Chapter 8: The Princess Margaretta

She was not only charming--quite common women are sometimes charming-- but there was about her an air of dignity which--I had almost written which was indescribable. She made you feel what an altogether superior person she was, and what an altogether inferior person you were, and yet she did it in a way which really almost made you feel as if she flattered you; paid you a delicate compliment, in fact. I recognised this peculiarity about her from the first.

She made her first appearance on the pier. And an extraordinary sensation she made. Nobody knew who she was, and yet anybody could see that she was somebody. There was, even about the way in which she carried her parasol--my wife noticed it at the time--an indefinable something which marked her out as not being one of the rank and file.

It was one morning when the band was playing that she first appeared. That same night she was at the entertainment in the pavilion. The “Caledonian Opera Company” were there that week, and even the shilling seats were crowded. She was in the second row among the shillings. And by the greatest chance in the world Grimshaw happened to make her acquaintance. He sat in the next seat to her. She dropped her programme; he picked it up; and so the acquaintance was made.

Her behaviour towards him was instinct with the greatest condescension. Grimshaw assured me that he was almost overwhelmed. She really treated him as if he had been her equal; as if he had been an acquaintance of some standing. She allowed him to escort her to her hotel. And she told him all about herself; and, of course, it all came out.

This divinely beautiful woman--I have never heard a word whispered against her beauty, even by the women--was the Princess Margaretta. She had taken a suite of rooms at the hotel--quite a palatial suite, considering--and she had come to stay at Beachington for the season.

I suppose there is no place anywhere where people of rank and position may expect to receive a warmer welcome than at Beachington.

When it was known that the Princess Margaretta was staying at the “Parade Hotel,” all the inhabitants of Beachington called upon her, one might say, within five minutes. The inhabitants of Beachington do not, as a rule, call upon visitors. They are rather a higgledy-piggledy lot, are visitors. In general, they are only welcomed by the hotel proprietors, and lodging-house keepers, and the tradesmen and that class of person. But, in the case of a Princess, Beachington society felt that, as a society it had its duties to fulfil, and it fulfilled them. In that statement you have the situation.

The Princess received everybody. I must own that, for my part, I was a little surprised. She received the Pattens, for instance. And the Pattens are nothing and nobody. It was like their impudence to call on a Princess. Patten was only in the Custom House. And as for his wife--we never even speak of his wife. Then she received the Jacksons. It is the belief, at Beachington, that old Jackson used to keep a public-house. It is not only that he suffers from a chronic thirst, but he looks like it. And there were other people. But then, of course, she could not be expected to be able to discriminate at first. She wanted an adviser. I am bound to say that, ere long, she had more advisers than perhaps she cared for. Some people are so pushing.

I assure you that I have never known Beachington livelier than it was that season. The Princess was a widow. There is something pathetic even in the mere state of widowhood. In the case of a young and beautiful woman the pathos is heightened. And the Princess was rich. She owned it with a most charming frankness. It seemed her husband had been an American, and he had added his fortune to her fortune, and the result was a mountain of wealth which weighed the Princess down. She spoke of handing it over to the starving millions, and being free again. As I have said, I had never imagined that Beachington could have been so lively.

I confess that I was taken aback when, one day, Grimshaw dragged me along the parade, past the asphalt, on to the rough ground, where there were no people, and put to me this question, --

“Beamish, do you think it would be impossible for a man to fight a duel nowadays?”

I stared at him. I asked him what he meant. Then it all came out.

Grimshaw was actually making eyes at the Princess Margaretta: Grimshaw is three years younger than I am, and I am fifty-five. He is short and stout, not to say puffy. He is balder than I am, and my wife says that for me to brush my hair is a farce. He lives in unfurnished rooms, for which he pays twenty pounds a year with attendance, and he has nothing but his half pay to live upon.

“Do you think that if I were to fix a public insult upon Crookshanks I could force him to call me out?”

Crookshanks--he calls himself “Surgeon-General” upon his cards; he is a retired army doctor--is about sixty. He has been a widower nearly twenty years. His eldest daughter is herself a widow. She has two children. Mother and children all live with him. He has two other daughters, both unmarried. Between them poor Crookshanks hardly dare call his soul his own. And yet Crookshanks was not only making up to the Princess, but, in Grimshaw’s judgment, he was proving himself a dangerous rival.

I told Grimshaw that it was only because Crookshanks was a greater idiot than himself that he was not the greatest idiot in Beachington. I don’t stand on ceremony with Grimshaw--I never have done.

“I don’t know.” Grimshaw mopped his brow. The slightest exertion makes him painfully warm. “If I could only get Crookshanks out of the way, I have reason to believe she cares for me.”

I asked him what his reason was. He hesitated. When he spoke his tone was doubtful. I detected it, although he tried to disguise the thing.

“I lent her fifteen pounds. I don’t think that a woman would borrow money from a man unless she cared for him. What do you think--eh, Beamish?”

I did not know what to think. I happen to know that Grimshaw’s daily expenditure is measured out with mathematical exactness. I wanted to know where he got his fifteen pounds from. This time his tone was unmistakably rueful.

“I had to borrow it myself; and I had to pay a stiff price for it, too. She wanted it for flowers.”

Wanted it for flowers! I told him that I thought he had more sense. Russian women are notoriously careless in money matters. Fifteen pounds were nothing to her, while to him--they were fifteen pounds. I promised that he would never see his money again. I left Grimshaw with his heart in his boots. He made no further reference to fighting Crookshanks.

But, the fact is, I soon found out that everybody was making love to the Princess Margaretta. Not only all the unmarried men but, unless rumour lied, some of the married men as well, There were some pretty scandals! Rouse, the curate of St Giles’, had a tête-à-tête dinner with her in her private sitting-room, and stayed so late that the landlord of the “Parade Hotel” had to tell him it was time to go. I charged Rouse with it to his face. He had the grace to blush.