loyal to her “dearest friends” as they are to her; and if mischief
be sometimes made between them by the too officious repetition of
some innocently-betrayed confidence, it is the fault of the person
who made the mischief, not of Mrs. Meanwell, who never intended what
she said to be told again. And, of course, it has been entirely
distorted in the telling. Is it likely that _she_, her dearest friend’s
“dearest friend,” would tell anything told to her in confidence, if
she thought it would be repeated? Not that Mrs. Meanwell received it
originally as a confidence; she thought other people knew it too, and
after all it was such a good story, and if it sounded rather unkind
in the repetition, _she_ never told it in that spirit. Had not her
friend laughed herself when she told it to her originally? But some
people have no tact, and never know when, where, or to whom a personal
story may be told without offence. So Mrs. Meanwell was not really
responsible for the ill-timed and unwarranted repetition, and to say
she was disloyal is most unkind and unwomanly.
Who could resist such reasoning? Who could continue to regard Mrs.
Meanwell other than as a “dearest friend” after such an unanswerable
defence? Anyhow, the intermediary mischief-maker “it was who died,”
or rather who fell into disfavour, and she, after all, was absolutely
innocent in the matter, and acted in perfect good faith, for she merely
wished to warn her friend against being too confidential with a woman
who gossiped about other people’s affairs. Mrs. Meanwell a gossip!
What next, I should like to know? How these “dearest friends” love one
another.
Mrs. Meanwell fights her friends’ battles with the weapons of chaff
and ridicule, and after her victories she generally manages to secure
peace. That is one of the secrets of her success as a “dearest friend.”
The friend who, in times of trouble or quarrel, enlists the help or
advocacy of Mrs. Meanwell, feels as sure of everything being put right
as the litigant when he has secured the legal services of a George
Lewis.
But it is not only in times of tribulation or difficulty that Mrs.
Meanwell acts the “dearest friend” in very earnest. If an engagement
be announced in her social circle she is the one to keep all her
friends posted up in all the details, how long the affair has been in
progress, when he first spoke out, what he said, what are the mundane
prospects of the young couple, what arrangements have been made for
the wedding, and last, but not least, the component parts of her
trousseau. All these details have been confided to Mrs. Meanwell in her
capacity as “dearest friend” of somebody very nearly connected with
the bride or bridegroom. It is indeed a noteworthy coincidence that
when any interesting event is on the _tapis_, especially a wedding,
an engagement or a jilting, a good romantic scandal, or a sensational
illness, Mrs. Meanwell always happens to be on terms of closest
friendship with somebody connected with it, so that she can ever be
relied on for the very latest and most accurate information. She never
minds how much trouble she takes on these occasions to gain this
information or to give counsel when called upon. She has, by the way,
a reputation for practical wisdom in all things, which has grown out
of some occasional happy random hits in the way of advice on mundane
matters, the result of a clear wit that dominates the sentiment in her
nature, and thus enables her to keep her “dearest friendships” well
under control and to the purpose.
Mrs. Meanwell’s friends, it will be seen, consult her on many things,
but, perhaps, it is on the subject of dress that she is at her best
and strongest. She has a veritable genius for costume, and has won
many a friend with the turn of a hat, the cut of a bodice, the fall
of a flounce, the hang of a skirt, or the harmonious hues of an
evening-gown. In matters of clothes she has the critical eye of a
Ruskin, combined with the constructive imagination of a Worth, and,
consequently, she is simply invaluable as an adviser to her friends,
for that they shall dress well is a _sine quâ non_ if they wish to
retain her friendship.
Of course, this is not put in so many words, but it is a kind of tacit
understanding, and half the confidences that pass between Mrs. Meanwell
and her “dearest friends” bear on the absorbing topic of costume. She
recognises it as an important social factor—and so do all the husbands
and fathers when the dressmakers’, drapers’, and milliners’ bills come
in. But Mrs. Meanwell’s friends, especially her “dearest” ones, have
appointed her the arbiter of taste in costume, and, unfortunately for
their husbands’ pockets, her ruling is governed by a superb optimism,
which, as the dictionary defines, is “the doctrine that everything is
ordered for the best”—and, of course, the best has to be paid for.
Economy is, in Mrs. Meanwell’s opinion, a revolt against good taste,
and her friends are easily persuaded by her superior logic, and those
picturesque proofs of her judgment which their dressmakers turn out.
From the husband’s point of view, however, there is something to be
said. Mrs. Meanwell, as “dearest friend,” is an expensive luxury for
the wife. But then, after all, perhaps, a female “dearest friend” is
safer than a male one, and, if there be also a male one, she acts as a
sort of safety-valve to let off those little romantic confidences which
might not amuse the husband, yet which might possibly lead eventually
to complications if suppressed in the wife’s bosom, or entrusted to the
loyal keeping of the male “dearest friend.”
Therefore, Mrs. Meanwell conquers the economic considerations of the
husbands, and remains the “dearest friend” of the wives, because of
her approved worldly wisdom. And, after all, if they be a little
extravagant, their wives look ever so much better when Mrs. Meanwell
advises their costumes. And—well, it is very pleasant to have a
charming little woman like Mrs. Meanwell coming frequently to the
house, and staying there.
_A “FIN-DE-SIÈCLE” WOMAN_
The habit of credulity is one of my peculiarities; some people indeed
regard it as a fatal weakness, especially when it leads me to place
implicit faith in women. Nevertheless I cannot bring myself to take
Mrs. Reuben Neuralys quite seriously in all her social and psychical
vagaries.
Every period grafts some special types of woman on to the Eternal
Feminine, and Mrs. Neuralys represents quite a special type of the
present. She is a very complex and not easily comprehended creature,
and since it has lately become the fashion to describe anything that
seems to elude ordinary classification as _fin-de-siècle_, I suppose
I must regard Mrs. Neuralys as a _fin-de-siècle_ woman. Certainly she
has no counterpart in the pages of Jane Austen or Miss Mitford, and if
we would find any approach to her prototype in fiction, we must look
to the works of the later “realists.” She is perfectly conscious of
this; in fact, she studies that it shall be so, and acts up to it with
picturesque effect. And “there’s the rub.” One is constantly led to
suspect, by some little unconscious incongruous touch of naturalism,
that she is only acting the part of the Emancipated Woman, that she
is only playing at what she has read and talked about, that after all
there is an artificial ring in this advanced development of womanhood,
as represented by Mrs. Neuralys.
Not that I discredit in any way the advancing condition of women, the
greater freedom, mental, moral and social, that they are gradually
and justly assuming as their right. But I always find that they
take an exaggerated view of their emancipation; to prove their
independence they begin to shatter idols and scoff at sacred things,
after the manner of all revolutionists. Yet though they consider their
emancipation demands that they shall at least affect to regard children
as intolerable nuisances and husbands as merely useful appendages to
their own lives and quite irrelevant to their romances, only let a
child of theirs be ill, or a lover give cause for jealousy, and it is
the unemancipated, the real woman that will reveal herself in all her
elemental femininity.
I cannot say that Mrs. Neuralys belongs to the strong-minded sections
of the Emancipated Sisterhood; she stumps no platforms and professes
no mission; she sets herself no philanthropic task; she has adopted no
vocation, unless it be that of living so as to best please Mrs. Reuben
Neuralys. She cultivates a kind of world-weariness, and professes to be
hopelessly oppressed by custom. She is bored by everything in which her
foremothers were wont to take pleasure. The ruling passion of her life
is novelty of sensation, and in seeking this she is utterly without
conscience. No consideration of conventionality can restrain her in the
pursuit of a new experience in emotion; no respect for tradition has
weight with her to restrict any experiment in sentiment or sensibility.
Anything that produces new psychical or sensuous effects upon her is
welcomed, irrespective of Mrs. Grundy, the Ten Commandments, or Mrs.
Lynn Linton. Whether it be a new religion, a new social environment,
a new specific for neuralgia, to which she is of course a martyr, a
new personality to love and be loved by, a new artistic cult, she will
make for it with unbridled eagerness, no matter what social or other
susceptibility she may shock in the accomplishment. I believe that she
really enjoys the sense of novelty, though I shrewdly suspect that she
affects many fancies and pretends many enthusiasms merely because she
thinks that not to do so would be “conventional.”
[Illustration]
This word “conventional” is the bogie of her life, she is so afraid of
it that she will run into any extravagance to escape its application.
It is her own pet term of contempt—that and “suburban.” I believe she
herself would rather be called improper than suburban. To her mind,
conscious, of course, of its own innocence, there might be something
piquant in being thought improper; it might lead to new experiences
of other people’s real characters, shed side-lights on the world of
men and women, and pluck for her the heart of many mysteries. For
this reason she affects exceptional freedom of speech and licence
of subject, and she expresses no anger, or only smiles, whenever
mischievous persons couple her name with that of any man who may be
openly admiring her at the moment, and whose escort to places of
public resort she may constantly accept,—for of course, being an
emancipated woman, it would be altogether too “suburban” to be seen
about with her husband. Indeed she appears to deem it a point of
honour, and an obligation due to the end of the century, to let it be
clearly understood that her husband bores her, and that no sympathy
of any kind exists between them. And certain of her friends, and I am
told many wives of most affectionate disposition, consider that no
self-respecting husband outside Peckham Rye and its like would wish it
otherwise.
But, you may ask, what induced a woman like Mrs. Neuralys to marry at
all, leastways this husband who bores her so? Might you not ask the
same question about nine wives out of ten? Does any girl ever know
exactly why she marries? Does she ever know really whether she is in
love till after marriage? Is it not illusion in most cases—the love of
a girl for a man? I do not think Mrs. Neuralys was ever really in love
with Reuben, but she married him out of curiosity. I am betraying no
confidence in saying this, for she herself has stated it frequently and
openly, and I think she is rather proud of it. Certainly, the fact is
characteristic of her, and in this wise.
Aline Aubyn, as she was then, was decidedly of a religious habit,
but it was the mystery of religion that attracted her, while its
shows appealed to her sensuous nature? To her it meant no spiritual
communion, no divine faith, but the sounds of the organ and the choir
and the church-bells caused her unspeakable emotions. She enjoyed the
_sense_ of the church with its stained-glass windows and its mediæval
architecture and the devotional attitude of the congregation. When
therefore her parents took her abroad and she visited many cathedrals,
the vestments of the priests, the scent of the incense, the pretty
acolytes, the mass-music and the general colour and picturesqueness,
quickly converted her to the Church of Rome. The novelty of her
conversion delighted her for a time, and she was assiduous in her
attendances at chapel. But novelties have a way of losing their
freshness, and, as I have said, Aline was not spiritually religious.
Therefore when she met Reuben Neuralys, her interest took another
turn, for he was the first Jew she had ever encountered. She had read
and heard much of the Jews and their wonderful history, of their
persecutions and their ancient rites, and to her the very name of
Jew meant mystery. Reuben therefore appealed to her imagination, and
exercised for the time being an extraordinary fascination over her. His
manners were at all times charming, the bent of his mind distinctly
idealistic, and his nature emotional. Aline’s sensuousness and personal
charms attracted him, though, in his idealistic way, he deceived
himself into thinking the attraction was dominated by her spirituality.
He loved her, and she fancied that being fascinated at the novelty of
being loved by a member of a race she could not dissociate from mystery
and mysticism was being in love. So they became engaged, and probably
never would have married, but the parents on both sides made such
strenuous opposition to the marriage, on the score of difference in
religion, that the situation presented to Aline a romantically dramatic
colour of irresistible and obstinate charm. There was one drawback
however. The Registry office was so ugly, the ceremonial seemed so
bare and common. It was a novelty to Aline certainly; but it was all
unbeautiful, unbridal, and she hated it.
It did not take long to prove to Mr. and Mrs. Neuralys that they were
temperamentally ill-suited to one another. Her illusions as to his
ancient race had worn off, and she found him similar in manner and
habit to any other ordinary young English gentleman of University
education and a comfortable worldly position for which others had
worked. But perhaps he was more full of ideals than most young men
of the day, and some of these ideals she proved impracticable for
him, notably that concerning the absolute union of a man and woman
in love. She was disappointed in his Judaism, which had nothing
mysterious or sensuous in it, and she seemed gradually to display
personal indifference towards him, because he loved her uxoriously, and
entertained patriarchal views with regard to conjugal life. She by no
means falls in with these views, on the contrary she has asserted her
individual liberty at all points, and though she was never one of those
women who must love to live, she has ever held the opinion that for
a woman to be interesting she must always be adored by more than her
husband. She says that the adoration of a lover preserves her youth,
and as she loves herself too much to fall really in love, and expresses
only a kind of sympathetic scorn for those women who love “not wisely
but too well,” it may be supposed that she is still on the right side
of the marriage contract. Anyhow her husband has faith in her to this
extent, for it is a kind of racial instinct with Jews to believe in
the purity of their wives, and though Reuben Neuralys has individually
ceased to observe the ancient ceremonials of his creed his racial
feelings continue very strong. So he has never a fear of the Divorce
Court, although he has realised his wife’s sensuous craze for novelty
simply because it is novelty, and discovered that she is pretending to
be always in love, first with one man who has superficially inducted
her into the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism, then with another who has
engaged her fancy with Ibsen, Schopenhauer and the Fabian Essays, and
anon with a third who has persuaded her that all pleasure is Pagan,
and that pure Hedonism can alone make the world beautiful. As it is
only in the nature of things that the cause of each of these successive
loves should prepare some distrust of the next, Reuben Neuralys,
knowing his wife’s temperament, regards these as extra safeguards
rather than as dangers. Moreover, since he has ceased to expect from
her that complete companionship and passionate sympathy he had hitherto
regarded, in his idealistic way, as the natural bonds of married life,
he has accustomed himself to look for these elsewhere. And she more
than suspects this—and does not care. “Poor fellow,” she says, and
laughs. She is a _fin-de-siècle_ wife, you know.
Thus they live, these two, practically separate, though always meeting
at dinner-time. He, practising little deceptions which she always
suspects or detects but never exposes, for fear he should discontinue
them and bore her instead; she, simulating occasional moods of
sentiment and even affection, and dexterously playing upon the most
sensitive chords of his nature, when she fancies it necessary to
preserve her empire over him, and cozen him into accordance with her
wishes. She is so absolute in her desire for power and ascendancy
that she would battle hard to retain the admiration of even a husband,
how ever little she might really value it. Nevertheless they go their
separate ways pleasantly, and if they never talk of happiness, perhaps,
under the circumstances, their unconventional but easy and casual
philosophy of matrimony is preferable to the perpetual bickerings, or
heart-breaking suppression of feelings, which so often mar the more
domestic households.
But I fear I may be conveying an impression that Mrs. Neuralys is not
all she should be, which would be unjust—to say the least of it. What
can I say to correct any such impression? Let me catalogue her virtues.
However tastes may differ, no one can deny that she is piquantly
pretty. Ask all the best photographers in London, ask at least one
of our most artistic young painters. Look round his studio-walls,
they will testify extensively to her facial charms. Then, how she
dresses—why, Venus herself might have dressed so, had she been born in
the fashion. In her monetary dealings she is liberal to a fault, and,
as her tradespeople and dressmakers, who all adore her, will tell you,
the fault is always on the right side—she never inquires the cost
of anything. And so affable too, she frequently drinks afternoon-tea
with her milliner, who is of course socially her equal. Indeed I am
not certain that Mrs. Neuralys does not hanker after adopting some
such profession herself, by way of a new experience, and, if she
did, I am sure her bonnet-shop would be the most alluring boudoir in
London. But, intellectually, she is really above this kind of thing.
She has not read Schopenhauer and all the latest English and foreign
“realists,” and pessimistic critics for nothing. She is alive to every
new “movement” in art, literature, religion or the drama, and as long
as it is new and provocative of opposition from the advocates of the
traditional, it will be sure of her ardent and aggressive partisanship.
The very opposition will flatter her into thinking she is asserting
her own individuality, for, of course, she forgets that she is only
following a lead and running in a groove. Moreover she will think she
is sincere in professing admiration for eccentric authors worshipped by
experimental cliques, whereas if they were popular, and were accepted
by the “plain man” of the _Times_ and the _Nineteenth Century_, I doubt
if she would concern herself with them, however good they might be. In
everything her taste must be as unconventional as her daily life. She
is so impressionable, she will tell you, so sensitive to all that is
beautiful or _bizarre_.
At the same time Mrs. Neuralys unflinchingly seeks to know life in
all its phases, however shocking to the ordinary “suburban” mind. She
will go to a music-hall, a race-meeting or a Salvation Army service
with equal alacrity, so long as her husband does not take her. He may
make one of a _parti carré_, but alone he would bore her. She is a
ravenous reader of newspapers, and to see her devouring some notorious
divorce case in a “special edition” over her coffee and cigarette is to
see the _fin-de-siècle_ woman quite at home. She is a most assiduous
theatre-goer, and is frequently met at the first performances of new
plays, but she regards the modern drama in a very pessimistic light,
and, for the moment, she may possibly affect to believe that its
regeneration can only be brought about through the influence of a new
Hottentot dramatist of pristine simplicity, about to be discovered by
the very newest critic of the day. She is always most enthusiastic
about matters of this kind, and ever alert for the latest.
But I wonder what Mrs. Neuralys will be like when she is old; whether,
indeed, old age will be tolerable to her without any backbone of faith
and domesticity. Can she always remain an Emancipated Woman, or, as the
years pass, will the humanity that is in her cry out for something more
tangible than the showy make-believe of her present life, something
truer, something more sacred and beautiful? Who can tell?
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 1 Changed: Without womam man is nought
to: Without woman man is nought
pg 70 Changed: Mrs. Talespinne is, as a matter of fact
to: Mrs. Talespinner is, as a matter of fact
pg 170 Changed: her delightfully amusing inconseqence
to: her delightfully amusing inconsequence