Can believe from experience that this is, indeed, so.
November 1st. – Visit the World Fair in company with Arthur and his family. Buildings all very modern and austere, except for colouring, which is inclined to be violent, but aspect as a whole is effective and impressive, and much to be preferred to customary imitations of ancient Greece. Individual exhibits admirably displayed, and total area of space covered must be enormous, whether lake – of which I see large bits here and there – is included or not. Private cars not admitted – which I think sensible – but rickshaws available, drawn by University students – to whom, everybody says, It’s Interesting to Talk – and small motor-buses go quietly round and round the Fair.
Arthur and I patronise rickshaws – I take a good look at my University Student, and decide that conversation would probably benefit neither of us – and visit various buildings. Hall of Science not amongst our successes, unfortunately, as the sight of whole skeletons, portions of the human frame executed in plaster, and realistic maps of sinews and blood-vessels, all ranged against the wall in glass show-cases, merely causes me to hurry past with my eyes shut. Arthur is sympathetic, and tells me that there is an exhibit of Live Babies in Incubators to be seen, but cannot decide whether he means that this would be better than scientific wonders at present surrounding us, or worse. Resume rickshaws, and visit Jade Chinese Temple, which is lovely, Prehistoric Animals – unpleasant impression of primitive man’s existence derived from these, but should like to have seen a brontosaurus in the flesh nevertheless – and Belgian Village, said to be replica of fifteenth century. (If not fifteenth, then sixteenth. Cannot be sure.)
Here Arthur and I descend, and walk up and down stone steps and cobbled streets, and watch incredibly clean-looking peasants in picturesque costumes dancing hand in hand and every now and then stamping. Have always hitherto associated this with Russians, but evidently wrong.
Just as old Flemish Clock on old Flemish Town Hall clangs out old Flemish Air, and Arthur and I tell one another that this is beautifully done, rather brassy voice from concealed loudspeaker is inspired to enquire: Oh boy! What about that new tooth-paste? Old Flemish atmosphere goes completely to bits, and Arthur and I, in disgust, retire to Club, where we meet his family, and have most excellent lunch.
Everyone asks what I want to see next, and Arthur’s mother says that she has a few friends coming to dinner, but is thrown into consternation by Arthur’s father, who says that he has invited two South Americans to come in afterwards. Everyone says South Americans? as if they were pterodactyls at the very least, and antecedents are enquired into, but nothing whatever transpires except that they are South Americans and that nobody knows anything about them, not even their names.
Return to Fair after lunch – new rickshaw student, less forbidding-looking than the last, and I say feebly that It is very hot for November, and he replies that he can tell by my accent that I come from England and he supposes it’s always foggy there, and I say No, not always, and nothing further passes between us. Am evidently not gifted, where interesting students from American Colleges are concerned, and decide to do nothing more in this line. More exhibits follow – mostly very good – and Arthur says that he thinks we ought to see the North American Indians.
He accordingly pays large sum of money which admits us into special enclosures where authentic Red Indians are stamping about – (stamping definitely discredited henceforward as a Russian monopoly) – and uttering sounds exclusively on two notes, all of which, so far as I can tell, consist of Wah Wah! and nothing else. Listen to this for nearly forty minutes but am not enthusiastic. Neither is Arthur, and we shortly afterwards go home.
Write postcards to Rose, the children, and Robert, and after some thought send one to Cook, although entirely uncertain as to whether this will gratify her or not. Am surprised, and rather disturbed, to find that wording of Cook’s postcard takes more thought than that on all the others put together.
Small dinner takes place later on, and consists of about sixteen people, including a lady whose novel won the Pulitzer Prize, a lady who writes poetry – very, very well known, though not, unhappily, to me – a young gentleman who has something to do with Films, an older one who is connected with Museums, and delightful woman in green who says that she knows Devonshire and has stayed with the Frobishers. Did she, I rashly enquire, enjoy it? Well, she replies tolerantly, Devonshire is a lovely part of the world, but she is afraid Sir William Frobisher dislikes Americans. I protest, and she then adds, conclusively, that Sir W. told her himself how much he disliked Americans. Feel that it would indeed be idle to try and get round this, so begin to talk at once about the Fair.
Dinner marvellous, as usual – company very agreeable – and my neighbour – Museums – offers to conduct me to see Chicago Historical Museum at ten o’clock next morning.
Just as dinner is over, two extremely elegant young gentlemen, with waists and superbly smooth coiffures, come in and bow gracefully to our hostess. New York friend, Billy, hisses at me: ‘The South Americans’, and I nod assent, and wonder how on earth they are going to be introduced, when nobody knows their names. This, however, is achieved by hostess who simply asks them what they are called, and then introduces everybody else.
Am told afterwards that neither of them speaks much English, and that Arthur’s father asked them questions all the evening. No one tells me whether they answered them or not, and I remain mildly curious on the point.
November 4th. – Singular and interesting opportunity is offered me to contrast Sunday spent on Long Island and Sunday spent in equivalent country district outside Chicago, called Lake Forest, where I am invited to lunch and spend the afternoon. Enquire of Arthur quite early if this is to be a large party. He supposes About Thirty. Decide at once to put on the Coming Molyneux’s best effort – white daisies on blue silk. But, says Arthur, country clothes. Decide to substitute wool coat and skirt, with red beret. And, says Arthur, he is taking me on to dinner with very, very rich acquaintance, also at Lake Forest. I revert, mentally, to blue silk and daisies, and say that I suppose it won’t matter if we’re not in evening dress? Oh, replies Arthur, we’ve got to take evening clothes with us, and change there. Our hostess won’t hear of anything else. I take a violent dislike to her on the spot, and say that I’m not sure I want to go at all. At this Arthur is gloomy, but firm. He doesn’t want to go either, and neither does Billy, but we can’t get out of it now. We must simply pack our evening clothes in bags and go. Have not sufficient moral courage to rebel any further, and instead consider the question of packing up my evening clothes. Suit-case is too large, and attaché-case too small, but finally decide on the latter, which will probably mean ruin to evening frock.
November 5th. – Literary friend Arthur, still plunged in gloom, takes Billy and me by car to Lake Forest, about thirty miles from Chicago. We talk about grandmothers – do not know why or how this comes to pass – and then about Scotland. Scenery very beautiful, but climate bad. Arthur once went to Holyrood, but saw no bloodstains. Billy has a relation who married the owner of a Castle in Ross-shire and they live there and have pipers every evening. I counter this by saying that I have a friend, married to a distinguished historian or something, at Edinburgh University. Wish I hadn’t said ‘or something’ as this casts an air of spuriousness over the whole story. Try to improve on it by adding firmly that they live in Wardie Avenue, Edinburgh – but this is received in silence.
(Query: Why are facts invariably received so much less sympathetically than fictions? Had I only said that distinguished historian and his wife lived in a cellar of Edinburgh Castle and sold Edinburgh rock, reactions of Arthur and Billy probably much more enthusiastic.)
Arrive at about one o’clock. House, explains Arthur, belongs to great friends of his – charming people – Mrs F. writes novels – sister won Pulitzer Prize with another novel. At this I interject Yes, yes, I met her the other day – and feel like a dear old friend of the family.
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sp; House, says Arthur all over again – at which I perceive that I must have interrupted him before he’d finished, and suddenly remember that Robert has occasionally complained of this – House belongs to Mr and Mrs F. and has been left entirely unaltered since it was first built in 1874, furniture and all. It is, in fact, practically a Museum Piece.
Discover this to be indeed no over-statement, and am enchanted with house, which is completely Victorian, and has fretwork brackets in every available corner, and a great deal of furniture. Am kindly welcomed, and taken upstairs to leave my coat and take off my hat. Spend the time instead in looking at gilt clock under glass shade, wool-and-bead mats, and coloured pictures of little girls in pinafores playing with large white kittens. Have to be retrieved by hostess’s daughter, who explains that she thought I might have lost my way. I apologise and hope that I’m not late for lunch.
This fear turns out later to be entirely groundless, as luncheon-party – about thirty-five people – assembles by degrees on porch, and drinks cocktails, and nobody sits down to lunch until three o’clock. Have pleasant neighbours on either side, and slightly tiresome one opposite, who insists on talking across the table and telling me that I must go to the South, whatever I do. She herself comes of a Southern family, and has never lost her Southern accent, as I have no doubt noticed. Am aware that she intends me to assent to this, but do not do so, and conversation turns to Anthony Adverse as usual – and the popularity of icecream in America. Lunch over at about four o’clock – can understand why tea, as a meal, does not exist in the USA – and we return to the porch, and everyone says that this is the Indian Summer.
Find myself sitting with elderly man, who civilly remarks that he wants to hear about the book I have written. Am aware that this cannot possibly be true, but take it in the spirit in which it is meant, and discuss instead the British Museum – which he knows much better than I do – trout-fishing – about which neither of us knows anything whatever – and the state of the dollar.
Soon afterwards Arthur, with fearful recrudescence of despair, tells me that there is nothing for it, as we’ve got another forty miles to drive, but to say good-bye and go. We may not want to, but we simply haven’t any choice, he says.
After this we linger for about thirty-five minutes longer, repeating how sorry we are that we’ve got to go, and hearing how very sorry everybody else is as well. Eventually find ourselves in car again, suit-cases with evening clothes occupying quite a lot of space, and again causing Arthur to lament pertinacity of hostess who declined to receive us in ordinary day clothes.
Fog comes on – is this a peculiarity of Indian Summer? – chauffeur takes two or three wrong turnings, but says that he knows where we shall Come Out – and Billy goes quietly to sleep. Arthur and I talk in subdued voices for several minutes, but get louder and louder as we become more interested, and Billy wakes up and denies that he has ever closed an eye at all.
Silence then descends upon us all, and I lapse into thoughts of Robert, the children, and immense width and depth of the Atlantic Ocean. Have, as usual, killed and buried us all, myself included, several times over before we arrive.
Just as we get out of car – Billy falls over one of the suit-cases and says Damn – Arthur mutters that I must remember to look at the pictures. Wonderful collection, and hostess likes them to be admired. This throws me off my balance completely, and I follow very superb and monumental butler with my eyes fixed on every picture I see, in series of immense rooms through which we are led. Result of this is that I practically collide with hostess, advancing gracefully to receive us, and that my rejoinders to her cries of welcome are totally lacking in empressement, as I am still wondering how soon I ought to say anything about the pictures, and what means I can adopt to sound as if I really knew something about them. Hostess recalls me to myself by enquiring passionately if we have brought evening things, as she has rooms all ready for us to change in.
Am struck by this preoccupation with evening clothes, and interesting little speculation presents itself, as to whether she suffers from obsession on the point, and if so Could psychoanalysis be of any help? Treatment undoubtedly very expensive, but need not, in this case, be considered.
Just as I have mentally consigned her to luxurious nursing-home, with two specialists and a trained nurse, hostess again refers to our evening clothes, and says that we had better come up and see the rooms in which we are to dress. Follow her upstairs – more pictures all the way up, and in corridor of vast length – I hear Arthur referring to ‘that marvellous Toulouse-Lautrec’ and look madly about, but cannot guess which one he means, as all alike look to me marvellous, except occasional still-life which I always detest – and shortly afterwards I am parted from Arthur and Billy, and shown into complete suite, with bedroom, bathroom and sitting-room. Hostess says solicitously: Can I manage?
Yes, on the whole I think I can.
(Wonder what she would feel about extremely shabby bedroom at home, total absence of either private bathroom or Toulouse-Lautrec, and sitting-room downstairs in which Robert, children, cat, dog and myself all congregate together round indifferent wood fire. This vision, however, once more conducive to homesickness, and hastily put it aside and look at all the books in the five bookcases to see what I can read in the bath.)
Am surprised and gratified to find that I have remembered to pack everything I want, and perform satisfactory toilette, twice interrupted by offers of assistance from lady’s maid, who looks astonished when I refuse them. Look at myself in three different mirrors, decide – rather ungenerously – that I am better-looking than my hostess, and on this reassuring reflection proceed downstairs.
November 5th (continued). – Decide that I am, beyond a doubt, making acquaintance with Millionaire Life in America, and that I must take mental notes of everything I see and eat, for benefit of Robert and the Women’s Institute. Hostess, waiting in the drawing-room, has now gone into mauve chiffon, triple necklace of large uncut amethysts, and at least sixteen amethyst bracelets. Do not think much of mauve chiffon, but am definitely envious of uncut amethysts, and think to myself that they would look well on me.
Hostess is vivacious – talks to me in a sparkling manner about World Fair, the South – which I must, at all costs, visit – and California, which is, she says, overrated. But not, I urge, the climate? Oh yes, the climate too. Am disillusioned by this, and think of saying that even Wealth cannot purchase Ideal Climate Conditions, but this far too reminiscent of the Fairchild Family, and is instantly dismissed.
Arthur and Billy come down, and I experience renewed tendency to cling to their society in the midst of so much that is unfamiliar, and reflect that I shall never again blame dear Robin for invariably electing to sit next to his own relations at parties. Guests arrive – agreeable man with bald head comes and talks to me, and says that he has been looking forward to meeting me again, and I try, I hope successfully, to conceal fact that I had no idea that we had ever met before.
Dinner follows – table is made of looking-glass, floor has looking-glass let into it and so has ceiling. This arrangement impressive in the extreme, though no doubt more agreeable to some of us than to others. Try to imagine Robert, Our Vicar and even old Mrs Blenkinsop in these surroundings, and fail completely.
After dinner return to quite another drawing-room, and sit next to yellow-satin lady with iron-grey hair, who cross-questions me rather severely on my impressions of America, and tells me that I don’t really like Chicago, as English people never do, but that I shall adore Boston. Am just preparing to contradict her when she spills her coffee all over me. We all scream, and I get to my feet, dripping coffee over no-doubt-invaluable Persian rug, and iron-grey lady, with more presence of mind than regard for truth, exclaims that I must have done it with my elbow and what a pity it is! Cannot, in the stress of the moment, think of any form of words combining both perfect candour and absolute courtesy in which to tell her that she is not speaking the truth and that her own clumsiness is en
tirely responsible for disaster. Iron-grey woman takes the initiative and calls for cold water – hot water no good at all, the colder the better, for coffee.
(Query: Why does she know so much about it? Is it an old habit of hers to spill coffee? Probably.)
Extensive sponging follows, and everybody except myself says that It ought to be All Right now – which I know very well only means that they are all thoroughly tired of the subject and wish to stop talking about it.
Sit down again at furthest possible distance from iron-grey woman – who is now informing us that if my frock had been velvet she would have advised steaming, not sponging – and realise that, besides having ruined my frock, I am also running grave risk of rheumatic fever, owing to general dampness.
Remainder of the evening, so far as I am concerned, lacks entrain.
November 6th. – Chicago visit draws to a close, and Pete, after a last solemn warning to me about the importance of visiting book-stores in all the towns I go to, returns to New York, but tells me that we shall meet again somewhere or other very soon. Hope that this is meant as a pleasant augury, rather than a threat, but am by no means certain.
November 7th. – Wake up in middle of the night and remember that I never asked Robert to water indoor bulbs, planted by me in September and left, as usual, in attic. Decide to send him a cable in the morning. Doze again, but wake once more with strong conviction that cable would not be a success as: (a) It might give Robert a shock, (b) He would think it extravagant. Decide to write letter about bulbs instead.
Final spate of social activities marks the day, and includes further visit to World Fair, when I talk a great deal about buying presents for everybody at home, but in the long run only buy Indian silver bracelet with turquoise for Caroline C. (Will take up no extra room in flat, and am hoping she will wear it, rather than leave it about.)
The Diary of a Provincial Lady Page 39
