Elizabeth Visits America

San Francisco.

San Francisco.

Dearest Mamma,--I have just got a letter from Jane Roose about having heard of Mrs. Smith's being on the ship with Harry. Has it come to your ears, too? What on earth could a woman like that want to be going to Zanzibar for, unless she was hunting some man who was going to hunt lions? I call it most extraordinary, don't you? And probably that is what these papers meant by saying he had gone to India with a fair haired widow, and I was so silly I never suspected a thing. Well, if he thinks it will annoy me he is very much mistaken. I don't care in the least, and am amusing myself awfully with Gaston, and you can tell him so; and as for cabling to him, as I think I asked you to in my last letter, don't dream of it! Let him enjoy himself if he can. But how any man could, with that woman, old enough to be his mother! I suppose she has taken some lovely clothes. She always has that sort of attraction, and no doubt she is pouring sympathy into his ears in the moonlight about my unkindness. It makes me feel perfectly sick that anyone can be such a fool as Harry to be taken in by her;--having got away from her once, to go back again.

No doubt it was she prompted him to be so horrible to me (he behaved like a perfect brute you know, Mamma, and I never did a thing). It is only because I can't bear him to be made a fool of that I mind in the least, otherwise I am perfectly indifferent. He can play with whom he chooses, it is nothing to me. Gaston is devoted to me, and although I should not think of divorcing Harry, No matter what he does, because of letting that odious woman become Marchioness of Valmond, still it is nice to know someone else would absolutely die for you, isn't it, even though I don't want to marry him--Gaston, I mean--We arrived here last night. We have come all round this way because now we are about it Octavia felt we ought to see Salt Lake City and San Francisco, and go down the coast to Los Angeles. Then we shall have done this side of America thoroughly. We only rushed through everywhere, of course, but got a general coup d'oeil. Crossing the great Salt Lake was wonderful. It seemed like being at sea on a bridge, and I could not help wondering what it would be like if the lake were rough. You can't think of anything so intelligent as the way that Brigham Young laid out Salt Lake City, seeing far ahead; he planned splendid avenues, and planted trees, and even though lots of them still have only mud roads, and little board shanties down them, they are there all ready for the time when the splendid houses are built, and tram cars and electric light everywhere; and such green and beautiful rich looking country! No wonder, after the desert it seemed the promised land.

I should hate to be a Mormon, wouldn't you, Mamma? Worse than being a Chinee and having to sit at the theatre penned up with only females. Think of sharing a man with six other women, and being a kind of servant. It is natural they look cowed and colourless,--the ones we saw; at least they were pointed out to us. But really it seems much honester to call them wives openly than to be like--but no, I won't speak of it any more. Only I will never share a man with another woman! Not the least little scrap of him; and if Harry thinks I will he is mistaken. To have six husbands is a much better plan; that, at least, would teach one to be awfully agreeable, and to understand the creatures' different ways; but a man to have six wives is an impossible idea,--specially as now it is not necessary, the way they behave. I wish I had got Jane's letter sooner, Mamma, because I could have amused myself more with Gaston than I have. I feel I have lost some opportunities, snubbing him all the time.

San Francisco is perfectly wonderful. Imagine colossal switchbacks going for miles, and other switchbacks crossing them like a chess board, and you have some idea of the way of the streets; hills as steep as staircases, and the roads straight up and down, not zigzag, just being obliged to take the land as it comes; some persons in the beginning, I suppose, having ruled the plan on flat paper without considering what the formation was like, and then insisting on its being ruthlessly carried out.

When we arrived at the station, Octavia and I were put into a two horse fly because it was very windy and cold. It always is, we are told, and the motors for hire were all open. So we started to go to Fairmount, the big hotel right up on the hill. At first it was a sort of gradual slope past such sad desolation of levelled houses, with hardly the foundations left. The results of the earthquake and the fire are so incredible that you would think I was recounting travellers' tales if I described them, so I won't. Presently the coachman turned his two strong fat horses to the right, up one of the perpendicular roads, to get to our destination, but they would have none of it! They backed and jibbed and got as cross as possible, and he was obliged to continue along the slope, explaining to us that there was another turning further on which they might be persuaded to face. But when we got there it was just the same, no whipping or coaxing could get them to sample it. They backed so violently that we nearly went over into the cellars of a ruin at the corner, and the man asked us to get out, as he said it was no use, none of his horses would face these streets. And to go on to a gradual hill was miles further along, and he advised us to walk, as the hotel was only about six hundred yards away!! So in the growing night Octavia and I, clutching our jewel cases, were left to our own devices. We really felt deserted, as now that nearly everything in this neighbourhood is in ruins there are no people about much, and it felt like being alone in a graveyard, or Pompeii after dark. We almost expected bandits and wolves or jackals. We started, holding on our hats and feeling very ill-tempered, but we had not got a hundred yards on our climb, when a motor tore down upon us, and Gaston and the Senator jumped out; they had been getting quite anxious at our non-arrival and come to look for us. Tom, of course, being an English husband, was sure nothing had happened; and when we got there we found him having a cocktail and smoking a cigar calmly in the hotel.

As we have come this way we have picked up Lola sooner. I must call her that, Mamma, although I dislike using peoples' Christian names, but Mrs. Vinerhorn is so long, and everyone calls her Lola, and the Senator wished it; he wants us to be friends. He and I have been even more intimate since he told me his story. I am deeply attached to him; he is a sort of father and yet not--much nicer, really; and the best friend I have in the world, except you, Mamma, and one I would rather tell anything to. He is a perfect dear; we all love him. The two cousins, who were promised Tom, live here and came to dinner; such amusing girls, they would make any party merry, and we had the most gay and festive evening; and one of the Senator's secretaries has joined the party also, a very nice worthy young fellow whom the girls bully. Columbia and Mercedes are the girls' names, and they are both small and dark and pretty. They are both heiresses, and wonderfully dressed. Their two mothers were the Senator's sisters, and "raised" somewhere down South, where he originally came from. But the girls have been educated in New York with Lola.

The crowd in this hotel are totally different looking to Chicago. Some have moustaches, and some even look like sportsmen, and as if they led an idle life and enjoyed it; and a few of the women are lovely, pure pink and white, and golden haired, and that air of breezy go-aheadness which is always so attractive. And all of them seem well dressed, though naturally one or two freaks are about, as in every country.

The food was as excellent as in all the places, and rather more varied--dishes with wonderful salads and ices; and after dinner we sat in the hall and made plans, and Gaston said such entreprenant things in my ear that I was obliged to be really angry with him. So to pay me out he sulked, and then devoted himself to Mercedes. Men are really impossible people to deal with, aren't they, Mamma? So ridiculously vain and unreasonable. I shall be glad to see Mr. Renour again; he was quite different; respectful and yet devoted, not wanting to eat one up like Gaston, and I am sure incapable of treating me like Harry has. I suppose by now they have got right up into Africa. I wonder if she is going to shoot lions, too, or be a shikari or cook his food. I am sure she would look hideous roughing it without her maid. Her hair has to be crimped with tongs, and she has to have washes for her complexion, and things. You know, Mamma, though I don't care a bit, the whole affair has upset me so that the dear Senator noticed I was not quite myself after the post came in, and asked me if there was anything else I wanted that he could do for me. And when I told him only to teach me to be a brazen heartless creature, as hard as nails, he held my hand like I held his, and pressed it, and said we should soon be in the sunshine where the winds did not blow.

"You are too broad gauge to want things like that," he said; "those bitter thoughts are for the puny growths."

And I suddenly felt inclined to cry, Mamma; I can't think why. So I came up to bed;--and I am homesick and I want Hurstbridge and Ermyntrude, and what's the good of anything?

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.