A FEW DETAILS OF THAT SUMMER IN HAMPSTEAD.
There were many guests at the Bartons’, and the Montgomeries’, and the
Morrises, that summer, but nowhere was there so much hilarity and mirth
as at Schuyler Hill, for there from time to time came dashing, brilliant
people from New York and Philadelphia, and every room was full, and
Godfrey took a small apartment in the attic, and made many jokes upon
the high life he was enjoying. There were sails upon the river, and
excursions to the mountains, and picnics in the woods, and dances on the
piazza, and croquet parties on the lawn, and dinners, and suppers, and
breakfasts, and lunches, and private theatricals in the great
drawing-room; and toward the close of the summer there was a grand party
at the Ridge House, to which the young people from the Hill were bidden,
and Alice’s toilet was wonderful in texture and style, while Julia was
pronounced the most beautiful lady there, until Gertie came, in her
simple muslin dress, and eclipsed them all. It was rather late when she
entered the crowded rooms, and after greeting Mrs. Barton and Rosamond
drifted away from the colonel, who had accompanied her, and found
herself close to Godfrey before she was aware of his proximity. Since
that promise to his father, she had studiously avoided him, and Alice
had no just cause for jealousy so far as Gertie was concerned. Godfrey,
too, had made up his mind to accept his fate, and kept aloof from Gertie
as much as possible, though there was a world of kindness in his voice
whenever he spoke to her, and he always knew when she came in and when
she went out, and his eyes followed her with a longing, hungry look,
which Alice would have resented, had she noticed it and interpreted it
aright. But she was not quick to see, and as Godfrey was very attentive
to her, and called her his _little cat_, and teased her unmercifully,
and kissed her every morning, she was satisfied and happy, and on the
night of the party stood, flushed and triumphant, at his side, while he
fanned her heated face, telling her she must not dance again for an hour
at least, no matter who asked her; it was too warm for such exercise,
and he preferred the open air; he did not mean to dance himself if he
could help it, and if Alice liked they’d go out upon the west balcony,
where it was cooler.
There had been a cloud on Godfrey’s face the entire evening, and his
eyes were constantly wandering over the moving throng in quest of one
they did not see.
“Where is Miss Westbrooke?” Tom Barton had asked him anxiously, but
Godfrey could not tell him.
She was intending to come with his father, he said, and possibly had not
yet arrived; and as the festivity was nothing to Tom without Gertie, he
sauntered away to an open window, and when Rosamond asked him to dance
with a young lady who was a guest at the Ridge House, and who had been a
wallflower all the evening, he answered, “Oh, bother! I can’t; it’s too
hot. I’m melting now,” and stepped through the window upon the balcony
to be out of the way.
Neither he nor Godfrey cared to dance, though both had in their minds a
graceful little figure which they would gladly have whirled about the
room, and when at last she appeared and came upon Godfrey just as he had
proposed going out upon the piazza with Alice, he forgot everything but
his surprise and delight at seeing her, and exclaimed, joyfully:
“Oh, Gertie, I’m so glad you have come. I’ve been waiting for you to
dance with me. Come, they are just forming a new set.”
He held both his arms toward her, and Gertie, unmindful of everything
and seeing nothing but the look in Godfrey’s eyes and the arms held to
her, went straight into them, thinking to herself, “For just this
once,—I may be happy with him.”
And she was happy, and Godfrey, too,—and people looked admiringly at the
handsome pair, and strangers asked who the beautiful girl with the
bright hair and simple dress was, and where she came from.
I was at the party that night, and stood very near to Alice, when Gertie
came in and was snatched up so quickly by Godfrey. I had heard him
announce his intention not to dance, and ask Alice to go with him where
it was cooler, and Alice had taken a step toward the door when Gertie
came and changed the entire aspect of affairs.
“Godfrey,” I heard Alice say, as her lover moved away from her, but
Godfrey was deaf and blind to everything but the girl on his arm, and
Alice called in vain.
Godfrey had teased her for her red face, but it was pale enough now, and
her small eyes had in them a greenish light as they followed Godfrey’s
tall form and caught occasional glimpses of Gertie’s long, bright curls
which came below her waist and were the wonder of the room. Alice was
very indignant, and when the question was put to her, “Who is that
beautiful girl dancing with Mr. Schuyler?” she stood on tiptoe, and
pretending to be looking toward the dancers, answered with suppressed
bitterness:
“Oh, that is Gertie Westbrooke, a girl who lives with Mrs. Schuyler, and
sees a little to Arthur,—a kind of nursery governess, I believe.”
“Ah, yes, thank you,” and Mrs. Jamieson, from Philadelphia, put up her
glass to look again at the girl “who lived with Mrs. Schuyler and was a
kind of nursery governess.”
Meanwhile Godfrey and Gertie were unmindful of everything but the fact
that for a brief space they were together, hand touching hand in a clasp
of love rather than form, and eye meeting eye with a sad, remorseful
kind of pitying tenderness, as if each knew they were tasting forbidden
fruit and for the last time, too. This, at least, was Godfrey’s thought.
To-morrow it would all be over, and he would be Alice’s again, but
to-night he was Gertie’s and she was his, and he abandoned himself to
the delight until he seemed intoxicated with happiness. He had never
danced with her since the memorable church sociable years ago, when she
was a little, airy, restless humming-bird, who had infused something of
her own life and elasticity into his rather languid movements and made
him try to be worthy of his partner. Gertie was very young then, and no
thought of calling her his had entered Godfrey’s heart, where now the
sad refrain was repeating itself over and over again, “It might have
been, It might have been.”
There was another dance, and another, and then Godfrey led Gertie out
upon the west balcony where he had proposed taking Alice, and where he
now sat down with Gertie at his side, and looking into her eyes of blue
forgot the eyes of gray which had followed his every movement, and in
which were little gleams of fire when they saw him going out, and the
care he took to wrap Gertie’s cloak around her arms and shoulders. It
certainly was not chance which led Alice that way; she went on purpose
with a group of heated girls eager for a breath of air, and her garments
swept against Gertie’s as she went by, and the green eyes looked at
Godfrey with a look he understood and did not resent, for he knew that
he deserved it, but he was not penitent and he did not give Gertie up
until his father, who had been talking politics in a distant room, and
did not know of his son’s misdemeanor, came to find her and take her out
to supper. Then Godfrey went in quest of Alice, but she was already
appropriated by a young Bostonian, who waxed his mustache and wore a
quizzing glass on his nose, and her only answer was a little defiant
snort when Godfrey said: “I see I am too late.” So Godfrey took me out
and was restless and excited and full of life and fun. But I saw that
his spirits were forced, and that his eyes went often to the part of the
room where Gertie stood, surrounded by a group of gentlemen who were
ostensibly talking to Colonel Schuyler, but really admiring her as the
most beautiful lady there. Alice was standing near us, and once Godfrey
offered her some lobster salad with a comical look on his face, but
Alice did not take it or respond to him in any way, and I knew there was
a quarrel in store for him, and pitied him because he was answerable for
his actions to that little pug-nosed lady whose only attraction, beside
a certain grace and piquancy of manner, was thirty thousand a year.
I do not think she spoke to him again that night, and I know she did not
ride home with him, for I saw the four girls from the Hill stowed away
with Colonel Schuyler, and heard Godfrey tell his father not to send the
carriage back, as he and Robert preferred to walk. And so the party was
over and one heart at least was sadder for it, and one was in a wild
tumult of joy and regret as it recalled glances and tones which meant so
much and which had come too late to be of any avail.