American Duchess by Karen Harper

Author:Karen Harper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

It made my spirits soar to know I was not socially ostracized in the States because of my marriage separation, and that even among some of my London friends, few seemed perturbed. Of course, I knew that going through with a divorce might be a different situation altogether.

In London, my godmother Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, had invited me to one of her popular literary circle soirees. Oh, how I loved this sort of gathering, where, rather than social tittle-tattle, ideas and books and plays were spoken of and argued and often by the very men who had written them.

I was especially excited that I was sought out by many of the guests. Grinning, but shaking a finger at me, H. G. Wells said, “One more good deed from you among the so-called underclasses, my dear Mrs. Marlborough, and your former friends will have to brand you a socialist, and welcome to that club!”

He took a good gulp of wine, then raised his goblet as if he were toasting me, for he was a bit radical with all his criticism of the government—in fiction, at least. I had read his books The Time Machine and War of the Worlds and thought him terribly clever, however much I read a threat of doomsday beneath his stories.

“Do not threaten this lovely lady,” John Galsworthy, standing on my other side, insisted.

I thought Mr. Galsworthy rather a nervous sort. He spoke quietly, unlike the others who raised their voices over the buzz in the room, so I had to strain to hear him. I had thought at first he had gravitated to my side to pump me for inside information about the aristocracy, since he had begun a series of novels about a fictional Forsythe family, but he usually said hardly a word. He was, I thought, an observer, not a talker. He had, however, asked me if I had ever thought of authoring something like The Marlborough Saga, to which I answered, “I dare not, for truth is stranger than fiction.”

The most interesting man today—not counting Winston who was here for once and had been kind enough to bring Clemmie to accompany me—was the very handsome, dark-haired and mustached Bernard Shaw, not to be called George, I had heard. His Irish accent was charming, though the tenor of his thoughts was not. It seemed he liked to criticize everything English, but then, I suppose, that was natural for a theater and music critic.

“The duchess is not a socialist, Wells,” Bernard told his fellow writer, “but a fine example of my independent-thinking ‘New Woman.’ I will have to write a play called The Duchess of Destruction, for I believe she is out to declare war on slum landlords and even champion ‘women of the night,’ to get them out of that profession.”

I was taken aback by that comment but not insulted. His drama Mrs. Warren’s Profession was about a prostitute, and the author Henry James, who was not here this time, championed independent career women in what he considered an unfair male-dominated society.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.