An apartment in that most hospitable of American hostelries, the Ocean
House, with a window looking westward.
On the _troisieme etage_, commanding a continuous balcony, with a view
of the Atlantic, spreading broad and blue, beyond the range of the
telescope. Sachuest Point on the left, with the spray, like snowflakes,
breaking over the Cormorant Rock; on the right, Beaver Tail, with its
beacon; between them a fleet of fishing-craft, dipping for striped-bass
and tautog; in the far offing the spread sails of a full-rigged ship,
and the plume-like smoke soaring up from a steamer--both broadside to
the beholder, on their way between the two great seaports of Shawmut and
Manhattan.
A noble view is this opening of the great estuary of Narraganset--one
upon which beautiful eyes have often rested.
Never more beautiful than those of Julia Girdwood, the occupant of the
apartment above mentioned.
She is not its sole occupant. There is another young lady beside her,
her cousin, Cornelia Inskip. She has also pretty eyes, of a bluish
tint; but they are scarce observed after looking into those orbs of dark
bistre, that seem to burn with an everlasting love-light.
In the language of the romance writer, Julia would be termed a
_brunette_, Cornelia a _blonde_. Their figures are as different as
their complexion: the former tall and of full womanly development, the
latter of low stature, slighter, and to all appearance more youthful.
Equally unlike their dispositions. She of the dark complexion appears
darker in thought, with greater solemnity of movement; while, judging by
her speech, the gay, sprightly Cornelia thinks but little of the past,
and still less about the future.
Robed in loose morning-wrappers, with tiny slippers poised upon their
toes, they are seated in rocking-chairs, just inside the window. The
eyes of both, sweeping the blue sea, have just descried the steamer
coming from beyond the distant Point Judith, and heading in a
north-easterly direction.
It was a fine sight, this huge black monster beating its way through the
blue water, and leaving a white seething track behind it.
Cornelia sprang out into the balcony to get a better view of it.
"I wonder what boat it is?" she said. "One of the great ocean steamers,
I suppose--a Cunarder!"
"I think not, Neel. I wish it was one, and I aboard of it. Thank
Heaven! I shall be, before many weeks."
"What! tired of Newport already? We'll find no pleasanter place in
Europe. I'm sure we shan't."
"We'll find pleasanter people, at all events."
"Why, what have you got against them?"
"What have they got against us? I don't mean the natives here. They're
well enough, in their way. I speak of their summer visitors, like
ourselves. You ask what they've got against us. A strange question!"
"_I_ haven't noticed anything."
"But _I_ have. Because our fathers were retail storekeepers, these J.'s
and L.'s and B.'s affect to look down upon us! You know they do."
Miss Inskip could not deny that something of this had been observed by
her. But she was one of those contented spirits who set but little
store upon aristocratic acquaintances, and are therefore insensible to
its slights.
With the proud Julia it was different. If not absolutely slighting, the
"society" encountered in this fashionable watering-place had in some way
spited her--that section of it described as the J.'s and the L.'s and
the B.'s.
"And for what reason?" she continued, with increasing indignation. "If
our fathers were retail storekeepers, their grandfathers were the same.
Where's the difference, I should like to know?"
Miss Inskip could see none, and said so.
But this did not tranquillise the chafed spirit of her cousin, and
perceiving it, she tried to soothe her on another tack.
"Well, Julia, if the Miss J.'s, and Miss L.'s, and Miss B.'s, look down
on us, their brothers don't. On you, I'm sure they don't."
"Bother their brothers! A fig for _their_ condescension. Do you take
me for a stupid, Neel? A million dollars left by my father's will, and
which must come to me at mother's death, will account for it. Besides,
unless the quicksilver in my looking-glass tells a terrible lie, I'm not
such a fright."
She might well talk thus. Than Julia Girdwood, anything less like a
fright never stood in front of a mirror. Full-grown, and of perfect
form, this storekeeper's daughter had all the grand air of a duchess.
The face was perfect as the figure. You could not look upon it without
thoughts of love; though strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly,
commingled with an idea of danger. It was an aspect that suggested
Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, or the beautiful murderess of Darnley.
In her air there was no awkwardness--not the slightest sign of humble
origin, or the _gaucherie_ that usually springs from it. Something of
this might have been detected in the country cousin, Cornelia. But
Julia Girdwood had been stepping too long on the flags of the Fifth
Avenue, to be externally distinguished from the proudest damsels of that
aristocratic street. Her mother's house was in it.
"It is true, Julia," assented her cousin; "you are both rich and
beautiful. I wish I could say the same."
"Come, little flatterer! if not the first, you are certainly the last;
though neither counts for much here."
"Why did we come here?"
"I had nothing to do with it. Mamma is answerable for that. For my
part I prefer Saratoga, where there's less pretensions about pedigree,
and where a shopkeeper's daughter is as good as his granddaughter. I
wanted to go there this season. Mother objected. Nothing would satisfy
her but Newport, Newport, Newport! And here we are. Thank Heaven! it
won't be for long."
"Well, since we are here, let us at least enjoy what everybody comes
for--the bathing."
"Pretends to come for, you mean! Dipping their skins in salt water, the
Miss J.'s, and L.'s, and B.'s--much has that to do with their presence
at Newport! A good thing for them if it had! It might improve their
complexions a little. Heaven knows they need it; and Heaven be thanked
I don't."
"But you'll bathe to-day?"
"I shan't!"
"Consider, cousin! It's such a delightful sensation."
"I hate it!"
"You're jesting, Julia?"
"Well, I don't mean that I dislike bathing--only in that crowd."
"But there's no exclusiveness on the beach."
"I don't care. I won't go among them any more--on the beach, or
elsewhere. If I could only bathe out yonder, in the deep blue water, or
amid those white breakers we see! Ah! that _would_ be a delightful
sensation! I wonder if there's any place where we could take a dip by
ourselves?"
"There is; I know the very spot I discovered it the other day, when I
was out with Keziah gathering shells. It's down under the cliffs.
There's a sweet little cave, a perfect grotto, with a deepish pool in
front, and smooth sandy bottom, white as silver. The cliff quite
overhangs it. I'm sure no one could see us from above; especially if we
go when the people are bathing. Then everybody would be at the beach,
and we'd have the cliff shore to ourselves. For that matter, we can
undress in the cave, without the chance of a creature seeing us. Keziah
could keep watch outside. Say you'll go, Julia?"
"Well, I don't mind. But what about mamma? She's such a terrible
stickler for the proprieties. She may object."
"We needn't let her know anything about it. She don't intend bathing
to-day; she's just told me so. We two can start in the usual style, as
if going to the beach. Once outside, we can go our own way. I know of
a path across the fields that'll take us almost direct to the place.
You'll go?"
"Oh, I'm agreed."
"It's time for us to set out, then. You hear that tramping along the
corridor? It's the bathers about to start. Let us call Keziah, and be
off."
As Julia made no objection, her sprightly cousin tripped out into the
corridor; and, stopping before the door of an adjoining apartment,
called "Keziah!"
The room was Mrs Girdwood's; Keziah, her servant--a sable-skinned
damsel, who played lady's maid for all three.
"What is it, child?" asked a voice evidently not Keziah's.
"We're going to bathe, aunt," said the young lady, half-opening the
door, and looking in. "We want Keziah to get ready the dresses."
"Yes, yes," rejoined the same voice, which was that of Mrs Girdwood
herself. "You hear, Keziah? And hark ye, girls!" she added, addressing
herself to the two young ladies, now both standing in the doorway, "see
that you take a swimming lesson. Remember we are going over the great
seas, where there's many a chance of getting drowned."
"Oh, ma! you make one shiver."
"Well, well, I hope swimming may never be needed by you. For all that,
there's no harm in being able to keep your head above water, and that in
more senses than one. Be quick, girl, with the dresses! The people are
all gone; you'll be late. Now, then, off with you!"
Keziah soon made her appearance in the corridor, carrying a bundle.
A stout, healthy-looking negress--her woolly head "toqued" in New
Orleans style, with a checkered bandanna--she was an appanage of the
defunct storekeeper's family; specially designed to give to it an air
Southern, and of course aristocratic. At this time Mrs Girdwood was
not the only Northern lady who selected her servants with an eye to such
effect.
Slippers were soon kicked off, and kid boots pulled on in their places.
Hats were set coquettishly on the head, and shawls--for the day was
rather cool--were thrown loosely over shoulders.
"Come on!" and at the word the cousins glided along the gallery,
descended the great stair, tripped across the piazza outside, and then
turned off in the direction of the Bath Road.
Once out of sight of the hotel, they changed their course, striking into
a path that led more directly toward the cliff.
In less than twenty minutes after, they _might have been_ seen
descending it, through one of those sloping ravines that here and there
interrupt the continuity of the precipice--Cornelia going first, Julia
close after, the turbaned negress, bearing her bundle, in the rear.