After looking at the prologue of the show, Lionel and Danford entered
the house and ascended the steps of the once richly-carpeted staircase.
At the top stood, or at least wabbled, a little woman, leaning heavily
on a stick; at her side was Sam Yorick, the social guide, who had no
rival as a mimic of Parliamentary members, but who could not hold a
candle to Dick Danford. Mrs Webster had applied too late, and had to
take Yorick and consider herself lucky to get him, for he was the last
male guide available, and she strongly objected to having a woman guide.
The house was superbly decorated with large china vases in which
magnolias, azaleas, and rhododendrons had been placed. The
reception-rooms were filling rapidly; it was soon going to be a crush.
Every description of plastic was there—the small, tall, large, thin; and
one uniform shade prevailed, that of the flesh colour. As the rays of
the burning sun entered obliquely, tracing long lines of golden light on
the parqueted floor, it illuminated equally the phalanxes of refined
feet and ankles, flat insteps and knobby toes.
“My lord, do you see there Mrs Archibald?”
“What, the vaporous Mrs Archibald? But where is the grace of the woman
we used to call the sylph of Belgravia?”
“She lost her chiffon covering in the London storm, my lord.”
“Some fat old dowager malignantly said of her that she was draped in her
breeding, so thin and undulating did she appear. But, has the breeding
disappeared also in the torrential rain? for she looks as strong as a
horse—see these thick ankles, short wrists, and red arms. I always
objected to that sylph in cream gauze, for one never could get at her,
she lived _de profil_ and one only could peep at her through side
doors.”
“Who was her husband?” inquired the little artist.
“He was colonel of a crack regiment. His ideas were limited to two
dogmas: the sense of military exclusiveness, and a profound horror of
intellectual women. Like his wife he was well-bred.”
“Yes, my lord, but the Englishman has definite limits to his gentility;
the brute, though dormant, lies ready to leap and bite when he is
annoyed.”
“What are you, Danford, if not an Englishman?” Lionel smiled.
“Ah! satirists have neither sex nor nationality; but pray go on with
your alembic of Colonel Archibald’s character.”
“Well, he chose his wife because she was a well-bred girl—or at least
had her certificate of good breeding—also because she was well connected
and thoroughly trained in all social cunning.”
“Yes, and I daresay the thin, well-trained piece of machinery had been
stirred by the dashing young officer. She secretly harboured love in
that secret corner of the heart and senses which thorough-bred folks
ignore outwardly but slyly analyse. We must not forget, my lord, that
she has short wrists and thick ankles—ha! ha!—he was of her set, so
nature could be let loose, while creeping passion was allowed to fill
her whole being.”
“True, my dear Mephisto, but generations of women before her have done
the same, and she did not disgrace the long lineage of mediocrity and
avidity. She had been told what all women are told in our world—namely,
that a lady never spoke loudly, never thought broadly; therefore she
ruined her friends’ reputations under a whisper, and put the Spanish
Inquisition to shame by her pietistical hypocrisy.”
As Lionel ended this homily of the vapoury Mrs Archibald, a group of
bystanders dispersed, and Lady Carey was visible to our two pilgrims.
“That is Lady Carey, my lord, widow of Sir Reginald, who made himself so
conspicuous in India.”
“Do you mean the positive little woman who followed fashion’s dictates,
though she kicked, in words, at the absurdity of some exaggerated
garments?”
“Ah! but finally submitted to all the caprices of the mode, my
lord—resistance would have been a crime of _lese-toilette_—yes, it is
she, or at least what is left of her—a bundle of mannerism and puckered
flesh, sole survivals of an artificial state. At times she is deep, more
often frivolous, of a hasty temper and a very cold temperament; in fact,
her personality is made up of full stops. Her brain seems to have been
built of blind alleys, which lead to nowhere. She is suggestive and
narrow-minded, gushing and worldly-wise; she never allows passion to
tear her heart to shreds, but talks freely about women’s frolics, and
tells naughty stories with a twinkle in her eye and a pout on her lip.
What a pity such a woman had missed the coach to originality, and had
alighted at the first station—superficiality!”
“I say, Dan, can you put a label on that fine piece of statuary talking
over there to Tom Hornsby?”
“That, my lord, surely you ought to know—ha! ha! ha! What an ingrate you
are! it is Lady Ranelagh. She who reigned over London Society by right
of her beauty.”
“By right of position, you might add, dear Mephisto.”
“And finally, my lord, by right of insolence,” interrupted the little
buffoon.
“She frequently argued with life like a fishwife,” went on Lionel, “and
few know as well as I do what funny questions she put to destiny; yet
she never saw her true image in her mental mirror, and Society never
recoiled from her; but as you know, Dan, Society never recoils from any
of her members: the contract between swindlers and swindled is never
broken, and if by any chance some speck of dirt sticks to one of the
columns that support the social edifice, Society is always ready to pay
the costs of whitewash.”
“Yet, my lord, this Carmen of Mayfair is now caught in the wheels of the
inevitable, and she has to face to-day the worst of all judges—nature.”
“Do you see that little Tanagra figure leaning against the door?—there,
just in front of you, Danford.”
“You mean Lady Hurlingham, my lord, with her vermilion cheeks framed in
meretriciously youthful curls. She is a thorough woman of the world.”
“With her, my dear Danford, a man is quite safe. She did everything from
curiosity, which enabled her to reappear unwrinkled and unsullied after
her varied experience; she derived all the fun she could extract from
life without singeing the smallest feather of her wings.”
“And still, my lord, one could hardly dare to whisper an indelicate word
before that Greuzelike visage.”
“Quite so, dear Mephisto; those red lips would rather kiss than tell,
those large melting eyes are pure—to an uninformed observer. _Honi
soit_—ha! ha! ha!”
The sarcastic laughter of the two men was drowned by the tuning of a
beautiful Stradivarius, and for a moment the rising uproar of a London
At Home was hushed.
Johann Staub stood near the piano, his long brown hair framing a strong
Teutonic face, his deep, dark eyes roving over the mass of heads turned
towards him. He played magnificently, electric vibrations ran through
his leonine mane, still, they hardly listened; the silence that had
followed his first bars of the Kreuzer Sonata was soon broken, as voices
one by one resumed their interrupted chatting, and the Dowager Lady
Pendelton, lulled by the heat and the scent of exotic flowers, let her
senile chin drop on her wrinkled breast. She was asleep. Staub ended his
Sonata, and loud applause broke loose, a kind of thanksgiving applause,
not in honour of the superb way in which the artist had played, but to
celebrate their relief and satisfaction at his having finished. Old
women went up to him, pressed his hands, asked him to luncheon, to
dinner—would they were young—to what would they not invite him! The one
had heard Paganini—“Psh! he was no match to you.” Another had known
Beriot very well—he was the only one to whom he could be compared. Lady
Pendelton woke suddenly, gave a few approving grunts, her eyes still
shut, while she struck the parquet with her ebony stick. She wanted Mrs
Webster to bring Staub to her at once, as she would like her
granddaughter, Lady Augusta, to have some violin lessons.
“Danford, are you not, like me, struck by the incongruity of all this?”
“My lord, to-morrow, after breakfast, I shall submit to you some of my
observations on the subject of entertainments. Look at these women
seated on chairs, these men bending over them. Their movements are
without grace and their hair badly dressed; we cannot have any more of
the Patrick Campbell style in our modern mythology. Besides, there are
too many people here, and in this Edenic attire the less people you
group together, the better the effect.”
“I agree with you, Dan; but for God’s sake let us leave this room—I see
someone approaching the piano. Let us be off, I am dying with thirst.”
They edged their way down the staircase, not without trouble, for the
crowd was coming back from partaking of refreshment, and climbing up the
stairs with the renewed vigour that champagne and sandwiches give to
drawing-room visitors. As they jammed sideways through the dining-room
door, Lionel frowned at the discomfort, and Dan, finding himself breast
to breast with his pupil, murmured to him,—
“I should abolish this barbarous fashion of going downstairs to feed at
the altar of the tea-urn and bread-and-butter. Ah! at last we are
through!”
“The buffet system has always revolted me”—a shiver ran down Lionel’s
back. “That kind of social bar at which both sexes voraciously satisfy
their internal craving has, to my mind, been a proof of the uncivilised
state of Society.”
“But the whole thing is based on false pretences, my lord. Can I get you
a glass of champagne?” and he ducked his head between two women who were
talking loudly and munching incessantly. “Parties like these are Zoo
entertainments at which the pranks of some animal are to be viewed; it
is either a foreign prince, a cowboy, or a monkey.”
“Very often,” added Lionel, sipping his champagne, “it is not so
original, and only consists of personal interests; this one is going to
be introduced to a member of Parliament; a woman is going to meet her
lover; a man to see his future bride. There is very little sociability
in our social bazaars, I assure you.”
“Do you see that man leaning against the marble mantelpiece, my lord?
That is old Watson telling a funny story to Lord Petersham.”
“The story must be highly flavoured, for Lord Petersham is shaking with
laughter.”
“Do not be mistaken, my lord, his lordship never laughs at another man’s
story—I know him well—he is bursting now with a joke he will tell old
Watson when he has stopped laughing.”
“My dear Dan, we are the rudest nation on earth. We stick lightning
conductors on the statues of our great men, and walk on people’s toes,
only apologising when we happen to know them personally. The nobodies
are insolent, because they wish you to think them somebodies; and the
somebodies are arrogant, for they want you well to understand that you
are nobodies.”
“The room is emptying, my lord, the sun has withdrawn its rays and the
flowers are drooping their tired petals.”
“Let us be off then!” and Lionel laid his hand on Danford’s shoulder.
“There is old Lady Pendelton being wheeled across the hall by her
footman—unless it is her nephew, Lord Robert. She pompously looks round
as she proceeds between the two rows of gazers. She is the epilogue of
this comedy—a sort of ‘God Save the King’ unsung! This is all
impossible, my dear fellow; this old woman, Mrs Webster, is played out
in our new era, and the dowagers of the Pendelton kind have no place,
any more in our reformed London.”
The two men left the house and walked into St James’s Park.
“I shall give a party, Dick—something out of the common.”
“Yes, my lord; they will accept from you what they would shirk from
anyone else.”
“How ever could these people imagine that our present state of nature
would admit of these social crushes? Why, the notion of rubbing against
one’s neighbour ought to have deterred them from crowding into these
rooms.”
“The cause of all this incongruity is laziness, my lord—apathy of the
mind. That defect is the fundamental cause of the success of the
Conservative policy. It suits the qualities and the failings of the
race; and countries have but the politics they deserve, someone said.
Very true, for politics are the expression of a country’s inner mind.
The apathetic must naturally be Tories, for they are slow at reforms,
and stand in terror of social upheavals; you saw, before the storm, how
far acquiescence and lethargy could go, you will soon see that the
country will stand at your elbows in all your reforms. It is nonsense
talking of democracy in England as long as the peerage is the goal of
all drapers and ironmongers, and, had not the Almighty poured water
spouts over the whole sham and deprived us of our artificial husks, we
should in time have seen London perish as Athens, Rome and
Constantinople. You have to make the first move, my lord, for in this
country the masses imitate the upper classes. Bear this well in mind: we
are essentially caddish, so, my lord, make use of the defect to save the
country.”