The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
Octavia and I went to a "department store" to buy, among other things, some of their lovely ready-made costumes to take out West with us, and it was so amusing; the young ladies at the ribbon counter were chatting with the young ladies at the flowers, divided by a high set of drawers, so they had to climb up or speak through the passage opening. Presently after we had tried to attract their attention, one condescended to serve us, while she finished her conversation with her friend round the corner perfectly indifferent as to our wants, or if we bought or not! The friend surveyed us and chewed gum. But when we got to the costume salon, they were most polite. Two perfect dears attended to us, and were so sympathetic as to our requirements, and talked intelligently and well on outside subjects. Octavia and I felt we were leaving old friends when we went. Why should you be rude measuring off ribbons, and polite showing clothes?
To-morrow we go to Philadelphia to stay with Kitty Bond, who as you know isn't so colossally rich as the rest, but just as nice as Valerie; and they have a house which has been there for a hundred years, so it will be interesting to see the difference.
The Vicomte has been good and docile. I have not had to keep him in order once, but he comes round all the time, and when he thinks people are looking he gazes devotedly at Octavia, and everyone thinks he is her affair. Isn't it intelligent of him, Mamma?
I am glad you have not scolded me about Harry and our quarrel in your last letter; but there is no use your being angry with him and saying he behaved like a brute. He did not, a bit, because it really was my fault, principally; only it's all just as well, as I should never have been allowed to come here if it had not happened, and I am enjoying myself and seeing the world.
Good-bye, dearest Mamma. Best love from,
Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH.
RINGWOOD, PHILADELPHIA
RINGWOOD, PHILADELPHIA, _Wednesday._
DEAREST MAMMA,--I think you would like this place better than New York if you came to America. It is much quieter and less up-to-date, and there is the most beautiful park; only you have to get at it by going through the lowest slums of the town, which must rather put one off on a summer day, and it is dominated by a cemetery on a high cliff above it, so that as you drive you see the evidences of death always in front of you; and one of the reporters who came to interview us said it made "a cunning place to take your best girl on Sunday to do a bit of a spoon!!" Are they not an astonishing people, Mamma? So devoid of sentiment that they choose this, their best site, for a cemetery! and then spend their gayest recreation hours there!! I couldn't have let even Harry make love to me in a cemetery. Of course it must be only the working class who go there, as a jaunt, not one's friends; but it surprised me in any case.
Kitty's house is the sweetest place, rather in the country, and just made of wood with a shingle roof; but so quaint, and people look at it with the same sort of reverence we look at Aikin's Farm, which was built in fourteen hundred, you remember? This one was put up before the revolution, in Colonial days, and it has a veranda in front running up with Ionic pillars all in wood like a portico. Inside it is just an English home--do you hear, Mamma? I said _home!_ because it is the first we have seen. And it came as some new thing, and to be appreciated, to find the furniture a little shabby from having been in the same place so long; and the pictures most of them rather bad, but really ancestors; and the drawing-room and our bedrooms lovely and bright with flowery chintzes, fresh and shiny, no tapestry and wonderful brocade; and the table-cloths plain, and no lace on the sheets, nor embroideries to scratch the ear. It shows what foolish creatures of habit we are, because in the other houses there has been every possible thing one could want, and masterpieces of art and riches and often beauty; but just because Kitty's house is like a home, and has the indescribable atmosphere of gentle owners for generations, we like it the best! It is ridiculous to be so prejudiced, isn't it?
Jim Bond says they are too poor to go to Europe more than once in three years, and they only run over to New York to stay with Valerie now and then, and sometimes down South or camping out in the summer, so they spend all the time at Ringwood, and there is not a corner of the garden or house they do not tend and love. Jim is a great gardener, so Octavia and he became absorbed at once. He has not got much business to do, and only has to go in to Philadelphia about once a week, so his time is spent with Kitty and books and horses and the trees and flowers; and if you could see the difference it makes, Mamma, in a man! His eyes do not have a bit the look of a terrier after a rat, and he does not always answer literally to everything you say, and if you speak about books or art or anything of other countries, he is familiar with it all, and listens and isn't bored, and hardly attending, so anxious to get his anecdote in, as lots of them were in New York. But on the other hand the Americans would never be the splendid successful nation they are if they were all peaceful and cultivated like Jim Bond; so all is as it should be, and both kinds are interesting.
Kitty is a darling, an immense sense of humour, perfectly indifferent about dress, and as lanky and unshaped a figure as any sporting Englishwoman; when she comes to stay with us at Valmond she only brings two frocks for even a big party! But she is like Octavia, a character, and everyone loves her, and would not mind if she did not wear any clothes at all. You must meet her the next time, Mamma. She did not tremendously apologize because the hot water tap in my bath-room would not run (as Mrs. Spleist did when one of the twenty electric light branches round my bed-room would not shine); she just said, "You must call Ambrosia" (a sweet darkie servant) "and she will bring you a can from the kitchen."
She sat on the floor by the wood fire in the old-fashioned grate, and made me laugh so I was late for dinner. They had a dinner party for us, because they said it was their duty to show us their best, as we had seen a little of New York; and it was a delightful evening. Several of the men had moustaches, and they were all perfectly at ease, and not quite so kind and polite as the others, and you felt more as if they were of the same sex as Englishmen, and you quite understood that they could get in love. The one at my right hand was a pet, and has asked us to a dinner at the Squirrels Club to-night, and I am looking forward to it so. The women were charming, not so well dressed as in New York, and perhaps not so pretty, or so very bright and ready with repartee as there, but sweet all the same. And I am sure they are all as good as gold, and don't have divorces in the family nearly so often. That was the impression they gave me. One even spoke to me of her baby, and we had quite a "young mother's conversation," and I was able to let myself go and talk of my two angels without feeling I should be a dreadful bore. It was, of course, while the men stayed in the dining-room, which they did here just like England.
The Squirrels Club is as old as Kitty's house, and is such a quaint idea. All the members cook the dinner in a great kitchen, and there are no servants to wait or lay the table, or anything, only a care-taker who washes up. We are to go there about seven--it is in the country, too--and help to cook also; won't it be too delightful, Mamma! Octavia says she feels young again at the thought. I will finish this to-morrow, and tell you all about it before the post goes.
Thursday._
I am only just awake, Mamma. We had such an enchanting evening last night, and stayed up so late I slept like a top. We drove to the club house in motors, and there were about six or seven women beside ourselves and ten or twelve men all in shirt-sleeves and aprons, and the badge of the Club, a squirrel, embroidered on their chests. I don't know why, but I think men look attractive in shirt-sleeves. Sometimes at home in the evening, if I am dressed first, I go into Harry's room to hurry him up, and if I find him standing brushing his hair I always want him to kiss me, when his valet isn't there, he looks such a darling like that; and he always does, and then we are generally late. But I must not think of him, because when I do I just long for him to come back, and to rush into his arms, and of course I have got to remain angry with him for ages yet.
How I have wandered from the delightful squirrels! Well, the one who asked us was called Dick Seton, and as I told you he is a pet, and a _young man!_ That is, not elderly, like the business ones we met in New York, and not a boy like the partners at the dance, but a young man of thirty, perhaps, with such nice curly light hair and blue eyes, and actually _not married!_ Everything of