Chapter VI: From Miss Evelyn Vane in Paris to the Lady Augusta Fleming at Brighton

PARIS, _September_ 30.

DEAR LADY AUGUSTA,

I’m afraid I shall not be able to come to you on January 7th, as you kindly proposed at Homburg. I’m so very very sorry; it’s an immense disappointment. But I’ve just heard that it has been settled that mamma and the children come abroad for a part of the winter, and mamma wishes me to go with them to Hyères, where Georgina has been ordered for her lungs. She has not been at all well these three months, and now that the damp weather has begun she’s very poorly indeed; so that last week papa decided to have a consultation, and he and mamma went with her up to town and saw some three or four doctors. They all of them ordered the south of France, but they didn’t agree about the place; so that mamma herself decided for Hyères, because it’s the most economical. I believe it’s very dull, but I hope it will do Georgina good. I’m afraid, however, that nothing will do her good until she consents to take more care of herself; I’m afraid she’s very wild and wilful, and mamma tells me that all this month it has taken papa’s positive orders to make her stop indoors. She’s very cross (mamma writes me) about coming abroad, and doesn’t seem at all to mind the expense papa has been put to—talks very ill-naturedly about her loss of the hunting and even perhaps of the early spring meetings. She expected to begin to hunt in December and wants to know whether anybody keeps hounds at Hyères. Fancy that rot when she’s too ill to sit a horse or to go anywhere. But I daresay that when she gets there she’ll be glad enough to keep quiet, as they say the heat’s intense. It may cure Georgina, but I’m sure it will make the rest of us very ill.

Mamma, however, is only going to bring Mary and Gus and Fred and Adelaide abroad with her: the others will remain at Kingscote till February (about the 3rd) when they’ll go to Eastbourne for a month with Miss Turnover, the new governess, who has proved such a very nice person. She’s going to take Miss Travers, who has been with us so long, but is only qualified for the younger children, to Hyères, and I believe some of the Kingscote servants. She has perfect confidence in Miss T.; it’s only a pity the poor woman has such an odd name. Mamma thought of asking her if she would mind taking another when she came; but papa thought she might object. Lady Battledown makes all her governesses take the same name; she gives £5 more a year for the purpose. I forget what it is she calls them; I think it’s Johnson (which to me always suggests a lady’s maid). Governesses shouldn’t have too pretty a name—they shouldn’t have a nicer name than the family.

I suppose you heard from the Desmonds that I didn’t go back to England with them. When it began to be talked about that Georgina should be taken abroad mamma wrote to me that I had better stop in Paris for a month with Harold, so that she could pick me up on their way to Hyères. It saves the expense of my journey to Kingscote and back, and gives me the opportunity to “finish” a little in French.

You know Harold came here six weeks ago to get up his French for those dreadful exams that he has to pass so soon. He came to live with some French people that take in young men (and others) for this purpose; it’s a kind of coaching-place, only kept by women. Mamma had heard it was very nice, so she wrote to me that I was to come and stop here with Harold. The Desmonds brought me and made the arrangement or the bargain or whatever you call it. Poor Harold was naturally not at all pleased, but he has been very kind and has treated me like an angel. He’s getting on beautifully with his French, for though I don’t think the place is so good as papa supposed, yet Harold is so immensely clever that he can scarcely help learning. I’m afraid I learn much less, but fortunately I haven’t to go up for anything—unless perhaps to mamma if she takes it into her head to examine me. But she’ll have so much to think of with Georgina that I hope this won’t occur to her. If it does I shall be, as Harold says, in a dreadful funk.

This isn’t such a nice place for a girl as for a gentleman, and the Desmonds thought it _exceedingly odd_ that mamma should wish me to come here. As Mrs. Desmond said, it’s because she’s so very unconventional. But you know Paris is so very amusing, and if only Harold remains good-natured about it I shall be content to wait for the caravan—which is what he calls mamma and the children. The person who keeps the establishment, or whatever they call it, is rather odd and _exceedingly foreign_; but she’s wonderfully civil and is perpetually sending to my door to see if I want anything. She’s tremendously pretentious and of course isn’t a lady. The servants are not at all like English ones and come bursting in, the footman—they’ve only one—and the maids alike, at all sorts of hours, in the _most sudden way_. Then when one rings it takes ages. Some of the food too is rather nasty. All of which is very uncomfortable, and I daresay will be worse at Hyères. There, however, fortunately, we shall have our own people.

There are some very odd Americans here who keep throwing Harold into fits of laughter. One’s a dreadful little man whom indeed he also wants to kick and who’s always sitting over the fire and talking about the colour of the sky. I don’t believe he ever saw the sky except through the window-pane. The other day he took hold of my frock—that green one you thought so nice at Homburg—and told me that it reminded him of the texture of the Devonshire turf. And then he talked for half an hour about the Devonshire turf, which I thought such a very extraordinary subject. Harold firmly believes him mad. It’s rather horrid to be living in this way with people one doesn’t know—I mean doesn’t know as one knows them in England.

The other Americans, beside the madman, are two girls about my own age, one of whom is rather nice. She has a mother; but the mother always sits in her bedroom, which seems so very odd. I should like mamma to ask them to Kingscote, but I’m afraid mamma wouldn’t like the mother, who’s awfully vulgar. The other girl is awfully vulgar herself—she’s travelling about quite alone. I think she’s a middle-class schoolmistress—sacked perhaps for some irregularity; but the other girl (I mean the nicer one, with the objectionable mother) tells me she’s more respectable than she seems. She has, however, the most extraordinary opinions—wishes to do away with the aristocracy, thinks it wrong that Arthur should have Kingscote when papa dies, etc. I don’t see what it signifies to her that poor Arthur should come into the property, which will be so delightful—except for papa dying. But Harold says she’s mad too. He chaffs her tremendously about her radicalism, and he’s so immensely clever that she can’t answer him, though she has a supply of the most extraordinary big words.

There’s also a Frenchman, a nephew or cousin or something of the person of the house, who’s a horrid low cad; and a German professor or doctor who eats with his knife and is a great bore. I’m so very sorry about giving up my visit. I’m afraid you’ll never ask me again.