WOMAN’S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1927, Page 19

WOMAN’S WORLD

A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN. REGAL BEAUTY. (From Our Lady Correspondent.) London, Nov. 25. Always a eharming picture, the “little Duchess” has never looked so regal as on the night of the brilliant reception at St. James’s Palace to the Dominion Premiers. Train and tiara—the latter studded with rich blue stones that exactly matched the colour of her eyes —enhanced the note of imperial beauty and seemed to add considerably to her height. Her gown of rose chiffon velvet became her to perfection, with its handsome panel embroideries in silver coat-of-mail sewn on to the fabric, and the train subtly emphasised by the two shades of pink in which it was materialised. As more than one guest remarked, the “little Duchess” looked every inch a queen, while I caught one typically feminine sotto voce: “Trains will soon be ’in’ again!” AT STUDLEY ROYAL. The Duke and Duchess of York are now in Yorkshire for a week’s rest. They had a strenuous time lately, and the Duchess, particularly, is in need of quiet, and a little relaxation from London’s hectic whirl. She and the Duke are staying at Studley Royal, the late Marquis of Ripon’s old home, which now belongs to the Duchess's great friend, Lady Doris Vyner, and her husband, who live a very quiet country life up there. Lady Doris and her husband, Mr. Clare Vyner, will both be in the Duke and Duchess of York’s Australian entourage, the former on the Duke’s personal staff, while Lady Doris is to share the duties of lady-in-waiting with the Countess of Cavan, an arrangement which has greatly pleased the little Royal lady they are to attend. REAL “YARKSHIRE.” If there is one thing more than another that has endeared Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, to the hearts of Yorkshire folk, it is the rapidity with which Her Royal Highness has become familiar with, the Northland dialect. Her unaffected enjoyment of country entertainments, with dialect songs and recitations “featuring” in the programme, is a source of unending delight to her humbler neighbours. They are never tired of proclaiming proudly that their Princess is “one of themselves.” Another quality that endears her to the county of her adoption is that genuine love of horses, as of all animals, which is one of Her Royal Highness’s best-known characteristics. No less coommendable, to the sturdy Yorkshire people, is her upbringing of her tow small sons. The complete absence of anything like “molly-coddling” from the royal* maternal regime is mightily approved by Princess Mary’s staunchest admirers. PRINCE AND THE CHARLESTON. The Prince of Wales’s enthusiasm for the Charleston is expressed in the new version that insists on the feet being kept close to the ffoor. The sideways kick that evoked so much criticism and worked such havoc with the ankles of other dancers has completely disappeared from the polite edition of the dance. According to Santos Casani and other experts, this kicking and wriggling was never intended to be a feature of the Charleston. The dreamy rhythm that is a much more characteristic quality of negroid music is its essential attribute, giving it a strong resemblance to the Spanish tango. And that is how His Royal Highness is dancing this much-diseussed item in the modern terpsichorean programme. TirE MANNEQUIN TWINS. I hear that Lord Ruthven Is very much amused at the idea of his daughers, the Hon. Margaret and the Hon. Allison Ruthven, becoming mannequins in a Society dress shop in Mayfair, but that the twins themselves are furious that the secret has leaked out. Their friends in London are not surprised at their desire to do some kind of work taking this particular form, for the sisters have an excellent clothes sense, and have always been the cynosure of all eyes at any function they have attended particularly the smart race meetings up and down the country. They always dress alike to the t very last detail, and are so similar in appearance that even their nearest friends do not know them apart. As one goes one day and the other the next to the Society dressmaker they are helping, she can scarcely tell whether it is Margaret or Allison with whom she is dealing. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE’S SUCCESSOR. Dame Katherine Furee, who was fiftyone this week, is one of the new generation unafflicted with the feminine weakness for concealing her age. She has no need to, for her years contain some achievement. A daughter of John Addington Symonds, of Bristol, she married Charles Furse the artist. She is Florence Nightingale’s direct successor, for at the outbreak of the Great War she proceeded to the Front as Commandant-in-Chief of the V.A.D. and eventually she became Director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Her organising genius in both positions has left the nation her debtor. And, although she is not an avowed feminist, she has abundantly vindicated the claims of her sex to be taken into account in our national life. SHOCKING THE PEERESSES. Lady Oxford seems to have ©occasioned a mild flutter in the Society dovecotes by going down to the House of Lords in Russian boots. And everyone is asking ’to-day whether “Margot” is intent upon setting a new fashion. For the Russian boot has never been really “accepted” in Mayfair or Belgravia. Bond-street has either refused to stock the boots altogether, or has kept them discreetly in the background. But her friends refuse to believe that “Margot?’ has become a convert. They think, on the contrary, that her main object in donning Russian boots was merely to “to shock the Peeresses,” and give them something fresh to talk about.

MOVING UP THE “MOVIES.” How the prestige of the “movies” has gone up since so many distinguished people began to include them in their social itinerary! The Duke and Duchess of York, during the past fortnight, have seen both “Beau Geste,” and “Ben Hur.” The Queen of Spain also attended these two outstanding film successes. But it is “Ben Hur,” at the “Tivoli,” that is drawing what must surely be an unprecedented number of famous visitors. The list includes no fewer than seven “Royalties,” and a string of social celebrities, among them Lord and Lady Oxford (both of whom are by way of becoming real film “fans”), Princess Bibesco and Mr. Anthony Asquith and Dame Margaret Lloyd George and Miss Megan and Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten. STRANGERS IN STRANGE LANDS. It is not only a question of climate that lures away the literary folk who become the rage of London in general and Mayfair in particular. France and Italy continue to claim a growing number of them, but the reason is not always what is popularly supposed. Neither sunshine nor economies is wholly responsible for the emigration. More than one “best-seller” has confided to me that it is impossible to do any serious work in a city that is far too hospitable to slaves of the pen. Briefly, once you get caught up into a certain “set,” it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a literary nose to the grindstone. You are constantly meeting the same people and hearing the same kind of talk; and the incessant social merry-go-round, with the same figures always in the picture, is not good for inspirational activities. As strangers in strange lands, there is some chance of getting down to the task in hand. THE BAN. One of the handsomest and most attractive small boys in la Belle France is little Raoul Lamartine. His mass of curly hair, and the shape and expression of hie eyes and the beautiful brow above them, make a picture that recalls the paintings of Vigee Le Brun. Some day, Raoul will be an immensely wealthy young man, for on his coming-of-age he is to inherit hie father’s huge fortune. On one condition. A ban is imposed on nicotine. Raoul must abstain from any indulgence in the fragrant weed until his twenty-first birthday. The piquant feature of this prohibition is that Monsieur Lamartine made his “pile” in tobacco! SERVICE FIRST. Music with meals is not the unmixed attraction that some restaurant proprietors appear to imagine. After all, “the food’s the thing” when one is dining out, and no amount of conscientious orchestral work will compensate for poor service or ill-cooked fare. Moreover, the art of conversation being not yet dead, despite persistent asseverations to the contrary, a musical accompaniment on the fortissimo scale to a piano (not to mention a pianissimo) exchange of talk can be positively maddening ! One Soho restaurant has recently taken an intelligent step in the right direction, and has secured a referendum on this much-discussed topic of music at meals." A majority that comes very near to 12-1 against is probably more indicative of the general view that either M. le proprietaire or M. le chef d’orehestre imagines. It is only in the ‘flashy’ places, I fancy, that diners like a perpetual noise. THE BEAUTIFUL LADIES. It is not surprising to hear that the fascinating humanity and vivid style of Lord Curzon’s posthumous “Leaves from a Viceroy’s Notebook’ are causing a big demand for the book by discriminating readers. Not the least engaging chapter is devoted to an account of the famous monasteries of Mount Athos. The Middle Ages have stood still in this romantic region for nearly ten centuries. Ninety years before Lord Curzon’s visit an ancestor of his wrote a book about this little known region, whereon our Lord Curzon’s comments are delightful. In a characteristic passage Lord Curzon describes his parting, on the beach before boarding his yacht, with the acting Abbot of one historic monastery. Lord Curzon mentioned that he had been in Tiflis. “Ah,” said the old monk, “1 lived myself many years in Tiflis.” Then, after a pause, “And do the beautiful ladies still exist there?” “Yes,” said Lord Curzon, “they do; may I ask if your holiness sometimes cherishes an affectionate recollection of their charms?” “Yes,” replied the monk, with a pathetic twinkle in his eye, “1 have indeed sometimes an arriere pensee!” GISH GUSH. Miss Dorothy Gish’s visit to the House of Commons decided M.P.’s that even film stars never look the least like their photographs. Actors and actresses are difficult enough to identify off the stage, but a film star would baffle Sherlock Holmes. The famous cinema queen came to tell the First Commissioner how fatal it would be to the British film industry if Hyde Park cannot be used as a film studio, but the polite Under-Secretary who interviewed her, though he took her tea, declined to be impressed even by her urgent American twang. Some whole-souled commercial men regard the ban on film rehearsals in the royal parks as red-tape snobbery and downright restraint of trade. But if we are to have sensational film dramas “shot” in Rotten Row, even Lloyd’s may refuse to quote a premium for Society riders. REAL “STAR” DUST. In these publie film rehearsals, moreover, sometimes the expensive film stars run serious risks. Shortly after the Armistice a very ambitious scene was “shot’ on the Horse Guards Parade, entirely without permission, and incidentally ruined by the gallant intervention of a sturdy old Admeralty doorvention of a sturdy old Admiralty doorkeeper, who dashed in the rescue a silkhatted stranger from what he genuinely took to be an attempted assassination. It was even worse in the case of film scene “shot” one evening in Covent Garden. In this case the heroine was being shamefully molested by the heavy villain, when a Covent Garden porter, who had possibly “had one or two,” suddenly appeared on the secen. The

porter, like most of the men knocking about the market adjoing the N.S.C., was a useful man with his hand,s and proceeded to knock a good deal of dust out of the film star who was villainising.