a programme, with all the dances and the men's names, and illuminations
which he had put on himself. It was beautiful, and I told him that I
would always keep it. I danced every dance, with two partners for each,
and there was a cotillion afterwards with favours to remind the girls
who got them, of West Point; little flags, and buttons, and bits of
gold lace; but I was very lucky, for some of the friends I had made in
camp had smuggled me special things, and I shall have quite a
collection of sergeant's stripes and corporal's chevrons, belt buckles
and beautiful bright bell-buttons with initials scratched on them.
I don't believe Vic had half so much fun at her first ball as I had at
mine, although hers is so many seasons ago now that I can't remember
what she said about it. I was only a little girl then, and she wasn't
in the habit of telling me things, as she is now.
Although I didn't get to bed till after two, I was up early next
morning, because I had promised my best cadets that I would be at
morning parade, or whatever they call it, to say good-bye. Sally went
with me, and it was quite an affecting parting. I shall never forget
those dear boys if I live to be a hundred, though I can't remember any
of their names, as after all I lost the card I meant to keep always.
VI
ABOUT THE PARK AND LOVE STORIES
All the preparations that Mrs. Ess Kay had to make for Newport kept us
two more days in New York; and it was terribly hot, but I was not sorry
to stay, because we did so many amusing things.
Mr. Doremus was detained too--by his tailor, he said--so we saw a good
deal of him, as Mrs. Van der Windt had left for her Newport cottage. We
did go to a roof garden entertainment, after all, and it was most
fascinating, but quite without the feeling that you might fall off,
which I had expected to have. I saw the moon coming up, and gilding
thousands of roofs, and I couldn't help wondering which was the roof of
that club where poor, handsome Jim Brett was employed; though of course
it was impossible to speak of him to anyone except Vivace.
We lunched one day at an enormous and very fashionable red brick hotel
called the Waldorf-Astoria, and went into a Turkish Room, and had
delicious things to eat in a beautiful restaurant, which had not at all
an out-of-season air, though Mrs. Ess Kay said that most of the
well-groomed looking people whom I suspected of being leaders of the
Four Hundred were only "trippers." I do wonder, by the way, why one
always has an innate sense of contempt for trippers, and longs to be
sniffy and show one's own superiority? We must all be trippers
somewhere and sometimes, or we would never see anything of the world;
indeed I suppose I am by way of being a tripper now. But one never
seems to regard one's self in such a light, or imagine that anybody
else could be so undiscerning.
I hadn't known that a hotel could be as big as the Waldorf-Astoria,
though Mrs. Ess Kay says there are several just about as large in New
York, and she has heard there are one or two in Chicago, but she thanks
Heaven she doesn't know anything personally about _that_. When she made
this remark I remembered what Sally had told me in confidence about
Mrs. Ess Kay's life before she began to qualify for the Four Hundred.
But of course I did not make any allusion to the subject, for fear it
was a skeleton in her closet. And Sally says that well-regulated
Chicago people think New York a one-horse place compared to their town,
which is really wonderful and most interesting, as I shall find out if
I see it. I wish I could, but I suppose I shan't, as I came over to
visit Mrs. Ess Kay, not to do sight-seeing.
The second day after we came back from West Point, as I went downstairs
the first thing in the morning, I heard Mrs. Ess Kay at the telephone,
which is in a little room, along a corridor off the fountain court.
She was having a long conversation with someone, laughing and chatting
just as if she were talking to a visitor; and presently my name came
in. "Yes, Lady Betty Bu----, no, not pronounced that way, my child. As
if it were spelt B-U-C-K-, yes, that's right. Such a pretty girl, a
perfect dear. I expect the men will be wild about her at Newport.
Potter _raves_ over her. Ha, ha, ha! Do you think so? Well, perhaps.
I've known stranger things to happen. No, it's not her father, but her
brother, who's the Duke; awfully good-looking. I wish he could have
come too. But you see Sally wouldn't--you know what Sally _is_. No,
she's never got over that old affair. Southern women are so romantic.
Yes, I'll bring dear little Betty with me if it won't tire you.
She----"
Then I began to think I ought to let her know I was there, for one
hates to eavesdrop. So I yelled at the top of my lungs that I was in
the hall, waiting to go to breakfast, and couldn't help hearing every
word she said. However, she didn't mind a bit, and called to me to come
into the telephone room.
"I'm talking to a friend of mine who has just been moved back to her
own apartment after getting over appendicitis," she explained. "Poor
thing, she's such an indefatigable society woman, and she does so hate
being stuck in the city at this season. I've just been promising to run
in and see her this afternoon, and I'd like to take you if you'll go.
She'd love to see you. I'll introduce you now by 'phone."
With that, she began to chat into the thing again, in a chummy sort of
way which seemed quite uncanny, as I have always looked upon a
telephone as an official kind of machine which you prepared for with
fasting and prayer, and only had recourse to when strictly necessary
for important business. "Here's Lady Betty," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "I'm
going to introduce you. Now, Betty, take hold of the----"
"Oh, I can't. I don't know how. I never did," I objected, feeling as if
she were going to force me into taking gas against my will.
She would have me try, so I did, as it's very difficult to oppose Mrs.
Ess Kay even in the smallest thing. But I couldn't hear a word, only a
horrid buzzing, so she had to let me off, and just tell me that the
lady we were to call on was Mrs. Harvey Richmount Taylour.
"If you're going to stay long in America, you'll have to get used to
the 'phone," said she. "We do half our shopping, and some of our
calling, and make about all our appointments that way. If we didn't,
there'd be more cases of nervous prostration than there _are_, and
goodness knows there are enough now, even since Blue Rays have come in.
Many love affairs are carried on practically entirely by 'phone, and
I've heard that in case of necessity, marriage ceremonies can be
performed by it."
"How about divorces?" I asked. And I was quite serious, but Mrs. Ess
Kay didn't seem to think the question worth an answer. So she switched
off her friend, and rang up two or three tradespeople of whom she
ordered scent, and chocolates, and some new books, and told a manicure
to call. Then we went in to breakfast.
It appears that the manicure person is a great catch, and you are very
lucky to get him without making an appointment long beforehand. He does
things to your feet, too, though I dared not ask what; and Mrs. Ess Kay
intended to stop in for him all the morning.
While she was talking about this, Sally was glancing over letters, and
there was one in which she seemed particularly interested. She looked
up from it suddenly, when Mrs. Ess Kay said she was not going out, and
exclaimed, "Oh, then I may have Betty. How nice, I do so want to show
her the Park."
"I'll go with you," Potter broke in quickly, but Sally shook her head.
"No, I want her to myself, thank you--just for this once."
Potter looked cross, but said no more, and it was arranged that Sally
and I should start in about an hour. Mrs. Ess Kay thought we ought to
get off at once, as it would be cooler; but for some reason Sally did
not like that idea. Meanwhile, she ran out herself on an errand, but
did not offer to take me.
Even people who have absolutely nothing to do except to amuse
themselves appear to like waking up and having breakfast much earlier
than we do. This morning, as usual, we had finished breakfast by half
past nine, and by a quarter past ten Sally had come back to fetch
Vivace and me for our walk.
I hadn't yet been shown Central Park. Mrs. Ess Kay said it was horrid
out of season; but Sally didn't agree with her; and I thought it
lovely, more like the Bois de Boulogne than our Park, and yet with an
extraordinary individuality of its own. There were only a few people of
our sort, riding or driving, but lots of children were playing about,
and it was wonderful that the trees and grass and flowers could have
kept so fresh through such tremendous heat. I'm sure if we had weather
like that in England the whole vegetable kingdom would go on strike.
Whether it was the beauty of the Park, or whether it was something in
herself, I don't know, but Sally Woodburn was in a sentimental mood.
She is generally full of fun, in her soft, quiet little way; but this
morning she was all poetry and romance. She quoted Tennyson, and
several modern American poets, whose names I was ashamed to say I
didn't even know, as their verses seemed charming; and when she had
found a certain narrow, shady path which she had been looking for,
suddenly she said, "Let's talk about love. What do you think about
love, Betty?"
"I don't know anything about it yet, except from books," said I.
"Mother doesn't like my reading modern novels much, and we haven't many
in the library, for Vic reads French ones and hides them. But there are
other books besides novels that tell about love--some heavenly ones."
"I should think there were," said Sally. "But I didn't ask you what you
knew; I asked what you _thought_. Have you ever thought about what it
would be like to be in love?"
"Yes," I had to admit, shamefacedly, for as she is not a man, luckily
it wasn't necessary to tell a fib. "Have you?"
"I _know_, once for all," said Sally, in a changed voice. "That is why
I wanted to talk about it to you, before you really begin life over
here. Perhaps--it depends on your opinions of love--I'll tell you my
little story. I don't tell it to people. But maybe I will to you, this
morning. We shall see."
"Is it a sad story, dear?" I asked.
"Yes. It's sad."
"Perhaps it may end well yet, though," I tried to comfort her.
Sally shook her head. "It can't, in this world. And the saddest part of
all is that it was my own fault. But I didn't understand the relative
value of things when I lost the _one_ thing in the world that can make
real happiness for a woman. I should like _you_ to understand them
while you still have time."
"And I should love to hear your story, if it won't make you too sad
thinking of it," I said.
"Oh, I am always thinking of it. It's never really out of my mind for a
minute. It's there, you know, like an undertone; just as when you live
near the sea, there's always the sound of the waves underlying every
other sound, though you mayn't be listening for it."
"Then tell me," I said.
"Not yet. I haven't asked you the questions yet, which will show me
when you answer them, whether you need to hear the story or not. Could
you imagine yourself marrying without first being in love?"
"No-o," I said thoughtfully. "Not when it really _came_ to it. But Vic
says that's all nonsense; that no woman, no matter how much she thinks
herself in love, ever stops in love with her husband. The thing is to
marry a man who will let you do as you like; and of course he must be
rich."
Sally sighed. "Well, dear, she's your sister, and I'm just nothing to
you at all, but I'd like to tell you to forget about her advice, and
not care whether a man is rich or poor, or even well born, if only he's
_made_ himself a gentleman, body and heart and soul, and is strong and
clever enough to take care of you."
The minute she said that, the image of Jim Brett rose up before my
eyes. I think, though he is poor, and perhaps of humble birth, that the
girl he marries will be happy--and well taken care of.
"You'll hear a lot of talk about money at Newport," she went on, "too
much. Among some of the people you'll be with, money's of more
importance than anything else. Two or three rich young men are certain
to ask you to marry them--very nice fellows they may be, and they will
show you heaps of attention--all those that Cousin Katherine will let
come near you--and as you're so young and inexperienced, you may lose
your head a little bit. But do remember that losing your head and being
flattered and amused, isn't falling in love. A man must be able to make
you love him for himself, and that self must be worth loving; for
nothing else is any good in the end. And now I'll tell you my
story--just in a few words--because it will give you something to think
about.
"I'm thirty-two now. When I was nineteen--a year older than you--I
cared for a man, and he for me. We cared for each other--terribly. But
he was poor; and not only that, he came from people whom mine looked
down upon. We loved each other so much, though, that I would have
married him in spite of all; but my relations thought it would ruin my
life, and they advised, and persuaded, and implored and insisted, until
I was weak enough to give the man up. They took me to Europe, and
because I had some money an Italian prince we met in Rome wanted to
marry me. They almost argued me into consenting, and though they didn't
quite, the news went home to Kentucky that I was engaged. The man I
really loved--loved dearly all the time, though I was trying to forget
him--believed it. Why shouldn't he, since I'd given him up for the
reasons I had? He was Catholic, and he went into a monastery we have in
Kentucky, and became a monk. No one ever wrote to me about it. All my
friends thought the less I heard of him the better. And two years
later, when I went back home--_not_ engaged, and thinking in my heart
that there was, and always would be, only one man for me in the
world--it was to learn that that man had taken the final vows which
would separate him from earthly love for ever.
"Oh, Betty, you don't know what I suffered. I'd been saying to myself
that when I saw him again--as I meant to--I would know by his eyes at
the first glance whether he still cared as much as ever, and if he did,
I would _ask_ him to marry me. But I never saw him again, except with
the eyes of my heart; and I always see him so. Not an hour passes that
I don't see him so."
"You poor darling!" I exclaimed. And there was a note in her voice that
made my eyelids sting. "How little I guessed. And you seem so cheerful
and even merry."
"One isn't in the world to be a wet blanket," said Sally. "Besides, one
isn't actively miserable every minute, for years, because one has
thrown away one's chance of real happiness. One gets along contentedly
enough, except in the bad hours, when, instead of being a mild grey,
the world is ink-black. But I haven't told you this to get sympathy,
dear. It hasn't been quite easy telling, for I don't talk much about
the deep-down things in myself. I've told you in the hope that you'll
remember me, and my wasted years, if _your_ chance comes to be
happy--even if it should be a chance which you think, in a worldly way,
wouldn't be prudent, or what your people would like. People have no
_right_ to try and order our lives, no matter how near they may be to
us. It's we who have to live our lives, not they."
For a minute we were both silent; and then Sally said quietly, as if
she were glad to speak, "Here comes someone we've seen before. Do you
recognise him? And shall you bow?"
Vivace gave such a leap that his leash, which I'd been holding
carelessly, was jerked out of my hand. It was my brown man who was
coming--Jim Brett.
My face did feel red! Vivace was making such a fuss over him, that
Sally could hardly help guessing whose the dog had been before he was
mine. But I made the best of it. "Of course I recognise him, and of
course I shall bow," said I. "He was _very_ kind to me on the dock,
when I was at letter B."
Sally didn't make any remark about Vivace's capers, though by this time
he was wagging all over with joy at his master's feet, and jumping up
to his knees. I was grateful to her.
In another moment we three had met, in the shady path, far away from
everybody else, and Vivace began running back and forth between his
master and me, as if he wanted to make us good friends, and not hurt
either of our feelings.
"How do you do?" said I, holding out my hand. "What a coincidence,
meeting you here. And my dear little dog that _somebody_ sent me, does
seem to take an extraordinary fancy to you, doesn't he?"
Mr. Jim Brett laughed, and kept his hat off, which made him look very
nice with the dappling green and gold light waving over his thick,
short black hair, and his forehead, which is whiter than the rest of
his face.
He had on better clothes than he had worn on shipboard, but they were
blue serge, with the air of having been bought ready made at a cheap
shop. In spite of them, however, he looked very handsome, and every
inch of him a gentleman. I don't think many men, even in Stan's set,
could wear those badly-cut things and look as he did in them, though he
does have to travel in the steerage.
I asked Sally if I might introduce Mr. Brett to her, and she said yes,
and smiled up so sweetly that I was delighted, because, for all her
talk about Nature's noblemen, I felt I didn't know her well enough to
be quite sure how she would take it. But she talked to him charmingly,
and complimented him upon his bravery on shipboard. "Every one of us
admired you for it," she said, "and I'm very glad to meet you this
morning."
Mr. Brett thanked her, and of course said how pleased he was, too. "I
am taking a holiday," he added, looking at me. I was glad to hear that,
because, seeing him out at this time, the thought had occurred to me
that he might have lost his employment at the club. But I only answered
that it was a lovely day for a holiday, and that I didn't believe he
could find a better place to spend part of it than in Central Park.
"Have you fed the squirrels yet?" he asked.
"Oh, no, can one do that?" I exclaimed. "I should love it."
"May I go and get some peanuts?" he said to Sally.
"Do," she said, in her pleasant, friendly way, which was just as nice
for him as it had been for Stan, or nicer. "We will go on to the
wistaria arbour and wait for you. There are always lots of squirrels
there."
Vivace broke away from me again and followed him, but still Sally
seemed to take no notice. "That's certainly a very handsome fellow,"
she said, "and we can be sure that he's worthy to be trusted, because
the wrong sort of men don't jump overboard at sea to save the lives of
children they don't know. That is why I feel perfectly safe in being
nice to him, and letting you be nice. I reckon he is a Southern man."
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"Oh, a little by that good-looking brown face of his, perhaps, but more
by his way of speaking. You English people lump us all together, for
our 'American accent,' but we can tell whether a person is from
Massachusetts, or New York, or Illinois, or Kentucky, and so on, just
as you know Devonshire from Lancashire."
The wistaria arbour, which we soon reached, was like a fairy bower hung
with thousands of amethyst lamps, burning perfume instead of oil; and
the moment we sat down a troop of the fairy residents, cleverly
disguised as grey squirrels, with adorable little faces, began
excitedly to talk us over. With heads on one side, they criticised our
features, our dresses, our hats, and finally approved of them so far as
to decide that we were creatures they might know. They stole nearer, by
twos, by fours, then raced away again, grey and soft as undyed ostrich
feathers, blown by the sweet-smelling breeze, when they saw my brown
man coming back with Vivace.
I was afraid that Vivace would make a dash and frighten them, but he
evidently knows how to treat squirrels as equals, not as edibles, for
he behaved himself like the little brindled gentleman that he is.
Gravely he looked on as Mr. Brett produced six small, brown paper bags,
crammed full of the most extraordinary objects. They looked something
like wood carvings of unripe bean pods, but it appeared that they were
peanuts. They smelt good, rather like freshly-roasted coffee, and when
you shelled them out of their woody pods, they were large, fat beads,
covered with a thin brown skin. I couldn't help feeling as if I had
known Mr. Brett for a long time, as he sat by us on the bench under the
wistaria, helping Sally and me feed the squirrels, and shelling peanuts
for us to eat, too. I do believe there must be something special about
peanuts, which gives you a homey sort of feeling, if you share them
with people. They form a sort of bond of good fellowship, and I can't
fancy ever being prim with a man, after you had eaten peanuts with him.
Mr. Brett didn't tell us much about himself, but from the few things he
did tell, I gathered the impression that he has led an open-air,
adventurous sort of life. He showed that he knows a great deal about
horses, and I rather hope he has been a cowboy, like "The Virginian,"
in a delightful book I have found in Mrs. Ess Kay's library; indeed, I
imagine the hero of that story must have looked like Jim Brett. It is a
splendid type.
Sally and he talked about books; he spoke about some college in the
West where he had been, and I was glad that he was a University man;
though why I should care I don't know. Anyway, Stan would be at sea,
and floundering, in the subjects which my brown man of the steerage and
Sally Woodburn discussed while the squirrels frisked about their
shoulders. But then, Stan doesn't care to talk for too long about
anything except hunting, or shooting, or polo, or motoring;--not even
bridge, at which Vic says he loses a great deal of money.
We stopped in the wistaria arbour for more than an hour, as I knew by
my bracelet watch, when Sally said suddenly we must go--though I hadn't
dreamed till then that we had been half as long. I shook hands with Mr.
Brett for good-bye, and so did Sally; but nobody spoke about our
meeting again, as perhaps we should if he were in Mrs. Ess Kay's set.
It seemed very sad, and irrevocable, somehow, and I had a heavy sort of
feeling that life can be full of hard things.
His eyes looked wistful, and I said what I couldn't have said to a man
of my own rank. "I've kept those roses you sent me by that dear, funny
little black boy, all this time in water, and they are fresh still,
though a lot of others I have had since are faded," I told him; and in
that mood I didn't care whether Sally heard or not.
The brown man's face flushed up, and the wistful look in his eyes
brightened into something which I felt was gratitude for my rather
silly speech. "I think those roses will hate to die," he said.
"Perhaps I shall press them in a book," I answered, "to remind me of my
first hours in America."
Then we parted, and there was a fuss with Vivace, who had to be taken
up in my arms, or he would have choked himself with his collar, in his
desperate struggles to get free. He whimpered even then for a few
minutes, but soon he was comforted, and visibly made an effort to
content himself with the fact that he was my dog.
I set him down on the ground, and Sally and I walked on together
without speaking. But at last she said, "Penny for your thoughts,
deah?"
"I was wondering about--class distinctions in America?" I answered. "I
think--oh, I _do_ think it's very silly of you to have any at all. I
always supposed, till I knew you and Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, that one
person was considered just as good as another in America. And it ought
to be like that, in a new country, where you haven't an aristocracy."
"We have two aristocracies," said she. "We go one better than you, for
you have only one. We have our Old Families (maybe they wouldn't seem
very old to you) and we have Wealth. They both think as much of
themselves as your aristocracy does--and mighty little of each other."
"I could understand an aristocracy of brains, in a land like America,"
I went on, quite fiercely, "but it's no good breaking off from the old
country at all if you're to hamper yourselves with anything else. Now
if I hadn't heard Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Mrs. Van der Windt talking,
I should have supposed that in America a man like Mr. Brett, for
instance, could be received _anywhere_. As it is, I suppose--no, nobody
could despise him. For myself, I'm _proud_ to know such a brave man.
But--but of course we're not likely to meet him again, are we?"
"In Society?" laughed Sally. "Poor fellow, it doesn't look much like it
now, does it? Though I believe he's a man in a thousand, and worth six
of any of those that Cousin Katherine will let you know--counting
Potter, though he _is_ my relative."
"It seems a pity," I said, with a sigh for the mistakes of the whole
world--or something.
"What's a pity?"
"Oh, I hardly know. Everything. Isn't it?"