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12 May 1911 — 3 Savile Row | |
Friday. 12th [May 1911]. Rather depressed & thought I had better not to have come to London at this season—but must go thro’ with it now. Drove with the girls late in the afternoon & came back to tea late. The Wylds return to their home. At 6.30 I drove to Buckingham Palace to see Mlle Dussau. Went up to her rooms in the lift & found her in a corner room overlooking the Mall. She took me at once into outer room along the passage where we sat at a window & waited to see the King & Queen return from the Festival of Empire at the Crystal Palace. We had but a short time to wait & a few minutes after 7 the roar of the crowd & distant cheering announced the arrival. They were in an open carriage drawn by 4 horses & preceded by an escort & ADCs. As they drove in they looked up & seeing us at the open window bowed to us. The view from the window is very striking looking straight down the Mall & over St James Park with the piece of water & bridge. The eveng mists just coming up gave a Turner like look to the scene. The new Monument to Queen Victoria is too white at present to harmonize with the scene but this will quickly be remedied by our London smoke. In the passage on our return to Mlle Dussau’s sitting room we looked into the court on the centre of the Palace where their Majesties just got out of the carriage & we saw the guards &c disperse. There we were joined by little Prince John a nice fair little fellow of about 6 whom I had never before seen—he was rather shy—but spoke French prettily. While I sat talking with Mlle Dussau in her room the door opened & Princess Mary came in to tell Mlle D. about the fête at the Crystal Palace from which she had just come. She said it had been very long & very hot but the music had been fine. We asked her if Clara Butt had sung God save the King—she said not as a solo—& when I said how that anthem always made me moved & what a pity the Germans now insisted also in using that air—wh had so long been considered as our property. I jokingly said I thought they were rich eno’ to afford themselves a new tune. The Princess is fair & has her hair still over her shoulders & wears a short frock which she complained of as being too long. She is not very tall. We all 3 stood talking French about the fête & about the bead chains which the Princess has also learned to make & then she returned to her rooms & I went away home– Louis DC took Nela & Eda to the theatre & I went to dine with Cornelia at Wimborne House. She is much perturbed as her son Ivor is to have an operation for appendicitis next week—she was also sleepy & conversation dragged on till a little after 10 when I went away home. Mlle D. said that P. Albert of S. Holstein is so German that the King gets annoyed & one day he said to him Dont be an ass Albert, you know English better than that. We also talked about the C. Prince of Germany & that while talking of the Kaiser his father he had said that he was so fond of decorations that he would try to invent one for the Supreme Being! The Prince it appears has done things in India paying attention to lovely women &c so as to have incurred the displeasure of the Kaiser & has been sent in disgrace to Danzig. | |
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