This morning I sat watching the sunlight play on the wrinkles of the
lake where a light breeze blew. The glittering sun-flecks looked
exactly like a flock of tiny silver birds caught fast on the surface of
the lake and straining their wings even to run away. Everyday I find
something new in this lake to interest me, and early this morning,
being unable to sleep, I rose and looked out of my front window and saw
a great deer, with his antlers against the rosy dawn, standing on one
of the points of The Narrows. For a few moments he listened intently,
then waded out among the lily pads and had his morning repast.
Perhaps you can imagine why I slept so ill last night. Polly, I wish
I knew my own mind. I am afraid of making a mistake and afraid of
throwing away what may be my one supreme opportunity to love. If I
were only an American or he an Englishman. If only I had the intuitive
knowledge of him and all that he will mean. I am beginning to suspect
that I have something of the pioneer, of the discoverer in me. After
all, why should not one make great experiments in life? Obedience to
traditions, to habit, we see every day--and how much happiness?
But I think I’ll be glad to get away from the subject for a time.
I am rather keen for the autumn to come--“the fall of the year”--when
all these mountains are a blaze of red and gold and the lakes reflect
their glory; when the dew freezes on these forest flames and turns
them to jewels that outdazzle the stars; when the hunters with their
red caps are in them, not stalking the nimble deer, but sitting beside
the runways hour after hour, patiently waiting the passing of the only
lords left in these forests, when we have venison three times a day and
wonder why we pined for it. There! that was as malicious a drop as any
of Heine’s, and I am sorry.
I saw such a laughable sight two days ago. Mr. N. took me to the
cow-yard to see it. Know first that the deer flies are a pest in the
land and the terror of beasts. The solitary cow the colony boasts was
taking her afternoon nap, down on her folded legs. Close to her head
and perched along her back were a half dozen hens with their heads
alert, watching the circling flies. The moment one lit, the nearest
chicken pounced and the fly disappeared, never to torment cow or deer
again. I saw ten disposed of in this way, while the cow slumbered
peacefully, secure in her guard.
Have I told you that there is a deep ravine on one side of the house?
The veranda overhangs it and I often stand and stare down into that
wild tangle of fallen trees and rocks and ferns. The sides are broken
and steep and under the shade of many trees, straggling up into
complete darkness. The torrent is almost dry, but in winter and spring
it is broad and noisy and all the ferns are covered and show green and
lace-like under the water. It is the outlet of the lake and it goes
far down into the valley where it tumbles over a fall into another and
wider stream. Up this rocky steep mountain brook, over the cascade, the
trout climb in their thirst for the cold springs of the higher lakes.
No other fish can make that perilous journey, so Chipmunk is one of
the stars of the Adirondacks. The trout have no minnows or other small
fish to feed on, and rise to the fly with little coaxing. I am become
so learned in mountain lore! But I feel as if I had discovered this
wonderful country, and as happy as a poet in the nervous languor of
creation.
You remember I wrote you of Mrs. Coward--and, by the way she says she
met you at Homburg and in Scotland two years ago--I have concluded
that I do not like her quite as well as the others, not because she
is insatiable in her desire for admiration and has several times
flattered Mr. N. right out of the room and on to the lake--how can men
be so weak?--when he is palpably devoted to me and therefore in common
decency she should let him alone. Unless she mends her ways I shall
turn my batteries on Mr. Carlisle, a dashing young millionaire who
distinguished himself in the late war, is a master of hounds, drives
a Tally-ho, is a champion at golf, never misses the two deer a season
the government permits him to shoot, and is altogether very jolly and
charming. I could cut her out if I chose and without flattering the
animal either. That is a trick of the mind to cover up the defects of
nature.
But what I started to say was that the real reason I dislike her is
that I have discovered more of the snob in her than in most of these
Americans, aspiring as they are--with the possible exception of Mrs.
Laurence. Yesterday morning I “dropped” into Mrs. Grant’s lodge, and
while the servant went for Mrs. Coward--Mrs. Grant had a headache--I
picked up a framed photograph of a very good-looking young man in the
uniform of the United States. I still held it when Mrs. Coward came
stepping down the stairs like the duchess in the play, a red poppy in
her dark hair, a soft cream-white morning gown clinging to herself and
the floor--the morning was chilly. She had a bunch of poppies in her
belt and altogether looked rather well.
“Is this your brother?” I asked. “I fancy I see a resemblance.”
“Yes,” she replied, “it is my soldier-brother. He made a brilliant
charge at Santiago and I am very proud of him. Sit there, dear Lady
Helen, where the light falls full on you. You are so radiant, bathed
in sunlight--and you can stand it. I always feel in the presence of
poetry--a blue and gold edition of all the poets--when I can sit
and look at you like this. Poetry is really elevating, don’t you
think so?--I always maintain that, positively. It is like pure air
and the rural beauties of the country. But about my brave brother:
it is only fondness that makes me proud of him, for there never has
been a generation in our family where we have not given at least one
soldier to the country. Of course you will appreciate that. Very few
American families can say that for _seven generations_ its men have
distinguished themselves in the field and added to the honour of the
name.”
Her low silken shallow voice paused that I might comment, but I only
stared at the portrait--now restored to the table--trying in vain to
frame a phrase that would express my awe of the seven generations.
Finally, I said desperately:
“He looks--really--as if the entire Spanish army could not terrify him.”
This extravagance served the purpose of diversion. “Nothing could
terrify him,” she exclaimed. “He only needs another war to become
really famous. I am quite positive our unfortunate acquisitions will
let us in for another war before long--the Chinese question--don’t
you think so? I think it so delightful that American women are now
beginning to take as much interest in politics as English women do. You
really have been our superiors in that--as in many other--respects. I
heard you discussing the great questions of the day with Mr. Nugent and
Mr. Carlisle last night and I quite envied you--I am just beginning,
and you seem to have learned politics with your alphabet. I am _so_
glad you have such influence with Mr. Nugent, because I am convinced
that he has the making of a statesman in him and that it is his
duty to go into high politics. I have always maintained,” she added
weightily, “that it is a man’s duty to cultivate his gifts. If he feels
an irresistible impulse to write he should do so--or to paint--or
to model. Politics are of equal importance to the development of
civilisation--the right sort. Do not you agree with me, Lady Helen?”
“I have always maintained that white is white, and that the sun gives
light when there are not too many clouds,” I said, firmly. “How
wonderfully becoming those poppies are to you. I envy any one who can
wear red, it is a colour so full of life, but it does not suit me at
all.”
For a second she had looked puzzled, but she is too thorough a woman
of the world to hang out her emotions, and she replied with her usual
suavity:
“If I could wear pink and dead white, and brilliant blues as you can I
should resign red without a struggle. I have _never_ seen anything so
beautiful as you are with a pink rose in your hair and another at your
throat.”
But I had had as much of this as I could stand and I asked her abruptly
if she had visited many of the lakes.
“This is my first visit to the Adirondacks, I am ashamed to say. I was
taken abroad every summer when I was a girl and I have gone almost
every year since from force of habit and because I really have such a
delicious time. It is one’s duty to see all the beauties of the old
world, don’t you think so, Lady Helen?”
But I did not want to talk about Europe. “I hear that Spruce Lake is
so beautiful,” I said. “Could not we--a party of us--walk over there
some day? It is only seven miles, and Mr. Nugent says the trail is very
good.”
“Seven miles! _Dear_ Lady Helen. Twice seven are fourteen.
Remember--we--alas!--are not English.”
“They might put us up for the night----”
“Oh, quite impossible. We do not know any of them. They are business
people from Buffalo and Utica and all those provincial towns.”
“In trade, do you mean?”
“That is the way you would express it. It is the same class--people who
keep stores or make things.”
“And they have the same tastes as yourself?” I asked, puzzled at this
new American facer. “They are--sportsmen? They lead the same life up
here as you do?”
“I really don’t know anything about them. I suppose there are certain
national characteristics; several lakes in the Adirondacks are owned
by people of that sort. I am told that there was an encampment of
commercial travellers just off the borders of this property last year.”
“But I don’t understand. Your lines of caste are very marked, it has
seemed to me. Why should the leisure class and the commercial traveller
have the same tastes. It is very odd.”
But she refused to take the slightest interest in the subject, and that
afternoon as I was walking to the lake of the water-lilies with Mr. N.
I asked him for enlightenment.
“Oh, Eastern men are keen sportsmen,” he said. “That is to say,
most--wherever there are mountains and woods and lakes. It is an
instinct inherited from the old hunters and trappers--from the days
when the settlers shot game for food and were as familiar with the
wilderness as the farm. These settlers were the ancestors of men who
are in all classes of life to-day. And you must remember that there is
no ‘Continent’ to run over to for the yearly vacation. You can travel
an immense distance here and pay a good deal of money only to hear a
change of accent. But the forests of New York and Maine mean rest,
reinvigoration, and the complete happiness of the sportsman. These men
up here go in the woods every year as naturally as they keep their nose
to the grindstone for the remaining ten or eleven months.
“And they are first-class sportsmen.”
“As good as any in England.”
“Men that--that--sell hats?”
“Carlisle is neither keener nor better.”
“Certainly your country is wonderfully interesting and sometimes I feel
as if I were groping about in the neighbourhood of the true democracy.
Do they also play golf?”
“They do, indeed.”
“The tradesmen? People who keep retail shops.”
“In the small interior towns many of them have achieved sufficient
prosperity and leisure, and they are very keen about it. But in the
large towns it is usually the wealthier class that goes in for it; the
families of business and professional men, successful on a large scale.”
And then I saw the lilies.
I must tell you that Mrs. Van Worden often goes into the kitchen and
sits in a rocking chair by the window and talks to Mrs. Opp, and that
sometimes, when the men are out, she invites her into the living-room.
It appears that unless these people were treated with a certain amount
of consideration they would not remain. A city servant is a servant,
but in the country they appear to have studied the Declaration of
Independence, and doubtless they all know that Abraham Lincoln’s sister
“lived out.” Mrs. Opp is quite insensible of her noble blood but she is
as proud as Lucifer all the same, and because her untainted Americanism
teaches her that she is “as good as anybody.” She is willing to work
for hire and envies no one, but the slightest display of “airs,” an
unthinking snub, and she would pack her bundle and march over the
mountain with a majesty the self-conscious American of high degree
never will achieve. It is truly delightful and I love her. I often go
out and sit in the rocker and watch her great bulk move lightly about
the exquisite kitchen, and listen to her kindly drawl emphasised by
little gracious bends of the head. She tells me the gossip of the
mountains, and alluded the other day to the cook at Boulder Lake as “a
lovely woman.” I told her about Jemima, and she said:
“Poor child. I guess she was right, but she didn’t know how to take it.
Of course you folks nat’rally wants ter eat with yourselves, and the
hired help as is used to farms and little country towns don’t just see
how it is at first. Different people has different ways and all we ask
up here is to be treated right, we don’t expect the hull earth. I’ve
always knowed that, because I’ve lived so much to hotels, but Jemima, I
guess she’s pretty green yet.”
When I told her about Jemima wanting to see “a dook,” she laughed
heartily.
“Well, I guess I’d like to see one, myself,” she admitted, “not that
I’d expect them to be so different from other folks, but just because
I’ve read so much about ’em. That’s it. That’s it. I’m glad he’s
gittin’ on so nice. He had orter drink plenty of milk.”
Curiously enough, that evening I received a letter from Bertie saying
that another “eminent doctor” had put him on a milk diet and promised
him complete health in _one_ year if he would be faithful to it and the
Adirondacks for that period.
“Its beastly uninteresting diet, Nell, and required all the will I’ve
got to make up my mind to it,” he wrote; “but I want to get back to
England and be alive once more, so I’ve plunged in--literally enough.
I’ve leased an Inn on one of the big public lakes from October till
June, so we’ll have a big old-fashioned house, they tell me, and not a
care, for the proprietor will ‘run it.’ Rogers has promised to come up
twice a month and I have written to Nugent and asked him to come often
and bring all the friends he likes. I fancy from your letters that I
should like the men--and women--over there better than these--Rogers
excepted. I believe he is in love with you, Nell, and so is Nugent; but
you mustn’t marry an American. By the way Roddy Spencer is coming over
here--wrote me to expect him any day, and that he’d look me up at once.
He has just succeeded--old Landsburghe died last month, and left Roddy
all his personal property. That must amount to three or four hundred
thousand and with the estates will set up Roddy as well as he could
wish--and his debts must have been a pretty penny.”
I shall be rather glad to see Roddy. He was always with Bertie when
they were boys, but I have not seen much of him of late years. Didn’t
he go to South Africa in the hope that Rhodes would put him in the way
of making a fortune--after he had loaded himself too heavily with debts
to remain in London. I forget the details. The legacy must have been
a pleasant surprise, for the old Marquis was very eccentric and had
refused to pay his debts. Well, I shall be glad to see him and suppose
he is as good looking as ever.