The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 225

"Not exactly. Mr. Forbes--that's my friend--says she's a beauty. But if you don't mind, Penelope, I was going to ask you to be a little civil to them."

"Well, I'll admit she is handsome--a very striking-looking girl. I've seen them driving on the Avenue day after day. Now, Stanhope, I don't mind asking them here to a five o'clock; I suppose the mother will have to come. If she was staying with somebody here it would be easier. Yes, I'll do it to oblige you, if you will make yourself useful while you are here. There are some girls I want you to know, and mind, my young friend, that you don't go and fall in love with a country girl whom n.o.body knows, out of the set. It won't be comfortable."

"You are always giving me good advice, Penelope, and I should be a different man if I had profited by it."

"Don't be satirical, because you've coaxed me to do you a favor."

Late in the evening the gentlemen of the hotel party looked in at the skating-rink, a great American inst.i.tution that has for a large cla.s.s taken the place of the ball, the social circle, the evening meeting. It seemed a little incongruous to find a great rink at Newport, but an epidemic is stronger than fas.h.i.+on, and even the most exclusive summer resort must have its rink. Roller-skating is said to be fine exercise, but the benefit of it as exercise would cease to be apparent if there were a separate rink for each s.e.x. There is a certain exhilaration in the lights and music and the lively crowd, and always an attraction in the freedom of intercourse offered. The rink has its world as the opera has, its romances and its heroes. The frequenters of the rink know the young women and the young men who have a national reputation as adepts, and their exhibitions are advertised and talked about as are the appearances of celebrated 'prime donne' and 'tenori' at the opera. The visitors had an opportunity to see one of these exhibitions. After a weary watching of the monotonous and clattering round and round of the swinging couples or the stumbling single skaters, the floor was cleared, and the darling of the rink glided upon the scene. He was a slender, handsome fellow, graceful and expert to the nicest perfection in his profession. He seemed not so much to skate as to float about the floor, with no effort except volition. His rhythmic movements were followed with pleasure, but it was his feats of dexterity, which were more wonderful than graceful, that brought down the house. It was evident that he was a hero to the female part of the spectators, and no doubt his charming image continued to float round and round in the brain of many a girl when she put her, head on the pillow that night. It is said that a good many matches which are not projected or registered in heaven are made at the rink.

At the breakfast-table it appeared that the sketching-party had been a great success--for everybody except the artist, who had only some rough memoranda, like notes for a speech, to show. The amateurs had made finished pictures.

Miss Benson had done some rocks, and had got their hardness very well.

Miss Lamont's effort was more ambitious; her picture took in no less than miles of coast, as much sea as there was room for on the paper, a navy of sail-boats, and all the rocks and figures that were in the foreground, and it was done with a great deal of naivete and conscientiousness. When it was pa.s.sed round the table, the comments were very flattering.

"It looks just like it," said Mr. Benson.

"It's very comprehensive," remarked Mr. Forbes.

"What I like, Marion," said Mr. De Long, holding it out at arm's-length, "is the perspective; it isn't an easy thing to put s.h.i.+ps up in the sky."

"Of course," explained Irene, "it was a kind of hazy day."

"But I think Miss Lamont deserves credit for keeping the haze out of it."

King was critically examining it, turning his head from side to side. "I like it; but I tell you what I think it lacks: it lacks atmosphere. Why don't you cut a hole in it, Miss Lamont, and let the air in?"

"Mr. King," replied Miss Lamont, quite seriously, "you are a real friend, I can only repay you by taking you to church this morning."

"You didn't make much that time, King," said Forbes, as he lounged out of the room.

After church King accepted a seat in the Benson carriage for a drive on the Ocean Road. He who takes this drive for the first time is enchanted with the scene, and it has so much variety, deliciousness in curve and winding, such graciousness in the union of sea and sh.o.r.e, such charm of color, that increased acquaintance only makes one more in love with it. A good part of its attraction lies in the fickleness of its aspect. Its serene and soft appearance might pall if it were not now and then, and often suddenly, and with little warning, transformed into a wild coast, swept by a tearing wind, enveloped in a thick fog, roaring with the noise of the angry sea slapping the rocks and breaking in foam on the fragments its rage has cast down. This elementary mystery and terror is always present, with one familiar with the coast, to qualify the gentleness of its lovelier aspects. It has all moods. Perhaps the most exhilarating is that on a brilliant day, when sh.o.r.e and sea sparkle in the sun, and the waves leap high above the cliffs, and fall in diamond showers.

This Sunday the sh.o.r.e was in its most gracious mood, the landscape as if newly created. There was a light, luminous fog, which revealed just enough to excite the imagination, and refined every outline and softened every color. Mr. King and Irene left the carriage to follow the road, and wandered along the sea path. What softness and tenderness of color in the gray rocks, with the browns and reds of the vines and lichens!

They went out on the iron fis.h.i.+ng-stands, and looked down at the shallow water. The rocks under water took on the most exquisite shades--purple and malachite and brown; the barnacles clung to them; the long sea-weeds, in half a dozen varieties, some in vivid colors, swept over them, flowing with the restless tide, like the long locks of a drowned woman's hair.

King, who had dabbled a little in natural history, took great delight in pointing out to Irene this varied and beautiful life of the sea; and the girl felt a new interest in science, for it was all pure science, and she opened her heart to it, not knowing that love can go in by the door of science as well as by any other opening. Was Irene really enraptured by the dear little barnacles and the exquisite sea-weeds? I have seen a girl all of a flutter with pleasure in a laboratory when a young chemist was showing her the retorts and the crooked tubes and the gla.s.s wool and the freaks of color which the alkalies played with the acids. G.o.d has made them so, these women, and let us be thankful for it.

What a charm there was about everything! Occasionally the mist became so thin that a long line of coast and a great breadth of sea were visible, with the white sails drifting.

"There's nothing like it," said King--"there's nothing like this island.

It seems as if the Creator had determined to show man, once for all, a landscape perfectly refined, you might almost say with the beauty of high-breeding, refined in outline, color, everything softened into loveliness, and yet touched with the wild quality of picturesqueness."

"It's just a dream at this moment," murmured Irene. They were standing on a promontory of rock. "See those figures of people there through the mist--silhouettes only. And look at that vessel--there--no--it has gone."

As she was speaking, a sail-vessel began to loom up large in the mysterious haze. But was it not the ghost of a s.h.i.+p? For an instant it was coming, coming; it was distinct; and when it was plainly in sight it faded away, like a dissolving view, and was gone. The appearance was unreal. What made it more spectral was the bell on the reefs, swinging in its triangle, always sounding, and the momentary scream of the fog-whistle. It was like an enchanted coast. Regaining the carriage, they drove out to the end, Aga.s.siz's Point, where, when the mist lifted, they saw the sea all round dotted with sails, the irregular coasts and islands with headlands and lighthouses, all the picture still, land and water in a summer swoon.

Late that afternoon all the party were out upon the cliff path in front of the cottages. There is no more lovely sea stroll in the world, the way winding over the cliff edge by the turquoise sea, where the turf, close cut and green as Erin, set with flower beds and dotted with n.o.ble trees, slopes down, a broad pleasure park, from the stately and picturesque villas. But it was a social mistake to go there on Sunday.

Perhaps it is not the height of good form to walk there any day, but Mr.

King did not know that the fas.h.i.+on had changed, and that on Sunday this lovely promenade belongs to the butlers and the upper maids, especially to the butlers, who make it resplendent on Sunday afternoons when the weather is good. As the weather had thickened in the late afternoon, our party walked in a dumb-show, listening to the soft swish of the waves on the rocks below, and watching the figures of other promenaders, who were good enough ladies and gentlemen in this friendly mist.

The next day Mr. King made a worse mistake. He remembered that at high noon everybody went down to the first beach, a charming sheltered place at the bottom of the bay, where the rollers tumble in finely from the south, to bathe or see others bathe. The beach used to be lined with carriages at that hour, and the surf, for a quarter of a mile, presented the appearance of a line of picturesquely clad skirmishers going out to battle with the surf. Today there were not half a dozen carriages and omnibuses altogether, and the bathers were few-nursery maids, fragments of a day-excursion, and some of the fair conventionists. Newport was not there. Mr. King had led his party into another social blunder. It has ceased to be fas.h.i.+onable to bathe at Newport.

Strangers and servants may do so, but the cottagers have withdrawn their support from the ocean. Salt.w.a.ter may be carried to the house and used without loss of caste, but bathing in the surf is vulgar. A gentleman may go down and take a dip alone--it had better be at an early hour--and the ladies of the house may be heard to apologize for his eccentricity, as if his fondness for the water were abnormal and quite out of experience. And the observer is obliged to admit that promiscuous bathing is vulgar, as it is plain enough to be seen when it becomes unfas.h.i.+onable. It is charitable to think also that the cottagers have made it unfas.h.i.+onable because it is vulgar, and not because it is a cheap and refres.h.i.+ng pleasure accessible to everybody.

Nevertheless, Mr. King's ideas of Newport were upset. "It's a little off color to walk much on the cliffs; you lose caste if you bathe in the surf. What can you do?"

"Oh," explained Miss Lamont, "you can make calls; go to teas and receptions and dinners; belong to the Casino, but not appear there much; and you must drive on the Ocean Road, and look as English as you can.

Didn't you notice that Redfern has an establishment on the Avenue? Well, the London girls wear what Redfern tells them to wear-much to the improvement of their appearance--and so it has become possible for a New-Yorker to become partially English without sacrificing her native taste."

Before lunch Mrs. Bartlett Glow called on the Bensons, and invited them to a five-o'clock tea, and Miss Lamont, who happened to be in the parlor, was included in the invitation. Mrs. Glow was as gracious as possible, and especially attentive to the old lady, who purred with pleasure, and beamed and expanded into familiarity under the encouragement of the woman of the world. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Glow had learned the chief points in the family history, the state of health and habits of pa (Mr.

Benson), and all about Cyrusville and its wonderful growth. In all this Mrs. Glow manifested a deep interest, and learned, by observing out of the corner of her eye, that Irene was in an agony of apprehension, which she tried to conceal under an increasing coolness of civility. "A nice lady," was Mrs. Benson's comment when Mrs. Glow had taken herself away with her charmingly-scented air of frank cordiality--"a real nice lady.

She seemed just like our, folks."

Irene heaved a deep sigh. "I suppose we shall have to go."

"Have to go, child? I should think you'd like to go. I never saw such a girl--never. Pa and me are just studying all the time to please you, and it seems as if--" And the old lady's voice broke down.

"Why, mother dear"--and the girl, with tears in her eyes, leaned over her and kissed her fondly, and stroked her hair--"you are just as good and sweet as you can be; and don't mind me; you know I get in moods sometimes."

The old lady pulled her down and kissed her, and looked in her face with beseeching eyes.

"What an old frump the mother is!" was Mrs. Glow's comment to Stanhope, when she next met him; "but she is immensely amusing."

"She is a kind-hearted, motherly woman," replied King, a little sharply.

"Oh, motherly! Has it come to that? I do believe you are more than half gone. The girl is pretty; she has a beautiful figure; but my gracious!

her parents are impossible--just impossible. And don't you think she's a little too intellectual for society? I don't mean too intellectual, of course, but too mental, don't you know--shows that first. You know what I mean."

"But, Penelope, I thought it was the fas.h.i.+on now to be intellectual--go in for reading, and literary clubs, Dante and Shakespeare, and political economy, and all that."

"Yes, I belong to three clubs. I'm going to one tomorrow morning. We are going to take up the 'Disestablishment of the English Church.' That's different; we make it fit into social life somehow, and it doesn't interfere. I'll tell you what, Stanhope, I'll take Miss Benson to the Town and County Club next Sat.u.r.day."

"That will be too intellectual for Miss Benson. I suppose the topic will be Transcendentalism?"

"No; we have had that. Professor Spor, of Cambridge, is going to lecture on Bacteria--if that's the way you p.r.o.nounce it--those mites that get into everything."

"I should think it would be very improving. I'll tell Miss Benson that if she stays in Newport she must improve her mind,

"You can make yourself as disagreeable as you like to me, but mind you are on your good behavior at dinner tonight, for the Misses Pelham will be here."

The five-o'clock at Mrs. Bartlett Glow's was probably an event to n.o.body in Newport except Mrs. Benson. To most it was only an incident in the afternoon round and drive, but everybody liked to go there, for it is one of the most charming of the moderate-sized villas. The lawn is planted in exquisite taste, and the gardener has set in the open s.p.a.ces of green the most ingenious devices of flowers and foliage plants, and nothing could be more enchanting than the view from the wide veranda on the sea side. In theory, the occupants lounge there, read, embroider, and swing in hammocks; in point of fact, the breeze is usually so strong that these occupations are carried on indoors.

The rooms were well filled with a moving, chattering crowd when the Bensons arrived, but it could not be said that their entrance was unnoticed, for Mr. Benson was conspicuous, as Irene had in vain hinted to her father that he would be, in his evening suit, and Mrs. Benson's beaming, extra-gracious manner sent a little s.h.i.+ver of amus.e.m.e.nt through the polite civility of the room.

"I was afraid we should be too late," was Mrs. Benson's response to the smiling greeting of the hostess, with a most friendly look towards the rest of the company. "Mr. Benson is always behindhand in getting dressed for a party, and he said he guessed the party could wait, and--"

Before the sentence was finished Mrs. Benson found herself pa.s.sed on and in charge of a certain general, who was charged by the hostess to get her a cup of tea. Her talk went right on, however, and Irene, who was still standing by the host, noticed that wherever her mother went there was a lull in the general conversation, a slight pause as if to catch what this motherly old person might be saying, and such phrases as, "It doesn't agree with me, general; I can't eat it," "Yes, I got the rheumatiz in New Orleans, and he did too," floated over the hum of talk.

In the introduction and movement that followed Irene became one of a group of young ladies and gentlemen who, after the first exchange of civilities, went on talking about matters of which she knew nothing, leaving her wholly out of the conversation. The matters seemed to be very important, and the conversation was animated: it was about so-and-so who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or the last evening at the Casino, or the new trap on the Avenue--the delightful little chit-chat by means of which those who are in society exchange good understandings, but which excludes one not in the circle. The young gentleman next to Irene threw in an explanation now and then, but she was becoming thoroughly uncomfortable. She could not be unconscious, either, that she was the object of polite transient scrutiny by the ladies, and of glances of interest from gentlemen who did not approach her. She began to be annoyed by the staring (the sort of stare that a woman recognizes as impudent admiration) of a young fellow who leaned against the mantel--a youth in English clothes who had caught very successfully the air of an English groom. Two girls near her, to whom she had been talking, began speaking in lowered voices in French, but she could not help overhearing them, and her face flushed hotly when she found that her mother and her appearance were the subject of their foreign remarks.

Luckily at the moment Mr. King approached, and Irene extended her hand and said, with a laugh, "Ah, monsieur," speaking in a very pretty Paris accent, and perhaps with unnecessary distinctness, "you were quite right: the society here is very different from Cyrusville; there they all talk about each other."