It was quite futile to attempt to induce anyone to talk about serious
matters just now—for the coming week all Society belonged to the horse.
The parties which went to church on Sunday morning talked about horses
on the way, and the crowds that gathered in front of the church door to
watch them descend from their automobiles, and to get “points” on their
conspicuous costumes—these would read about horses all afternoon in the
Sunday papers, and about the gowns which the women would wear at the
show.
Some of the party went up on Sunday evening; Montague went with the
rest on Monday morning, and had lunch with Mrs. Robbie Walling and
Oliver and Alice. They had arrayed him in a frock coat and silk hat and
fancy “spats”; and they took him and sat him in the front row of
Robbie’s box.
There was a great tan-bark arena, in which the horses performed; and
then a railing, and a broad promenade for the spectators; and then,
raised a few feet above, the boxes in which sat all Society. For the
Horse Show had now become a great social function. Last year a visiting
foreign prince had seen fit to attend it, and this year “everybody”
would come.
Montague was rapidly getting used to things; he observed with a smile
how easy it was to take for granted embroidered bed and table linen,
and mural paintings, and private cars, and gold plate. At first it had
seemed to him strange to be waited upon by a white woman, and by a
white man quite unthinkable; but he was becoming accustomed to having
silent and expressionless lackeys everywhere about him, attending to
his slightest want. So he presumed that if he waited long enough, he
might even get used to horses which had their tails cut off to stumps,
and their manes to rows of bristles, and which had been taught to lift
their feet in strange and eccentric ways, and were driven with burred
bits in their mouths to torture them and make them step lively.
There were road-horses, coach-horses, saddle-horses and hunters,
polo-ponies, stud-horses—every kind of horse that is used for pleasure,
over a hundred different “classes” of them. They were put through their
paces about the ring, and there was a committee which judged them, and
awarded blue and red ribbons. Apparently their highly artificial kind
of excellence was a real thing to the people who took part in the show;
for the spectators thrilled with excitement, and applauded the popular
victors. There was a whole set of conventions which were generally
understood—there was even a new language. You were told that these
“turnouts” were “nobby” and “natty”; they were “swagger” and “smart”
and “swell.”
However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one had
sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in reality a
show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the broad
promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved about
with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost never—it
stared up into the boxes. All the year round the discontented millions
of the middle classes read of the doings of the “smart set”; and here
they had a chance to come and see them—alive, and real, and dressed in
their showiest costumes. Here was all the _grand monde_, in numbered
boxes, and with their names upon the programmes, so that one could get
them straight. Ten thousand people from other cities had come to New
York on purpose to get a look. Women who lived in boarding-houses and
made their own clothes, had come to get hints; all the dressmakers in
town were present for the same purpose.. Society reporters had come,
with notebooks in hand; and next morning the imitators of Society all
over the United States would read about it, in such fashion as this:
“Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in mauve cloth, made with
an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and opening over a chemisette
of lace. Her hat was of the same colour, draped with a great quantity
of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted with birds of paradise to
match. Her furs were silver fox.”
The most intelligent of the great metropolitan dailies would print
columns of this sort of material; and as for the “yellow” journals,
they would have discussions of the costumes by “experts,” and half a
page of pictures of the most conspicuous of the box-holders. While
Montague sat talking with Mrs. Walling, half a dozen cameras were
snapped at them; and once a young man with a sketch-book placed himself
in front of them and went placidly to work.—Concerning such things the
society dame had three different sets of emotions: first, the one which
she showed in public, that of bored and contemptuous indifference;
second, the one which she expressed to her friends, that of outraged
but helpless indignation; and third, the one which she really felt,
that of triumphant exultation over her rivals, whose pictures were not
published and whose costumes were not described.
It was a great dress parade of society women. One who wished to play a
proper part in it would spend at least ten thousand dollars upon her
costumes for the week. It was necessary to have a different gown for
the afternoon and evening of each day; and some, who were adepts at
quick changes and were proud of it, would wear three or four a day, and
so need a couple of dozen gowns for the show. And of course there had
to be hats and shoes and gloves to match. There would be robes of
priceless fur hung carelessly over the balcony to make a setting; and
in the evening there would be pyrotechnical displays of jewels. Mrs.
Virginia Landis wore a pair of simple pearl earrings, which she told
the reporters had cost twenty thousand dollars; and there were two
women who displayed four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of
diamonds—and each of them had hired a detective to hover about in the
crowd and keep watch over her!
Nor must one suppose, because the horse was an inconspicuous part of
the show, that he was therefore an inexpensive part. One man was to be
seen here driving a four-in-hand of black stallions which had cost
forty thousand; there were other men who drove only one horse, and had
paid forty thousand for that. Half a million was a moderate estimate of
the cost of the “string” which some would exhibit. And of course these
horses were useless, save for show purposes, and to breed other horses
like them. Many of them never went out of their stables except for
exercise upon a track; and the cumbrous and enormously expensive
coaches were never by any possibility used elsewhere—when they were
taken from place to place they seldom went upon their own wheels.
And there were people here who made their chief occupation in life the
winning of blue ribbons at these shows. They kept great country estates
especially for the horses, and had private indoor exhibition rings.
Robbie Walling and Chauncey Venable were both such people; in the
summer of next year another of the Wallings took a string across the
water to teach the horse-show game to Society in London. He took twenty
or thirty horses, under the charge of an expert manager and a dozen
assistants; he sent sixteen different kinds of carriages, and two great
coaches, and a ton of harness and other stuff. It required one whole
deck of a steamer, and the expedition enabled him to get rid of six
hundred thousand dollars.
All through the day, of course, Robbie was down in the ring with his
trainers and his competitors, and Montague sat and kept his wife
company. There was a steady stream of visitors, who came to
congratulate her upon their successes, and to commiserate with Mrs.
Chauncey Venable over the sufferings of the unhappy victim of a
notoriety-seeking district attorney.
There was just one drawback to the Horse Show, as Montague gathered
from the conversation that went on among the callers: it was public,
and there was no way to prevent undesirable people from taking part.
There were, it appeared, hordes of rich people in New York who were not
in Society, and of whose existence Society was haughtily unaware; but
these people might enter horses and win prizes, and even rent a box and
exhibit their clothes. And they might induce the reporters to mention
them—and of course the ignorant populace did not know the difference,
and stared at them just as hard as at Mrs. Robbie or Mrs. Winnie. And
so for a whole blissful week these people had all the sensations of
being in Society! “It won’t be very long before that will kill the
Horse Show,” said Mrs. Vivie Patton, with a snap of her black eyes.
There was Miss Yvette Simpkins, for instance; Society frothed at the
mouth when her name was mentioned. Miss Yvette was the niece of a
stock-broker who was wealthy, and she thought that she was in Society,
and the foolish public thought so, too. Miss Yvette made a speciality
of newspaper publicity; you were always seeing her picture, with some
new “Worth creation,” and the picture would be labelled “Miss Yvette
Simpkins, the best-dressed woman in New York,” or “Miss Yvette
Simpkins, who is known as the best woman whip in Society.” It was said
that Miss Yvette, who was short and stout, and had a rosy German face,
had paid five thousand dollars at one clip for photographs of herself
in a new wardrobe; and her pictures were sent to the newspapers in
bundles of a dozen at a time. Miss Yvette possessed over a million
dollars’ worth of diamonds—the finest in the country, according to the
newspapers; she had spent a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars
this year upon her clothes, and she gave long interviews, in which she
set forth the fact that a woman nowadays could not really be well
dressed upon less than a hundred thousand a year. It was Miss Yvette’s
boast that she had never ridden in a street-car in her life.
Montague always had a soft spot in his heart for the unfortunate Miss
Yvette, who laboured so hard to be a guiding light; for it chanced to
be while she was in the ring, exhibiting her skill in driving tandem,
that he met with a fateful encounter. Afterward, when he came to look
back upon these early days, it seemed strange to him that he should
have gone about this place, so careless and unsuspecting, while the
fates were weaving strange destinies about him.
It was on Tuesday afternoon, and he sat in the box of Mrs. Venable, a
sister-in-law of the Major. The Major, who was a care-free bachelor,
was there himself, and also Betty Wyman, who was making sprightly
comments on the passers-by; and there strolled into the box Chappie de
Peyster, accompanied by a young lady.
So many people had stopped and been introduced and then passed on, that
Montague merely glanced at her once. He noticed that she was tall and
graceful, and caught her name, Miss Hegan.
The turnouts in the ring consisted of one horse harnessed in front of
another; and Montague was wondering what conceivable motive could
induce a human being to hitch and drive horses in that fashion. The
conversation turned upon Miss Yvette, who was in the ring; and Betty
remarked upon the airy grace with which she wielded the long whip she
carried. “Did you see what the paper said about her this morning?” she
asked. “‘Miss Simpkins was exquisitely clad in purple velvet,’ and so
on! She looked for all the world like the Venus at the Hippodrome!”
“Why isn’t she in Society?” asked Montague, curiously.
“She!” exclaimed Betty. “Why, she’s a travesty!”
There was a moment’s pause, preceding a remark by their young lady
visitor. “I’ve an idea,” said she, “that the real reason she never got
into Society was that she was fond of her old father.”
And Montague gave a short glance at the speaker, who was gazing fixedly
into the ring. He heard the Major chuckle, and he thought that he heard
Betty Wyman give a little sniff. A few moments later the young lady
arose, and with some remark to Mrs. Venable about how well her costume
became her, she passed on out of the box.
“Who is that?” asked Montague.
“That,” the Major answered, “that’s Laura Hegan—Jim Hegan’s daughter.”
“Oh!” said Montague, and caught his breath. Jim Hegan—Napoleon of
finance—czar of a gigantic system of railroads, and the power behind
the political thrones of many states.
“His only daughter, too,” the Major added. “Gad, what a juicy morsel
for somebody!”
“Well, she’ll make him pay for all he gets, whoever he is!” retorted
Betty, vindictively.
“You don’t like her?” inquired Montague; and Betty replied promptly, “I
do not!”
“Her daddy and Betty’s granddaddy are always at swords’ points,” put in
Major Venable.
“I have nothing to do with my granddaddy’s quarrels,” said the young
lady. “I have troubles enough of my own.”
“What is the matter with Miss Hegan?” asked Montague, laughing.
“She’s an idea she’s too good for the world she lives in,” said Betty.
“When you’re with her, you feel as you will before the judgment
throne.”
“Undoubtedly a disturbing feeling,” put in the Major.
“She never hands you anything but you find a pin hidden in it,” went on
the girl. “All her remarks are meant to be read backward, and my life
is too short to straighten out their kinks. I like a person to say what
they mean in plain English, and then I can either like them or not.”
“Mostly not,” said the Major, grimly; and added, “Anyway, she’s
beautiful.”
“Perhaps,” said the other. “So is the Jungfrau; but I prefer something
more comfortable.”
“What’s Chappie de Peyster beauing her around for?” asked Mrs. Venable.
“Is he a candidate?”
“Maybe his debts are troubling him again,” said Mistress Betty. “He
must be in a desperate plight.—Did you hear how Jack Audubon proposed
to her?”
“Did Jack propose?” exclaimed the Major.
“Of course he did,” said the girl. “His brother told me.” Then, for
Montague’s benefit, she explained, “Jack Audubon is the Major’s nephew,
and he’s a bookworm, and spends all his time collecting scarabs.”
“What did he say to her?” asked the Major, highly amused.
“Why,” said Betty, “he told her he knew she didn’t love him; but also
she knew that he didn’t care anything about her money, and she might
like to marry him so that other men would let her alone.”
“Gad!” cried the old gentleman, slapping his knee. “A masterpiece!”
“Does she have so many suitors?” asked Montague; and the Major replied,
“My dear boy—she’ll have a hundred million dollars some day!”
At this point Oliver put in appearance, and Betty got up and went for a
stroll with him; then Montague asked for light upon Miss Hegan’s
remark.
“What she said is perfectly true,” replied the Major; “only it riled
Betty. There’s many a gallant dame cruising the social seas who has
stowed her old relatives out of sight in the hold.”
“What’s the matter with old Simpkins?” asked the other.
“Just a queer boy,” was the reply. “He has a big pile, and his one joy
in life is the divine Yvette. It is really he who makes her
ridiculous—he has a regular press agent for her, a chap he loads up
with jewellery and cheques whenever he gets her picture into the
papers.”
The Major paused a moment to greet some acquaintance, and then resumed
the conversation. Apparently he could gossip in this intimate fashion
about any person whom you named. Old Simpkins had been very poor as a
boy, it appeared, and he had never got over the memory of it. Miss
Yvette spent fifty thousand at a clip for Paris gowns; but every day
her old uncle would save up the lumps of sugar which came with the
expensive lunch he had brought to his office. And when he had several
pounds he would send them home by messenger!
This conversation gave Montague a new sense of the complicatedness of
the world into which he had come. Miss Simpkins was “impossible”; and
yet there was—for instance—that Mrs. Landis whom he had met at Mrs.
Winnie Duval’s. He had met her several times at the show; and he heard
the Major and his sister-in-law chuckling over a paragraph in the
society journal, to the effect that Mrs. Virginia van Rensselaer Landis
had just returned from a successful hunting-trip in the far West. He
did not see the humour of this, at least not until they had told him of
another paragraph which had appeared some time before: stating that
Mrs. Landis had gone to acquire residence in South Dakota, taking with
her thirty-five trunks and a poodle; and that “Leanie” Hopkins, the
handsome young stock-broker, had taken a six months’ vow of poverty,
chastity, and obedience.
And yet Mrs. Landis was “in” Society! And moreover, she spent nearly as
much upon her clothes as Miss Yvette, and the clothes were quite as
conspicuous; and if the papers did not print pages about them, it was
not because Mrs. Landis was not perfectly willing. She was painted and
made up quite as frankly as any chorus-girl on the stage. She laughed a
great deal, and in a high key, and she and her friends told stories
which made Montague wish to move out of the way.
Mrs. Landis had for some reason taken a fancy to Alice, and invited her
home to lunch with her twice during the show. And after they had got
home in the evening, the girl sat upon the bed in her fur-trimmed
wrapper, and told Montague and his mother and Mammy Lucy all about her
visit.
“I don’t believe that woman has a thing to do or to think about in the
world except to wear clothes!” she said. “Why, she has adjustable
mirrors on ball-bearings, so that she can see every part of her skirts!
And she gets all her gowns from Paris, four times a year—she says there
are four seasons now, instead of two! I thought that my new clothes
amounted to something, but my goodness, when I saw hers!”
Then Alice went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks, which
had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs. Virginia’s
_coutourière_ had her photograph and her colouring (represented in
actual paints) and a figure made up from exact measurements; and so
every one of the garments would fit her perfectly. Each one came
stuffed with tissue paper and held in place by a lattice-work of tape;
and attached to each gown was a piece of the fabric, from which her
shoemaker would make shoes or slippers. There were street-costumes and
opera-wraps, _robes de chambre_ and tea-gowns, reception-dresses, and
wonderful ball and dinner gowns. Most of these latter were to be
embroidered with jewellery before they were worn, and imitation jewels
were sewn on, to show how the real ones were to be placed. These
garments were made of real lace or Parisian embroidery, and the prices
paid for them were almost impossible to credit. Some of them were made
of lace so filmy that the women who made them had to sit in damp
cellars, because the sunlight would dry the fine threads and they would
break; a single yard of the lace represented forty days of labour.
There was a pastel “_batiste de soie_” Pompadour robe, embroidered with
cream silk flowers, which had cost one thousand dollars. There was a
hat to go with it, which had cost a hundred and twenty-five, and shoes
of grey antelope-skin, buckled with mother-of-pearl, which had cost
forty. There was a gorgeous and intricate ball-dress of pale green
chiffon satin, with orchids embroidered in oxidized silver, and a long
court train, studded with diamonds—and this had cost six thousand
dollars without the jewels! And there was an auto-coat which had cost
three thousand; and an opera-wrap made in Leipsic, of white unborn baby
lamb, lined with ermine, which had cost twelve thousand—with a thousand
additional for a hat to match! Mrs. Landis thought nothing of paying
thirty-five dollars for a lace handkerchief, or sixty dollars for a
pair of spun silk hose, or two hundred dollars for a pearl and
gold-handled parasol trimmed with cascades of chiffon, and made, like
her hats, one for each gown.
“And she insists that these things are worth the money,” said Alice.
“She says it’s not only the material in them, but the ideas. Each
costume is a study, like a picture. ‘I pay for the creative genius of
the artist,’ she said to me—‘for his ability to catch my ideas and
apply them to my personality—my complexion and hair and eyes. Sometimes
I design my own costumes, and so I know what hard work it is!’”
Mrs. Landis came from one of New York’s oldest families, and she was
wealthy in her own right; she had a palace on Fifth Avenue, and now
that she had turned her husband out, she had nothing at all to put in
it except her clothes. Alice told about the places in which she kept
them—it was like a museum! There was a gown-room, made dust-proof, of
polished hardwood, and with tier upon tier of long poles running
across, and padded skirt-supporters hanging from them. Everywhere there
was order and system—each skirt was numbered, and in a
chiffonier-drawer of the same number you would find the waist—and so on
with hats and stockings and gloves and shoes and parasols. There was a
row of closets, having shelves piled up with dainty lace-trimmed and
beribboned _lingerie;_ there were two closets full of hats and three of
shoes. “When she went West,” said Alice, “one of her maids counted, and
found that she had over four hundred pairs! And she actually has a
cabinet with a card-catalogue to keep track of them. And all the
shelves are lined with perfumed silk sachets, and she has tiny sachets
sewed in every skirt and waist; and she has her own private perfume—she
gave me some. She calls it _Cœur de Jeannette_, and she says she
designed it herself, and had it patented!”
And then Alice went on to describe the maid’s work-room, which was also
of polished hardwood, and dust-proof, and had a balcony for brushing
clothes, and wires upon which to hang them, and hot and cold water, and
a big ironing-table and an electric stove. “But there can’t be much
work to do,” laughed the girl, “for she never wears a gown more than
two or three times. Just think of paying several thousand dollars for a
costume, and giving it to your poor relations after you have worn it
only twice! And the worst of it is that Mrs. Landis says it’s all
nothing unusual; you’ll find such arrangements in every home of people
who are socially prominent. She says there are women who boast of never
appearing twice in the same gown, and there’s one dreadful personage in
Boston who wears each costume once, and then has it solemnly cremated
by her butler!”
“It is wicked to do such things,” put in old Mrs. Montague, when she
had heard this tale through. “I don’t see how people can get any
pleasure out of it.”
“That’s what I said,” replied Alice.
“To whom did you say that?” asked Montague. “To Mrs. Landis?”
“No,” said Alice, “to a cousin of hers. I was downstairs waiting for
her, and this girl came in. And we got to talking about it, and I said
that I didn’t think I could ever get used to such things.”
“What did she say?” asked the other.
“She answered me strangely,” said the girl. “She’s tall, and very
stately, and I was a little bit afraid of her. She said, ‘You’ll get
used to it. Everybody you know will be doing it, and if you try to do
differently they’ll take offence; and you won’t have the courage to do
without friends. You’ll be meaning every day to stop, but you never
will, and you’ll go on until you die.’”
“What did you say to that?”
“Nothing,” answered Alice. “Just then Mrs. Landis came in, and Miss
Hegan went away.”
“Miss Hegan?” echoed Montague.
“Yes,” said the other. “That’s her name—Laura Hegan. Have you met her?”