Monk's Folly, 5th August

Darling Elizabeth:

Last night Lady Beatrice gave a dinner for the Parkers. I wore the blue brocade with the Peter Lely bodice, and that odious Mr. Rumple took me in. I am sure Lady Beatrice decided on it at the last moment to spite me, because she overheard me ask Mr. Frame how such a champion as he liked being beaten by her ladyship every day. Captain Bennett sat on the other side of me and Mr. Frame was opposite, so I devoted myself entirely to them, and left Mr. Rumple to lap up his soup like a horse in a water-trough. Society is falling off terribly now-a-days; we are no longer county but provincial families. I really don't see why because Mr. Rumple is Lady Beatrice's lawyer that she should invite him to dine when she has a party, but of course we have no really smart set down here, and one sends into Taunton for a lawyer or a doctor to fill up a vacant place at a dinner-table, just as one sends in for meat or candles. Mr. Rumple is fat and pasty, and has a beard; his only topics of conversation were the assizes and the war. I asked him why he didn't volunteer, and he looked at me with a Dover to Calais smile, and said what did I think would become of his practice. And I replied, "I believe you are a Pro-Boer, Mr. Rumple." He turned green like a gooseberry, and then purple, and Lady Beatrice cried sharply, "What is that you are, Mr. Rumple?" "Pro-Boer," he faltered, echoing my words, and everybody was upon him at once like a pack of wolves. He isn't really anything of the sort, but a Tory who believes that because Lady Beatrice was a duke's daughter she is part of the Constitution. Algy Chevington says he is a rising man, but I prefer to know such people when the process is complete, for this rising is only another term for moulting, which is decidedly unpleasant to witness in the male species of the respectable middle-class.

In the drawing-room, before the men joined us, Mrs. Parker sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Marching through Georgia," and Lady Beatrice actually joined in the chorus. Mrs. Parker's dress was not made at Paquin's, and she only wore one decent ring. Miss Parker, however, kept up the family's reputation for wealth, and wore ropes of diamonds round her neck, which made poor Lady Beatrice in her black and yellow satin and amethysts look positively dowdy. Mr. Parker pÈre is, I think, inclined to be jovial if he got the chance. He has small bright eyes, and has lost two fingers on his left hand in the course of his "rising" process. He called me madam continually, and asked me if I thought Lady Beatrice would ever marry, which struck me as so absurd that I laughed outright. "Do you want her for your son?" I said. "God forbid!" he replied, and I thought he was going to poke me in the waist with one of the stumps of his right hand.

Lady Beatrice, as you know, would have fifty fits of the most violent epileptic form if a woman attempted to smoke in her presence, and as I saw Blanche Blaine walking up and down on the terrace with a cigar in her cheek I was on the point of joining her when I remembered my neuralgia, but I sent Mr. Parker out to her as he said he found it "darned poky" to have to listen to his wife's voice.

Captain Bennett at once took the vacant place, and began to apologise most profusely for his behaviour two days ago. He looked really miserable, and there wasn't any more blue fire in his eyes. He has to go back to Windsor to-morrow, and I shan't see him again. He wanted to know if I was sorry and if I would let him come back, and then to my amazement he declared he loved me. It was a most unfair advantage, and I told him so; we were sitting in the middle of Lady Beatrice's drawing-room. Mr. Frame and Lady Beatrice were looking at us as hard as they could, and I am sure Daisy Blaine heard every word he said. I begged him to stop, but he said recklessly he didn't care if the whole room heard; that I had encouraged Captain Bennett's Threathim and broken his heart. He had never loved a woman before, and if I wouldn't have him he was going to hell, and it would all be at my door. I think it was villainously low down of him, and at that moment I would have preferred Mr. Rumple to be sitting next me. I got up to go away, but he had hold of my skirt and said I should hear him out, and as I didn't care to leave yards of Paquin in his hands I submitted. Captain Bennett is a perfect brute, and I am sure he had drunk too much of Lady Beatrice's champagne. And to think how deceived I had been in him! I thought him such a nice, manly young fellow, with such good manners, and such a straight back and long legs, so smart and handsome; and he was so insulting and threatening, and had hold of my skirt so that I couldn't budge. How I hate him. As if I would ever dream of marrying a parvenu, even if his fortune would build a line of battle ships. When he finally let me move, he said he was going back to Windsor to blow out his brains. I told him with my sweetest smile, for Lady Beatrice scented something and was glaring at me, that if I were he I would do something original, and that I was sure he hadn't a bit of originality about him, for he talked "Family Herald"just like the Family Herald. He laughed and said he would like to choke me, and that I had not seen the last of him, and he would have me on my knees at his feet yet. A really horrid young man. I wish he would go to South Africa; I am sure nobody would miss him.—Your dearest Mamma.