plate, beyond the countless food implements lying on the lace-encrusted cloth, are lovely bunches of orchids, or whatever is the most rare and difficult to get; and cocktails have sometimes been handed in the salon before, and sometimes are handed in the dining-room, but at the ladies' lunches in very small glasses.
With such heaps of divorces, in a very large party you can't help having some what Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield (a perfect old darling of nearly eighty whom we lunched with on Wednesday) calls "court relations," together; by that meaning, supposing Mrs. A. has divorced Mr. A., and re-married Mr. B., who has been divorced by Mrs. B., who has re-married Mr. C., who happened to be a widower with grown up married daughters--then the daughters and the present Mrs. B., late Mrs. A., would be "court relations," and might meet at lunch. Mr. A. himself and his present wife would also be the late Mrs. B.'s and present Mrs. C.'s court relations. Do you understand, Mamma? It is the sort of ones connected with the case whom it would be unpleasant to speak about it to, but not the actual principals. And when I asked Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield why she called them "court relations" she said because the divorce court was their common ground of connection, and it was a very good reason, and quite as true as calling people blood relations in London or Paris! And that pleased Octavia very much, because she said it was the first subtle thing she had heard in New York. But I must get on with the lunch.
You begin your clam broth (such an "exquit" soup, as Ermyntrude would call it), and the lady next you says she has been "just crazy" to meet you, and heaps of nice things that make you pleased with yourself and ready to enjoy your food. You are just going to say something civil in return, and get a few words out, when your neighbour interrupts you with more nice things, and stacks of questions, and remarks about herself, all rather disconnected, and before you can speak again, the lady beyond, or even across the table, has interpolated with a sentence beginning always like this, "Now let me tell you something;" and long before she can get to the end of that, the person at her side has interrupted her. And so it goes on. It sounds as if I were telling you of another Mad Hatter's tea party, Mamma, but it is not at all; and it is wonderful how much sense you can get out of it, and what amusing and clever bright things they say, though at the end you feel a little confused; and what with the smell of the innumerable flowers and the steam heated rooms, and the cigarettes, I can't think how they have wits enough left to play bridge all the afternoon, as they do, with never a young man to wake them up. Of course it is amusing for Octavia and me to see all this, as we are merely visitors, but fancy, Mamma! doing it as a part of one's life! Dressing up and making oneself splendid and attractive to meet only _women!_
They