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4 January 1912 — Cairo | |
Thursday. 4th [January 1912]. We breakfasted at ¼ to 9 in the small room all together, after wh Lord Kitchener showed us the drawing rooms. He had turned the ball room into a reception room & has asked for a much larger billiard room to be built. He will probably get this done as he generally gets his own way in everything. Eda & I sat in our upstairs sitting room all the morning working & resting. Lunched at 1.30. At 4 went off in a victoria to call on Princess Nazli. She received me with open arms most affectionately & presented Eda & me each with a fine Egyptian cloak to wear over our other dress as a kind of wrap. Mine is a light pink plush, Eda’s a deep red– She is delighted to have Lord Kitchener here in Egypt as he is an old friend of hers & is helping her to get her arrears of monies paid by the Khedive and she likes to talk with me of our old Constantinople days. We returned to the Agency at 5 & had tea in our own sitting room Lord Kitchener being busy in arranging the furniture &c preparatory to a big dinner party he gave this evening of 31 people. The arrangements were excellent. The table adorned with lovely roses wh are now in lovely bloom here. The guests of the eveng were Count & Css Wachtmeister of the Swedish Agency. He fell to my lot to take me to dinner & was dull & uninteresting. Luckily I had on the other side of me Marten’s Pasha an Italian who had travelled much & who was pleasant eno’. I was introduced to all the other ladies but did not realize their names—one was a Jewish bankers wife stout & dressed in the hideous exaggerated fashion of this moment—clinging skirt wh swathed a kind of fish tail round her & a pair of waggling spangled wings fastened on her shoulder blades. The colours were purple & dark blue. She was very decolletée & the fashion of her dress was such as to give one the idea that her garment finished under her arms—not very pleasant. There colours ceased & the rest was white. There was nice chamber music going on in a recess of one of the windows. Two brothers O’Donnell played solos of violin & violincello in a remarkable manner. one is the bandmaster of an English regiment here & the other qualifying for a post of the same. The music made the evening pass off very nicely until Lord K. sent away the musicians & this gave the signal for the departure of the guests & we retired to bed. | |
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