"A straw," I repeated; "I a.s.sure you you are drowning, and even an unworthy being like myself may be of use to you, if you would but believe it. Remember Chundango's conduct at d.i.c.kiefield--remember the view Lady Broadhem took of it, until I interposed, or as I should more accurately say, until the current swept me past her--remember that up to this moment she has never recurred to the subject of Mr Chundango, who, although he comes to the house constantly, now devotes himself entirely to Lady Broadhem herself; and, allow me to say it, you owe it all to a timely straw."

Lady Ursula seemed struck by the graphic way in which I put her position before her, and remained silent for a few moments. It had evidently never occurred to her, that I had indirectly been the means of securing her tranquillity. She little thought it possible that her mother could have talked her matrimonial prospects over with a comparative stranger in the mercantile terms which Lady Broadhem had used in our interview at d.i.c.kiefield. And I am well aware that society generally would consider such conduct on the part of her ladyship coa.r.s.e and unladylike. It showed a disregard of _les convenances_ which good society is the first to resent. Those who have never secretly harboured the designs which Lady Broadhem in the agony of a financial crisis avowed, might justly repudiate her conduct; but "conscience does make cowards of us all," and fashionable mothers will naturally be the first to censure in Lady Broadhem a practice to which, in a less glaring and obnoxious form, they are so strongly addicted. If in silvery accents she had confided her projects to Lady Mundane, the world would have considered it natural and ladylike enough; the coa.r.s.eness consisted in her telling them to me. O generation of slave-owners! why persist in deluding yourselves into the belief, that so long as you buy and sell your own flesh and blood in a whisper there is no harm in it?

My gentle critics, I would strongly advise you not to place me on my defence in these matters; I have every disposition to let you down as gently as possible, but if you play tricks with the rope, I shall have to let you down by the run. Why, it was only last year that all the world went to Mrs Gorgon Tompkins's second ball. They no more cared than she did, that she had lost one of her daughters early in the season, just after she had given the first. I remember Spiffy Goldtip taking public opinion in the club about it, and asking whether an interval of four months was not enough to satisfy the requirements of society in the matter, as it would be so sad if, after having made such good social running before Easter, Mrs Gorgon Tompkins were to lose it all afterwards through an unfortunate domestic _contretemps_ of this kind.

Now I doubt whether Lady Broadhem could surpa.s.s that. However, she is capable of great feats, and I fully expect she will strike out a new line soon; there has been a lurking demon in her eye of late which alarms me. Fortunately I am not yet finally committed, financially. It is true it has cost me a few thousands, which I shall never see again, to tide the family over its difficulties thus far, but I can still let it down with a crash if it suits me.

"Lord Frank," said Lady Ursula, after a pause, "I have already alluded to the circ.u.mstance which has induced me to treat you with a forbearance which I could not have extended to one whom I regarded as responsible for conduct unwarrantable towards myself, and certainly not to be justified by any possible advantage which I might be supposed to derive from it. I consented to see you now, because I feel sure that when you know from my own lips that I wish you at once to deny the rumour you have been the means of originating, I may depend upon your doing so."

"May I ask," I said, with much contrition in my tone, "what explanation you gave Lady Broadhem on the subject?"

"If you mean," said Lady Ursula, "whether I accounted to mamma for your conduct as I do to myself--in other words, whether I betrayed your secret--I have carefully refrained from discussing the subject with her.

Fortunately, after dinner at the Whitechapels' last night, Broadhem told me that he had seen you, and that you were coming here to-day, so I a.s.sured mamma that she would hear from you the true state of the case; though, of course, I felt myself bound to let her understand that, owing to a fact which I was unable to explain, she had been completely misled by you."

"And what did Lady Broadhem say?" I asked.

"She said that had it not been for a meeting she was obliged to attend this morning, she would have waited to see you to-day; but that she was sure I laboured under some strange delusion, and that a few words of explanation from you would smooth everything."

"Will you allow me to tell you what those few words are?" said I. "Lady Broadhem little imagines the real state of the case, because she knows what you do not know, that I am engaged in clearing off her own pecuniary liabilities, and making arrangements by which the old-standing claims on the Broadhem estates may be met. You may never have heard how seriously the family is embarra.s.sed, and how unlucky all Lady Broadhem's attempts to retrieve its fortunes by speculation have been. I could only account to her for the pecuniary sacrifices she knows I am making by allowing her to suppose that I was incurring them for your sake." I could not resist letting a certain tone of pique penetrate this speech, and the puzzled and pained expression of Lady Ursula's face afforded me a sense of momentary gratification, of which I speedily repented. As she looked at me earnestly, her large blue eyes filled slowly with tears.

"Is she crying because this last speech of mine proves me hopelessly mad?" thought I; "or does she feel herself in a pecuniary trap, and is she crying because she does not see her way out of it?" and I felt the old sensation coming over me, and my head beginning to swim. Why, oh why, am I denied that method in my madness which it must be such a comfort to possess? It is just at the critical moment that my osseous matter invariably plays me a trick. I seemed groping for light and strength, and mechanically put out my hand; the soft touch of one placed gently in it thrilled through my nerves with an indescribable current, and instantaneously the horrid feeling left me, and I emerged from the momentary torpor into which I had fallen. I don't think Ursula remarked it, for she said, and her eyes were now overflowing, in a voice of surpa.s.sing sweetness, "Lord Frank, I have discovered your _real_ secret; it is no longer possible for you to conceal the n.o.ble motives which have actuated you under your pretended----"

"Hush!" I said, interrupting her; "what I did, whether rightly or wrongly, I did for the best. Now I will be guided by your wishes. What am I to do?"

"Allow no worldly consideration, however unselfish, either for myself or those dearest to me, to induce you to swerve from the course which truth and honour distinctly point out. Whatever may seem to be the consequences, we are both bound to follow this, and we have but to feel that, if need be, we are ready to make great sacrifices to receive the requisite faith and strength. Believe me," she concluded, and her voice trembled slightly, "whatever happens, I shall feel that you have given me proofs of a friendship upon which I may depend."

I pressed the hand I still held, and I felt the touch was sacred. "Ah,"

thought I, as I left the room, and was conscious that the gentle influence of her I had parted from was still resting upon me, "that is the right kind of spirit-medium. There is a magnetism in that slender finger which supports and purifies." O my hardened and material readers!

don't suppose that because I know you will laugh at the idea of a purifying or invigorating magnetism I shall hesitate to write exactly what I feel on such matters. If I refrain from saying a great deal more, it is not because I shrink from your ridicule but from your ignorance.

You may not believe that the pearls exist; I honestly admit that they are not yet in my possession, but I have seen those who own them, and, unfortunately, also I have seen the animals before whom they have been cast. And you, my dear young ladies, do not ignore the responsibility which the influence you are able to exercise over young men imposes upon you. You need not call it magnetism unless you like, but be sure that there is that conveyed in a touch or a glance which elevates or degrades him upon whom it is bestowed, according as you preserve the purity and simplicity of your inmost natures. If you would only regard yourselves in the light of female missionaries to that benighted tribe of lavender-gloved young gentlemen who flutter about you like moths round a candle, you would send them away glowing and happy, instead of singeing their wings. If, when these b.u.t.terflies come to sip, you would give them honey instead of poison, they would not forsake you as they do now for the gaudy flowers which are too near you. I know what you have to contend against--the scheming mothers who bring you up to the "Daughticultural Show," labelled and decorated, and put up to compet.i.tion as likely prize-winners--who deliberately expose you to the first rush of your first seasons, and mercilessly watch you as you are swept along by the tearing stream--who see you without compunction cast away on sandbanks of worldliness, where you remain till you become as "hard" and as "fast" as those you find stranded there before you. Here your minds become properly, or rather improperly, opened. You hear, for the first time, to your astonishment, young men talked of by their Christian or nick names--their domestic life canva.s.sed, their eligibility discussed, and the varied personal experiences through which your "hard and fast" friends have pa.s.sed, related.

Then, better prepared for the rest of the voyage, you start again, and venture a little on your own account. What bold swimmers you are becoming now! How you laugh and defy the rocks and reefs upon which you are ultimately destined to split! Already you look back with surprise to the time when almost everything you heard shocked you. What an immense amount of unnecessary knowledge you have acquired since then, and how recklessly you display it! Do you think it has softened and elevated you? Do you think the moral contact which should be life-giving to those who know you, benefits them?

It is not true, because young men behave heartlessly, that you must flirt "in self-defence," as you call it. When a warfare of this kind once begins, it is difficult to fix the responsibility; but if one side left off, the occupation of the other would be gone. If you want to revenge yourselves on these fickle youths--_strike!_ as they do in the manufacturing districts. Conceive the wholesome panic you would cause, if you combined into "unions" like the working-cla.s.ses, and every girl in London bound herself not to flirt for the entire season!

Unless you do something of this kind soon, you will reverse the whole system of nature. The men will be the candles and you the moths; they will be the flowers, and you the b.u.t.terflies. If all the brothers in London persist in trying to imitate their sisters, and all the sisters ape their brothers, what a nice confusion we shall arrive at! The reason I preach to you and not to them now, is, because I think I have a better chance with the mind of a masculine young woman than with that of a feminine young man. If you only knew what a comfort it would be to talk sense instead of that incessant chaff, you would read a little more. I don't object to your riding in the Park--the abominable const.i.tution of society makes it almost the only opportunity of seeing and talking to those you like without being talked about; but you need not rush off for a drive in the carriage immediately after lunch, just because you are too restless to stay at home.

First, the Park and young men, then lunch, then Marshall and Snelgrove, then tea and young men again, then dinner, drums, and b.a.l.l.s, and young men till three A.M. That is the tread-wheel you have chosen to turn without the smallest profit to yourself or any one else. If I seem to speak strongly, it is because my heart yearns over you. I belonged once to the lavender-gloved tribe myself, and though I have long since abandoned the hunting-grounds of my youth, I would give the world to see them happy and innocent. Moreover, I know you too well to imagine that I have written a word which will offend you. Far from it. We shall be warmer and closer friends ever after; but I am strongly afraid mamma will disapprove. She will call 'Piccadilly' "highly improper," and say that it is a book she has not allowed any of "her girls" to read. I don't want to preach disobedience; but there are modes well known to my fair young friends of reading books which mamma forbids, and I trust that they will never read one against her wish which may leave a more injurious impression upon their minds than 'Piccadilly.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PART V.

THE FLESH.

PICCADILLY, _June_.

Somebody ought to compile a handbook for _debutants_ and _debutantes_, setting forth the most approved modes of procuring invitations to b.a.l.l.s 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 ill.u.s.trating the manners and customs of their ancestors, and accounting for the hereditary taint of sn.o.bbism 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 d.u.c.h.esses struggle to be asked to Bodwinkle's? I almost think a new phase of sn.o.bbism 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts. The press charge is 10s. 6d.; the dressmaker pockets the other 4s. 6d. Or else be generous: why keep the whole advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 h.o.a.rdings--

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 b.a.l.l.s.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.body, 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, Sc.r.a.per, and a few others skilled in the art of socially advertising. Their princ.i.p.al 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 pet.i.tioners, 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 a.s.sumed 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 n.o.blemen.'

"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 ent.i.tle 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sant_ 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 d.i.c.k 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 ingrat.i.tude of this kind?" I asked, inquiringly.