Free Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge by Lindy Woodhead Page B

of the Ocean Sea’, the Duke was a man of modest means who bred Arab horses ata stud farm outside Madrid. Flattered at being met by an escort of the United States Cavalry, and delighted by the lavish hospitality and media attention accorded him and his Duchess, the Duke began to overstay his welcome. Two weeks grew to three and then a month. The organizing committee, panicking at the cost of hosting the ducal couple, suggested it was time to leave. The Veraguas finally agreed to go, but not before the Duke had intimated that the same military escort that had met them on arrival should also see them off at the station. The organizing committee, with no remit to provide a second escort, were saved by an enterprising member who kitted out a team of amateur actors as hussars, mounting them on black horses and equipping them with swords. It did the trick nicely.
    Running the Fair involved considerable diplomacy as tempers flared and egos exploded. The mighty Steinway Piano Company had refused to exhibit, so the committee banned its pianos from being used by any of the dozens of orchestras playing throughout the Fair. This didn’t worry the young musician Scott Joplin, who was practising his new ‘rag-time’ tunes on a rickety upright in a local saloon, but it did alarm the great pianist Ignacy Paderewski who refused to play on anything but a Steinway. The impasse was broken when the Fair’s musical director had the foresight to smuggle in a Steinway, resulting in such a row that the poor man was forced to resign.
    The next Spanish grandee to sample Chicago hospitality was HRH the Infanta Eulalia – daughter of Queen Isabella II and a haughty young woman who was fond of remarking that ‘in Spain there is Nobility – or nothing. We do not recognize the middle classes.’ With the World Fair being targeted at exactly that group, her visit was destined to be tricky. Eulalia and her husband Prince Antoine arrived at the station in George Pullman’s own private railway car – somewhat late having made an unscheduled stop in Pennsylvania, where Eulalia had sent out for a fresh supply of Spanish cigarettes. To the delight of Chicago’s booming tobacco industry – and the distress of Bertha Palmer who loathed smoking – the Infanta puffed prodigiously, even enjoying a cigar after dinner. Her much-publicized habit promptedan enterprising local firm to box up Cuban cigars with her picture on the lid, unfortunately promoting her to ‘Eulalia, Queen of Spain’ in the process.
    The Royal party was allocated a glorious suite at the Palmer House Hotel, stuffed full of antiques and tapestries to make them feel at home. Legend has it that the Infanta at first refused to meet Mrs Palmer on the grounds that she was merely ‘the wife of my innkeeper’. What is certain is that wherever the Infanta went, she was always late. Keeping Spanish-style hours, she didn’t arrive at the gala reception held at the Palmers’ home in her honour until 10.15 p.m. Once there, however, she was invited to take up position on a velvet throne set on rugs impregnated with rare perfumes where she held court until the small hours, while John Sousa’s band kept the party entertained.
    Chicago’s South Side had blossomed into a glorious mass of pearly-white grandeur, shimmering by the lake like Camelot, with the gilded domes of its ‘Court of Honour’ (as the classically styled principal building was called) twinkling in the sunlight. The team of artists and architects who had created this model ‘White City’ as an awesome show of corporate power and consumerism allowed themselves to be described as ‘the greatest meeting of minds since the Renaissance’. In reality, apart from the central, anchor buildings in stone, the whole was mainly done by smoke and mirrors. Most of the buildings were temporary edifices made from a mixture of plaster, cement and jute fibre, all painted white. Critics called them ‘decorated sheds’ but even the sternest