1900: The Diamond Rivière of Lady Somebody and the Night of the Household Ball
A Great House in the North
We close this memorandum with an incident of such exquisite complication that we have saved it, as one saves the best wine, for the conclusion. At a Christmas household ball—that annual exercise in democratic pretence by which the quality dance with their servants and everyone pretends this is charming—Lady Somebody’s diamond rivière disappeared from her dressing table between eleven and midnight. The housemaids were questioned; the footmen were searched; the butler offered to resign on principle and was prevailed upon not to, as the household could not function without him. Six months later, the rivière appeared in a pawnbroker’s catalogue, was identified, was retrieved, and its provenance was traced—not to the servants, not to any visiting tradesman, but to Lady Somebody’s own niece, Miss Philippa Crayle, who had been at the ball, had needed the money for reasons connected with a young man of no fortune and considerable charm, and who had assumed, with the magnificent confidence of the young, that no one would notice. Everyone had noticed. No one had said anything, which is the defining characteristic of Lady Somebody’s household and, we would argue, of English society at large.
Miss Crayle has since married the young man, who has since acquired a fortune, though not, so far as one can determine, through honest industry. They are very happy. The rivière is back where it belongs. Nothing, in short, has changed, nor shall it—which is, after all, the whole point of Society, and very possibly of this pamphlet.
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