THE SOCIALLY AMBITIOUS WOMAN
Although there is little or nothing about Mrs. Vere Veneer that connoisseurs would mistake for Vere de Vere, to the casual observer and the Society “outsider” she presents quite an imposing appearance from the social point of view. Whenever she is present at any social function, the “Society papers” duly chronicle the gown she wore, and sometimes even the subject of her conversation as they imagine it to have been. She makes it her business to be seen everywhere, and she spares herself no fatigue. If she gives an “At Home,” eager paragraph-mongers, insidiously invited for the purpose, deluge the editors with elaborate accounts of the party, the decorations, the dresses, and the refreshments. Her public importance is, in fact, the manufacture of the Society Press. But why it should be so is one of those problems which I must leave for discussion till I write my treatise on the “Anatomy of Society.” Then, I believe, I shall be able to satisfactorily prove that nobody is anybody, in a relative sense; but in the meanwhile, of course, everybody is somebody, in a journalistic sense.
For instance, the other night I went to Mrs. Vere Veneer’s party at her large and sumptuously appointed house in Cromwell Road, and to-day I read in a descriptive paragraph that “everybody who is anybody was there.” It is a triumphant phrase from the hostess’ point of view; it is a seductive phrase to those whose ambition is social importance, for evidently to be seen at one of Mrs. Vere Veneer’s crushes is to be stamped with personal distinction. Well, certainly till I read this paragraph I had no idea I was “anybody,” nor, to tell the truth, had I any idea that Mrs. Vere Veneer herself—by the way, she was plain Mrs. Veneer in the old days—was anybody in particular. But there is a magic power of transformation in the pens of your Society journalists; they confer their own patent of notoriety.
But let me recall the motley assembly of the other night. There was a musical countess of Bohemian predilections, who was a centre of attraction to a number of professional musicians of more or less competence—often less—and an exuberance of manner. There was a funny little actor, who, finding himself for a few minutes unnoticed, skilfully revived attention by some impromptu buffoonery with a bust of a negro in the corner. Then a languid vocalist, who during the evening rapturously whispered his own mystical melodies, was sitting in a corner absorbed in the conversation of an enthusiastic young girl, while many mothers of families, some of them ladies of title, seemed to be jealously watching an opportunity to lure the fascinating singer to themselves. And when one or two of them succeeded, how comic were their fawning attitudes of triumph.
Then there were some lady-novelists, attended at a respectful distance by their weary husbands, all alert to talk about their works; other writers who found everybody else overrated, and professed to despise popularity, or to regard it as a deadly microbe; critics who grumbled at being expected to criticise things they were unaccustomed to, and others who protested that life was too short for anything to be endured which they didn’t like; and ladies who, while industriously making notes of the costumes of the guests, talked largely of the claims of literature and the power of the Press. There were one or two A.R.A.’s run to seed, and two or three members of the Emancipated Art League, who held that it was a higher testimony to true artistic merit to be laughed at by the Times than praised by Ruskin. There was a bountiful supply of “entertainers,” amateur and professional, all ready to sing, recite, ventriloquise, or perform card-tricks on the slightest provocation.
There were a few civic dignitaries, doctors, lawyers, and divines with a penchant for the stage; some “Society Actresses” to give the affair style; an Irish member or two, more or less connected with newspapers, the usual sprinkling of men-about-town, who go “everywhere,” and women of fashion, as reflected by the ladies’ journals, together with an indistinguishable crowd of persons whose evening’s enjoyment appeared to consist of asking, “Who is that?” and flattering themselves that they were in the company of genius and greatness. And this was “everybody who is anybody,” while Mrs. Vere Veneer was the Madame Recamier of this latter-day salon of small “somebodies.”
To many of her acquaintances who delight to be her guests, Mrs. Veneer is merely a social mushroom. They did not observe her social growth till she was a full-fledged hostess, giving “At Homes,” to which they were ready to accept invitations. They know nothing of the patient struggle from obscurity; they saw not the persistent progress, step by step, towards the attainment of her ambition. To “get into Society” is, among the middle classes, the ruling passion in the average female breast, just as money-making is in the male. By getting into “Society” I do not mean necessarily being admitted into Court circles but the attainment of a more important social rating than the people next door, or being invested with a certain definite distinction that lifts one’s name above the crowd.
Now Mrs. Veneer began by being nobody, socially speaking. Her husband was a Midland manufacturer, in a fair way of business, and she had no knowledge of London Society and Bond Street dressmakers, save through the medium of the ladies’ journals, which she devoured in discontent. But there came a season of much profit to her husband’s factory; his foreman of works had introduced a novelty which became the fashion, and by aid of much advertising the fortune of the Veneers was made. Then they opened a branch house in the Metropolis, and Mrs. Veneer insisted that their home should henceforth be in London. Provincial life was ridiculous, she would say, nobody knew anything in the country. She yearned for society. She knew she was pretty, and could wear a good gown with grace. She knew that she had a bright intelligence, and that she was accomplished enough to be able to patronise the arts and artists without betraying her provincialism. So her husband, being well trained and not too assertive, assented to the change of residence, and tried hard to be content.
At first they had very few acquaintances, but among them was one little woman, who was a host in herself. She was an officer’s widow, and though her means were limited, her social connection was extensive. Her gentility was unimpeachable, and she had the entrée into many good houses, for she was a genial little soul, and everybody was sorry for her, though no one knew exactly why. She always seemed to be working at something in somebody else’s interest, and was largely and energetically engaged in promoting bazaars and balls in aid of philanthropic institutions, so that the sympathy she evoked on their behalf appeared somehow to cling to herself. Besides, a busy woman with a mission, especially a philanthropic one, always commands a certain amount of respect. Now this little person added to her other energetic impulses a persistent passion for introducing people to one another. That anybody of any kind of personality should be introduced to her set, or be in her set, except through her medium, was a personal vexation, even a sorrow, to her; therefore she made it her business to know everybody, and always to be on the alert for introductions.
Of course she asked Mrs. Veneer to one of her afternoon-teas, and made much of her, for she was wealthy, pretty, and presentable, and at a glance Mrs. Cordial perceived that it was Mrs. Veneer’s ambition to become a social personage. So she took upon herself the pleasant, and not altogether unprofitable, task of showing Mrs. Veneer about, and introducing her here, there and everywhere, a service which the wealthy manufacturer’s wife recognised in many substantially generous ways. Mrs. Cordial, at the same time, was able to become a benefactress of singers and instrumentalists of the benefit-concert order, for Mrs. Veneer, having at present few engagements for which she had not paid, was, at the instance of Mrs. Cordial, a prolific purchaser of tickets for concerts and recitals, in addition to charity bazaars and amateur theatrical performances. As Mrs. Cordial always took care to impress upon the bénéficiaires the extreme financial importance of Mrs. Veneer’s acquaintance, they eagerly sought the honour of an introduction, which flattered her as a would-be patron of the arts, and generally secured them engagements to sing or play at her little dinner-parties or afternoon-teas.
And these were the germs of her present “crushes”, yet was her social progress not rapid enough to satisfy her ambition. So Mrs. Cordial proposed that her protégé should invite to dinner the chairman of a company of which her husband was an influential director and who was an impecunious lordling of high degree, while she would send invitations to some of the most distinguished of her own acquaintances, on Mrs. Veneer’s behalf, to meet his lordship. At the same time she recommended, as being more stylish, the addition of the prefix Vere to the patronymic Veneer. And a very gorgeous dinner-party it was; for Gunter’s had carte blanche. I do not know why I was among the guests, except that Mrs. Vere Veneer wanted to show Mrs. Cordial that she, too, had friends of her own who knew something of London and its people.
I took into dinner an antagonistic old lady, who seemed to think that nobody who had not been in the army or the diplomatic service had any social existence whatever. I candidly confessed I had been in neither, and apologised for the abominable impertinence of existing in spite of it, and then she relaxed sufficiently to ask me, “Who are these Vere Veneers?” As she was their guest, like myself, the question surprised me, but I replied that they were a lady and gentleman from the Midlands, whereupon she informed me that she knew nothing of them, but had come there to oblige her friend, Mrs. Cordial. When the ladies had left the table, a man drew his chair up to mine, and essayed a commonplace remark or two, then asked me, “Who are these Vere Veneers?” He also had come to oblige Mrs. Cordial, and so had three-fourths of the guests.
Yet—would you believe it?—from that dinner-party dates Mrs. Vere Veneer’s rise as a London hostess. Of course everybody did not discover, as I did, that it was a kind of “complimentary benefit” party, but the dinner and the floral decorations were talked about, and Mrs. Cordial used her influence to obtain paragraphs in certain gossipy papers, to the effect that Lord Thingamy dined with Mrs. Vere Veneer, and that there were also present So-and-So and So-and-So, the best known of the guests, while the amiable hostess looked charming in something or other.
Since that time Mrs. Vere Veneer has been able to walk alone, and now she turns the tables, and “takes up” Mrs. Cordial or not, as she finds it expedient. It is now more useful to take a lady of title about with her as a companion; and as she buys tickets for everything, drives in handsome carriages, and always collects about her a little coterie of pleasant people, she never finds this difficult. It looks well in the papers that “Mrs. Vere Veneer brought Lady Snooks,” or that “those inseparables, Lady Clara Gushington and Mrs. Vere Veneer, looked in on their way from Mr. Lemon Yellow’s Studio Tea.” Mrs. Veneer has acquired the habit of regarding everything from the point of view of social advancement. She is of the world worldly, and though her provincial simplicity has quite worn off, she maintains a universal amiability that sometimes passes for it. She is charming to everybody, and her hospitality is proverbial, for she distributes her cards wherever she goes, but not to any one whose name is never heard. If she goes anywhere and there is an actor, an artist, a musician, or even a journalist in the room, with whom she was not previously acquainted, be sure you will meet him at her next party. Of course, any one who “receives” is promptly angled for, and they will be mutually visiting each other before the week is out. Mrs. Vere Veneer literally stalks drawing-rooms for social entities or Bohemian “somebodies,” and she is so pleasant about it that nobody attempts to resist her, and every one goes to her, and the lady-journalists look upon her with a sort of reverence, and thank Providence that there is a Mrs. Vere Veneer, for she is always profitable “copy” to them. And, indeed, there be many others who find her profitable, for she spends much money in her endeavours to exploit Society. It is an expensive business and a fatiguing, for she must be always on the move, always on the alert for the latest sensation. If a new form of entertainment for evening parties arise, Mrs. Vere Veneer promptly commissions one of the Bond Street agents to secure it for her next “At Home.” Failing this, she falls back upon those of her professional acquaintances who sing, or play, or ventriloquise for guineas and a good supper.
They talk about Mrs. Veneer’s parties, and there be now those born in the purple who are pleased to find them amusing, and it is said that next season Mrs. Vere Veneer will be presented at Court by her friend Lady Snooks—for a consideration. And who knows but in a few years Mrs. Vere Veneer may be actually received within Court circles, and play hostess to the most illustrious?
And, in the meanwhile, what of Mr. Vere Veneer? Is there a Mr. Vere Veneer? you doubtless ask, with most people. Oh, yes; he is not much to look at, he is rather gauche in his manner, and cannot wear even Poole’s clothes to look as though they were made for him, and his conversation is not very entertaining. But he pays the bills with prompt satisfaction, he tries hard to look as though he were leading the happiest life in the world, and he rejoices in his wife’s successes, and cherishes every smile she spares him; but when he can find an excuse to visit the mills in the Midlands, he does not hesitate to avail himself of it. However, as he does not know one from the other of the young men who follow in his wife’s train, or of the women who are jealous of her gowns, or of the Bohemians who make themselves at home in his house, and as none of these ever seem to know him from Adam, he is satisfied to watch the comedy as a spectator, content so long as his wife plays her part well, and is duly applauded. If he appears on the programme at all it is simply as “the husband of Mrs. Vere Veneer.”