[Vwoolf] "damned condescending"

[Stuart N. Clarke]

In 1931 VW noted: “Death of Lady St Helier--who was so d--d condescending to me, 30 years ago.” (Diary IV p. 8).  Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have described the incident anywhere.  She does, however, mention her autobiog. (“Memories of Fifty Years”) as a “nonsense biography” (Diary I p. 189), and she does connect her to Geo. Duckworth: “What he liked, he explained, was to know 'nice people'; Lady Jeune was nice ...” (“22 Hyde Park Gate” in “Moments of Being” [1985], p. 169).  Nice, here, has a special meaning, of course.

I hope you’re not confused by her names.  VW makes them clear in her note 1 to Ch. 3 of “Three Guineas”:

“Lady St Helier who, as Lady Jeune, preserved the eighteenth-century tradition, informs us, however, that ‘Plovers’ eggs at 2s. 6d. apiece, forced strawberries, early asparagus, petits poussins . . . are now considered almost a necessity by anyone aspiring to give a good dinner’ (1909); and her remark that the reception day was ‘very fatiguing . . . how exhausted I felt when half-past seven came, and how gladly at eight o’clock I sat down to a peaceful tête-à-tête dinner with my husband!’ (Memories of Fifty Years, by Lady St Helier, pp. 3, 5, 182)”

Unfortunately, Naomi Black is still confused in *her* note in the Shakespeare Head Edition of “Three Guineas”: p. 222, n. to p. 142: “Susan Mary Elizabeth, Lady St Helier and later Baroness Jeune”.  No: Lady Jeune became Lady St Helier when her husband was raised to the peerage as Baron St Helier.  Yes, strictly speaking, she became a baroness, but you can’t really say that in England – it sounds so foreign – just like Naomi Black’s note (one thinks of “In a German Pension”).  However, Naomi *does* correctly correct VW’s p. refs on p. 156 (n. 1 to ch. 3): they should be pp. 182, 184-5.  (VW also quotes from “Memories of Fifty Years” in n. 31 to ch. 1.)

That bit about the plovers’ eggs is worth quoting in full:

“I well remember the quite angry protest which was made about a ball given in Carlton House Terrace [in the old days], where £1,000 was rumoured to have been spent on the floral decorations for the night, this being considered a terribly reckless and unjustifiable act of extravagance. That sum, and double, is often spent nowadays in a single night on one entertainment; and the luxury of dinners and extravagant menus make the expenditure of those days seem a mere bagatelle. Plovers' eggs at 2s. 6d. apiece, forced strawberries, early asparagus, ‘petits poussins’, and the various dishes which are now considered almost a necessity by anyone aspiring to give a good dinner, were then unheard of; and though a longer and more varied menu was presented, still the cost was nothing in comparison with what it now is. The largest expense in those days was the variety of wine and its great price, as every course had its particular vintage, and the distinctive quality of a dinner was the variety and excellence of the wine. Now we content ourselves with drinking champagne and little else through an ordinary London dinner, while much less is consumed of that, even when it is the sole beverage, than used to be the case forty years ago; but this, indeed, seems our sole economy.”

Lady St Helier became an LCC Alderman from 1910 to 1927, and St Helier, Carshalton, is named after her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Helier,_London

So she will be remembered for ever for giving her name to a council estate!

Stuart




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