Part 11
But it is not only at the foreign gambling-tables that Mrs. Hazard finds vent for her speculative spirit. Unknown to her husband—who, by the way, is never permitted to know what sums she really wins or loses, for his steady-going business mind would be simply appalled at them—she watches the money market with a close and keen interest, and increases or diminishes her winnings at play by means of “flutters” on the Stock Exchange. On one occasion she nearly came to financial and domestic grief over these transactions, for she had been playing heavily, and an unexpected crisis found her at settling-day with a balance on the wrong side, greater than she was able to meet. She dared not go to her husband for help; her luck at cards and on the racecourse was at the time persistently against her—she is an inveterate poker-player and backer of horses—and she was obliged to enlist the assistance of a handsome and wealthy young man of her acquaintance.
The confidential notes that passed between them, and their unexplained private meetings, at length aroused the suspicions of her husband, and their conjugal relations were for a time exceedingly strained, and I doubt if these two have ever been quite as completely trustful since. One or two lucky wins at Epsom, and a few good nights at poker at friends’ houses helped to put her on her financial feet again, and the suspense and excitement of this experience afforded intense gratification to her gambler’s spirit, but her husband still feels, I think, that he was never told all the truth about her confidential friendship with that seductive young man. He must often wonder, too, how much his wife really wins after those long sittings at the card-tables, but as he always protests against her winning money from their friends, he must be conscious that she keeps a good deal from his knowledge. At all events, her bank pass-book is a sealed book to him.
Mrs. Hazard is very keen about horse-racing. She was bred in Yorkshire, and loves horses, and knows the Stud-book almost by heart. She studies the Racing Calendar, and follows the careers of the racers with almost professional interest. A racecourse to her is an Elysium, and among her social set are many racing men, who give her “tips,” while their wives invite her to accompany them to Sandown, Ascot, Kempton, and Epsom. Her husband takes no interest in this kind of thing, but he does not hinder her going, and she carefully omits to tell him the result of her day’s betting.
And, after all, why should she tell him? It would only annoy him, and the excitement of the racing is over. She _must_ bet and gamble, or life would be mere stagnation to her. The rearing of children, the display of the domestic affections, the shallow pleasures of Society, and the charms of culture, are not alone sufficient to satisfy the cravings of her nature, though they may be for many women. She can enjoy all these, but she must have in addition the intoxicating delights of chance and risk.
_A SINGER—AND HER MOTHER_
Miss Euterpe Diatone is a concert-singer of average talent and popularity, if you will take my word for it; but if you prefer to accept her own version of the matter, you will learn that her genius excites the jealousy of the entire musical profession, also that if the public could only get their rights and the complete satisfaction of their musical desires, they would never hear any woman sing other than Miss Euterpe Diatone. But the concert-agents and the _entrepreneurs_ are, as she will tell you, so venal and obtuse, and so easily influenced by the jealousy of the other vocalists, who cotton to them, and bribe them, maybe—who knows? Anyhow, Miss Diatone can tell you of numbers of instances where other singers, of less ability and fame than herself, have had engagements which ought to have been offered to her; and she knows for a fact that the concert-givers cut their own throats by this policy, for friends of her own actually stayed away from those concerts, only because she was not engaged to sing.
Of course all this is conveyed in a tone of becoming modesty, and if you want confirmation of these blatant facts, you have but to ask Miss Diatone’s mother, Madame Brown-Smith. Though, if you value my advice in any particular, you will be content with the daughter’s statement, for Madame Brown-Smith has always much to say on the subject of her daughter; and beautiful as motherly devotion undoubtedly is, the professional enthusiasm of the vocalist’s mother is apt to become a little oppressive. She is a veritable touter, regarding her daughter’s voice as the commercial traveller looks upon the article of his trade, and “pushing” it accordingly. As you listen to her depreciating every vocalist in turn, and telling you how Euterpe was encored so many times at such a concert, whereas every other performer “finished without a hand,” and how Euterpe was paid so much by such a publisher for singing a certain song, which is really such rubbish you have wondered how any one could have had the impertinence even to print it, you begin almost to wonder whether music is a “divine art” after all, and not a trade on a par with the selling of patent pills, soap, or grey shirtings. Truly the modern singer—and her mother—are terrible disillusioners.
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When we think of all that music is, and all it means, its magic influence, its mighty power, and when we reflect that, through its medium, as the rhythmic expression of all unspoken emotion, the singer or the player may soothe a single heart or move a multitude, awaken a soul to love or rouse a nation to patriotism, what can we say of the musician who, with this splendid gift of song, merely turns it to sordid account? And yet singers must live. That is the difficulty, for in these days art must suffer that artists may prosper.
Miss Diatone is not one to starve for the sake of art, nor is her mother one to let her, for Madame Brown-Smith has something personal to say in the matter. Did she not pay for her daughter’s musical education out of the slender means her husband left her, and is it not fair that she should now enjoy the profits? But if her daughter studied the interests of art before popularity, the profits would be slight indeed. The fact is, it pays to sing commonplace songs, and the “royalty system” therefore provides an important portion of Miss Diatone’s income. Moreover, Miss Diatone urges that she must sing what the public want to hear, and when she sings songs of the pretty-pretty order now in vogue, she is vociferously encored. Moreover, she receives a fee from the publishers of the song as well as from the concert-giver, whereas, if she were to sing any really artistic song, which, of course, she will pretend she would much prefer doing, her audience would, she believes, be sure to find it “above their heads” and would applaud her faintly, and the publishers would not find it worth while to give her a “royalty.” The encore and the “royalty” seem indeed to be the goals of the modern concert-singers’ ambition, and for these they will sell their artistic souls.
I do not know how it is, but as soon as the commercial aspect of the musical profession takes hold on the artist’s life, it seems to narrow the soul, to prevent that true _camaraderie_ which exists amongst all other artists than musicians, and to promote self-serving and jealousy. The struggle for existence in the musical world would too often appear to be opposed to magnanimity of mind and generosity of soul, for those who exhibit these qualities in their professional lives and in their art-work, are not, as a rule, among the prosperous. It is a small world, not the world of song, mark you, but the world of professional singers, and it is full of the littleness of small communities. Of course there are exceptions, but they only prove the rule.
Miss Diatone lives in the midst of this narrow world, with its warped personal interests and its jealousies, so opposed to the great world of art, which concerns itself with all humanity, but somehow she does not appear to realise that it is so. It has not yet been borne in upon her that the professionally musical community is not the centre of the universe, and that she is not the actual axis on which it turns. If such a knowledge were likely to come to her from any quarter, her mother would be in time to prevent it, for Madame Brown-Smith is her daughter’s Barnum. By the way, why she is called “Madame” Brown-Smith is a mystery, unless she considers that her daughter’s _status_ in the musical profession confers that distinction upon her as a right. There is often a good deal of mystification among musical artists on the subject of these prefixes. They would seem to regard the use of “Madame” as a sort of artistic degree, and many vocalists’ mothers, adopting it in place of plain “Mrs.,” appear to hold the title in trust for their daughters till they become too old to be styled “Miss” any longer.
Without any disrespect to mothers, for as a class I reverence them, I cannot help thinking how much pleasanter many vocalists I wot of would be if they had no mothers, or, rather, if they had not the mothers Providence has provided them withal. Now, Miss Euterpe Diatone would be quite a nice, companionable girl if it were not for that mother of hers. Of course, Diatone is only a pseudonym, adopted for professional purposes, but as Euterpe Brown-Smith—when her father was alive, and before her mother discovered that she was worth working as a means of income—she was unaffected, and quite popular among her school-friends, though somewhat inclining to personal vanity. Then she began to develop a singing voice of a quality beyond anything known in their social circle—Mr. Brown-Smith, by the way, travelled in something or other, and they lived at Peckham Rye—and the fullest musical resources of the local High School were called into requisition for the cultivation of her voice. Then she was sent to one of the academies of music, and became quite popular in the parlours of Peckham Rye and its vicinity. She was greatly in demand for penny readings, choral meetings, and social gatherings of all kinds; and, of course, with her went her mother, who shone with her accomplished daughter’s reflected light, posed as the mother of the local _prima donna_, and made social capital out of the position.
Now Mrs. Brown-Smith, as she was then called, always had an eye to business, and, when her husband died, she bethought her of Euterpe’s singing powers for support; so, by fanning her daughter’s vanity in every particular, she encouraged her to study hard and win scholarships, until at the students’ concert she attracted the notice of the professors, the press, and the concert-agents, and thereupon obtained her first professional engagement. She was a success with the public, and gradually her engagements became more frequent, and of a better and more lucrative class, until her name has now become familiar in concert-halls and drawing-rooms.
And now Miss Euterpe Diatone and her mother reside in a flat in the West-end, and give pleasant “afternoon teas,” and are seen in many places honoured of Society. Miss Diatone is really a bright and engaging girl in her way, and if she wears her profession perpetually on her sleeve, so to speak, perhaps she finds it consistent with her advancement. But though Miss Diatone be welcome in many drawing-rooms, both socially and professionally, the same can hardly always be said of her mother; yet poor Euterpe is in the same case with Mary who had a little lamb, for wherever Miss Diatone goes her mother is sure to go.
If they happen to be on a visit at a country house, and a driving party is being made up for the young folk, while the elderly ladies are to stay at home, Madame Brown-Smith disconcerts everybody by asking where she is to sit, and, of course, she takes the very seat which had been set apart for the belle of the party. Then Miss Diatone has quietly to apologise for “poor Ma, who does so love the country,” the while she is boiling with indignation that her mother has probably spoiled her chance of a future invitation. Yes, her mother is certainly a trial; but if Euterpe attempted to protest that people may invite a young singer without necessarily wanting her mother, Madame Brown-Smith would only accuse her of ingratitude and want of feeling. What then can she do? But they have frequent quarrels, owing to Miss Diatone’s egotism and her mother’s aggressiveness, which come into conflict.
The subject of young men is one perhaps most fruitful of quarrels. Euterpe Diatone, though she finds much pleasure and gratification in the applause of the public, and much profit to boot, is essentially a woman, and her vanity cries also for the satisfaction of personal conquest. Consequently there is no over-looking the fact that she is an unconscionable flirt of a kind that is very popular with men, while at the same time she always keeps an eye open to the chances of matrimony, and to the advancement of her popularity. She has a very taking manner with both men and women, but with men she will assume a sauciness that leads them to suppose they may be familiar. Then she will at once stand on her dignity, and command their personal respect, after which she will relapse again, and completely puzzle them.
By this means she keeps her admirers at beck and call, and they all agree that she is “as clever as she knows how”—what odious expressions they do use nowadays!—but that “you have to mind your P’s and Q’s with her,” for she puts out her bristles of propriety at the least alarm. Still they do not propose marriage, and that is a subject of perennial annoyance to her. But perhaps Madame Brown-Smith may be in some measure accountable for this lapse of connubial courtesy on the part of Miss Diatone’s admirers. To tell the truth, she has an unmistakable way of intimating that any one who married Euterpe would find to his cost that mother and daughter were inseparable; though I cannot help thinking, from my personal observation of the young vocalist herself, that after marriage she would take an entirely different view of the matter from her mother. In the meanwhile, she realises with undisguised irritation that this mother of hers is spoiling all her matrimonial chances in her enthusiastic endeavours to further her daughter’s professional interests, and perhaps, in a greater degree, her own comforts.
It must not be supposed that Euterpe is not fond of her mother, or that she does not pay her sufficient attention; but she has acquired a habit of egotism, perhaps from the practice of constantly standing alone upon the platform, and facing the public on her own merits. When, therefore, Madame Brown-Smith’s idea of her own importance increases with her daughter’s professional and social status, and she monopolises the conversation with “_my_ daughter” this, and “_my_ daughter” that, and “_my_ daughter” the other, Euterpe feels that she could create so much more favourable an impression concerning her own doings with the personal persuasion of her “I.” As the Americans would say, she wants “to run her own show.” And what concert-agent, what composer, what publisher, or even what conscientious critic, would not be more inclined to listen favourably to the autobiographical details of a fair and winning egotist, with all her charm of personality, than to the obvious advertising and touting of the young artist’s aggressive mother? If Miss Euterpe Diatone makes herself amiable to us with an eye to business—knowing us to be in a position to assist her professionally, we amiably fall in with her views because, though one eye be to business, the other is to ourselves, and both are pretty. We are only men, after all. But with the mother, it is quite another thing. We respect her maternal solicitude and her business assiduity, but she is a bore—brutal though it sound to say so. Moreover, without her for show-woman I verily believe Euterpe Diatone would have been a truer artist and a nicer woman.
_THE “DEAREST FRIEND”_
Among women, I venture to think, friendship is not temperamental, it is an accomplishment; and, at the risk of bringing down upon my devoted head an avalanche of feminine contradiction, I make bold to say that real friendship, as understood by men, is rare between women, though nearly every woman cherishes a “dearest friend.”
A woman’s “dearest friend” is her familiar gossip, her partisan, but seldom, if ever, the companion of her soul, the true confidante of her inner self. Of course, both she and her “dearest friend” would indignantly repudiate this assertion, and vow that they severally tell each other _everything_, that their confidence is mutual and complete; but then dissimulation is so inherent in women that they are not aware of it. They are not analysing creatures as a rule, and they would as soon admit their natural dissimulation, or their incapacity for friendship with their own sex, from a man’s point of view, as any of us would own to lacking a sense of humour, or being no connoisseurs in matters of art.
I believe that men can teach women friendship, though, perhaps, not until they have learnt the great lesson of love, for which they have a natural intuition. Then, women may be the friends of men, and very true and enduring friends too; but between woman and woman I doubt, as a rule, whether you would find the same kind of friendship as between man and man, or even as between man and woman, for women seldom trust each other entirely—of course, always taking into consideration the necessary proof of exceptions. But of “dearest friends” there is no lack—indeed some women occupy this position in a kind of wholesale way. They make “dearest friendship” the business of their lives, and prosecute it in quite a professional fashion; and, of course, those who are “dearest friends” to a large _clientèle_ become obviously better and more comprehensive gossips.
Mrs. Meanwell is one of these; she is a general favourite, and carries with her an amiability as alluring as it is indiscriminate and universal. As a “dearest friend,” therefore, she is in constant and general demand, and consequently she is a veritable Pantechnicon of personal gossip. This vocation has been hers since her earliest schooldays, when she was the recipient of all the other little girls’ confidences in rotation, and, though uniformly cheery and good-tempered, she was often the cause of heart-burning in others. For, how could she be expected to respect the secrets of her quondam friends when they had quarrelled with her “dearest friend” of the moment?
Some people mysteriously inspire confidences, and Mrs. Meanwell has always done so, and even more now that she is a woman-of-the-world than when she was an unsophisticated school-girl. She has an amazing gift of dissimulation, which would be invaluable to an actress or a diplomatist, but which is of immense aid in cultivating that reputation for sympathy which is essential to the vocation of a “dearest friend.” She is able absolutely to absorb herself—to all outward appearance—in conversation with the person who is her companion for the time being, to seem to be interested in nothing else in the world beyond the topic of their talk, while all the time, perhaps, she is really calculating the favourable impression she has made upon the other person, and deciding how uncongenial that other is to her. But her stock of gossip and her range of personal experience have increased the while, as her sympathetic influence has widened. She has prepared the way to be “dearest friend” to her recent companion, if she chose, and though she may have no desire for this, she is content with the sense of her power.
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I have often watched Mrs. Meanwell with infinite curiosity and amusement, and seen her, within brief periods, receiving the voluminous confidences of two women I knew to be jealous foes, and I have wondered how she was able to maintain such intimate and seemingly affectionate relations with both. But the secret lies in her pliable temperament, which she can temporarily assimilate to the idiosyncrasies of any person with whom she comes in contact. I have seen her apparently interested by men and women from whose tedious society I would commit almost any enormity to escape, and, I must say, from a philanthropic point of view, I have admired Mrs. Meanwell for this comprehensive amiability which could rescue these people from the awful consequences of their own boredom. I have admired it in the same way that I admire women who nurse the sick and solace the afflicted. She is a kind of Florence Nightingale among the dull and the bored, and a beautiful beneficence is hers—mentally cheering those who through their own inherent dulness cannot possibly cheer themselves. But, just as you hear hospital nurses and workers in the slums say they actually love their work, so does Mrs. Meanwell really find amusement even among the bores. She is, of course, fond of hearing herself talk—who is not that has anything to say?—and she certainly glories in extending her popularity.
It will be seen, therefore, that Mrs. Meanwell is naturally fitted to fill the position of “dearest friend” to all kinds and conditions of women, and, certainly, her experience has been as varied as are her qualifications. Therefore, it could hardly be expected that she would confine her sympathetic offices to one friend, or be content with a single stock of confidences. At the same time she is an enthusiastic partisan, and if any of her “dearest friends” be involved in any social squabbles, matrimonial troubles, or financial difficulties, she is on the warpath at once. She is like an Indian scout, and carries intelligence from camp to camp. Mrs. Meanwell has codes of loyalty of her own, and she is her own arbiter in the matter, women being proverbially unable to bind themselves arbitrarily to one code as men must do. For that reason we never talk of a woman of honour as we talk of a man of honour; it would be too unfair. Women have quite enough restrictions and responsibilities to bear without having to trouble themselves with an exacting code of loyalty towards each other. So a little elasticity in this matter is, perhaps, excusable—at all events, since feminine custom stales its infinite variety.