A Rainy June, and Other Stories

'CARISSIMA TERESA--I received your letter, which is delightful to me because it is yours, and terrible to me because it scolds me, abuses me, flies at me, makes me feel like a schoolboy who has had a scolding. Yes; it is quite true. I cannot help it. She has bewitched me. She is a lily made into a woman. I feared you would be angry, especially angry because she is a foreigner; but the hour of fate has struck. You will not wonder when you see her. She is as blonde as the dawn and as pure as a pearl. It seems to me that I have never loved any woman at all in my life before. To love her is like plunging one's hand in cool spring water on a midsummer noon. She is such repose; such innocence; such holiness! In the midst of this crowded, over-coloured, vulgar London life--for it is very vulgar at its highest--she seems like some angel of purity. I saw her first standing with a knot of roses in her hand under a cedar tree, at one of their afternoon clubs on the river. She was drinking a cup of tea; they are always drinking tea. And she is so white. I never saw anything so white except the snow on the Leonessa. She is not in the least like the fast young ladies of England, of whom one sees so much in the winter at Rome. I do not like their fast young women. If you want a woman who is fast, a Parisienne is best, or even an American. Englishwomen overdo it. She is just like a primrose; like a piece of porcelain; like a soft, pale star shining in the morning. I write all kinds of poetry when I think of her. And then, there is something Sainte Nitouche about her which is delicious, because it is so real. The only thing which was wanting in her was that she ought to have been shut up in a convent, and I ought to have had to imperil my soul for all eternity by getting her over a stone wall with a silken ladder. But it is a prosaic age, and this is a very prosaic country. London amuses me, but it is such a crowd, and it is frightfully ugly. I cannot think how people who are so enormously rich as the English can put up with such ugliness. The houses are all too small, even the big ones. I have not seen a good ballroom; they say there are good ones in the country houses. The clubs are admirable, but life in general seems to me hurried, costly, ungraceful, very noisy, and almost entirely consecrated to eating. It is made up of a scramble and a mass of food. People engage themselves for dinners a month in advance. Everybody's engagement book is so full that it is the burden of their days. They accept everything, and, at the eleventh hour, pick out what they prefer, and, to use their own language, "throw over" the rest. I do not think it is pretty behaviour, but nobody seems to object to it. I wonder that the women do not do so, but they seem to be afraid of losing their men altogether if they exact good manners from them. People here are not at all well-mannered, to my taste; neither the men nor the women. They are brusque and negligent, and have few petits soins. You should have come over for my marriage to show them all what an exquisite creature a Venetian patrician beauty can be. Why would you marry that Piedmontese? Only two things seem to be of any importance in England--they are, eating and politics. They eat all day long, and are always talking of their politics. Half of them say some person I never heard of is the destruction of England, the other half say the same person is the salvation of England. Myself, I don't care the least which he is; only I know they cannot keep him out of their conversation, one way or another, for five minutes; which, to an unprejudiced foreigner, is a seccatura. But to-morrow I go down into the country with my primrose--all alone; to-morrow she will be mine altogether and unalterably, and I shall hear nothing about their detestable politics or anything that is tiresome. Of course, you are wondering that I should take this momentous step. I wonder myself, but then if I did not marry I should be compelled to say an eternal farewell to the Lenten Lily. She has such a spiked wall around her of male relatives and family greatness! It is not the convent wall; there is no ladder that will go over it; one must enter by the big front door, or not at all. Felicitate me, and yet compassionate me! I am going to Paradise, no doubt; but I have the uncomfortable doubt as to whether it will suit me, which all people who are going to Paradise always do feel. Why? Because we are mortal or because we are sinners? A reverderci, cara mia Teresina! Write to me at my future Eden: it is called Coombe Bysset, near Luton, Bedfordshire. We are to be there a month. It is the choice of my primrose.'

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.'