Delphi collected works o.., p.964
Delphi Collected Works of Ouida (Illustrated), page 964
From the Lady Mary Bruton, Belgrave Square, London, to Mrs d’Arcy, British Embassy, Berlin.
‘The season has been horribly dull; quantities of marriages — people always will marry, however dull it is. The one most talked about is that of the Cowes’ second daughter, Lady Gladys, with the Prince of San Zenone. She is one of the beauties, but a very simple girl, quite old-fashioned, indeed. She has refused Lord Hampshire, and a good many other people, and then fallen in love in a week with this Roman, who is certainly as handsome as a picture. But Cowes didn’t like it at all; he gave in because he couldn’t help it, but he was dreadfully vexed that the Hampshire affair did not come off instead. Hampshire is such a good creature, and his estates are close to theirs. It is certainly very provoking for them that this Italian must take it into his head to spend a season in London, and lead the cotillon so beautifully that all the young women talked of nothing else but his charms.’
From the Lady Mona St Clair, Grosvenor Square, London, to Miss Burns, Schooner-yacht Persephone, off Cherbourg.
‘The wedding was very pretty yesterday. We had frocks of tussore silk, with bouquets of orchids and Penelope Boothby caps. She looked as white as her gown — such a goose! — it was ivory satin, with point de Venise. He is quite too handsome, and I cannot think what he could see in her! He gave us each a locket with her portrait inside. I wished it had been his! I daresay Hampshire would have been better for her, and worn longer than Romeo. Lord Cowes is furious about Romeo. He detests the religion and all that, and he could hardly make himself look pleasant even at church. Of course, there were two ceremonies. The Cardinal had consented at last, though I believe he had made all kinds of fuss first. Lady Gladys, you know, is very, very High Church, and I suppose that reconciled a little the very irreconcilable Prelate. She thinks of nothing but the Church and her missions and her poor people. I am afraid the Roman Prince will get dreadfully bored. And they are going down into Bedfordshire, of all places, to be shut up for a month! It is very stupid of her, and such a wet season as it is! They are going to Coombe Bysset, her aunt, Lady Caroline’s place. I fancy Romeo will soon be bored, and I don’t think Coombe Bysset at all judicious. I would have gone to Homburg, or Deauville, or Japan.’
From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds., to the Countess of Cowes, London.
‘Dearest Mother, — I am too, too, too happy. It is no use writing about it. I would if I could, but I can’t. He is delighted with Coombe, and says the verdure is something wonderful. We got here just as the sun was setting. There were all Aunt Carrie’s school children out to meet us, with baskets of roses. Piero said they looked like bigger roses themselves. He is enchanted with our rural England. It is very fine to-day, and I do so hope it won’t rain, but the glass is falling. Forgive a hurried word like this. I am going to take Piero on the lake. I know you haven’t liked it, dear; but I am sure when you see how happy I am you will say there was never anyone like him on earth.
‘He is an angel. We ride in the morning, we sing and play in the evening. We adore each other all the twenty-four hours through. I wonder however I could have lived without him. I am longing to see all he tells me about his great marble palaces, and his immense dreamlike villas, and his gardens with their multitude of statues, and the wonderful light that is over it all. He protests it is always twilight with us in England. It seems so absurd, when nowadays everybody knows everything about everywhere, that I should never have been to Italy. But we were such country mice down at dear, old, dull, green, muddy Ditchworth. Lanciano, the biggest of all their big places, must be like a poem. It is a great house, all of different coloured marbles, set amidst ilex groves on the mountain side, with cascades like Terni, and gardens that were planned by Giulio Romano, and temples that were there in the days of Horace. I long to see it all, and yet I hope he will not want to leave Coombe yet. There is no place like the place where one is first happy. And somehow, I fancy I look better in these homely, low rooms of Aunt Carrie’s, with their Chippendale furniture and their smell of dry rose leaves, than I shall do in those enormous palaces which want a Semiramis or a Cleopatra. They were kind enough to make a fuss about me in London, but I never thought much of myself, and I am afraid I must feel rather dull to Piero, who is so brilliant himself, and has all kinds of talents.’
From the Countess of Cowes, Cowes House, London, to the Duchess of Dunne, Wavernake, Worcestershire.
‘No, I confess I do not approve of the marriage; it will take her away from us, and I am afraid she won’t be happy. She has always had such very exaggerated ideas. She is not in the least the girl of the period. Of course, she was taken by his picturesque face and his admirable manners. His manners are really wonderful in these days, when our men have none at all; and he has charmingly caressing and deferential ways which even win me. I cannot wonder at her, poor child, but I am afraid; candidly, I am afraid! He makes all our men look like ploughboys. And it was all done in such tremendous haste that she had no time to reason or reflect; and I don’t think they have said two serious words to each other. If only it had been dear old Hampshire, whom we have known all our lives, and whose lands march with ours! But that was too good to be, I suppose, and there was no positive objection we could raise to San Zenone. We could not refuse his proposals merely because he is too good-looking, isn’t an Englishman, and has a mother who is reputed maîtresse femme! Gladys writes from Coombe as from the seventh heaven. They have been married three days! But I fear she will have trouble before her. I fear he is weak and unstable, and will not back her up amongst his own people when she goes amongst them; and though, now-a-days, a man and woman, once wedded, see so little of each other, Gladys is not quite of the time in her notions. She will take it all very seriously, poor child, and expect the idyl to be prolonged over the honeymoon. And she is very English in her tastes, and has been so very little out of England. However, every girl in London is envying her; it is only her father and I who see these little black specks on the fruit she has plucked. They are gone to Coombe by her wish. I think it would have been wiser not to subject an Italian to such an ordeal as a wet English June in an utterly lonely country house. You know, even Englishmen, who can always find such refuge and comfort in prize pigs and strawyards, and unusually big mangolds, get bored if they are in the country when there is nothing to shoot, and Englishmen are used to being drenched to the skin every time they move out. He is not. Lord Cowes says love is like a cotton frock — very pretty as long as the sun shines, but it won’t stand a wetting. I wish you had been here; Gladys looked quite lovely. The Cardinal most kindly relented, and the whole thing went off very well. Of the San Zenone family, there was only present Don Fabrizio, the younger son, a very good-looking young man. The terrible Duchess didn’t come, on account, I think, of her sulks. She hates the marriage on her side as much as we do on ours, I am sure. Really, one must believe a little bit in fate. I do think that Gladys would soon have resigned herself to accepting Hampshire, out of sheer fatigue at saying “No,” and, besides, she knew that we are so fond of him, and to live in the same county was such an attraction. But this irresistible young Roman must take it into his head that he wished to see a London season, and when once they had met (it was one afternoon at Ranelagh) there was no more chance for our poor, dear, good, stupid neighbour. Well, we must hope for the best!’
From the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the Duchessa dell’Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Rome.
‘Carissima Mia, — There are quantities of birds in little green nests at this season. I am in a green nest. I never saw anything so green as this Paradise of mine. It is certainly Paradise. If I feel a little like a fish out of water instead of a happy bird in it, it is only because I have been such a sinner. No doubt it is only that. Paradise is chilly; this is its only fault. It is the sixth of June and we have fires. Fires in the dressing-rooms, fires in the drawing-rooms, fires at both ends of the library, fires on both sides of the hall, fires everywhere; and with all of them I shiver. I cannot help shivering, and I feel convinced that in my rapture I have mistaken the month — it must be December! It is all extraordinarily trim and neat here; the whole place looks in such perfect order that it might have been taken out of a box of German toys last night. I have a little the sensation of being always at church. That, no doubt, is the effect of the first step towards virtue that I have ever made. Pray do not think that I am not perfectly happy. I should be more sensible of my happiness, no doubt, if I had not quite such a feeling, due to the dampness of the air, of having been put into an aquarium, like a jelly-fish. But Gladys is adorable in every way; and if she were not quite so easily scared, would be perfection. It was that little air of hers, like that of some irresistible Alpine flower, which bewitched me. But when one has got the Alpine flower, one cannot live for ever on it! — however ma basta! I was curious to know what a northern woman was like; I know now. She is exquisite, but a little monotonous, and a little prudish. Certainly she will never compromise me; but then, perhaps, she will never let me compromise myself, and that will be terrible! I am ungrateful; all men are ungrateful; but, then, is it not a little the women’s fault? They do keep so very close to one. Now, an angel, you know, becomes tiresome if one never gets out of the shadow of its wings — here, at Coombe Bysset, the angel fills the horizon, and one’s distance is a Botticelli picture!’
From the Duchessa dell’Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Rome, to the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds., England.
‘Caro mio Pierino, — Are you sure you have an angel? People have a trick of always calling very commonplace women angels. “She is an angel” is a polite way of saying “she is a bore.” I am not sure either that I should care to live with a veritable angel. One would see too much of the wings, as you say; and even a guardian angel must be the terzo incommodo sometimes. Why would you marry an English girl? I daresay she is so good-tempered that she never contradicts you, and you grow peevish out of sheer weariness at having everything your own way. If you had married Nicoletta, as I wanted you to do, she would have flown at you, like a little tigress, a dozen times a week, and kept you on the qui vive to please her. We know what our own men want. I have half a mind to write to your wife and tell her that no Italian is comfortable unless he has his ears boxed twice a day. If your wife would be a little disagreeable, probably you would adore her. But it is a great mistake, Pierino mio, to confuse marriage and love. In reality, they have no more to do with one another than a horse chestnut and a chestnut horse; than the zuccone that means a vegetable, and the zuccone that means a simpleton. I should imagine that your wet English bird’s-nest will force you to realise this truth with lamentable rapidity.’
From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds., to Lady Gwendoline Dormer, British Embassy, Vienna.
‘Dearest Gwen, — I did promise, I know, to write to you at once, and tell you everything; and a whole week is gone and I couldn’t do it, I really couldn’t; and even now I don’t know where to begin. I suppose I am dreadfully vieux jeu. I suppose you will only laugh at me, and say “spoons.” How glad I am Piero cannot say a word of English, and so I never hear that dreadful jargon which I do think so ugly and so vulgar, though you are all so fond of it. I ought not to have come to Coombe Bysset; at least, they all said it was silly. Nessie Fitzgerald was back in London before the week was out, and doing a play. To be sure she was married in October, and she didn’t care a bit about him, and I suppose that made all the difference. To me, it seems so much more natural to shut one’s self up, and Piero thought so too; but I am half afraid he finds it a little dull now. You see, we knew very little of one another. He came for a month of the London season, and he met me at Ranelagh, and he danced the cotillon with me at a good many houses, and we cared for one another in a week, and were married in a month, as you know. Papa hated it because it wasn’t Lord Burlington or Lord Hampshire. But he couldn’t really object, because the San Zenone are such a great Roman family, and all the world knows them; and they are Spanish dukes as well as Italian princes. And Piero is such a grand gentleman, and made quite superb settlements; much more, Papa said, than he could have expected, so poor as we are. But what I meant was, meeting like that in the rush of the season, at balls and dinners and garden parties, and luncheons at Hurlingham, and being married to one another just before Ascot, we really knew nothing at all of each other’s tastes or habits or character. And when, on the first morning at Coombe, we realised that we were together for life, I think we both felt very odd. We adored one another, but we didn’t know what to talk about; we never had talked to each other; we never had time. And I am afraid there is something of this feeling with him. I am afraid he is dreadfully bored, and I told him so, and he answered, “My dear little angel, your admirable countrymen are not bored in the country because they are always eating. They eat a big breakfast, they eat a big luncheon, they eat a big dinner, they are always eating. Myself, I have not that resource. Give me a little coffee and a little wine, and let me eat only once a day. You never told me I was expected to absorb continually food like the crocodiles.” What would he say if he saw a hunting breakfast in the shires? I suppose life is very material in England. I think it is why there is so much typhoid fever. Do you know, he wasn’t going to dress for dinner because we were alone. As if that was any reason! I told him it would look so odd to the servants if he didn’t dress, so he has done so since. But he says it was a seccatura (this means, I believe, a bore), and he told me we English sacrifice our whole lives to fuss, form and the outside of things. There is a good deal of truth in this. What numbers of people one knows who are ever so poor, and who yet, for the sake of the look of the thing, get into debt over their ears! And then, quantities of them go to church for the form of the thing, when they don’t believe one atom; they will tell you at luncheon that they don’t. I fancy Italians are much more honest than we are in this sort of way. Piero says if they are poor, they don’t mind saying so, and if they have no religion, they don’t pretend to have any. He declares we English spoil all our lives because we fancy it is our duty to pretend to be something we are not. Now, isn’t that really very true? I am sure you would delight in all he says. He is so original, so unconventional; our people think him ignorant, because he doesn’t read, and doesn’t care a straw about politics. But I assure you he is as clever as anything can be; and he doesn’t get his ideas out of newspapers; nor repeat like a parrot what his chief of party tells him. I do wish you could have come over and could have seen him. It was so unkind of you to be ill just at the very time of my marriage. You know that it is only to you that I ever say quite what I feel about things. The girls are too young, and Mamma doesn’t understand. She never could see why I would not marry poor Hampshire. She always said that I should care for him in time. I don’t think Mamma can ever have been in love with anybody. I wonder what she married for — don’t you?’
