CHAPTER VI CHIFFON

It pains me beyond measure to say it, but I think there can be no doubt that the accumulated experience and wisdom of mankind goes to show that at the bottom of most troubles there is a woman. Since Eve and the first debacle, it has been woman all along the line. I do not say that it is her fault, but the fact remains. White hands cling to the bridle-rein, and the horse proceeds accordingly. It is woman that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will. She has a delicate finger in everybody's pie. No matter who you are, some woman has got you by a little bit of string. Occasionally you are the better for being so entangled; but nine times out of ten it is a misfortune for you.[Pg 48] When one comes to look closely at the decadence of the English, and endeavours to account for it in a plain way and without fear or prejudice, one cannot help perceiving that here again one has a pronounced case of woman, woman, woman. Further,—and once more I pray that I may not seem impolite,—the woman with whom you have to contend in England, though her hand be full of power, is not, perhaps, a woman, after all. I sometimes think that she may be best and most properly expressed in the word "Chiffon." Whatever she may have been in the past, however sweet, however demure, however capable, however beautiful, the Englishwoman of to-day is just a foolish doll, a thing of frills and fluff and patchouli, a daughter of vanity, and a worshipper of dressmakers. Under her little foot, under her mild, blue, greedy eye, the Englishman has become a capering carpet-knight, one who dallies at high noon, a buck, a dandy, an unconvinced flippancy, the shadow of his former self. Be he father or merely husband of the fair, his[Pg 49] case is pretty much the same. Both at home (if he can find it in his heart to call his conglomeration of cosey-corners home) and abroad it is Chiffon that runs him. Chiffon must have a house full of fal-lals: so must the Englishman. Chiffon delights in Chippendale that a sixteen-stone male person dare not sit upon: so does the Englishman. Chiffon must dine late off French kickshaws with champagne to them: so must the Englishman. Chiffon must not have more than two children, whom she must visit and kiss once a day: it is the same with the Englishman. Chiffon does not like the way in which you are running your newspaper: the Englishman forthwith runs his newspaper another way. Chiffon does not like that cross-eyed clerk of yours; she is sure there is something wrong about him; she wouldn't trust him with a hairpin, my dear! He gets fired. Chiffon is fond of motor-cars and tiaras of diamonds and eight-guinea hats and three or four new frocks a week, and she hates to be worried about money matters. "Poor little[Pg 50] Chiffon!" says the good, kind Englishman; "she shall be happy, even though we drift sweetly toward Carey Street. We must keep it up, though the heavens fall; and when I come to think of it, I have read somewhere of a man who had only ￡500 year, and is now in receipt of ￡16,000 simply through marrying an expensive wife." Lower down the scale it is just the same: Chiffon will have this, Chiffon will have that, and so will the Englishman. It is only four-three a yard, and it will make up lovely! The Englishman never doubts that it will. Chiffon discovers that Chiffon next door has got an oak parlour-organ and a case of birds on the instalment system. "She is getting them off a Scotsman," says Chiffon; "and I want some too." "Dry those pretty eyes," says the Englishman; "I will apply at once for an extra two-bob a week, and it shall be done." The children of Chiffon next door are "taking music lessons off a lidy in reduced circumstances." Chiffon's children are as good as the children of Chiffon next door any day in[Pg 51] the week—they, too, shall take music lessons. The Englishman concurs.

This, of course, is all when you are married to her. When you are Chiffon's fiancé (she would not have you say sweetheart or lover for worlds), you enjoy what is commonly called in England a high old time. First of all, she will flirt with you till your reason rocks upon its throne. Then, when you are about as confused as a little boy who has fallen out of a balloon, she brings you to the idiot-point, informs you that it is so sudden and that she doesn't quite know what you mean, and asks you if you do not think it would have been more manly on your part to have spoken first with her papa. Being an Englishman, and having nothing better to do, you put up with it and go guiltily off to Chiffon's delectable male parent. He inquires into your income in pretty much the manner of a person who is going to lend you ￡20 on note of hand only, grunts a bit, asks to be excused while he has a word with the missis; comes back, says, "Yes, you can have[Pg 52] her," and next morning you find yourself on the same old stool, in front of the same old shiny desk, wondering what in the name of heaven you have done. There is a three-years' courtship, all starch and theatre-tickets and bouquets and fretfulness and anxiety; there is a wedding pageant, got up specially for the purpose of annoying the neighbours; you have a whirling twenty minutes before a company of curates, who persist in calling you by the wrong name; you go home in shivers; you drink soda-water to prevent you from getting drunk; you make a speech in the tone of a man who has just been hung; you find yourself feeling rather queer aboard the Dover packet,—and Chiffon is yours. Such an experience at a time of life when a man is callow, shy, full of nerves, and unversed in the serious matters of life is bound to leave its mark upon the character. It takes the heart out of most men, and some of them never get it back again. It is an English institution and a stupid one. Like many another English institution, it has its[Pg 53] basis in pretentiousness and display, instead of in the vital issues of life. In Scotland we make marriages on different and more serious principles. There are no Chiffons in Scotland, whether maids or matrons. Consequently in Scotland there are precious few fools. Hard heads, sound sense, high spirits, indomitable will, inexhaustible energy, are not the offspring of mammas who know more about cosmetics than about swaddling-clothes, and who suckle their children out of patent-food tins. One of the rebukers of Mr. Crosland has pointed out with some pertinence that the Scotswoman approximates more closely to the Wise Man's view of what a good wife should be than almost any other kind of woman in the world. Here, as Mr. Crosland would say, is Solomon:

    Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

    The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

    She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

    She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

    [Pg 54]

    She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

    She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

    She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.

    She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.

    She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.

    She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

    She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.

    She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

    Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.

    She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.

    Strength and honour are her clothing: and she shall rejoice in time to come.

    She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

    She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

    Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

Yes, Mr. Crosland, it is "very, very, very Scotch." What poor little Chiffon would think of it, if it were put before her as a standard of wifely qualification and duty, nobody but the Englishman knows. Perhaps she[Pg 55] would shrug her shoulders and say, "How absurd!" Perhaps she would not understand it at all.

The Englishwoman's love of petty display and cheap fripperies, her desire to outshine the neighbours and to put all she has on her back, and to pass everywhere for a woman of means and station, no doubt had its beginning in a laudable anxiety to make the best of things. Unfortunately, however, the tendency has been developed out of reason, to the neglect of the qualities which make a woman the inspiration and strength of a man's life. To dress, and to talking and thinking about it, the Englishwoman devotes unconscionable hours. The bare business of robing and disrobing takes up pretty well half her waking day. Her transference from the bath to the breakfast-table cannot be accomplished under fifty minutes. Before she will appear in the open she will make yet another toilet. She is a full twenty minutes tidying herself before lunch. In the afternoon there is an hour of getting into tea-gowns; and,[Pg 56] crowning rite of all, my lady "strips" for dinner. From morn to dewy eve her little mind is busy with dress. The shopping, over which she makes such a fuss, is almost invariably a matter of new frocks, new hats, new shoes, new feathers, matching this, exchanging that, sitting on high stools before pomatumed counter-skippers, and dissipating, in the purchase of sheer superfluities, gold that men have toiled for. Her visiting is equally an unmitigatedly dressy matter; she goes to see her friends' frocks, not her friends, and it is the delight of her soul to turn up in toilettes which render her friends frankly and miserably envious. Of the real purport of clothes she knows nothing; and if you endeavour to explain it to her, she will charge you with the wish to make an old frump of her before her time. As for the expense of it all, she never bothers her pretty head about money matters; she tells you in the most childlike way that her account at the bank seems to be perpetually overdrawn, but that "Randall is a dear, kind boy,[Pg 57] though he does swear a bit when some of the bills come in. Besides," she says, "I am sure it helps him in his profession to have a well-dressed wife."

And the pity of it is, that quite frequently the person upon which these adornments are lavished is really not worth the embellishment, and would indeed be far better served and make a far better show in the least elaborate of garments. For, notoriously, the physique of the Englishwoman of the middle and upper classes is not now what it was. In height, in figure, in suppleness and grace of build, the Scottish woman can give her English sister many points. In the matter of facial beauty, too, the Englishwoman cannot be said particularly to shine. At a Drawing-Room, at the opera, the beauty of England spreads itself for your gaze; and the amazing lack both of beauty and the promise of it appals you. If we are to believe the society papers, there is not an ugly nor a plain-featured woman of means in all broad England. Every week the English illustrated journals[Pg 58] give you pages of photographs, beneath which you may read in entrancing capital letters, "The beautiful Miss Snooks," or "Lady Beertap's two beautiful daughters." Yet the merest glance at those photographs convinces you that Miss Snooks is about as good-looking as the average kitchen-wench, while the two beautiful daughters of Lady Beertap have faces like the backs of cabs. The fact is, that the so-called English beauty is a rare thing and a fragile thing. Fully seventy-five per cent. of Englishwomen are not beautiful to look upon. Of the other twenty-five per cent., one here and there—perhaps one in a thousand—could stand beside the Venus of Milo without blenching. For the rest, they have a girlish prettiness which accompanies them into their thirtieth year, and sickens slowly into a sourness. At forty, little Chiffon, who was so pretty at twenty, has crow's-feet and flat cheeks, and a distinct tendency to the nut-cracker type of profile.