made much of her, for she was wealthy, pretty, and presentable, and
at a glance Mrs. Cordial perceived that it was Mrs. Veneer’s ambition
to become a social personage. So she took upon herself the pleasant,
and not altogether unprofitable, task of showing Mrs. Veneer about,
and introducing her here, there and everywhere, a service which the
wealthy manufacturer’s wife recognised in many substantially generous
ways. Mrs. Cordial, at the same time, was able to become a benefactress
of singers and instrumentalists of the benefit-concert order, for
Mrs. Veneer, having at present few engagements for which she had not
paid, was, at the instance of Mrs. Cordial, a prolific purchaser of
tickets for concerts and recitals, in addition to charity bazaars and
amateur theatrical performances. As Mrs. Cordial always took care to
impress upon the _bénéficiaires_ the extreme financial importance
of Mrs. Veneer’s acquaintance, they eagerly sought the honour of an
introduction, which flattered her as a would-be patron of the arts,
and generally secured them engagements to sing or play at her little
dinner-parties or afternoon-teas.
And these were the germs of her present “crushes”, yet was her social
progress not rapid enough to satisfy her ambition. So Mrs. Cordial
proposed that her _protégé_ should invite to dinner the chairman of
a company of which her husband was an influential director and who
was an impecunious lordling of high degree, while she would send
invitations to some of the most distinguished of her own acquaintances,
on Mrs. Veneer’s behalf, to meet his lordship. At the same time she
recommended, as being more stylish, the addition of the prefix Vere to
the patronymic Veneer. And a very gorgeous dinner-party it was; for
Gunter’s had _carte blanche_. I do not know why I was among the guests,
except that Mrs. Vere Veneer wanted to show Mrs. Cordial that she, too,
had friends of her own who knew something of London and its people.
I took into dinner an antagonistic old lady, who seemed to think that
nobody who had not been in the army or the diplomatic service had any
social existence whatever. I candidly confessed I had been in neither,
and apologised for the abominable impertinence of existing in spite
of it, and then she relaxed sufficiently to ask me, “Who _are_ these
Vere Veneers?” As she was their guest, like myself, the question
surprised me, but I replied that they were a lady and gentleman from
the Midlands, whereupon she informed me that she knew nothing of
them, but had come there to oblige her friend, Mrs. Cordial. When
the ladies had left the table, a man drew his chair up to mine, and
essayed a commonplace remark or two, then asked me, “Who _are_ these
Vere Veneers?” He also had come to oblige Mrs. Cordial, and so had
three-fourths of the guests.
Yet—would you believe it?—from that dinner-party dates Mrs. Vere
Veneer’s rise as a London hostess. Of course everybody did not
discover, as I did, that it was a kind of “complimentary benefit”
party, but the dinner and the floral decorations were talked about,
and Mrs. Cordial used her influence to obtain paragraphs in certain
gossipy papers, to the effect that Lord Thingamy dined with Mrs. Vere
Veneer, and that there were also present So-and-So and So-and-So, the
best known of the guests, while the amiable hostess looked charming in
something or other.
Since that time Mrs. Vere Veneer has been able to walk alone, and now
she turns the tables, and “takes up” Mrs. Cordial or not, as she finds
it expedient. It is now more useful to take a lady of title about with
her as a companion; and as she buys tickets for everything, drives in
handsome carriages, and always collects about her a little coterie of
pleasant people, she never finds this difficult. It looks well in the
papers that “Mrs. Vere Veneer brought Lady Snooks,” or that “those
inseparables, Lady Clara Gushington and Mrs. Vere Veneer, looked in on
their way from Mr. Lemon Yellow’s Studio Tea.” Mrs. Veneer has acquired
the habit of regarding everything from the point of view of social
advancement. She is of the world worldly, and though her provincial
simplicity has quite worn off, she maintains a universal amiability
that sometimes passes for it. She is charming to everybody, and her
hospitality is proverbial, for she distributes her cards wherever
she goes, but not to any one whose name is never heard. If she goes
anywhere and there is an actor, an artist, a musician, or even a
journalist in the room, with whom she was not previously acquainted,
be sure you will meet him at her next party. Of course, any one who
“receives” is promptly angled for, and they will be mutually visiting
each other before the week is out. Mrs. Vere Veneer literally stalks
drawing-rooms for social entities or Bohemian “somebodies,” and she
is so pleasant about it that nobody attempts to resist her, and every
one goes to her, and the lady-journalists look upon her with a sort
of reverence, and thank Providence that there is a Mrs. Vere Veneer,
for she is always profitable “copy” to them. And, indeed, there be
many others who find her profitable, for she spends much money in
her endeavours to exploit Society. It is an expensive business and a
fatiguing, for she must be always on the move, always on the alert
for the latest sensation. If a new form of entertainment for evening
parties arise, Mrs. Vere Veneer promptly commissions one of the Bond
Street agents to secure it for her next “At Home.” Failing this, she
falls back upon those of her professional acquaintances who sing, or
play, or ventriloquise for guineas and a good supper.
They talk about Mrs. Veneer’s parties, and there be now those born in
the purple who are pleased to find them amusing, and it is said that
next season Mrs. Vere Veneer will be presented at Court by her friend
Lady Snooks—for a consideration. And who knows but in a few years Mrs.
Vere Veneer may be actually received within Court circles, and play
hostess to the most illustrious?
And, in the meanwhile, what of Mr. Vere Veneer? Is there a Mr. Vere
Veneer? you doubtless ask, with most people. Oh, yes; he is not much
to look at, he is rather _gauche_ in his manner, and cannot wear
even Poole’s clothes to look as though they were made for him, and
his conversation is not very entertaining. But he pays the bills
with prompt satisfaction, he tries hard to look as though he were
leading the happiest life in the world, and he rejoices in his wife’s
successes, and cherishes every smile she spares him; but when he can
find an excuse to visit the mills in the Midlands, he does not hesitate
to avail himself of it. However, as he does not know one from the other
of the young men who follow in his wife’s train, or of the women who
are jealous of her gowns, or of the Bohemians who make themselves at
home in his house, and as none of these ever seem to know him from
Adam, he is satisfied to watch the comedy as a spectator, content so
long as his wife plays her part well, and is duly applauded. If he
appears on the programme at all it is simply as “the husband of Mrs.
Vere Veneer.”
_THE DOMESTIC WOMAN_
I once heard a woman, whose only care in life was the effect she
produced on her social surroundings, contemptuously describe Mrs.
Hearthside as “a dull person who sits at home making flannel petticoats
for the children, gives her husband his slippers, and has an egg with
her afternoon tea.” And, it is true, she does all this, and more. But I
knew Mrs. Hearthside before domestic drudgery claimed her for its own;
when she was a young romantic girl, to whom life presented a symphony
of sweet possibilities.
She was the youngest of five daughters, and all had their admirers. To
her the rivalry of the youths, who were proud to consider themselves
her slaves, was a constant source of flattering amusement, but her
heart remained untouched. If she saw any sign of real feeling on the
part of any one of her swains, she was sorry, and her pity would
perhaps incline her to some show of tenderness, which was really
but the expression of her womanly sensibility, but it would flatter
the poor youth into fictitious hopes. And then the comradeship being
disturbed by an intrusion of sentimentality, she would discontentedly
ask, “Why cannot we be chums, without you pretending to be in love
and talking nonsense about marriage?” And he would sulkily answer
that he loved her, and insist on knowing if she cared for any one
better. When she replied that she did not care for any one at all in
that way, he was not satisfied, but would sulk and reproach her for
not loving him, which irritated her. Then she would take to avoiding
the love-sick youth altogether, which would make him moody and
disagreeable; and, her first pity having given place to disappointment,
she would seek to enjoy herself with newer “slaves,” who had not
entered the sentimental stage. But it was always the same thing over
again, they all went through the various stages of comradeship, love,
false hope, despondency, and jealous moodiness, until she came to the
conclusion that the game was not worth the candle. She was romantic,
keenly susceptible to sentiment, but her heart was still unmoved,
sentimentality bored her, passion was quite unknown to her, and she
had an ideal of love, born of day-dreams rather than of actual
experience. Her love episodes had hitherto been pastimes, and the score
had always counted “one love.”
[Illustration]
But the days of her boy-lovers passed over, and, to their despair, she
ceased to take interest in any of them, for a man’s love had taken
possession of her soul, and opened the floodgates of feeling. The
sweet, latent passion of a pure woman’s nature was awakened by this
love, and herself became revealed to her, amazing her by the infinite
range of feeling that lay open. And yet life became narrowed to her,
for all the various interests of her earlier years were now absorbed
in the one great passion that made it appear a divine blessing to be
alive. Nothing seemed to matter except that which concerned her lover,
or herself in relation to him. Her love was her life; and that fact
comprised all that it was needful to know.
But he fell grievously ill and died, and she was left with only the
sad memory of their love. She fully intended never to marry; but
circumstances were too strong for her. The other girls did not “go
off,” and a family of five girls is a heavy responsibility for a
father with a limited income. Something had to be done, and after all
Dr. Hearthside was in a fair practice, and would certainly prove “an
excellent husband.”
Of course, ideas vary with regard to the essentials of an “excellent
husband.” With many persons the _desideratum_ is reached when the
tradesmen’s bills are punctually paid, and there is no conjugal quarrel
over the dressmaker’s account. With some the model husband is he who
belongs to no club, and always stays at home in the evenings; while
others there are who consider that connubial perfection consists in the
husband going his own way, and allowing his wife to go hers and find
her own amusements quite irrespective of him. But there is really no
fixed standard of excellence in husbands. The temperament, and even the
temper, of the wife must determine this in each separate case.
Now, Dr. Hearthside was spoken of as an “excellent husband” in embryo,
and many mothers angled for him, and their daughters encouraged hopes.
He was a ladies’ doctor, and his ways with women were soft and tender,
his voice was musical and sympathetic, and his manner seemed to invite
confidence and promise protection. Yet he was before everything
professional. Tenderly as he seemed to treat them, women were to him
interesting cases, psychologically as well as medically, and his
lover-like methods were part and parcel of his practice. He knew women,
and knew that personal confidence is half the battle in successful
medical practice. Women always like to feel that a man is a possible
lover, if even they only require his services as a doctor. They do not
admit this to themselves, of course, but it is the case, for all that.
Dr. Hearthside was deceptive; his tender manner with women covered
merely a spirit of scientific investigation. When he was specially
attentive to a woman—and his attention meant a sort of respectful
devotion—he was deeply diagnosing her mental, moral, and physical
condition; but she most probably thought he was making love to her.
Mrs. Hearthside had been attracted to him in this manner. He found her
melancholy, and she interested him as a study in disappointed love. He
drew her out by speaking constantly to her about love, and she gave
herself up gradually to his persuasive influence. She had hungered
for love since death, by taking from her the man in whom her soul was
wrapped up, had made life empty for her. She fed her heart on the
memories of her love; but her soul had been awakened, and it yearned
again for loving communion such as it had once known. Dr. Hearthside
suggested the possibilities of love to her. When he analysed sentiment
to her in quite a scientific way, her heart responded with emotion,
for she thought he was pouring out his own feelings before her. So she
consented to marry him, because she believed he could love, and love
was the pressing need of her soul; while he, finding her a sympathetic
and ready listener, and being pleased with her looks and her manners,
thought she would make an excellent doctor’s wife, and help him to
enlarge his practice through her social qualities. So these two
married, and the love-dream of the girl died in the arms of the husband.
How many ideals are shattered by the intimacy of marriage, simply
because the antenuptial love has been based upon fiction and
misunderstanding. If only a man and woman made their several motives
for marrying quite clear to one another, and were not so anxious to
preserve a veneer of romance up to the very altar, matrimony would
not be the terrible iconoclast it too often is. Unless it supplies
the true complement to a single life, of what value is it? It is all
very well to talk about individualism, but everything in the world is
relative. The wife is what the husband makes her, and _vice versâ_;
but the former is the more important consideration, since woman is
more dependent. Pray forgive me, ye Amazons of the platform, ye of the
Emancipated Sisterhood!
Mrs. Hearthside went to her husband with a soul yearning for poetry,
and he gave her the plainest prose. The soft speech and gentle ways
were for his patients, not for his wife. His domestic manner was as
brusque as his professional was persuasive and engaging. He had no
time to show his wife any of those little tender attentions which had
previously touched her, and had made her recognise that this man might
realise for her the dream of happiness which another had revealed to
her. On the contrary, he did not take long to teach her that life
was a scientific fact, specially intended to prove the value of the
medical profession, and of Dr. Hearthside in particular; that all
emotion was ridiculous, except in so far as it concerned a professional
diagnosis, and that the aim and end of domestic happiness was to keep
a comfortable home, and make a respectable show to invite patients.
And for this she had given up the freedom of her soul; for this she
had stopped all supplies of the love her nature needed. Henceforth her
heart must feed upon itself, for Mrs. Hearthside holds very select
views with regard to a wife’s duties. If a husband do not answer all
her spiritual longings, no other man must; if she cannot nestle her
heart against his for warmth and comfort, her heart must go separate,
cold, and lonely. Marriage has been a bitter disillusioning to her but
she must bear with it, she must hide her romance away in the recesses
of her memory, and live on the matter-of-fact of marriage, present a
brave front, and pretend not to care, until in time, perhaps, she will
delude herself into the belief that it is all the better so, at all
events for her husband, and certainly for her children.
Happily, Mrs. Hearthside has several children, she has been a
patient and considerate wife, and has contentedly accepted all the
responsibilities of marriage. But when the children began to come Mrs.
Hearthside’s life really began to change. The interests of individual
sentiment became absorbed in the preponderating interest of the
nursery, and the woman was mother before everything; for children
satisfied a craving which had grown out of the unanswered longings for
a man’s love.
So Mrs. Hearthside came to think of her children even before her
husband; not that she ever neglects any one of his domestic comforts,
or ceases to think of his professional interests—only his heart and
hers have never mixed, whereas her children are part of herself. She
feels that their lives are of her making, that their hearts are for her
to feed with her own; that she is responsible for them, body and soul,
and no nurse, no governess, could ever do for them all that she can. So
she will spend her days with them in the nursery, see to every detail
of their daily comfort, wash them, dress them, make clothes for them.
If her husband wishes her to pay afternoon calls on patients whom he is
particularly anxious to cultivate, she is sure to have to stop with
Tommy, who shows signs of incipient whooping-cough; or to take Cissie
out to buy a new hat; or to help Jack with his lessons. There is always
something to be done for the children, or some housekeeping detail to
be seen to which indirectly relates to them.
Dr. Hearthside is socially inclined; he likes to go out and to
receive friends at home. It is professionally beneficial, and it is
amusing. He had hoped his wife would have been a useful aid in this
matter, for when he married her she sang charmingly, and was quite an
acquisition at social gatherings. But she had found that her husband
took interest in her musical talent merely from the social _kudos_ he
derived from the possession of an accomplished wife. He only asked her
to sing when they were in company, never when they were alone—then he
had always work to do, which music would only interrupt. So she has
ceased to cultivate her singing; her voice became weaker after the
birth of her babies, and now she only cares that it is strong enough
to sing lullabies. And with the lessening interest in the artistic
pleasures and emotional joys which had filled her girlhood comes an
increase of interest in all the petty and prosy details of domestic
life. She has gradually grown to think of nothing but her children,
her husband’s creature comforts, and her house. With a numerous
family—for the getting and rearing of children, and the keeping them
healthy and clean, has become the ruling passion of her life—economic
considerations have become necessary in the conduct of the household,
and questions of housekeeping expenditure have now more interest for
her than the title of the last new song. She knows the prices of
butcher’s-meat, of groceries, of everything, and will talk about them;
she will converse on servants by the hour, and so particular is she in
regulating her household that she will visit the kitchen continually,
with the result that she is obliged to change her servants much more
frequently than her acquaintances of less domestic habits. But she
has now become chronically domestic, and the effect is at times very
trying, especially to her husband. She instinctively passes her hand
over the banisters as she goes downstairs, to see that they are clean.
She insists on putting up the clean curtains in the drawing-room
herself, just at an hour, too, when the De Brownes are likely to call;
and she always keeps a duster in the chiffonier for special use at
socially inopportune moments. But, worst of all, she has become dowdy
in her dress, and only cares that the children shall look nice.
Poor Dr. Hearthside, he never bargained for all this aggressive
domesticity; but then, poor Mrs. Hearthside, she began married life
with aspirations of a very different character. Her ideals are
shattered, she has drifted into the purely domestic woman, simply
because she married a man who misunderstood her, or rather who did not
try to understand her at all after marriage. Women are very malleable
creatures; Mrs. Hearthside might have been an ideal wife with another
husband. As it is, to the many who see her only as she is now, she is
simply an uninteresting specimen of a very common type—the domestic
woman. Her soul is really only sleeping; let us hope that it will quite
awaken again, when her daughters dawn into womanhood and her sons into
manhood. Then her life will have new scope, and her own experience
will stand them both in good stead. Will she strive that her daughters
become not of this same type? Perhaps Mrs. Hearthside is happy in her
way. Perhaps she considers her own state more enviable than that of a
hopeless bachelor—like me, for instance. And perhaps it is; for in
children we may live again. They are the resurrection of dead dreams,
unfulfilled ambitions, and lost hopes. The domestic woman has this
consolation, and so she has the better of us “who have free souls”—but
no children.
_A MODERN LADY-NOVELIST_
In the olden days, when fighting was the principal business of men, and
the womenfolk had nought to do but stay at home and wait for the return
of their lords, all feminine imagination, stimulated by the songs of
minstrels, found vent in the weaving of storied tapestries or silken
scarves for the warriors. But in these later days of peace and commerce
and culture, when wives are individuals, and not merely rated among
their husband’s personal effects, and the measured roll of the printing
press is the voice of the civilised world, the imaginative woman wields
the pen, and leaves the needle and the bodkin to her humbler-minded
sisters. So we have the lady-novelist, who is really the most important
and productive type of literary woman. But, when all is said and
done, the ordinary lady-novelist, who turns out her three volumes in
accordance with the stereotyped taste of the novel-reading _clientèle_
of the circulating libraries, is scarcely much more interesting as a
personality than the fashionable _modiste_ who composes her costumes to
suit the taste of her customers.
Mrs. Talespinner, however, is not of the ordinary type. She has a
distinct personality of her own, and is altogether a remarkable woman.
In every respect she stands apart from the brood of lady-novelists of
the day; indeed, one might more aptly describe her as the lady-novelist
of the day after to-morrow, so rapidly does she stride in advance of
current feminine fiction. She belongs to the so-called realistic school
and this has not yet been really invaded by women-writers, who are
always more prone to conventionality than men, and as a rule, observe
the sentimental association of facts rather than the facts themselves.
Therefore, the appearance of a woman in the ranks of the “realists”
attracted immediate attention, and the singularity of the position
lent her works a _cachet_ which their intrinsic force and cleverness
confirmed. Mrs. Talespinner is a woman of quite conspicuous ability and
extraordinary application, but she is a curious compound of weakness
and strength.
[Illustration]