Part 2 (1/2)
There are three periods in the career of a pus.h.i.+ng woman. The first is that in which she emerges from obscurity, or, worse perhaps, from the notoriety of commercial antecedents, and carried, by a vigorous push, the outworks of fas.h.i.+onable society. The wife of a successful speculator in cotton or guano, who is also the mistress of a comfortable mansion in Bloomsbury, gradually becomes restless and dissatisfied with her surroundings. It would be curious to trace the growth of this discontent. Ambition is deeply rooted in the female bosom. Even housemaids are actuated by an impulse to better themselves, and village school-mistresses yearn for a larger sphere. Perhaps it is this instinct to rise, so creditable to the s.e.x, which compels a lady with a long purse, and a name well known in the city, to enter the lists as an aspirant to fas.h.i.+on. Perhaps her career is developed by a more gradual process. Climbing social Alps is like climbing material Alps--for a time the intervening heights shut out from view the grander peaks. It is not till one has topped Peckham or Hackney that a more extended horizon bursts on the eye, and one catches sight of the glittering summits of Belgravia. Account for it as we may, the phenomenon of a woman in the enjoyment of every comfort and luxury that wealth can give, but ready to barter it all for a few crumbs of contemptuous notice from persons of rank, is by no means uncommon. Probably the fas.h.i.+onable newspaper is a great stimulus to pus.h.i.+ng.
The rich vulgarian pores over _Court Circulars_ and catalogues of aristocratic names till the fascination becomes irresistible, and the desire to see her own name, purged of cotton or guano, figuring in the same sheet grows to a monomania. But how is this to be done? Fortunately for the purpose which she has in view, there exist in these latter days amphibious beings, half trader, half fop, with one set of relations with the world of commerce and another set of relations with the world of fas.h.i.+on. The dandy, driven into the city by the stress of his fiscal exigencies, forms a link between the East-end and the West. Among his other functions is that of giving aid and counsel, not exactly gratis, to any fair outsider who wants to ”get into” society. For every applicant he has but one bit of advice. She must spend money.
For a woman who is neither clever nor beautiful nor high-born, there is but one way to proceed. She must bribe right and left. No rotten borough absorbs more cash than the fas.h.i.+onable world. Its recognition is merely a question of money. All its distinctions have their price. It exacts from the pus.h.i.+ng woman a thumping entrance-fee in the shape of a sumptuous concert or ball. Nor is it only the first push which costs.
Every subsequent advance is as much a matter of purchase as a step in the army.
There is a tariff of its honors, and any Belgravian actuary can calculate to a nicety the price of a stare from a great lady, or a card from a leader of fas.h.i.+on. This is the philosophy expounded by the amphibious dandy to his civic pupil. The upshot is, that she must give an entertainment, or a series of entertainments, on a scale of great splendor. Of course the house in Bloomsbury must be exchanged for another in a fas.h.i.+onable quarter. A more profuse style of living must be adopted. Her equipages must be gorgeous, her flunkeys numerous and well powdered. Above all, she must at once and for ever make a clean sweep of all her old friends. Upon these conditions, and in consideration of a _douceur_ for himself, he agrees to be her friend, and help her to push.
Then follows a delicate negotiation with one of those dowagers who rather pique themselves on their good nature in standing sponsors to pus.h.i.+ng n.o.bodies. She, too, makes her conditions. For the sake of the elderly pet to whom she is indebted for her daily supply of scandal, she consents to countenance his _protegee_. But she declines to ask her to her own house. She will dine with her, provided the dinner is exquisite, and two or three of her own cronies are included in the invitation. Last and crowning condescension, she will ask the company for the proposed concert or ball, provided the thing is done regardless of expense. It would be hard to say which a cynic would think most charming--the readiness to accept, or the inclination to impose, such conditions.
At last the great occasion arrives. Planted at the top of her staircase, under the wing of her fas.h.i.+onable allies, the nominal giver of the entertainment is duly stared at and glared at by a supercilious crowd, who examine her with the same sort of languid interest which they devote to a new animal at the Zoological. The greater number are ”going on” to another party. But the next morning brings balm for every mortification.
Her ball is blazoned in the fas.h.i.+onable journals, and the well-bred reporter, while elaborately complimentary to the exotics, is discreetly silent as to the supercilious stares. She does not exactly awake to find herself famous, but at least she is no longer outside the Pale. At a considerable outlay, she has got into what a connoisseur in shades of fas.h.i.+on would call tenth-rate society. This is not much; still, it is a beginning, and a beginning is everything to a pus.h.i.+ng woman.
In the pus.h.i.+ng woman of the transition period we behold a lady who has got a certain footing in society, but who is straining every nerve, in season and out of season, by hook and by crook, to improve her position.
Society within the Pale is divided into a great many ”zones” or ”sets.”
It is like a target, with outer, middle, inner, and innermost circles.
The exterior circle, corresponding to ”the black” in archery, consists of persona, for the most part, with limited means and moderate ambition.
People who try to combine fas.h.i.+on with economy stick here, and advance no further. Carpet-dances and champagneless suppers are typical of this circle. Here mothers and daughters prey upon the inexperienced youth of the Universities and green young officers, who are deluded for one season by their pretensions to fas.h.i.+on, but who cut them the next.
Here, too, may be found persons whose social progress has been r.e.t.a.r.ded by foolish scruples about cutting their old friends. Between this band of prowlers upon the outskirts of fas.h.i.+on and ”the best set”--the golden ring in the centre of the s.h.i.+eld--are many intermediate circles, each representing a different stage of distinction and exclusiveness. It is the multiplicity of these invisible lines of demarcation which makes pus.h.i.+ng so laborious.
The world of fas.h.i.+on is not one h.o.m.ogeneous camp, but it is parcelled out into a number of cliques and coteries. Into one after another of these a pus.h.i.+ng woman effects her entrance. She is always edging her way into a new and better set. At every step there are obstacles to be encountered, rivals to be jostled, fierce snubs to be endured. There is something almost sublime in the spectacle of this untiring activity of shoulder and elbow. The mere shoving--_vis consili expers_--would never bring her near to her goal. An adept in the art of pus.h.i.+ng does not rely on sheer impudence alone. She has recourse to artificial aids and appliances. A great deal of ingenuity is exhibited in the selection of her self-propelling machinery. It is a good plan to acquire a name for some one social speciality.
Private theatricals, for instance, or similar entertainments, may be turned to excellent account. Exhibitions of this kind pique curiosity, and people who come to stare remain to supper, and possibly return to drop a card on the following afternoon. But, if you go in for this sort of thing, you must resign yourself to certain inconveniences. Your pretty drawing-room will be like Park Lane in a state of chronic obstruction. The carpenter's work will interfere somewhat with your comfort, and it is tiresome to be perpetually unhinging your doors and pulling your windows out of their frames. The jealousies and bickerings among the performers are another source of vexation. Miss A. declines to sit as Rowena to Miss B.'s Rebecca; and the drawing-room Roscius invariably objects to the part for which he is cast. Altogether, unless you have a positive taste for carpentry and green-room squabbles, it is better to steer clear of private theatricals.
Then there is the musical dodge. In skillful hands there is no better leverage for pus.h.i.+ng operations than drawing-room music. Every one knows Lady Tweedledum and her amateur concerts. The fuss she makes about them is prodigious. They are a cheap sort of entertainment, but they cost the thrifty patroness of art a vast deal of trouble. She is always organizing practices, arranging rehearsals, drawing up programmes, or scouring London for musical recruits. She has been known to invade dingy Government offices for a tenor, and to run a soprano to earth in distant Bloomsbury. After all, her ”music” is only so-so. You may hear better any night at Even's or the Oxford. One has heard ”Dal tuo stellato soglio” before, and Niedermeyer insipidities are a little _fade_.
Sometimes, to complete the imposture, the names of Mendelssohn and Mozart are invoked, and, under cover of doing honor to an immortal composer, a chorus of young people a.s.semble for periodical flirtation.
On the whole, it is wise not to attempt too much. Miss Quaver, with her staccato notes and semi-professional _minauderies_, is not exactly a queen of song. Nor does it give one any exquisite delight to hear Sir Raucisonous Trombone give tongue in a French romance. The talented band of the Piccadilly Troubadours, floundering through the overture to _Zampa_, hardly satisfies a refined musical ear. But, however indifferent in a musical point of view, from the point of view of the fair projector the thing is a success. It serves as a trap to catch d.u.c.h.esses, a device for putting salt on the tails of the popinjays of fas.h.i.+on. One fine day Lady Tweedledum's pretended zeal for music receives its crowning reward. The noise of it reaches august ears. An act of gracious condescension follows. Her Ladys.h.i.+p has the supreme delight of leading a scion of Royalty to a chair of state in her drawing-room, to hear Sir Raucisonous bleat and Miss Quaver trill.
There are subtler means of pus.h.i.+ng than amateur concerts and private theatricals. There is the push vertical, as in the case of the commercial lady; and there is also the push lateral. A good example of the latter style of operation is afforded by the dowager who is fortunate enough to have an eldest son to use as a pus.h.i.+ng machine.
Handled with tact, a young heir, not yet cut adrift from the maternal ap.r.o.n-string, may be turned to excellent account. There is, or was, a sentimental ballad ent.i.tled, ”I'll kiss him for his mother.” One might reverse the sentiment in the case of _Madame Mere_. Of her the dowagers with daughters to marry sing in chorus, ”I'll visit her for her son.”
Civility to the mother is access to the son. A sharp tactician sees her advantage, and works the precious relations.h.i.+p for her own private ends.
It is a mine of invitations of an eligible kind. By aid of it she springs over barriers which it would otherwise take her years to surmount, and is lifted into circles which by their una.s.sisted efforts she and her daughters would never reach. Scheming dowagers are glad to have her at their b.a.l.l.s when there is a chance of young Hopeful following in her train, and her five o'clock tea is delightful when there is a young millionaire to sip it with. Deprived of her decoy duck she would soon lose ground, and be left to push her way in society with uncomfortably reduced momentum.
Another capital instrument for pus.h.i.+ng is a country-house. The mistress of a fine old hall and a cypher of a husband is apt to take a peculiar view of the duties of property. One might expect her to be content with so dignified and enviable a lot, and to pa.s.s tranquil days in coddling the cottagers, patronizing the rector's wife, and impressing her crotchet on the national school. But no--she is bitten with the tarantula of social success. She wants to ”get on” in society. She must push as vigorously as any trumpery adventuress in May Fair. A good old name is dragged into the dirt inseparable from pus.h.i.+ng. The family portraits look disdainfully from their frames, and the ancestral oaks hang their heads in shame. The company reflects the peculiar ambition of the hostess. The neighboring squires are conspicuous by their absence.
The local small fry are of course ignored, though to the great lady of the county, who cuts her in town, she is cringingly obsequious. The visitors consist mainly of relays of youths, fast, foolish, and fas.h.i.+onable, with now and then a stray politician or journalist thrown in to give the party a _soupcon_ of intellect. The principle of invitation is very simple. No one is asked who will not be of use in town. Any brainless little fop, any effete dandy, is sure of a welcome, provided he is known to certain circles and can help her to scramble into a little more vogue.
One more instance of lateral pus.h.i.+ng. A connection with literature may be very effectively worked. The wives of poets, novelists, and historians have great facilities for pus.h.i.+ng if they care to use them.
Even the sleek parasite who fattens on a literature which he has done nothing to adorn, and conceals his emptiness under the airs of Sir Oracle, has been known to hoist his female belongings into the high levels of society.
The last period in the career of a pus.h.i.+ng woman is the triumphant. This is when she has achieved fas.h.i.+on, and has virtually done pus.h.i.+ng. There is nothing left to push for. The Belgravian citadel has fairly capitulated. Like Alexander weeping that there are no more worlds to conquer, she may indulge a transient regret that there are no more _salons_ left to penetrate. But rest is welcome after so hara.s.sing a struggle. And with rest comes a sensible improvement in her character and manners. The last stage of a pus.h.i.+ng woman is emphatically better than the first. It is curious to notice what a change for the better is produced in her by the partial recovery of her self-respect. One might almost call her a pleasant person. She can at last afford to be civil, occasionally even good-natured. And this is only natural. In the thick of a struggle which taxes her energies to the uttermost, there is no time for courtesies and amenities. The better instincts of her nature necessarily remain in abeyance. But they rea.s.sert themselves, unless she be irretrievably spoilt, when the struggle is over.