“And that suggestive Lely of your great-great-grand-aunt! Is that to come down from your wall?” apostrophised Sinclair.
“Fie, for shame! Where is your family pride?” indignantly echoed Lord Mowbray, who had sold his last ancestral likeness the year before to a picture-dealer.
No doubt there was a small minority of malcontents that failed to see any good in the efforts of the majority who worked at public reforms. To men like Montagu Vane, Sinclair, Murray; to women like the Honourable Mrs Archibald, Lady Carey, this present condition of social pandemonium was the beginning of the end. A Society in which a lady could be mistaken for a night rover, and vice versa, and in which an omnibus driver was taken for a member of the peerage, was not tolerable, and it would inevitably lead to a general rising of the lower classes against their betters. They argued that point hotly, and there was no persuading them, or even discussing with them this point, that perhaps there would be no mistaking a lady for a trull in our reformed world, for this very reason, that there would be no longer any need for marketable flesh when all social injustice and inadequacies had been removed. They declared, it was quite impossible: human nature was human nature all over the world, and as long as man existed there was to be a hunt for illicit enjoyment. They even affirmed that the present state of nature would surely end in licentious chaos, as there was nothing to repress personal lust now, and that very soon London would surpass Sodom and Gomorrah in vice and crime. There was nothing to say to that, and Danford advised Lionel to let them talk all the nonsense they liked. Facts again were to be brought to bear on the social question, as nothing else could alter the opinions of the malcontents. Another point which Montagu Vane was very fond of arguing was the question of cleanliness. According to him, the great unwashed would more than ever exhibit their filth, to which the little humourist of past Music Halls replied in his practical philosophy, that dirt would disappear with the downfall of outward finery. He analysed thus: vanity was inherent with the human race, therefore, when the flesh was the only garment man could boast of, he would keep that spotlessly clean. Vane pooh-poohed all these views; besides, he did not like philosophy, and he only tolerated buffoons on the platform. It is true that Vane was an object lesson in daintiness, and had carried this external virtue to the highest point; in fact, as Danford said: “No one feels properly scrubbed and groomed when Mr Vane emerges from his Roman bath exhaling a perfume of roses and myrrh.”
Montagu Vane was of a small stature, but admirably proportioned; his hair, now grey, was very fine, and curled closely to his scalp; his walk had a spring which added suppleness to his limbs. He was a boudoir Apollo who had grown weary of Olympic games, and of gods and goddesses, and who had one day daintily tripped down from his pedestal to join the crowd of modern pigmies. When the storm broke over London, Vane was close on tearing his curly hair, as he realised that something had to be done to save his position. For was he not arbiter in all matters of art? Still, he was not the sort of man to be baffled by a few buckets of water, and he set to work redecorating his house. Suddenly he bethought himself of a struggling Italian, who, the previous year, had come to see whether London Society would take up the art of fresco, of which the secrets had been handed down to him by ancestors skilled in that primitive art. Montagu always made a point of helping young artists up the social ladder; he gave them a lift up the first step, advised them for the second rung, and invariably said by-by to them until they met at the top, which they rarely ever did. From that day Paolo Cinecchi worked at Vane’s walls, and the fantastic arabesques and subjects he designed on black-painted backgrounds turned out to be a suitable set-off for groups of Apollos and Venuses. The Upper Ten at once took to this mode of decoration, and Cinecchi’s name was in every mouth. Montagu was past master in worldly savoir-faire, and as an Amphytrion surpassed every London hostess by his ability in gathering round his table the idlers and toilers of smart Society and Bohemianism. He was no philosopher, and lived artificially, harbouring a profound horror of intensity; it made him blink. Greek in his tastes, he was thoroughly British in his selfish isolation. He saw many, mixed in the social and artistic world, but he merely skimmed people. He was busy with trifles, and utterly devoid of any sense of humour. His success in Society had principally lain in his many-sided mediocrity; for mediocrity is always pleasing, but when it is varied, it is delightful. His views on politics, his impressions on social problems reminded one of an article out of the Court Circular Journal; whilst his experiences of life had been taught him in the shaded corners of a Duchess’s drawing-room, or in the smoking-room of a smart Continental hotel.
After all, Society was responsible for the creation of this hybrid—the dilettante. The Upper Ten in its hours of ennui had conceived this strange cross-breed; but in its mischievousness it had taken good care to endow their offspring with the same impotency that characterises the product of horse and donkey! Society loved these unfruitful children, it fondled them, shielded their deficiency from the world’s sneers, and although it had doomed them to eternal barrenness, still it guarded the approach to these home-made fetishes, and surrounded them with barriers with this inscription affixed: “Hands off.” But in the present emergency, Society showed itself ingrate towards these little mannikins who had amused it, and it turned away from them, to seek the help of the Music Hall artists, into whose arms the smart men and women of London Society threw themselves.
Thus the majority unconsciously worked at the regeneration of London; although they would have sneered had anyone told them that they were all endeavouring to realise the Socialist’s dream—self-government.
The proroguing of Parliament—for an indefinite period—had removed one stumbling-block on the road to that goal. Honourable members, Peers of the Realm, had migrated to their country seats, or retired to private life in town, awaiting patiently for better times; for they firmly believed that the country could not prosper without them, and they absolutely denied that the British lion could ever rest quiet with the reins of Government loose on his mane.
Was the Earl of Somerville conscious of his evolution? He was certainly developing into a seer, although he was in no danger of being carried away by speculative theories, as long as Danford stood at his elbow, raising his sarcastic voice whenever my lord was tempted to fly off at a tangent. When the latter suggested that they should consult the venerable scientists of Albemarle Street, Danford stopped him very sharply. “My lord, do not look to the Royal Institute for any explanation of this phenomenon. They have not yet grasped the cause of the storm, and remain quite obdurate in their opinions. They cannot understand what has suddenly occasioned the collapse of every loom in England; and I know for a fact, that they are actually meditating to lead back the men and women of the twentieth century to the primitive usage of the spindle!”
“Ah! my dear buffoon, let us leave the sages of Albemarle Street to their Oriental beatitude; they may be useful later on when we have solved the problem.”
“Yes, my dear Lord Somerville, for the present look inwardly to find the solution of some of life’s mysteries. Do the work that lies close to you, as the parish curates say, and do it promptly. We are in the same plight as Robinson Crusoe on his island. Keen observation, patience and indomitable will-power saved the two exiles from sure death; and the dogmatising of sedentary dry-as-dusts would have been of no avail to them, as it is of no earthly use to us in this terrible crisis.”