Lady Betty Across the Water Part 10

In another instant that little live, warm bundle of brindled satin sewed on to steel wires was in my lap, and it did seem as if he knew that he was mine. The queerest thing was that he had no note with him.

On the label--just a luggage label tied on his collar--was my name, in a strange, but very interesting looking hand, and these words besides: "The Dog is now found. His name is Vivace."

"Who _has_ sent it to you, Betty?" asked Mrs. Ess Kay; and I could see by her eyes that she was very curious.

I had just answered, "I don't know from Adam," when some words of my own jumped into my head. I could hear myself saying, "I must first find the dog," and then I knew that the giver of Vivace wasn't Adam. But luckily I hadn't thought before I spoke, so it was no harm to let it rest at that; and I just sat and played with my new toy while Mrs. Ess Kay and her brother jabbered about him excitedly.

"It must be Tom Doremus," said she. "He's the only man I let you know well enough on board to take such a liberty."

I thought of another man she hadn't wanted to let me know; but I rubbed my chin on Vivace's ear, which felt like a wall-flower, and kept quiet.

"Cheek of Doremus," remarked Mr. Parker. "He's a Josher from wayback.

How does he know Lady Betty likes dogs? I should send the little brute off to the Dogs' Home."

"If Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox makes me do that, I shall have to go with him--and stop with him, too," said I. And I almost hated Mr. Parker for a minute in spite of the walking-stick roses and the snowstorm of gardenias upstairs.

"Of course, you shall keep the dog, if you want to," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "unless we find out that he's been sent by someone undesirable, and then of course the d.u.c.h.ess would expect me to see that you gave him back."

"I _feel_ somehow that we shall never find out," I said, and I hugged Vivace so hard, without meaning to, that he gave a tiny grunt. But he didn't mind a bit, and licked my hand with a tongue that was like a sweet little sample of pink plush.

I was suddenly so happy with my surprise-present that I forgave America for having imaginative reporters, and wasn't homesick for the pony or for Berengaria and her puppies, or anything.

Vivace went out with us in the electric carriage, and even Mrs. Ess Kay had to admire him as he sat straight up in my lap, like a bronze statue of a dog. "He's a thoroughbred, anyhow," she remarked. "He can't have cost a penny less than five hundred dollars, so whoever the anonymous giver is, he must be a rich man."

I'm rather hazy about dollars, still, but when I heard that, I felt myself go red. I knew well enough that the giver--who wasn't Adam--was very far from being a rich man, and I couldn't bear to think that he had perhaps squandered some hard-earned savings on buying such an extravagant present for me. But the more I thought of it--which I did all the way down to the shops--the more I thought it impossible that a man who had been obliged to cross the Atlantic in the steerage would even have a hundred pounds in the world. Somebody had perhaps given him the dog from a good kennel, when it was a wee puppy, I said to myself; but this, though it eased my mind in one way, made the gift seem all the more pathetic;--that that poor, handsome Jim Brett should part with something he must have loved (for who could have Vivace and not love him?) to please me. I should have liked to write a note to the Manhattan Club, where he had told me he was employed, to thank him. But he had sent the present anonymously, and I felt somehow as if he hadn't meant or wished me to acknowledge it.

While I was wondering what I should do, the brougham stopped before a shop even larger than Harrod's or the Army and Navy Stores. There were lovely things in the windows, things that looked like American women, and not like English or even French ones, though I couldn't define the difference if I were ordered to with a revolver at my head.

The petticoats and stockings and belts and lace things and parasols, and especially blouses, were so perfectly thrilling that my heart began to beat quite fast at sight of them. I felt as if I must have some immediately; and when Mrs. Ess Kay said that this was "quite a cheap store," I said to myself that I would do something more interesting than watch her shopping.

She had to buy handkerchiefs to begin with, for most of hers had disappeared in the wash at foreign hotels; and Sally wanted veiling.

Those were not interesting to me, because they are necessary; and necessaries, like your daily bread and such things, are so dull. I said that I would just wander about a little, as they thought they would be some time, and we made an appointment to meet in half an hour at what they called the notion counter. I hadn't an idea what it was, and didn't like to ask, because I had asked so many questions already; but I knew that I could get someone to take me there when the half hour was up.

When you want everything you see, but aren't sure which things you want enough to buy and how many you can afford, it's less confusing to prowl alone. Besides, there was an exciting feeling of independence in strolling about unchaperoned in a shop as big as a village, in a strange foreign city.

I really did need a sunshade to go with a blue dress of mine, because my only light one (if I don't count rather a common white thing) is pink. I saw some beauties, and I wanted to ask the price; but the attendants,--who were girls, with lovely figures and their hair done in exactly the same flop over their foreheads,--were so interested in talking about a young man they all knew, that it seemed cruel to interrupt them, especially as I mightn't buy the sunshade in the end.

However, I did venture to speak, in quite a humble voice, by and by, but the girl couldn't understand a word until I'd repeated everything twice. "A sunshade? Oh, you mean one of these parasawls," she said then. "Excuse me, it's your English accent I didn't quite catch at first. That one's ten dollars and forty-nine cents, and this is eight dollars, eighty-nine."

While we were busy doing the dollars into pounds and s.h.i.+llings, we got quite friendly, for she was a very obliging girl, and didn't bear me any grudge for interrupting, though her friends were going on with their conversation and telling such exciting things about the young man that she must have been dying to listen.

However, my girl hardly paid any attention to them at all, except just to get mixed up in her answers to me once or twice. She said it was very difficult to understand English people on account of their not opening their mouths much when they spoke, and their accent being so strong. I found this odd, because we always feel as if, the English language having been started by us, it is Americans who have an accent; but it seems that a great many people in the States dislike the way we talk, very much, and consider it extremely affected.

After all the trouble she had taken, I felt dreadfully not to buy anything of her, but the sunshades were too expensive, though she said they were marked down. I took a j.a.panese fan instead, which pops out at you like a Jack-in-the-box, from a fat red stick; and even that was a dollar and twenty-five cents when I thought it would be sixpence. On the way to meet Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally at the notion counter, I enquired the price of a good many other superlatively beautiful things, but they were all superlatively high, as well; and by the time a very das.h.i.+ng young man, who said he was a "floor-walker," had steered me to the notions, I felt as if I were the only cheap thing in the whole shop. To be sure, there were some embroidered collars and American flag-headed hat-pins, and flowered muslin wrappers which I could have had without ruining myself, if I had wanted them. But I didn't; and what I should like to know is, what does a girl do, if she's poor and has to live in New York? Mrs. Ess Kay had said the shop was a cheap shop, so there must be others where even the flowered wrappers and collars and hatpins are more. And besides, a girl couldn't go through life dressed entirely in such things. However, judging from the girls I have seen so far, they are all very rich, except the lower cla.s.ses; and of course, it's much simpler to do without things if you can just be poor and give up to it comfortably, without thinking of appearances, like us.

As soon as I saw the Notion Counter, I knew why they had named it that; only it would be still more expressive if it were called the Imagination counter. It was lovely, and looked like thousands of little Christmas presents spread out for everyone.

There were a great many pretty people buying things at it, and in most of the other departments where I went with Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally; but when I admired them, and the sweet blouses they wore, and the way they carried their shoulders and hips, Mrs. Ess Kay sniffed, and said there was n.o.body in New York, now,--n.o.body at all who was worth looking at, and wouldn't be till October, except those who were just in the city for a day or two of shopping, like us. When I suggested that these charming beings in white muslins and summer silks might be here in that way, she did not think it at all probable.

"How can you tell?" I asked. "They look just as nice as we do."

Indeed, I thought some of them looked nicer, but I've been much too well brought up to make such remarks as that.

"I can tell, because I don't know their Faces," said Mrs. Ess Kay, decidedly, in a tone that gave a capital letter to her last word, and yet intimated that the poor, unknown (by her) Things couldn't possibly be worth a glance.

Now, Mother and Aunt Sophy are rather like that. It's almost terrible when they say "Who _Is_ she?" But I shouldn't have expected it to be the same in America, if Sally hadn't warned me. I suppose it's quite easy to remember just Four Hundred faces, as you're sure there will never be any more, even if they have children, because they're being cut down instead of going up in number.

When we had been for about an hour and a half in the big shop, we'd finished all we had to do there, and must motor to another farther up, before meeting Mr. Parker, who was to give us lunch at a place called Sherry's, at one o'clock. On the way, Sally suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Cousin Katherine, we must initiate this dear child into the mysteries of ice cream soda water; and I'm just yearning for some myself, anyhow."

"Huyler's," said Mrs. Ess Kay to her _mecanicien_, a very young man with eyes that looked positively ill with intelligence, and a way of snapping out "all right" when she spoke to him that would make Stan sit up with surprise if his chauffeur did it.

Sally said that the nicest oasis in the desert of London was an American place where you can get ice cream soda water; but I had never had any, and in the burning heat of the New York morning--which flung itself into the shop like a great wave in spite of fierce electric fans--I could have purred in pure delight over the piled up, ice-cold froth in that tall gla.s.s. It tasted like frozen velvet flavoured with strawberries, and I should have loved to be an ostrich or an anaconda so that the sensation might have lasted longer.

There were no men in the shop, only women, and so pretty that you wondered if there were a notice posted up over the door forbidding plain ladies to enter. Two or three had yellow hair, yellower than mine, and Mrs. Ess Kay said they were actresses who always came back to New York in summer to wait for Things to turn up, just as chickens come home to roost; and that they were supposed to be Resting.

I had always thought that a banana made you feel more as if you had eaten a large, elaborate dinner than any other one thing possibly could; but I found that an ice cream soda is even more so; and it was lucky for us that we had another hour's shopping to do (Mrs. Ess Kay made it an hour and a half because Potter is only her brother) before luncheon.

The next shop was even more wonderful than the first, and would have been a great deal more solemn and dignified, and even conventional, if the same kind of wooden b.a.l.l.s hadn't gone tearing round like mad squirrels in wire cages over the counters, with people's money shut up inside them. There were very young youths sitting in tall pulpit things, who caught the b.a.l.l.s on the fly in a sporting way, and did something to them, but I never could see what, and afterwards sent them back, with the greenback bills inside turned miraculously into silver and pretty miniature pennies.

When we got to Sherry's Potter was waiting for us, and looking cross. I think persons with turned up noses show crossness more easily than the other kind, and Potter had the expression in his eyes that Vic has when her shoes are tight and Mother is in a trying mood at the same time. I shouldn't be surprised if he has a horrid temper, although he thinks of so many funny things. And though he is so nice to me, he can't help saying things sometimes which show that he has a prejudice against England. That seems extraordinary, and shows one how conceited we English really are; for one is quite accustomed to the idea that there may be people who don't care for Americans, but it is odd that Americans may not like us. I suppose it's on a par with the sentiments in our National Anthem, which when one comes to a.n.a.lyse them, don't exactly suggest a sense of give and take--or, for that matter, a sense of humour.

"Confound _their_ politics, frustrate _their_ knavish tricks," but naturally bless everything in which We are concerned, as We are certain to be above reproach. I'm afraid that's quite of a piece with the calm confidence we have in our own superiority, although I daresay I should never have realised it if it weren't for Mr. Potter Parker and his perky nose.

It began to be less perky when we were all settled at a table in a perfectly charming restaurant, the most restful place to eat in that I ever saw. I can't imagine even a fiend being ill-tempered in it for long; and it was deliciously cool, as if we had come into a shadowy green wood after the blazing, bra.s.sy glare of the streets.

The big room really was rather like a wood, so the simile isn't far-fetched;--an open s.p.a.ce in a wood, ringed round with tall trees bending their branches low over a still pool. The soothing brown of the wainscoted walls gave the tree-trunk effect; the great hanging baskets of ferns and moss that swung from the ceiling were the tree-branches; and the many round, snow-white tables, with green velvet chairs grouped closely round them on the polished floor were the water-lilies with green pads floating on the surface of the pond.

Nearly everything we had for lunch was in a more or less advanced state of frozenness, from the bouillon, ever so far along to the ices in the shape of different-coloured fruits, toward the end. Nevertheless, all of us, except Potter, drank iced water instead of wine whenever we stopped eating for an instant, or couldn't think of anything particular to say; and the more we had the more we seemed to want. There was a kind of iced-water curse upon us.

It has never occurred to Vic or me to lie down in the afternoon, though she tries to sleep a little sometimes if she's going to a ball. But when we got home, Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally took it quite as a matter of course that we would lie down before going to Coney Island to dine and see fireworks and other things. They were surprised when I didn't want to, but Mrs. Ess Kay said in that case Potter would entertain me while they rested. I told her it wasn't necessary, but Potter wanted me to bet my sweet life that it was just the one Proposition on earth for him, so he and Vivace and I sat in the fountain court while Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally went upstairs.

Potter was suddenly a changed man, as soon as he and I were alone together, becoming exactly what he had been yesterday when I first ran downstairs, and he introduced himself.

He didn't chaff me about my country, and make fun of our government, or hint that American men were the only men living who knew how to treat women, as he seemed to delight in doing when his sister and cousin were with us. He began by offering to teach me some of his best slang; but as the lesson went on, it turned out to be rather more like a lesson in flirtation.

I would have been even more startled than I was, if I hadn't already had a little experience on board s.h.i.+p, with Mr. Doremus. At home I've often thought it must be very pleasant to be out, and able to flirt; but I never had a chance, because, as Vic said, it was her turn first, and the only young man, not a relation, that I ever talked with alone was the curate, who would as soon have tried to flirt with a Bishopess as with one of Mother's daughters.

But I like Mr. Doremus' kind of flirtation almost better than Mr.

Parker's. Mr. Doremus makes you feel as if you were a beautiful young heroine in a play, and you are almost sorry there is no audience to applaud the witty things he says, and the smart answers he inspires you to think of, just as if he were giving you a clue.

Potter is different, and instead of an audience you want a kind of perpetual chaperon, not a Briareus creature with lots of hands to applaud.

It is silly, I know, to blush and simper; but I couldn't think of anything else to do, Potter was so alarming; and I wouldn't allow him to tell my fortune by my hand, for it was much too hot. Even if it hadn't been I shouldn't have wanted my hand held, for I do hate being touched by anyone I'm not fond of. When I told him that, he said it was very simple; what I had to do was to get fond of him, and then it would be all right.

"I shan't have time," I said. "There'll be too much for me to think about; and then I shall be going home."

"How long does it take an English girl to get fond of a man?" said he.

I told him I didn't know anything about that, as I wasn't out; but I supposed it depended on the kind of girl.