Part 29 (1/2)
”I fancy they're always up to some wily game,” Mr. Beaumont developed.
”They can't be worse than they are in England,” said Lord Lambeth judicially.
”Ah, but in England you've got your natural protectors. You've got your mother and sisters.”
”My mother and sisters-!” the youth began with a certain energy. But he stopped in time, puffing at his cigar.
”Your mother spoke to me about it with tears in her eyes,” said his monitor. ”She said she felt very nervous. I promised to keep you out of mischief.”
”You had better take care of yourself!” cried Mr. Beaumont's charge.
”Ah,” the responsible party returned, ”I haven't the expectation of-whatever it is you expect. Not to mention other attractions.”
”Well,” said Lord Lambeth, ”don't cry out before you're hurt!”
It was certainly very much cooler at Newport, where the travellers found themselves a.s.signed to a couple of diminutive bedrooms in a far-away angle of an immense hotel. They had gone ash.o.r.e in the early summer twilight and had very promptly put themselves to bed; thanks to which circ.u.mstance and to their having, during the previous hours, in their commodious cabin, slept the sleep of youth and health, they began to feel, towards eleven o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They looked out of their windows across a row of small green fields, bordered with low stone d.y.k.es of rude construction, and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky and flecked now and then with scintillating patches of foam. A strong fresh breeze came in through the curtainless apertures and prompted our young men to observe generously that it didn't seem half a bad climate. They made other observations after they had emerged from their rooms in pursuit of breakfast-a meal of which they partook in a huge bare hall where a hundred negroes in white jackets shuffled about on an uncarpeted floor; where the flies were superabundant and the tables and dishes covered over with a strange voluminous integument of coa.r.s.e blue gauze; and where several little boys and girls, who had risen late, were seated in fastidious solitude at the morning repast. These young persons had not the morning paper before them, but were engaged in languid perusal of the bill of fare.
This latter doc.u.ment was a great puzzle to our friends, who, on reflecting that its bewildering categories took account of breakfast alone, had the uneasy prevision of an encyclopedic dinner-list. They found copious diversion at their inn, an enormous wooden structure for the erection of which it struck them the virgin forests of the West must have been quite laid waste. It was perforated from end to end with immense bare corridors, through which a strong draught freely blew, bearing along wonderful figures of ladies in white morning-dresses and clouds of Valenciennes lace, who floated down the endless vistas on expanded furbelows very much as angels spread their wings. In front was a gigantic verandah on which an army might have encamped-a vast wooden terrace with a roof as high as the nave of a cathedral. Here our young men enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of American society, which was distributed over the measureless expanse in a variety of sedentary att.i.tudes and appeared to consist largely of pretty young girls, dressed as for a _fete champetre_, swaying to and fro in rocking-chairs, fanning themselves with large straw fans and enjoying an enviable exemption from social cares. Lord Lambeth had a theory, which it might be interesting to trace to its origin, that it would be not only agreeable, but easily possible, to enter into relations with one of these young ladies; and his companion found occasion to check his social yearning.
”You had better take care-else you'll have an offended father or brother pulling out a bowie-knife.”
”I a.s.sure you it's all right,” Lord Lambeth replied. ”You know the Americans come to these big hotels to make acquaintances.”
”I know nothing about it, and neither do you,” said his comrade, who, like a clever man, had begun to see that the observation of American society demanded a readjustment of their standard.
”Hang it, then, let's find out!” he cried with some impatience. ”You know I don't want to miss anything.”
”We _will_ find out,” said Percy Beaumont very reasonably. ”We'll go and see Mrs. Westgate and make all the proper inquiries.”
And so the inquiring pair, who had this lady's address inscribed in her husband's hand on a card, descended from the verandah of the big hotel and took their way, according to direction, along a large straight road, past a series of fresh-looking villas, embosomed in shrubs and flowers and enclosed in an ingenious variety of wooden palings. The morning shone and fluttered, the villas stood up bravely in their smartness, and the walk of the young travellers turned all to confidence. Everything looked as if it had received a coat of fresh paint the day before-the red roofs, the green shutters, the clean bright browns and buffs of the house-fronts. The flower-beds on the little lawns sparkled in the radiant air and the gravel in the short carriage-sweeps flashed and twinkled. Along the road came a hundred little basket-phaetons in which, almost always, a couple of ladies were sitting-ladies in white dresses and long white gloves, holding the reins and looking at the two Englishmen, whose nationality was not elusive, through fine blue veils, tied tightly about their faces as if to guard their complexions. At last the visitors came within sight of the sea again, and then, having interrogated a gardener over the paling of a villa, turned into an open gate. Here they found themselves face to face with the ocean and with a many-pointed much-balconied structure, resembling a magnified chalet, perched on a green embankment just above it. The house had a verandah of extraordinary width all round, and a great many doors and windows standing open to the verandah. These various apertures had, together, such an accessible hospitable air, such a breezy flutter, within, of light curtains, such expansive thresholds and rea.s.suring interiors, that our friends hardly knew which was the regular entrance and, after hesitating a moment, presented themselves at one of the windows. The room within was indistinct, but in a moment a graceful figure vaguely shaped itself in the rich-looking gloom-a lady came to meet them. Then they saw she had been seated at a table writing, and that, hearing them, she had got up. She stepped out into the light; she wore a frank charming smile, with which she held out her hand to Percy Beaumont.
”Oh you must be Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont. I've heard from my husband that you were coming. I make you warmly welcome.” And she shook hands with each of her guests. Her guests were a little shy, but they made a gallant effort; they responded with smiles and exclamations, they apologised for not knowing the front door. The lady returned with vivacity that when she wanted to see people very much she didn't insist on those distinctions, and that Mr. Westgate had written to her of his English friends in terms that made her really anxious. ”He says you're so terribly prostrated,” she reported.
”Oh you mean by the heat?”-Percy Beaumont rose to it. ”We were rather knocked up, but we feel wonderfully better. We had such a jolly-a-voyage down here. It's so very good of you to mind.”
”Yes, it's so very kind of you,” murmured Lord Lambeth.
Mrs. Westgate stood smiling; Mrs. Westgate was pretty. ”Well, I did mind, and I thought of sending for you this morning to the Ocean House.
I'm very glad you're better, and I'm charmed you're really with us. You must come round to the other side of the piazza.” And she led the way, with a light smooth step, looking back at the young men and smiling.
The other side of the piazza was, as Lord Lambeth presently remarked, a very jolly place. It was of the most liberal proportions and, with its awnings, its fanciful chairs, its cus.h.i.+ons and rugs, its view of the ocean close at hand and tumbling along the base of the low cliffs whose level tops intervened in lawnlike smoothness, formed a charming complement to the drawing-room. As such it was in course of employment at the present hour; it was occupied by a social circle. There were several ladies and two or three gentlemen, to whom Mrs. Westgate proceeded to introduce the distinguished strangers. She mentioned a great many names, very freely and distinctly; the young Englishmen, shuffling about and bowing, were rather bewildered. But at last they were provided with chairs-low wicker chairs, gilded and tied with a great many ribbons-and one of the ladies (a very young person with a little snub nose and several dimples) offered Percy Beaumont a fan. The fan was also adorned with pink love-knots, but the more guarded of our couple declined it, though he was very hot. Presently, however, everything turned to ease; the breeze from the sea was delicious and the view charming; the people sitting about looked fresh and fair. Several of the younger ladies were clearly girls, and the gentlemen slim bright youths such as our friends had seen the day before in New York. The ladies were working on bands of tapestry, and one of the young men had an open book in his lap. Percy afterwards learned from a lady that this young man had been reading aloud-that he was from Boston and was very fond of reading aloud. Percy p.r.o.nounced it a great pity they had interrupted him; he should like so much (from all he had heard) to listen to a Bostonian read. Couldn't the young man be induced to go on?
”Oh no,” said this informant very freely; ”he wouldn't be able to get the young ladies to attend to him now.”
There was something very friendly, Beaumont saw, in the att.i.tude of the company; they looked at their new recruits with an air of animated sympathy and interest; they smiled, brightly and unanimously, at everything that dropped from either. Lord Lambeth and his companion felt they were indeed made cordially welcome. Mrs. Westgate seated herself between them, and while she talked continuously to each they had occasion to observe that she came up to their friend Littledale's promise. She was thirty years old, with the eyes and the smile of a girl of seventeen, and was light and graceful-elegant, exquisite. Mrs. Westgate was, further, what she had occasion to describe some person, among her many winged words, as being, all spontaneity. Frank and demonstrative, she appeared always-while she looked at you delightedly with her beautiful young eyes-to be making sudden confessions and concessions, breaking out after momentary wonders.
”We shall expect to see a great deal of you,” she said to Lord Lambeth with her bland intensity. ”We're very fond of Englishmen here; that is, there are a great many we've been fond of. After a day or two you must come and stay with us; we hope you'll stay a nice long while. Newport's quite attractive when you come really to know it, when you know plenty of people. Of course you and Mr. Beaumont will have no difficulty about that. Englishmen are very well received here; there are almost always two or three of them about. I think they always like it, and I must say I should think they would. They receive particular attention-I must say I think they sometimes get spoiled; but I'm sure you and Mr. Beaumont are proof against that. My husband tells me you're friends of Captain Littledale's; he was such a charming man. He made himself so agreeable here that I wonder he didn't stay. That would have carried out his system. It couldn't have been pleasanter for him in his own country.
Though I suppose it's very pleasant in England too-for English people. I don't know myself; I've been there very little. I've been a great deal abroad, but I always cling to the Continent. I must say I'm extremely fond of Paris; you know we Americans always are; we go there when we die.
Did you ever hear that before?-it was said by a great wit. I mean the good Americans; but we're all good-you'll see that for yourself. All I know of England is London, and all I know of London is that place-on that little corner, you know-where you buy jackets, jackets with that coa.r.s.e braid and those big b.u.t.tons. They make very good jackets in London, I'll do you the justice to say that. And some people like the hats. But about the hats I was always a heretic; I always got my hats in Paris.
You can't wear an English hat-at least, I never could-unless you dress your hair a l'anglaise; and I must say that's a talent I never possessed.
In Paris they'll make things to suit your peculiarities; but in England I think you like much more to have-how shall I say it?-one thing for everybody. I mean as regards dress. I don't know about other things; but I've always supposed that in other things everything was different.