Читать книгу The storm of London: a social rhapsody - Fernande Blaze de Bury - Страница 6

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Dick Danford was as good as his word. After an hour’s stroll through London, Lord Somerville came to the conclusion that, for the present, his eyes were no more to him than a tail would have been. The old world of before the storm seemed to have vanished in a bottomless pit, and what he viewed instead was as prodigious as what he had hoped to see on his travels across Acheron. He noticed that tricks and mannerisms were as yet clinging to both sexes: women still grasped their invisible dresses as if they had been bunches of keys, twisted about their fingers absent chains round their necks; men tried to put their hands in vanished pockets, and held imaginary umbrellas in front of them (the latter Danford declared were clergymen), and their necks, stiffened by the long use of high collars, gave them the appearance of turkeys. But as to knowing anyone in this Babel of faces, that was quite out of the question; and Lionel went from one ejaculation to another as Dick enumerated the different notabilities of Society, the theatrical world and financial booths. It was like a transformation scene at Drury Lane. The world was not what he had altogether taken it to be, and if he found himself to have been even more swindled than he had believed, still, there were surprises for which he had not been prepared and which were worth living for: the beautiful women were not all as beautiful as he had thought them, but the plain ones had a great many points that commended them to a connoisseur. As to the men whom he had feared as rivals in the arena of good fortunes, they made him smile as he gave an admiring glance at his spinal curve reflected in a shop mirror. The little artist’s conversation was a succession of fireworks; never on the boards had he been more entertaining than this afternoon, acting the part of a humorous Mephistopheles to this masher Faust. He informed Lord Somerville that after he had left him in the morning he had done some good work for the public welfare, and had come to a final arrangement with the Commissioner of Police.

“What for, Danford?” had inquired Lionel.

“Well, I do not know whether it struck you as it did me at your first exit, my lord, but the very first observation that impressed itself on me was the difficulty women had in distinguishing a policeman from an ordinary civilian. I watched many in distress, who gave an appealing look all round for the kindly help of a bobby. It was hard to tell whether that man on the left with a dogged expression and thin legs was the policeman, or whether it was this other on the right, with limbs like marble columns and a puny face. Such dilemmas puzzled the public all through the day, and decided the Committee of Music Hall artists to take the matter in hand and confer with the heads of the Police.”

“Have you come to some understanding, Dick?”

“The thing is settled. Scotland Yard is to be turned into a public gymnasium, and a staff of picked policemen are to instruct the citizens in the art of being their own policemen.”

“How very expeditious you are in your profession. Had this been in the hands of Parliament, we should never have heard anything about it, however pressing the need might have been.”

“Then, another feature of our School of Observation will be special prizes to be awarded to husbands who will recognise their wives, or vice versa, when out of their homes. I think that will take in Society, for I have noticed that the nearer the relationship the more difficult it was to know one another.”

“You are very neat in your remarks, Danford,” said Lionel.

“You see, my lord, every judgment I arrive at is the result of keen observation. I heard once, during our ten days of seclusion, the most awful row in the house next to mine; it belongs to the Longfords—you know, the Longfords who took the Regalia Theatre for a season. Well, their housemaid reported to my landlady what the row was about, and she told me the next morning through the keyhole what had been the matter. The fact was this: Mrs Longford had entered her husband’s room and had had the greatest difficulty in persuading him she was his lawful wife. If such a scene could occur between a couple of twenty years’ standing, in their own house, how much more difficult it would be to recognise your wife in the crowd.”

“And hence your idea of a prize. I think that had you decided to award it to the man who recognised another man’s wife you would have been more successful.”

“We should have been bankrupt by the end of a week, my lord; besides, this was a feature of the old Society, and we want to launch it on a totally novel basis. Originality must be our watchword.”

Lord Somerville, having been struck by the keen judgment and foresight of the little buffoon, had willingly promised him his support in every way. He would send round to all his friends and spread the idea amongst the Upper Ten, who would be sure to lead the movement and give a salutary example to the middle classes. Arrived at the corner of Park Lane, Lionel had wistfully inquired of Danford whether he knew Gwendolen Towerbridge? Dick was sorry, but he could not help Lord Somerville in that line. Engaged people were quite out of his department, Lord Somerville would have to solve that problem for himself; to which Lionel had shrugged his shoulders: just as well guess whose face was behind a thick mask.

That evening Lionel sat up late in his library planning in his mind the organisation of the new Society of social guides. He frequently interrupted his work to look up at his father’s portrait; his type was not unlike hundreds of men he had seen during the day, and he wondered how he could recognise his own father were he alive? Would not the latter have been slightly bewildered in this Babel? Would not his pedantic theories on good breeding receive a shock were he now to step out of his frame and take a stroll through the streets of London?

Towards two o’clock in the morning the Earl had memorised the whole synopsis of the new Society, to be launched under the gracious patronage of the Earl of A.B.C. and of Her Grace the Duchess of X.Y.Z., and he retired to his pallet of plaited rushes with a sigh of contentment at the prospect of a new spectacular show, and with a sense of relief at the thought that Gwendolen was lost to him, more irrevocably lost in this general unmasking than if a vessel had foundered on a rock, leaving her on a desert island.

In a few days London resumed its usual occupations; we cannot say that it looked quite the same, but Society apparently was in the swing once more. How could it be otherwise, when the flowers were in full bloom, the birds were warbling and the sun was shining? The brittle veneer of false modesty had crumbled under the power of necessity, and the inside of a fortnight had witnessed the downfall of prudery. No scandal ever reached two weeks’ duration; how could a virtuous craze have outlived it? Very different would it have been had half London appeared clad, while the other half remained unclothed; the contrast would have been offensive, and have called for wrathful indignation; but as everyone was in the same way, unquestioned submission became a virtue as well as a necessity. Thus argued Society, for the hard blow dealt by the infuriated elements was fast healing, and the ex-fashionable and would-be smart people hailed Lord Somerville’s new plan with enthusiasm. There was a great demand for social guides, a feverish excitement to take lessons at once in the art of observation, and a rush to attend lectures on physiognomy. At first curiosity was a powerful stimulant. “It would be ripping,” thought the Society girl, “to find out whether Lady Lilpot and Lady Brownrigg’s figures, which were so admired last season, were really bona-fide, or only the fabrics of padding and whalebone.” But very soon laziness damped their former ardour, and once more Society, ever incorrigible in its taste for ready-made pleasure, started the fashion of having social guides attached to their respective households. Had not ladies of fashion, men about town, formerly needed the services of French maids and experienced valets? It goes without saying that after the storm the constant attendance of these two custodians of the wardrobe were more irksome than pleasant, for they reminded persons of fashion of their vanished glory. These were therefore dismissed, for the housemaids could easily fulfil the scanty duties of the present dressing-rooms. Instead of the departed domestics, social guides were requisitioned. Lord Somerville was generally congratulated on his luck in obtaining the services of Dick Danford, who was considered to be at the very top of his position. He united an infallible memory to an astounding accuracy of inductive methods in human generalisation; but what most commended him to his patron and pupil were the philosophical and satirical sidelights he threw at every turn on Society and the various professions. As Lionel hourly conferred with his Mentor, he became more and more enthralled in his work of social reform; his daily walks through the parks at Dick’s elbow were a continual source of interest, and the object lessons in human nature, provided by the London streets, threw him at times into the wildest spirits.

The guides had a hard time of it in trying to bring their pupils out of that reserve so dear to the race, and they found great difficulty in making them act with more initiative. As long as the guide was at hand, it was all well, but when left to themselves, lady pupils and gentlemen students could not be brought to use their own judgment, and boldly venture to recognise people without the guide’s help, so fearful were they of committing social blunders. Still, Danford was sanguine; he kept saying that if the British lion had, in a fortnight, conquered the sense of shame, he would, in a few days more, throw pride to the four winds. He turned out to be quite right, for in ten days more London was launching out into a whirlpool of festivities.

The little buffoon was very entertaining, and kept his pupil in fits of laughter, relating his various experiences in the smart circles of London. Over and over again a pleading voice whispered to him in the Park or at a party, “Oh dear Mr Danford, I wish you would look in to-morrow at my small tea-fight. Do you think Lord Somerville could spare you for an hour or two? His father was such an old friend of mine. I have asked a very few people, but after the butler’s announcement I shall never know one from another—hi! hi! hi!” Another would in a deep, rough voice tell him to run in at luncheon Friday next: “Mrs Bilton is simply longing to meet you; she has a daft daughter who persists in taking the footman for her pa—very awkward, isn’t it? I am sure, Mr Danford, you would teach her in a few lessons how to recognise her dad, for the girl is rather quick otherwise.” “Ah, madam,” had replied the smart little guide, “it takes a very wise girl to know her own father in our present Society; I have seen strange instances of divination, and in many cases the girl, instead of a duffer, turned out to be too wise.” Or else a distracted and jealous wife who could not distinguish her lord and master in the crowd, appealed to the mimic, imploring him to tell her by what special sign she might know him again. To which Dick ironically answered that he was not teaching people how to see moles, freckles and scars on human bodies, but was instructing them in the art of physiognomy.

“But my husband is like thousands of men.”

“You mean by that, that he is without any facial expression?” and Dick shrugged his shoulders.

“Then how shall I ever know my husband?”

“Ah, dear Lady Woolhead, you have hit on the fundamental question of our age. Indeed, how can you recognise him, when you do not know, nor ever have known, him? And I have no doubt that he is in the same plight about yourself.” And Lord Somerville would remark,—

“How amusing life must be to you, my dear Danford; gifted with such satirical wit, you need never pass a dull moment.” That was all very true, but had you asked the Tivoli comedian what he really thought of his employ in Lord Somerville’s household, he would have told you, though with bated breath, that it was not an easy mission to keep a Mayfair cynic amused, for at the vaguest approach of dulness, his lordship threatened to give up the game of life, and go over the way to see there what sort of a farce was on the bills.

“I say, Dick, how would Adam have looked in a hansom, flourishing a branch of oak tree to stop the cabby?”

“And what does your lordship think of Eve’s attitude in a four-wheeler, ducking her fair head in and out of the window to indicate the way to the driver?”

“Danford, this won’t do. The naked form is not at its advantage seated upright in a brougham, nor is it decorative when doubled up on the back seat of a victoria.”

They were both struck by the unæsthetic appearance of the present vehicles, as they arrived one afternoon at Mrs Webster’s house in Carlton Terrace.

“We shall have to discover some suitable conveyance for the Apollos and Venuses of new London.”

Standing on the steps of the house they passed in review all fashionable London stepping out of landaus, victorias, broughams, hansoms; certainly the kaleidoscopic vision was not a success.

Mrs Webster was giving her first large At Home of the season. She was noted for her gorgeous parties, her gorgeous suppers and gorgeous fortune; but still more celebrated for her picture gallery and her kindness to artists. In her gallery was supposed to be lying two millions sterling worth of Old Masters, but her benevolence to artists did not cost her a farthing, it was a Platonic help she bestowed on them, and her charity had never been known to exceed an introduction to the Duchess of Southdown. She received all sorts and conditions of men and women; all London met at her “crushes,”—Duchesses elbowed cowboys, Royal Highnesses sat close to political Radicals, and Bishops handed an ice to some notorious Mimi-la-Galette of the Paris Music Halls. They all danced to the tune of clinking gold. In fact, Mrs Webster’s house, like so many others, was a stockpot out of which she ladled a social broth of high flavour. There were many stockpots in London, from the strong consommé of exclusive brewing to the thin, tasteless Bovril of homely concoction. That of Mrs Webster’s was a pottage of heterogeneous quality; it had a Continental aroma of garlic, a back-taste of the usual British spice, and it left on one’s lips a lingering savour of parvenu relish. The Upper Ten went to her dinners, though they screamed at her uncanny appearance, jeered at the authenticity of her Raphaels and Da Vincis, and quoted to each other anecdotes about her that had put even Mrs Malaprop in the shade. But these are the unsolvable problems of a Society divided into two sections; the one that wishes to know everything about the people they visit; the other who does not want to know anything about them.