Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley

								

Fate had begun to weave a web long before the making of that white
dress. None of those tremendous things would have happened to change
heaven knows how many lives, if I hadn't been born with the knack of a
hairdresser, inherited perhaps from some bourgeoise ancestress of mine
on Mother's side.
When the American family found out what Ballyconal was really like, and
the twelfth-century rats had crept out from the hinterland of the old
wainscoting ("rich in ancient oak," the advertisement stated), to
scamper over its faces by night, and door knobs had come off in its
hands by day, or torn carpets had tripped it up and sprained its ankles,
it said bad words about deceitful, stoney-broke Irish earls, and fled at
the end of a fortnight, having paid for two months in advance at the
rate of thirty-five guineas a week. Father had been sadly sure that the
Americans would do that very thing, so he had counted on getting only
the advance money and no more. This meant cheap lodgings for us, which
spoiled Diana's chances from the start, as she told Father the minute
she saw the house. It was in a fairly good neighbourhood, and the
address looked fashionable on paper; but man, and especially girl, may
not live on neighbourhood and paper alone, even if the latter can be
peppered with coronets.
I don't know what curse or mildew collects on poor Irish earls, but it
simply goes nowhere to be one in London; and then there was the handicap
of Father's two quaint marriages. Diana's mother was a music-hall
"artiste" (isn't that the word?) without any money except what she
earned, and also--I heard a woman say once, when she thought Little
Pitcher's ears were engaged elsewhere--without any "h's" except in the
wrong places.
My mother, the poor darling, must have been just as unsuitable in her
way. She was a French chocolate heiress, whom Father married to mend the
family fortunes, when Diana was five; but some one shortly after sprang
on the market a better chocolate than her people made, so she was a
failure, too, and not even beautiful like Diana's mother. Luckily for
her, she died when I was born; but neither she nor the "artiste" can
have helped Father much, with the smart friends of his young days when
he was one of the best-looking bachelors in town.
Diana was considered beautiful, but "the image of her mother," by those
inconvenient creatures who run around the world remembering other
people's pasts; and though she and Father were invited to lots of big
crushes, they weren't asked to any of the charming intimate things which
Diana says are the right background for a débutante. This went to Di's
heart and Father's liver, and made them both dreadfully hard to get on
with. Cinderella wasn't in it with me, except that when they were
beastly, I was beastly back again; a relief to which Cinderella probably
didn't treat herself, being a fairy-story heroine, stuffed with virtues