Piccadilly,June.
Piccadilly,June.
Somebody ought to compile a handbook fordébutantsanddébutantes, setting forth the most approved modes of procuring invitations to balls and parties during the London season. Not only would it be a very invaluable guide now, but it would be interesting for posterity to refer to as illustrating the manners and customs of their ancestors, and accounting for the hereditary taint of snobbism which is probably destined to characterise in an eminent degree the population of the British Isles. "En Angleterre," said a cynical Dutch diplomatist, "numéro deux va chez numéro un, pour s'en glorifier auprès de numéro trois." Had he gone to the Bodwinkle ball, he would have remarked a curious inversion of his aphorism, for there it wasnuméro unwho went down tonuméro deux. But I must leave it to Van den Bosch (that, I think, was his name) to discover what there was to boast about to number three. He was evidently a profound philosopher, but I doubt his getting to the bottom of this great social problem. To do so he would have to look at it free from all petty prejudice, recognising its sublime as well as its ridiculous features. Why did Duchesses struggle to be asked to Bodwinkle's? I almost think a new phase of snobbism is cropping out, and the rivalry will be to try, not who can rise highest, but who can sink lowest, in the social scale. The fashionable world is soblaséof itself that it has positively become tired of worshipping wealth, unless its owners possess the charm of extreme vulgarity. Its taste has become so vitiated by being unnaturally excited and pandered to, that we shall have to invent some new object of ambition. Why, for instance, should not a select clique of Oxford Street shopkeepers give a series of parties which might become the rage for one season? They have only to get two or three leaders oftonto patronise them at first, and be very exclusive and select in their invitations afterwards, to insure success. A year or two ago the thing to do was Cremorne; why not have an Oxford Street year? The Bodwinkle tendency will result at last in its being the great ambition of a man's life to get his daughters asked to "a little music and a few friends" at his bootmaker's.
In Paris, which is becoming rapidly impregnated with this spirit, that city being in a very receptive condition for everything bad from all parts of the world—in Paris, I say, they have made a very good start, as any of my fair friends who have patronised Mr Worth's afternoon tea-parties in the Rue de la Paix will readily acknowledge. They will bear testimony to the good taste of the milliner, and I to the bad taste of his customers. That vain women in the highest circles of Parisian fashion can, in an eager rivalry to display as much of their backs as possible, endeavour to obtain the especial patronage of a man-dressmaker, by accepting his invitations to tea, should be a warning to you, O gentle English dames! of what you may come to. Why sacrifice self-respect and propriety to shoulder-straps? Why insist upon it that there is only one man in the world who knows how to cut out a dress behind? Supposing he can bring it an inch lower down than anybody else—if you give that inch, beware of the ell. Why, oh why, advertise your clothes in the newspapers? Is it not enough to puff your dinner-parties in the public journals at so much a "notice," without paying 15s. apiece to your dressmaker to put your names into the 'Morning Post,' coupled with your wearing apparel, every time you go to Court? If you persist in the practice, let me recommend you, as a measure of economy, to put in your own advertisements. The press charge is 10s. 6d.; the dressmaker pockets the other 4s. 6d. Or else be generous: why keep the whole advertisement to yourself? let the poor dressmaker put her name in as having furnished the raiment, and she will, perhaps, let you off the 4s. 6d.; otherwise, you may do it still cheaper by bills on hoardings—
The Marchioness of Scilly will appear at Court on the —— inst. Train glacé—poult de soie bouillionée, &c.
The Marchioness of Scilly will appear at Court on the —— inst. Train glacé—poult de soie bouillionée, &c.
I am not sure that to attend the professional social gatherings of a Parisian "undressmaker" and pay him twenty francs a "look" is not less objectionable, but this is the British way of worshipping the same idol. This vein of reflection was suggested to me by Bodwinkle's ball. Talk of sermons in stones! they are nothing to the sermons contained in drums and balls.
First, I have already let my readers into the secret history of that ball. I have told them how Lady Broadhem and Spiffy Goldtip combined their resources and launched the Bodwinkles in Vanity Fair with a gorgeous mansion and Lady Mundane's invitation list. To describe all Spiffy's exertions in the Bodwinkle cause for some days prior to the ball would be impossible. To tell of the extraordinary suggestions that Bodwinkle was continually making with reference to the decoration of the banisters, the arrangements for supper, and the utter ignorance he displayed throughout of the nature of the enterprise upon which he had embarked, would occupy more space than I can afford. To give a list of the guests would be superfluous, as they were very accurately reported in the columns of the 'Morning Post.' In spite of all Spiffy could do, Bodwinkle would insist upon inviting a number of his own friends, and nearly ruined the party irretrievably by allowing one man to bring his daughters. However, as Mrs B. did not take the slightest notice of them, and as they knew nobody, they went away early. Nevertheless, as Lady Veriphast said, "There were all kinds of people that one had never seen in one's life before." This was the great mistake. People don't yet humiliate themselves to get invitations to meet people they never saw before. They may come to that, but at present nothing is worth going to unless all society wants to go: then anything is. Now Spiffy had so managed, that by a judicious system of puffing he had excited immense interest in the Bodwinkle ball—he had been morally bill-sticking it in all the clubs for weeks past. He had told the mostrépanduyoung dancing men that it would be impossible for him to get them invitations. If Bodwinkle had been General Tom Thumb, and Spiffy had been Barnum, he could not have achieved a greater success. He had insisted upon Bodwinkle having Mrs B. painted by the most fashionable artist and exhibited in the Academy, where the hanging committee, some of whom were at the ball afterwards, gave it a good place, and the 'Times' critic gave it half a column. Until then he had kept her dark. No one had ever seen Mrs Bodwinkle, except three or four literary men, who discreetly and mysteriously alluded to her intellect, and a naughty duke, who indiscreetly and less mysteriously alluded to her charms. People began to want to make Mrs Bodwinkle's acquaintance some time before the ball, but she resolutely denied herself. The only men who were let into the secret were Bower, Scraper, and a few others skilled in the art of socially advertising. Their principal function consisted in asking every one of their friends for some time before whether they were going to the Bodwinkle ball. It oozed out, through Spiffy, that I knew something of Bodwinkle, and the result was that I was bombarded with requests to procure invitations. This was the style of note that arrived incessantly. This is from Mary, Marchioness of Pimlico:—
"Dear Lord Frank,—Lady Mundane tells me that you are one of the privileged few who can get invitations to the Bodwinkles'. Please exert your interest in my favour. You know this is Alice's first season.—Yours truly,"Mary Pimlico."
"Dear Lord Frank,—Lady Mundane tells me that you are one of the privileged few who can get invitations to the Bodwinkles'. Please exert your interest in my favour. You know this is Alice's first season.—Yours truly,
"Mary Pimlico."
Here is another one:—
"Dear Lord Frank,—Dopleaseget an invitation formy very great friend, Amy Rumsort, for the Bodwinkles'. She is most anxious to go,for very particularreasons. I will tell you them when we meet. Spiffy Goldtip sent mamma mine, but declines to come to the front about Amy.—Yours most sincerely,Harriet Wylde."
"Dear Lord Frank,—Dopleaseget an invitation formy very great friend, Amy Rumsort, for the Bodwinkles'. She is most anxious to go,for very particularreasons. I will tell you them when we meet. Spiffy Goldtip sent mamma mine, but declines to come to the front about Amy.—Yours most sincerely,Harriet Wylde."
"Wild Harrie" is the name by which this young lady is usually known among her sporting friends. She is a promisingdébutante, and very properly calls herself "first favourite" of the season.
"Dear me," thought I, as I opened a series of similar epistles, "if I were the head of a public department, who only recommended honours to be given to those who applied for them oftenest, and if all these were meritorious public servants wanting C.B.'s, or gallant soldiers anxious for Victoria Crosses, they could not beg more pertinaciously and unblushingly." And I made a list of the petitioners, leaving out those who had written to me without knowing me, and went to the club, where I intrusted them to Spiffy, with a peremptory request that he would distribute the required invitations upon pain of my financial displeasure.
Spiffy gave me some curious statistics about invitations and the means employed to obtain them. Three ladies who never asked him to their parties, and whom he had therefore left out, though all more or less leaders of thebeau monde, actually wrote to Mrs Bodwinkle in various strains—one was a threatening, the other an appealing letter, and the third assumed that she had been omitted by mistake. Two young gentlemen had the impertinence, after trying every other mode in vain, actually to call on Mrs Bodwinkle, and extract invitations from that bewildered woman, who was too much frightened to refuse them. Bodwinkle was not idle in the House, and two Liberals and an extreme Radical, all young, unable to resist temptation, voted against the Government on the promise of invitations. As for Spiffy, even he was acquiring fresh social experience, and tells me he can scarcely resist entering upon a pecuniaryexploitationof his position in society. "There is," said that enterprising and original individual, "so much to be done by a man of genius. Just look what is open to me in this line,——
"'Families in the country anxious that their sons should be welllancésin the society of the metropolis, are requested to apply to the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip. Invitations to the most fashionable parties obtained at a reasonable amount. Charges moderate for introductions to Clubs. No charge whatever for introductions to noblemen.'
"Or in this line,—
"'To Debutantes and Others in want of Chaperonage.—Young ladies whose mothers are invalids, or are from some cause considered objectionable by society, or who have only step-mothers, or who are orphans with unkind or Evangelical relations, or who are unexpectedly at the last moment deprived of their natural protectors, on applying to the undersigned will be provided with suitable chaperons. The undersigned begs to notify that his stock of chaperons will bear the strictest examination as to character, and have all at one time or other moved in the highest circles of society. No debutante or young lady whose birth and antecedents do not entitle her to the same privilege need apply.Spiffington Goldtip.'
"Then thependantto this would be,—
"'To Married Women or Widows without Daughters.—Married women, or widows without daughters, who have either dropped out of society or are in danger of dropping out, in consequence of there being no special reason why they should be kept in, and who are capable of undertaking the duties of chaperon, are requested to apply to the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip. The Hon. S. G. has a large stock of debutantes, and other young ladies in want of chaperons, always on hand. The strictest references given and required.'
"You may laugh," Spiffy went on, "but I assure you the sort of successes I have in my own line are quite astonishing. Look what a hit I've made with Wild Harrie—her mother, Lady Wylde, you remember, was her husband's brother's governess. Well, I said plainly to her, 'You will ruin that girl's chances if you attempt to force her on society in your own way. You can't afford to entertain upon the right scale, and you won't be asked anywhere unless you do, for there is a set going to be made against Harriet. If you will leave her to me, I know her strong points, and will see her through the whole business as if she was my own sister.'" I must here remarken passantthat Spiffy is apparently capable of doing the most unselfish things, and of taking an infinity of trouble upon himself out of pure good-nature.
"What was yourmodus operandi?" I asked.
"Oh, it was all plain sailing enough. The first thing to provide was a popular chaperon, and the second a special reputation. Now Harrie is a wonderful rider, and knows a horse thoroughly. Then she looks like a high-bred Arab herself, though her mother was a governess, and I felt sure Dick Helter would fall a victim. So I introduced her to the Helters. As Lady Jane goes in for safeness, she does not like married women, and always smiles most kindly upon any girl that pleases her husband; so I knew if I could get Harrie by her side on the top of Helter's drag, the next step was a certainty, and that I had secured my chaperon. The result has fully justified my expectations. Harrie has secured the box-seaten permanence, went down to the Derby on Helter's drag, and won a pot on the French horse under his judicious advice. Little Haultort, and all the other men who lost to her, adore her of course, and all the girls in London hate her; but whenever the mammas object to asking her on account of 'that horrid Lady Wylde,' I floor all opposition by saying, 'Oh, Lady Jane Helter will bring her.' I wonder," said Spiffy, with a sigh, "when she has made her little game, whether she will remember to whom she owed it?"
"Now, do you find much ingratitude of this kind?" I asked, inquiringly.
"No," said Spiffy. "I must say on the whole my experience of the world in this respect is, that it is not so black as it is painted. It is true that I attribute its gratitude chiefly to laziness. For instance, in my own case, so long as I hold the position I do in society, people who insisted upon being ungrateful to me would find it hard work. By the way, I observe you don't go out as much as you used—how's that?" This was no business of Spiff's, so I said sublimely, "Because the aristocracy bore me, and the middle classes grate upon my nerves.—But about this little girl: she is rather an ally of mine, so you must see that her friend, Miss Rumsort, has the card."
"It is too bad!" broke out Spiffy. "The way that girl and her married sister are trying to take the world by storm is intolerable. It does not matter whether they know the people they apply to or not, it is always the same story. She pretends she is tremendously in love with Larkington because he goes everywhere, and her sister looks sentimental, and tries to work upon your feelings about 'poor Amy,' whose only object in life is to meet him; but it is all a dodge to get asked. She cares no more for Larkington than for me. Now, I'll be bound Wild Harrie put something aboutvery particular reasonsin her note to you."
"Well," said I, astonished at Spiffy's penetration, and at the new views of life he was placing before me, "I must admit that that phrase did occur."
"Of course it did; why, it is one of the regular forms of 'extorting invitations under false pretences.' I want the police to interfere, but it seems, although they are doubtless begging-letters, containing fraudulent misrepresentations, there is some difficulty about bringing them within the terms of the Act."
"Never mind—live and let live—send her the invitation. It seems to me, my dear Spiffy, that you and the Bodwinkles and Miss Rumsort are all in the same line of life, so you should not be too hard upon her. As a matter of policy, social adventurers should do what they can for each other."
Spiffy's face flushed, for if he had lost the conscience, he still retained the consciousness, of a gentleman, and he felt the reproach.
Just at this moment, Mr Wog, who had been elected an honorary member of the "Piccadilly," and was standing, unconsciously to us, listening to our conversation, struck in, and averted the retort which was rising to Spiffy's lips.
"I guess," he said, turning to Spiffy, for whose talents he evidently entertained a high admiration, "that I could give you a few hints, from my own experiences in New York, that might help you in your line of business. My own, sir, in that city, was quite similar to yours in this. You operate at night in Mayfair, and by day 'On 'Change.' Well, sir, I had two spheres of operation, one was on Wall Street, and the other on Fifth Avenue. In fact, I may say that Wall Street is the broad and flowery road that leads to Fifth Avenue. The trouble with operators in this country is, they don't understand how to do things on a large scale. Now the first thing I did when I went to do business in New York, was to keep a judge."
"To keep a judge?" said Spiffy with amazement.
"Why, yes. How can you operate freely if you are afraid of the law? Besides his regular monthly allowance, my judge gets a percentage on every one of my financial enterprises which are fraudulent according to the letter of the statute. Then it costs me a good deal to manage to get all my lawsuits tried in his court. Besides, I have to keep a number of members of both the Houses of the Legislature at Albany regularly retained, and to put a big pile on one side for lobby operations at Washington, to say nothing about keeping the pockets of police and custom-house officers and other small fry well lined. The press alone swallows up the fifth of all I make. How do you suppose I could ever have accomplished my celebrated combination by which I got four large railroads under my control, and sold a secret issue of twenty millions of stock for fifteen millions, without ever paying one dime of it to any of the companies, if I had not stopped the mouths of the lawyers, politicians, and newspapers with greenbacks? Why, sir, I have ruined more whole families in one day by one of my financial operations, than any other man in the United States has in a month; and by the extraordinary novelty, grandeur, variety, and success of my undertakings, I have won the admiration, envy, and respect of the majority of my countrymen."
Spiffy seemed deeply impressed by the superior force and originality of conception displayed by Mr Wog—no indication of these qualities appearing on his calm exterior. "Of what nature are your operations in Fifth Avenue?" he asked.
"Oh, purely social," Mr Wog replied. "You see the aristocracy of New York require to be approached in a very special way. You can enter into the ranks of the upper ten, either by becoming a pillar of a fashionable church, or by driving the fastest trotters and handsomest four-in-hand teams in Central Park, or by the help of Mr Pink."
"By the help of Mr Pink?" said I, interrogatively.
"Yes. He corresponds to our friend Spiffy here. He is the sexton of St Grace's, the most fashionable church in New York; and when you have made your pile, and want to start in fashionable life, and don't know who to invite, he makes out your list, and puts the invitations to your first ball in the prayer-books of the congregation. It imparts a sort of odour of sanctity to our entertainments, which is exceedingly gratifying to our most refined circles."
"I suppose," said I, "now that your social and financial position are secured, you will run for Congress."
"Sir," said Mr Wog, sternly, "when I explained to you the nature of my commercial success, it was to convey to you the idea of my smartness, not of my meanness. I am not aware of having said anything to lead you to suppose that I could so far degrade myself as to become a politician."
"What a comfort it will be," I remarked, "when the rotten old despotisms of Europe, and the political ambitions that belong to them, shall have crumbled to the dust, and when we have instead the free and glorious institutions of the West, which seem to offer nothing to tempt a man from the ennobling pursuit of hard cash!" But Mr Wog failed to appreciate the force of my remark, as he was intently endeavouring to catch the purport of a very private conversation carried on by a group a few yards off, towards which he gradually edged, in the hope that he might be able either to acquire or impart some interesting information.
Spiffy looked more humbled and crestfallen than I had ever seen him; but remembering that he had still a score unsettled, in consequence of the remark which Mr Wog's arrival had interrupted, he said, maliciously,—
"By the way, what is the real state of the case about you and Lady Ursula? I don't apologise for asking, as I am sure you must want the right version to be known both for your sake and hers."
"The right version is simply that I neither am at this moment nor ever have been engaged to Lady Ursula."
"Then why did you tell Helter you were, and why are you pulling the family through their difficulties?"
"Because Helter was provoking me almost as much as you are, though I admit that is no reason why I should not have told the truth. As for the motives which actuate me in meddling in those pecuniary transactions in which you and Lady Broadhem are implicated, I am afraid you would not understand them if I were to attempt to explain them. It is a complicated business altogether. We shall get through it most satisfactorily by each minding our own share of it," I said significantly, and I walked off to a table where Broadhem was writing letters. I had not seen him since my interview with his sister. He looked gloomy and discontented, and gave me a cold glance of recognition. "How are you, Broadhem? I suppose Lady Ursula told you the result of our conversation," I said in a low tone, and took a chair by his side.
He nodded sulkily, and showed a disposition to cut me. My last few words with Spiffy had not left me in a mood to be cut unresistingly, so I said sharply, "Well, I hope both you and Lady Broadhem will contradict the perfectly unfounded report you were the means of spreading. I need not say that I shall do my share, and I trust that you will profit by the lesson you have received not to interfere in matters of this sort again."
"I tell you what it is, Frank," said Broadhem, who felt that somehow I was more to blame than he was, but who was taken aback by my turning the tables upon him so suddenly; "if it was not that duelling is exploded, and that it would be against my principles at any rate, I would shoot you."
"By way of helping to clear your property of its encumbrances," I added. "Your mother has put everything into my hands, and I can do pretty much what I please with the whole family."
"Can you?" said Broadhem, with a grim smile. "The only thing that consoles me in the whole affair is, that you will find that you have got a little score to settle with my mother. If you knew her as well as I do, you would not anticipate the interview with pleasure. As for Ursula, I suppose she knows her own business best, but I don't envy her the life she is likely to lead either."
"The alarming interview you threaten me with gives me no uneasiness," I said, "but perhaps it may be as well that you should let Lady Broadhem know that the fact of my not being engaged to her daughter will not interfere with the arrangements I am making to put the money matters of the family right."
"Why! you can't mean that!" said Broadhem, thunderstruck at this unexpected announcement; and he looked at me with a glance of affectionate interest. "You must be mad."
"Did your sister tell you so?" I asked.
"Once she did make a mysterious speech, and I really think she meant to imply something of the sort. However, of course, I am only joking. I need not say I hope, under the circumstances, it will be long before you recover your sanity."
"Are you going to the Bodwinkles' to-morrow?" said I, doing a little of Bower and Scraper's work.
"Good gracious, no! I am bored to death with having to answer the question. The trouble my mother has taken to get those people invitations is something amazing. She even wanted me to go, though she does not approve of balls, and never let me learn to dance."
"Let me introduce you to Miss Geary. You are not too old to begin."
"No," said Broadhem; "I have started on the other tack, and people would say it was inconsistent; besides, none of the young thinking men of the day dance, even though they may not be religious. I don't suppose that there is a single man in the Century dances."
This observation struck me as so preposterous that I could only account for it by supposing that, for the first time in his life, Broadhem had condescended to "chaff."
"Not 'a man' in the ideal sense, I daresay; but the boys are not more backward in this century than in any former one."
"Boys!" said Broadhem, indignantly; "there are no boys in the 'Century;' the 'Century' is a club that meets twice a-week. I don't go on Sunday nights myself; but some Thursday night I will take you," and Broadhem plunged back into the correspondence in which I had interrupted him, while I strolled home down Piccadilly moralising on—the Century.
I don't frequent balls now, but I went to Bodwinkle's for a variety of reasons. One was, that I knew I should see everybody, and have an opportunity of informing the public correctly about my own affairs. Another, that I should be able to talk over some business matters with Bodwinkle, at a moment when he might possibly be more pliant than I usually found him in the City.
Every soul was at Bodwinkle's—coroneted carriages filled the square; a crowd of draggled men and women formed a line six or eight deep on each side of the awning, and between them fine ladies hurried across the pavement, encouraged and complimented by familiar linkmen, and very particular that the 'Morning Post' reporter, seated at a table in the hall, should take down their names accurately. The stairs were so crowded that Bodwinkle, who looked like one of his own footmen, and stood at the top of them, facing his wife, was red and apoplectic from pressure. His "lady," as I heard one of his City friends call her, had achieved the greatest object of her ambition in this life, which consisted in grinning vacantly, and curtsying perpetually to people she had never seen in her life before, and every one of whom despised her for entertaining them.
"Curious idea of the climax of earthly enjoyment," I remarked to Lady Veriphast, who was so tightly wedged between the banisters and a rather highly-scented ambassador from Central Asia, that she spoke with difficulty; "I suppose it must be a pleasure to be at the top of one's own ladder, like our hostess there, when so many are trying to climb it."
"Donotphilosophise in that ridiculous way; don't you see I am suffering agonies?" said Lady Veriphast, in a tone of suppressed anguish. "Pinch this horrid barbarian in front of me or I shall faint."
"Madam," I overheard a well-known voice say in a nasal tone close to me, "allow me to remark, that for a hand, arm, and wrist, I have not seen anything since I have been in England like that owned by your daughter Mary;" and Mr Wog complacently edged himself from the side of Lady Mundane to that of the daughter he had eulogised, and who audibly asked Scraper to get between her and that horrid man.
"Just what one deserves for coming to such a place," said Lady Mundane furiously, who, by the way, had repeatedly asked Wog to her own parties.
"I have often remarked, sir," said Mr Wog, who I think overheard this observation, turning to me, "that the ladies in your country allow quite a singular effect to be produced in their hair. If you will cast your eye down the stair you will observe a young person on the landing, the parting of whose hair, for the space of one inch on either side, is black, while the two large bunches on her temples are red. That, sir, is a phenomenon I have not remarked in my own country."
"Don't you know how it happens?" said that spiteful old Lady Catchpole, whose eyes twinkled with malice as she explained to Mr Wog that, when the hair had been thoroughly dyed it could only recover its natural colour by this slow process, but that usually the effect was concealed by apostiche; and she looked hard at Lady Veriphast, whose hair was suspiciouslycrepé, and who wished it to be supposed that she blushed because she was still under the pressure of the Asiatic ambassador.
"What is the exact meaning of the termpostiche?" asked Mr Wog, who observed Lady Veriphast's confusion, and whose thirst for information seemed to increase with his powers of making himself disagreeable; "I guess it must mean some kind of wig."
"No," said Lady Catchpole; "anything false which is well made up we call apostiche; it need not be exactly a wig."
"Nor yet a Tory," interrupted Wog, with more readiness than I gave him credit for. "I calculate you should call a Liberal Conservative apostiche. It seems to me the most popular political platform in this country at your next elections is going to bepostiche."
"Look, my dear," said Lady Pimlico to Lady
Mundane, "there are the two Frenchwomen," and she directed universal attention to the last importations from the Continent, Madame la Princesse de Biaisée à la Queue, and La Baronne de Colté, whose fame had preceded them from Paris, and who created such a sensation that the general hum on the stairs increased, and the whole society collected there audibly criticised the new-comers. "Why, positively the tall one has got her hair doneen papillon—I thought it had gone out—I suppose her face won't bear beingcoiffé à la grècque; and the other is outrageously painted." This remark was made so loud that both ladies looked up, but failed to check the running fire of comments which their dress and appearance suggested.
"They say the Princess makes up for her want of looks by her legs," drawled out Larkington to Lady Veriphast; "but I am afraid we shall not have an opportunity of seeing them to-night, it is so crowded."
"They are not worth looking at; I saw them at a fancy ball in Paris," said Lady Veriphast, "and I assure you you would be disappointed. By the way, have you the least notion who the Bodwinkles are?"
"Not I," replied Larkington. "I did not come here to make their acquaintance, nor I hope did you."
I think Mrs Bodwinkle heard the speech—for it is customary in good society to make remarks about one's neighbours in rather a loud tone—as she coloured a little when she was pointed out to Larkington by the fat butler as the person to whom he was expected to bow. Poor woman! she probably thought he would be embarrassed when he found out his proximity; but Larkington is above any such weakness, and sauntered on after Lady Veriphast, with whom he hasaffichédhimself for the last few weeks, to the great comfort of Veriphast, who has long been desirous of making his wife share the scandal which has attached to his name for some time past.
"And it is for this, my dear Mrs Bodwinkle," I thought, "that you have given up your villa at Clapham, and the friends that respectfully worshipped at the Bodwinkle shrine, who gazed upon you with reverend upturned eyes, instead of irreverent upturned noses, like the present company! Do you think, when you have blazed for a moment and gone out like a blue-light, that you will know how to find your way in the dark back to Clapham, or that you will be able to collect your old congregation? Will not new Bodwinkles have arisen above the suburban horizon, or will the departed glories of your rapid but bright passage across the firmament of fashion always secure you an audience who will gladly listen to your wonderful experiences in the great world, to whom you will recount the devotion manifested towards you by certain noblemen, and the slights you received at the hands of certain noblewomen, and who will stare when you describe the Broadhem-Spiffy combination which sent you up like a rocket, and the sudden collapse of that combination which will assuredly bring you down like a stick? Never mind, Mrs B.; whatever happens, nothing short of a fire can deprive you of the basket of fashionable cards which will be left upon you during the season, and which, carefully treasured with your dinnermenus, will be a lasting evidence of the reality of that social triumph which might otherwise seem like the 'baseless fabric of a dream.'"
And this consideration reminds me that I possess middle-class readers, who may positively doubt the truth of the picture which I am endeavouring to give them of the society in which Mrs Bodwinkle now found herself. They will not have the advantage of hearing from the lips of that good lady these wonderful traits of the manners and customs of this, to them, mysterious class. And therefore they will fail to see any particular merit in what they may suppose to be merely a flippant delineation of a purely ideal state of society. My dear readers, I should be no more competent to invent a state of society so eccentric in its habits and constitution as this of London cream, than I should be to write an account of lion-hunting like the late lamented Jules Gerard. That was a real strain upon the imaginative and constructive faculties; I aspire to no such talent, but simply contemplate hyperbolically a certain phase of contemporary civilisation. If, by way of a little pastime, I put Mayfair into a fancy dress, it only appears in its true colours and becomes fancy-fair, with a great deal of show and very little substance; so I dress it up as it pleases me, but I invent nothing. I confine myself strictly to the stage properties. You in the pit or gallery may be too far off to see, but I assure you I have avoided anything beyond the exaggeration permissible in a caricature. As I know your imitative faculties, dear middle classes, I can conscientiously assure you that you may take 'Piccadilly' as a guide upon which to frame your own society. Take the most successful costermonger of the neighbourhood and erect him into a Bodwinkle, and fall down upon your knees before the most opulent pawnbroker of your parish; and you will feel that you are only performing, on a humble scale, the same act of worship as those above you.
Lady Jane Helter, followed by Wild Harrie, came up while I was thus musing. "So, Lord Frank," she said, "you are not to be congratulated after all? I suppose you heard of our dinner at the Whitechapels'? We all thought your conduct very incomprehensible. I assure you Lady Broadhem seemed as much in the dark as the rest of us."
"And you want to be enlightened?" said I. "Well, it has been a socialcanardthroughout, which I did not at first think worth contradicting. There must be a certain number every season."
"I am sure we want them more than ever now," said Wild Harrie. "Was there ever such an utterly flat season? I only went to two balls last week, and, as they say at 'the corner,' 'there was positively nothing doing.'"
"It is not the same in every corner," said I; "look opposite," and I pointed out Larkington and Lady Veriphast snugly ensconced in a recess.
"Poor Amy! I am afraid that won't suit her book," said Wild Harrie. "She is really devoted to Lord Larkington. I told her to hedge, but she says she has too much heart. By the way, I want to have a little private conversation with you. Take me to have a cup of tea, or a quadrille, or something"—this in rather a low tone, not for Lady Jane's benefit; and we sidled off through the throng, leaving Lady Jane at the doorway, which, in the absence of her ladyship, does duty as chaperon.
"Do you know, Lord Frank," said my companion, "that it really was very kind of you to get me the invitation you did, and that I can appreciate kindness; can you guess how?"
"By asking me to do something else for you," I said.
"Exactly," she said, laughing; "but this time it will not perhaps be quite so easy. I want you to get me a card for Lady Broadhem's on Thursday week."
"For Lady Broadhem's!" said I, astounded. "How on earth did you come to hear of it? Why, it is a meeting, not a party. A few Christian friends are going to hear the Bishop of the Caribbee Islands describe the state of mission-work in his diocese. You would be bored to death."
"Indeed I should not," said Wild Harrie. "I have a brother in India; and I have heard so much about the heathen. Besides, I want to make Lady Ursula's acquaintance."
"I really don't think," said I, a good deal puzzled, "that you will find it a very congenial atmosphere, but I am sure nobody can know Lady Ursula without deriving benefit, so I should feel too glad to be the means of making you acquainted; but Lady Jane will never take you."
"Oh, mamma will; you know her brother was a clergyman. Promise. Don't forget—one for me and one for mamma. Now I must leave you; I quite forgot I was engaged to little Haultort for this dance, and there he is hunting for me everywhere," and she dragged me to the spot where that young gentleman was stroking a fluffy mustache, with an imbecile air.
"Do you call that hunting?" said I; "He must be in chase of ideas."
"Of course he is. Now watch him catch bigidée fixe," and she placed herself before him. Poor youth! how he coloured and stammered, as a ray of intelligence illumined his countenance! "So that is the way you keep your engagements, Lord Haultort, is it? Well, you have forfeited your dance"—the ray went out—"but you may take me back to Lady Jane." The ray came back again; he was sufficiently experienced to know what that meant, and Lord Haultort disappeared into the next room with hisidée fixeon his arm, and I looked the other way half an hour after, when I passed the corresponding recess in which Larkington and Lady Veriphast were still sitting, and saw who were there.
"I wonder what that little girl wants to know the Broadhems for?" I ruminated, and for some time I was positively fool enough to continue to wonder.
"I tell you what it is, Goldtip," I overheard Bodwinkle say, "that idea of yours about giving presents is all humbug; we've got the people here, what do you want to give them presents for?"
"In the first place," retorted Spiffy, "they will never come again unless you keep faith with them now, for I have been giving it out specially that no expense was to be spared; and in the second place, as you have got all the presents made up in ribbons, &c., what else are you to do with them? The girls will be terribly disappointed."
Bodwinkle shook his head sulkily, and Spiffy, seeing me, adroitly turned the conversation. "I was talking over the prospects of the approaching election, Frank, with Bodwinkle, and telling him how much you could assist us with your influence in Shuffleborough; it seems to me that he is likely to be turned out unless your brother-in-law, Sir John Stepton, will come to the rescue. It would be well worth your while, Bodwinkle, to let Lady Broadhem's matter stand over until you have made sure of your seat," said Spiffy, looking significantly at me.
"Oh, certainly," said Bodwinkle, "if you will secure your brother-in-law's adhesion to our plans. You will find me very amenable in that unfortunate affair of Lady Broadhem's. I know what an interest you take in it, and I am sure, for your sake, if not for hers—ahem," and Bodwinkle, quite unconscious that he was behaving like a scoundrel, smiled upon me blandly.
"It seems to me," said I, "that, considering what you owe to Lady Broadhem," and I looked round the crowded room, "you ought not to be too hard upon her."
"Ah, well, I must admit that her ladyship and our friend Goldtip here are doing their best to balance the account; but I have made it a principle through life never to be satisfied with anything short of my full money's worth; and I don't even feel now, if you make my election a certainty, that we shall be more than square."
"What are your other principles besides that of getting your full money's worth?" said I, with a sneer, that was lost upon Bodwinkle.
"High Tory," he replied, promptly. "None of your Liberal Conservatives for me this time—that did well enough last election."
"But Stepton is an absolute Radical," said I.
"Exactly: that is why he is so important. You see the fact is—here, Goldtip, explain our little game; it is all his idea, and he can put it better than me."
I knew from the bold defiant way in which Spiffy raised his eyes to mine that his original and unscrupulous genius had conceived acoup d'étatof some kind, so I listened curiously.
"I am going to stand for Shuffleborough, and it is I who want Sir John Stepton's vote and influence," he announced, calmly.
"You!" said I, amazed; "what are you going to stand as? and who is going to pay your expenses?"
"I am going to stand as an extreme Liberal, and Bodwinkle as a regular old Tory. He is going to pay my expenses. We are going to strike out an entirely new line, and have convictions. He can't come the Liberal Conservative this time, as one of the Liberals who is very popular has gone in rather extensively for the Moderate Conservatives. So there is nothing for it but to come forward as an out-and-out Tory, and put me up as a Radical; by these means we hope to floor both the fellows that are trying the trimming game. Of course I am not intended to come in—I only split the party."
"But if you stand, one of the others will retire. Look at what has just happened at Westminster."
"Then Bodwinkle starts his wife's cousin Tom—why, he is rich enough to keep all three Liberals in the field to fight him if necessary; and you are pluck to the backbone, aint you, old fellow?" and Spiffy slapped Bodwinkle on the back.
"Perhaps you would like to see our addresses," he went on,—"here they are; I wrote them both. I shall issue mine first, and Bodwinkle's a day or two after."
"May I take them home to read?" I asked.
"Oh, certainly, and frame your own on their model if you like," said Spiffy, laughing; "they'll be the neatest thing out in addresses, I assure you."
"Mr Goldtip, I wish you would exert yourself, instead of talking politics with Mr B.," said Mrs Bodwinkle, coming up; "there are all sorts of things to arrange, and I am sure I don't know who is to take who down to supper;" and Spiffy was carried away upon special service.
"Good-night, Bodwinkle," said I; "your ball is a great success, but I am an early man, and hot rooms don't suit me. I understand the political situation thoroughly now, and without pledging myself to anything, will see what is to be done."
"Of course, all in the most perfect confidence; it would never do for Stepton to suspect what we were at."
"Oh, it would be absolute ruin. There is just one question I should like to ask, Can you give me your solemn word that in all this you have no other motive but the single one of being of use to your country?"
"Eh!" said Bodwinkle, with his eyes rather wide open.
"I repeat," said I, slowly, "Is your only object in getting into Parliament that you may be of use to the country? or is it that the country may be of use to you?"
"I must ask you one in return," said Bodwinkle: "Will it depend upon my answer whether or not you exert yourself in my favour?"
"Entirely," said I.
"Then, my dear Lord Frank," said Bodwinkle, affectionately grasping my hand, "believe me, that so far as I am concerned, and I can say the same for Goldtip, our only single desire is to do that which England expects of every man at such a crisis,—our duty, entirely irrespective of all personal considerations."
I wrung Bodwinkle's hand warmly (I could have crushed every bone in it), and threw an expression of tender interest into my glance as I said, "I wonder, Bodwinkle, how many candidates are actuated by these lofty views in the coming election; but you must not let yourself be too much carried away by your Quixotic convictions. Remember, my friend, what you owe to your party."
"I never forget it," said Bodwinkle, readily. "I have four things to consider—my country, my party, my family, and my conscience. I begin by asking my conscience what are the interests of my country. My conscience replies promptly that my party should be in power. I then ask my conscience what are the interests of my family, and my conscience invariably says the same thing. I then ask my conscience whether it has any political views of its own, and my conscience responds that it is a mercantile conscience, which has always been absorbed in commerce, and that takes no interest in abstract politics; so that practically, you see, I have no difficulty, so far as my conscience is concerned."
"Wog is right," I mused as I walked home—"posticheis everywhere. We certainly do 'make up' well. I suppose this country never looked more fair and flourishing in the eyes of the world in general than it does at this moment. We have made a greatsuccèsby means ofpostiche—there is no denying it. But we shall fall to pieces all of a sudden like old Lady Pimlico; and the wrinkles will appear before long in the national cheeks in spite of the rouge. Ah, the taunts we shall have to endure when theposticheis discovered, from the rivals that have always been jealous and are still under the prestige of our former charms! Then the kings of the earth with whom we have lived delicately will turn against us, for they will remember our greed and our pride and our egotism, in the days when we sold our virtue for gold, and our honour for a mess of pottage. Is there no one who will cry aloud in the streets while there is yet time?—will there not be one man in these coming elections who will have the courage to tell the people that their senses are so drugged by prosperity that they are blind to the impending doom, and that the only way to avert it will be by a policy diametrically opposed to that which has fascinated the nation for the last few years, because it has conducted them so pleasantly along those smooth and flowery paths that lead to destruction? Be sure, oh my countrymen, that for you collectively, as well as individually, there is a broad and a narrow way, and that as surely as a nation ignores its duties towards God and its obligations towards its neighbours, so surely will a swift judgment overtake it!" I was interrupted by a policeman at this point, who kindly called my attention to the fact that in my prophetic fervour I had myself been crying aloud in the streets, and accompanying my denunciations with appropriate action. "I will throw off a few of these ideas for the benefit of my constituents, while the sacred fire is still upon me," thought I, as I stood at my bay-window, and watched the grey dawn of the June morning breaking over Green Park. Sleep at such a moment is impossible, and I pulled the addresses of Spiffy and Bodwinkle from my pocket.
"Gentlemen," says Spiffy to the independent electors of Shuffleborough, "in soliciting the favour of your suffrages at the approaching general election, I am aware that I labour under the disadvantage of coming before you as an untried man, but I ask you all the more confidently on this account to substitute me for one who has been tried and found wanting. Still more painfully conscious am I of the fact that I am open to the charge of causing a fatal split in that Liberal party to which I have the honour to belong. Gentlemen, I regret to say that in some instances the members of that party have not been true to the principles which they profess, and have issued addresses almost identical in the terms they employ and in the measures they advocate with those of the Liberal Conservative party. It is no satisfaction to me to be told that there are as many false Conservatives as there are false Liberals. As a friend of the people I am opposed to all compromises, and will unflinchingly expose treachery in the camp. You will find that my political views are clear and decided.
"Though a member of the Church of England, I am in favour of the total abolition of Church-rates, as I believe that you will spiritualise the Church precisely in proportion as you starve it.
"I am in favour of an extension of the franchise to such an extent as will comprise all the working-classes, and thus pave the way to that universal suffrage in which I myself shall be included, and for the first time enjoy the privilege of voting.
"Should I fail to be returned as your member upon this occasion, I shall be in favour of a redistribution of seats.
"I believe that an era of universal peace is dawning upon the world, and I am therefore an advocate of the total suppression of our armaments both by sea and land.
"T think that the Christian spirit displayed in our foreign policy which has induced us to court national insult for the purpose of setting an example of forbearance, and which has enabled us humbly but surely to extend our commercial relations, has procured for us the highest moral position which has ever yet been accorded to a people. To increase the wealth of the nation and to foster its Christian spirit, will be recognised by me as a primary duty, if I am honoured with the high trust of being your representative in the Commons House of Parliament."
Now comes Bodwinkle's address, written by the versatile author of the last:—
"Gentlemen,—The appearance of a third candidate in the Liberal interest within the last few days induces me to break the silence which I have up to this time preserved. I have observed with pain that in many instances the addresses issued by gentlemen calling themselves Liberal Conservatives or Conservative Reformers, are of the most subversive tendency, and entirely opposed to the spirit of that old and enlightened party to which I have the honour to belong. I repudiate, therefore, entirely that temporising language which a large number of candidates calling themselves Conservatives hold, and which it has suited one of my opponents, who calls himself a Liberal, to adopt. I believe I shall best recommend myself to this constituency by an honest and unswerving advocacy of those views which the Tory party of this country have invariably maintained. More fondly attached, if possible, to the Church of England than I was upon the occasion when I last addressed you, I am more than ever convinced that money is the only thing that keeps it going. I am therefore entirely opposed to the abolition of those rates which form the foundation of that pillar upon which the State has been accustomed securely to repose.
"I am opposed to the enfranchisement of the working man, as, in the probable event of a combination between the labouring classes and the aristocracy, that middle class to which I have the honour to belong would cease to direct the destinies of the country. Any lateral measure of reform, unattended, however, by a vertical movement, which should exclude this possibility, will have my entire concurrence.
"I am in favour of a measure which shall largely increase the armaments of the country, and at the same time reduce the cost of their maintenance.
"I have profound confidence in the policy of the great Conservative party in their relations with foreign nations. The fact that they have hitherto declined to define what that policy is, renders it impossible for me to enter more fully into this subject at present.
"In a word, should you do me the honour to return me as your member, you will find me Liberal only in my views as to the modes in which money may be acquired, and Conservative always when there is a question of expenditure."
It is a grand idea but a great experiment this of having convictions, which Spiffy has just started, thought I. I have been cursed with them all my life, but never could turn them to account. Now in this case, for instance, he is using convictions—posticheconvictions certainly—to get Bodwinkle into Parliament; the result of my convictions is, that if I express them they will turn me out. A prophet is without honour in his own country, more especially when the whole constituency has become sceptical and apathetic. I shall issue an address to the free and independent electors of Dunderhead. And under the inspiration of the moment I wrote as follows:—