I. THE HORIZONTAL

THE MOST CASUAL OBSERVER OF THE beauties and uglinesses of Nature will have observed that in the anatomy of that very common object, a Tree, there are two widely different classes of branches. The one class grows more or less straight out from the trunk and after a horizontal career droops somewhat at the extremities, the other grows upwards in a persevering and uniform ascent. Such branches when springing high up on the trunk of the tree form the very top of the tree.

But though these facts are patent in vegetable life, and though it is clear that anybody not idiotic and sufficiently active can climb more or less successfully up a tree going higher and higher, and selecting for his ascent the branches that aspire, and not making a precarious way along the other class of branch which at the best is horizontal, and at the worst droops downwards, it seems there must be greater difficulties in the ascension of what is known among climbers as the Tree of Society. For while you may see some of them climbing steadily higher, and ever mounting till their electro-plated forms are lost amid the gold{144} of the topmost foliage, and their joyful monkey-cries mingle and almost are entuned with the song of the native birds who naturally make their nest there, you will see other climbers—the majority in fact—eagerly scrambling for ever along perfectly horizontal boughs that never bring them any higher up at all, and eventually, depressed by their weight, but bend earthwards again. Unlike the happier apes who have a flair for altitude and bird-song, these less fortunate sisters have only a flair for clinging and proceeding.

There are of course specimens of these Trees of Society in every town in England, and specimens of the monkeys who hop about them. But those are but small trees and the climbers small apes, and the climbing of these shrubs appears to present but moderate difficulties. The great specimen, the one glorious and perfect human vegetable which grows in England, flourishes only in the centre of London; its roots draw their nutriment from the soil of Middlesex (not of Surrey), and its top, resonant with birds, soars high into the ample ether of Mayfair. It is a regular monkey-puzzle, and swarms with industrious climbers going in every direction, most of them, unfortunately, proceeding with infinite toil along horizontal branches, while others slowly or{145} swiftly make their way upwards. Occasionally, with shrill screams and impotent clutchings at the trunk, one falls, and the higher the fall, the more completely dead will he (or she, particularly she) be when he reaches the ground. She may lie, faintly twitching for a minute or two, while grimacing faces of friends peer down at her, but even before her twitchings have ceased they have turned to their businesses again, for no climber ever has a moment’s rest, and a few ghouls crawl out from the bushes and bear away the corpse for interment wrapped up in a winding sheet of the less respectable journals of the day.... Let us study the unnatural history of these curious brightly-coloured creatures a little more in detail.

Dismissing the metaphor of the trees, we may say that at one time or another these climbers have come to London, like Dick Whittington. Possibly they may always have lived in London, taking London as a mere geographical expression, but London, considered as a spiritual (or unspiritual) entity, has at one time or other in their lives dawned upon them as a shining and desirable thing, and they have said to themselves, gazing upwards, ‘I want; I want.’ They have probably had more than the proverbial half{146}crown in their pockets, for climbing is an expensive job, with all the provisions and guides and ropes and axes necessary for its accomplishment, and half-a-crown would not go very far. Unlike Dick Whittington, however, they have not brought their cat along with them, but they get their cat, so to speak, when they begin to climb. In other words, without metaphor, they hook on to somebody, a pianist, or a duchess, or a buffoon, or an artist, or a cabinet-minister, or something striking of some kind, and firmly clutch it. Eminence of any sort, whether of birth or of achievement, is naturally a useful aid in ascensions, while on the other hand the climber’s half-crowns, or her flattery, or her dinners, or her country-house, perhaps even the climber herself, holds attractions for the particular piece of eminence she has put the hook into. It is her mascot, her latch-key, her passport—what you will—and she is wise to cling on to it for dear life. The mascot may not like it at first, he may wriggle and struggle, but on no account should she let go. Probably he gets accustomed to it quite soon, and does not mind being her electric light which she turns on when she chooses, and, incidentally, pays for quite honestly. The two begin, in a way, to run each other, in most cases without scandal or{147} any cause for scandal, and, mutually sustained, soar upwards together. By means of her mascot she attracts his friends to her house, so that he knows that whenever he goes there he will find congenial spirits and an excellent dinner, while she, if she is clever (and no climbers, whether horizontals or perpendiculars, are without wits), finds herself gently wafted upwards.

She will probably have begun her climb up the first few feet of the branchless trunk with the aid of ladders, friends and acquaintances (chiefly acquaintances) who have introduced her to one or two desirable folk, her mascot among them, and have enabled her to lay her slim prehensile hand on the lowest branches. At this point, having now a firm hold, so it seems to her, she will often kick her ladders down, perhaps not really intending to kick them, but in her spring upwards doing so almost accidentally. But if she does, she commits a great stupidity, and it is almost safe to bet that she will prove a horizontal. For it may easily prove that she will need those same ladders again a little higher up the trunk where there is a hiatus in branches, and returning for them will find them no longer there. They will not be lying prone on the ground as she probably thought (if she gave another{148} thought to them at all), but they will be somewhere the other side of the tree, out of reach. She has to coax them back, and it is possible they will not come for her coaxing. And while she is pondering she may loose hold of her mascot, who will scramble away. In that case, she had better jump down at once, and begin (slightly soiled) all over again.

To take a concrete instance, after this general introduction (as if, after reading a book about some curious and interesting animal we went to the Zoological Gardens to observe its appearance and habits), Mrs. Howard Britten furnishes a good example of the horizontal variety. Where the ‘Howard’ came from nobody knew or cared; she just took it, and since no one else wanted it, nothing was said. She had married a genial solicitor, who from contact with the dusky secrets of the great, had acquired a liking for their sunlight, and did not in the least object to being put in his wife’s knapsack. He made a very large income in his profession, and found that, though household expenses began to mount even quicker than his wife, the house in Brompton Square became considerably more amusing when the climbing began. He took no active part in it, but merely popped his head out of the knapsack and contentedly admired the enlarged view. Nor was he the least surprised when at the end of this particular season, his Molly persuaded him to move Mayfairwards, and purchase (the fact that it was a great bargain made little persuasion necessary) a house in Brook Street with a ball-room.

Molly Howard-Britten (the hyphen appeared this summer) had chosen for her mascot a Member of Parliament who had lately entered the Ark of the Cabinet, and was uncomfortable at home because his wife had an outrageous stammer and an inordinate passion for wool-work. Mr. Harbinger was of course a Conservative, for to the climber that notorious body, the House of Lords, constitutes a considerable proportion of the top of the tree, and the House of Lords is generally supposed to be of the Tory creed. It was safer, therefore, as she looked forward to a good deal of their society, to have a Conservative mascot. She on her side offered a quick feminine wit to amuse him, a charming face and manner, and really admirable food. Mrs. Harbinger came once or twice, bringing her skeins with her, but since she disliked dinner-parties as much as she adored worsted, it soon became common for her husband to dine with the Howard-Brittens alone. The Howard-Brittens spent a week-end with the{150} Harbingers, and there Molly easily secured three or four of his friends to dine with her on the following Friday week. On this occasion one of them was going on to a very sumptuous tree-top ball afterwards, and during dinner she was rung up by the hostess who, agitated by the extreme inclemency of the night, begged her to bring a guest or two more along with her. This was luck: Molly went, and being a remarkably good dancer spent an evening that proved both agreeable and profitable. By the end of the season she had got well placed among the lower branches of the tree, and, perhaps a shade too soon, since it is not quite so easy to be a hostess as might be supposed, took the Brook Street house with the ball-room.

She spent a rather sleepless August with her husband at Marienbad, and began to make her first mistakes. She ga............