Piccadilly A Fragment of Contemporary Biography — 08 - Part Va: The Flesh

PICCADILLY, _June_.

Somebody ought to compile a handbook for _debutants_ and _debutantes_, 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, "numero deux va chez numero un, pour s'en glorifier aupres de numero trois."

Had he gone to the Bodwinkle ball, he would have remarked a curious inversion of his aphorism, for there it was _numero un_ who went down to _numero 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 so _blase_ of 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 of _ton_ to 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-- IMMENSE ATTRACTION!

The Marchioness of Scilly will appear at Court on the ---- inst.

Train glace--poult de soie bouillionee, &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 most _repandu_ young 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."

Here is another one:-- "DEAR LORD FRANK,--Do _please_ get an invitation for _my very great friend_, Amy Rumsort, for the Bodwinkles'.

She is most anxious to go, _for very particular_ reasons.

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 promising _debutante_, 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 the _beau 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 pecuniary _exploitation_ of 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 well _lances_ in 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 the _pendant_ to 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 remark _en passant_ that 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 your _modus 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-seat _en 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 about _very particular reasons_ in 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.