The Visits of Elizabeth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 210 pages of information about The Visits of Elizabeth.

The Visits of Elizabeth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 210 pages of information about The Visits of Elizabeth.

Chateau de Croixmare,

Wednesday, August 31st.

[Sidenote:  Back at Croixmare]

Dearest Mamma,—­To-day is the dinner and cotillon at the de Tournelles’.  The Marquis and the Vicomte and “Antoine” and every one will be there, and I am sure it will be fun.  The Vicomte can’t get leave for the night, so the Baronne—­who was here yesterday on her bicycle—­told us.  He will have to ride back to Versailles, as there are no trains at that time, to be there for some duty at six in the morning.  I can’t tell you how many miles it is; he will be tired, poor thing.  These last two days have been just alike, that is why I have not written—­the same tiresome ceremony about everything, and the same ghastly evenings.

We went for a drive on Monday, and Godmamma did nothing but question me as to what we had done every minute of the time while we were in Paris.  This is the first chance she has had with me alone.  So I would not tell her a scrap, even a simple thing like Heloise going to the Madeleine.  She thinks I am fearfully stupid, I can see.  I forgot to tell you about the morning we left Paris; Heloise went to see Adam again, and I went shopping with Agnes, but I would not even tell Godmamma that!  Victorine says spiteful things to me whenever she can, but Jean and Heloise are so charming that I don’t mind the rest.  We are to wear sort of garden-party dresses and hats at the entertainment to-night.  Dinner is to be at eight, in a large pavilion, where they have had a beautiful parquet floor laid down, and then when the tables are cleared away, we shall begin the cotillon.  As I have never danced in one before, I hope I sha’n’t make an idiot of myself.

[Sidenote:  Etiquette of the Bathroom]

This morning I very nearly had another row with Godmamma—­you will never guess what for, Mamma!  She knocked at the door of my room before I was quite dressed, and then came in with a face as glum as a church.  She began at once.  She said that she had heard something about me that she hoped was a mistake, so she thought it better to ask me herself.  She understood that I went down to the Salle de Bain every day, instead of just washing in my room. (I have done so ever since Agnes discovered there really was water enough for a decent bath there, and that no one else seemed to use it.) I began to wonder if she was going to accuse me of tampering with the taps—­but not a bit of it!  After a rigmarole, as if she thought it almost too shocking to mention, she said she understood from her maid, who had heard it from the valet de chambre who clears out the bath after I leave, that there never were any wet chemises, and that she was therefore forced to conclude that I got into my tub “toute nue!”

I had been so worked up for something dreadful, that I am sorry to say, Mamma, I went into a shriek of laughter.  That seemed to annoy Godmamma very much; she got as red as a turkey-cock, and said she saw nothing to cause mirth—­in fact, she had hoped I should have been ashamed at such deplorable immodesty, if, as she feared from my attitude, her accusation was correct.  I said, when I could stop laughing, of course it was correct, how in the world else should one get into a bath?

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The Visits of Elizabeth from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.