One Terrible Day

A gilded matron—her surname as ostentatious as the peacock feathers on her picture hat—decides that a sun-dappled picnic will polish her social cachet. She commandeers a fleet of polished automobiles, herds a swarm of unruly moppets, and unleashes them upon an unsuspecting countryside. Within minutes, pristine white gloves are smeared with molasses, a Rolls-Royce sinks axle-deep in duck pond ooze, and the chauffeur—once ramrod-straight—watches his dignity dissolve faster than the ice in the punch bowl. Cream cakes become projectiles, a goat commandeers the victrola, and a runaway kite spirits the hostess’s wig into a thorn tree. By twilight the estate resembles a battlefield: crumpled parasols, traumatized peacocks, and one society queen whose philanthropy has curdled into public-relations poison.