"Do you suppose he--minds?"
"I reckon he would like to go on being acquainted with you, Betty, and
have the chances of other men. You're not an unattractive girl, you
know--or maybe you don't know. And he's human. I have a sort of idea
he'll try and make some change in his way of life, so that it may be
possible to meet you again."
When Sally said this, I had the oddest sensation, like a prickling in
all my veins. I longed to ask her if she were joking, or if she really
did think that Jim Brett was enough interested in me to take so much
trouble. But the words came only as far as the tip of my tongue, and
stuck to it as if they had been glued there.
VII
ABOUT SKY-SCRAPERS AND BEAUTIFUL LADIES
In the afternoon Mrs. Ess Kay and I in our thinnest muslins went out in
the motor. We whizzed up Fifth Avenue for several "blocks" (as she
called them), turned into an expensive-looking side street and stopped
before one of the most enormous buildings I ever saw in my life. It
seemed only half finished, for the steel columns of its skeleton were
still visible around the ground floor and the street before it was
still cluttered with bricks and boards and rubbish. In the hallway men
were working like active animals in an immense cage. Suddenly from
amongst them I saw emerge a beautifully dressed little girl foaming
with lace frills, led by a trained nurse in a grey and white uniform.
They were actually being let out of the lift, which had swooped down
with appalling swiftness, by a man in livery.
"Good Heavens," I exclaimed, "what a queer place for a child and its
nurse to be in."
"My dear girl, they live there," said Mrs. Ess Kay rather scornfully.
"That is Mrs. Harvey Richmount Taylour's little Rosemary with her
nurse."
"People live on top of those poles like Jack in a beanstalk!" I
exclaimed. "How appalling."
As I looked through the hallway up sprang the lift once more, fierce
and swift as one of the rockets which I used as a child to be afraid
might strike the angels. A minute of suspense and it swooped down again
with two girls in it. I felt as if it were a thing I oughtn't to be
seeing somehow; it was so much like spying on the digestive apparatus
of a skeleton.
"You see," explained Mrs. Ess Kay, "the Taylours and other people were
frightfully anxious to get in. The rest of the building will be
finished soon, and this is going to be one of the swellest apartment
houses in New York."
"This an apartment house!" cried I, thinking of the dull streets in
London, where almost every door has "Apartments" printed over it in
gilt letters, or else hanging crooked and dejected on a card. "But,
oh--perhaps you mean it's _flats_."
"For goodness sake, don't say 'flats' to Margaret Taylour," exclaimed
Mrs. Ess Kay, marshalling me into the mammoth skeleton. "Over here,
only common people live in flats; our sort have 'apartments.'"
"It's just the other way round with us," I explained. "Those who have
flats would be furious if you said they lived in apartments."
"You English are so quaint in some ways," remarked Mrs. Ess Kay, and
though I didn't answer, I was surprised. It's all well enough for us to
think Americans odd, and we are accustomed to that, for everybody says
they are; but that they should think _our_ ways comic does seem
extraordinary, almost improper.
By this time we were in the lift, which shut upon us with a vicious
snap, and then tossed us up towards the roof of the world. I do hope
one doesn't experience the same sensation in dying; though in that case
it would be worse going down than up.
Before I had time to do more than gasp, we were at the top; and as we
waited for an instant outside Mrs. Harvey Richmount Taylour's door, I
should have liked to pinch my cheeks lest my fright had left me pale.
Vic has a friend who lives in a flat near the Park for the Season, and
once I was taken there. I thought it quite beautiful, but though the
friend's a Countess and very rich, the flat is poor compared with this
topheavy nest of Mrs. Taylour's.
In a white drawing-room where the only spots of colour were the
roses--masses of pink roses in gold bowls--a Madonna-like being was
reclining in a green and white billow of a lace tea gown, on a white
sofa. She held out both hands to Mrs. Ess Kay, and looked at me,
apologising for not getting up.
When you come to examine her, the only thing really Madonna-like about
Mrs. Harvey Richmount Taylour is her way of doing her hair. It's parted
in the middle, and folds softly down in brown wings on either side of
rather a high forehead, white enough to match her drawing-room. She has
gently curved eyebrows, too; but under them her dark eyes are as bright
and sharp as a fox-terrier's. She has pale skin, red lips, and thin
features, with a stick-out chin, cut on the same pattern as Mrs. Ess
Kay's though it isn't as square yet, because she is years
younger--perhaps not more than twenty-eight.
Mrs. Ess Kay introduced us, in a more precise way than we have at home,
and Mrs. Taylour said that she was very happy to meet me, which I
should have thought particularly kind, if I hadn't found out that it's
a sort of formula which Americans think it polite to use.
She talked to me a good deal, and wanted to know how I liked America,
of course; I was sure she would do that.
Then Mrs. Ess Kay explained that I was interested in her apartment
being up so high, and thought her plucky to live in it before the house
was finished. This amused Mrs. Taylour very much.
"We are just thankful to be in it," she said. "I was tired out with
housekeeping, the servant question is too awful."
"I see you've a trained nurse-maid for Rosemary," said Mrs. Ess Kay.
"We met them going out."
"Isn't Rosemary a pet?" Mrs. Taylour asked me, as if she were speaking
of somebody else's little girl.
"Sweet," I said. "Has she been ill?"
"No. Do you think she looks delicate?"
"It was the hospital nurse----" I began; but Mrs. Taylour laughed.
"Oh, I suppose that _would_ strike you as funny. But we often have them
for our children. We poor New York women have so much to do socially,
we have to be relieved of _all_ feeling of responsibility, if we don't
want to come down with nervous prostration. I shall hang onto this same
nurse for years if she'll stay; she's _so_ good, and only ten dollars a
week. When Rosemary grows up and comes out, she will be her maid, you
know, Lady Betty. Do you ever have trained nurse-maids in England?"
"No," I said. "Fancy!"
"Oh, it's a splendid thing for a girl--nothing like it. You see the
woman looks after her like a maid and a nurse both; makes sure her
bath's the right temperature, takes care of her if she gets the grippe;
sits up and gives her beef tea or chocolate after balls, massages her,
and things like that. I used to have one myself, but a woman after
she's married is different from a Bud. She _must_ have a French woman
for her hair if she respects herself."
I said meekly that I supposed so; and then Mrs. Taylour left me to
myself for a few minutes, while she talked to Mrs. Ess Kay. They
compared notes about appendicitis, which they called the fashionable
complaint, and Mrs. Taylour suddenly exclaimed:
"Oh, my dear, I have had just _the_ smartest idea. As soon as Doctor
Pearson will let me go to Blue Bay I tell you I mean to wake them up
there. What I'll do, is to have an appendicitis lunch. It'll be rather
_conducive_, won't it?"
"You _are_ the most original thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Ess Kay. "How are
you going to manage?"
"Oh, nobody shall be invited except those who have had it; and the
great feature will be the decorations; operating instruments, you know,
and hospital nurses, and--oh, I don't know what all yet, but I'm
thinking it out. It was Cora Pitchley's Cat Lunch that put it in my
head." She turned to me. "In America we give Women's lunches," she
said. "Only women are asked, or a Cat Lunch couldn't be worked. Is it
so with you, too?"
"I'm afraid our women would think it a bore if there were no men," I
answered. "Anyway, there always are some, I believe. I'm not out yet.
Do tell about the Cat Lunch."
"Oh, it was only a pretty smart trick of my friend, Mrs. Pitchley's.
She was a rich young widow from the West, with millions, and very
pretty and lively, so some of the old cats snubbed her and tried to
keep her out of New York society, when I was introducing her around.
But she got her foot in at last, so tight they couldn't help
themselves, for the Van Tortens took her up, and she was _made_. So
what did she do but give a big lunch, inviting all the women who had
been the meanest to her, and not another soul. The _whole_ table
decoration consisted of cats; vases made of cats; flower-arrangements
shaped like cats; and a little gold cat with emerald eyes for each
woman to take away with her, so she wouldn't forget the lunch in a
hurry. And would you believe it, not one of them saw the joke till
_Smart Sayings_ got hold of it, and published an account of the
function next week."
"What did the women do?" I asked.
"Nothing, but feel cattier than before. She's richer than ever now, for
she's married a man worth twenty millions, and the first thing he did
was to give orders to Celeste, her dressmaker, to turn out two new
dresses for his wife, every week of the year without fail, not one of
them to cost less than two hundred and fifty dollars. It was such a
strain on Celeste, thinking of new ideas, that she had to give it up
after the first year, though it nearly broke her heart."
"I should have thought it would be a strain having the dresses to
wear," said I. "Fancy getting passionately attached to one frock, but
never being able to wear it more than once or twice, on account of your
duty to the new ones always coming towards you in a long, relentless
procession, down the years. I should hate it."
"I wouldn't," said Mrs. Taylour. "I can't have too many new things, and
I always change each scrap of furniture and decoration in my own rooms
every year, so that Mr. Taylour won't get tired of them. He's such a
nervous man. But you'll meet Cora Pitchley at Newport. Her house is
there. She's a type of an American woman, just as bright as she can be.
Her second husband was a wholesale dry goods man years ago, but most
people have forgotten that, now he's worth his millions, and he's got
the most gorgeous place, quite like one of your old castles. The worst
of it is, his mother lives with them, and when she was showing the
bride--Cora--over the house (which was decorated pretty weirdly for the
first wife,) the old lady kept explaining: 'This is the Louis Seize
room; this is the Queen Anne room.' Cora just looked at the things, and
said: 'What makes you think so?' Smart, wasn't it? But Cora's changed
everything inside the house now. She loves change. She's even changed
her birthday, so as to have it in leap year; and as for her mind, she
changes it entirely at least six times a day; says that's why women
have nicer minds than men; they change them oftener. But I've gossiped
enough about a person you don't know, Lady Betty. Let's talk about
England. I run over to Paris for a month or two most years, but I've
only been twice to England. I did all the sights, though, didn't miss
anything. I gave four days to London alone. Candidly, I don't think
your women dress nearly as well as we do, or hold themselves as well,
but perhaps you're more _feminine_ looking, take you all in all. I
don't mean anything _personal_, of course. But I _do_ think your men
are lovely. I met a perfectly charming Member of Parliament, and he
invited me to tea on the terrace. Such strawberries and cream. But I'm
afraid I hurt his feelings. I said I couldn't help thinking 'House of
Commons' a most insulting name, and if we called our Senate anything
like that we couldn't get an American man who respected himself to go
into it. But English people are so queer. They don't seem to mind
admitting that there is a class above theirs."
"Betty doesn't need to know anything about that," said Mrs. Ess Kay.
"She is on the highest pinnacle."
"Oh, dear no," said I. "There are the Royalties."
"Don't you think you are just as _good_?" asked Mrs. Taylour.
"I never thought about it in that way," I answered, stupidly. For of
course I hadn't.
"Surely you don't bob to them?"
"Indeed we do," I protested.
"Well then, I _wouldn't_," said Mrs. Taylour, firmly. "I'd have my head
cut off first, especially before I'd curtsey to a Man."
Quite a colour flew into her face as she asserted her independence, and
Mrs. Ess Kay must have seen that the invalid was getting excited, for
she rose quickly to go.
"Come, Betty," said she, and I came.
The lift plunged us down through the inner workings of the skeleton. I
had the sensation that it was dropping away from under my feet, and
that as I dangled above it like a wobbly little balloon my head had
been left behind somewhere near the top. But I didn't leave my heart
behind in Mrs. Taylour's flat.
VIII
ABOUT NEWPORT AND GORGEOUSNESS
I was anxious to travel in an American train, so Mrs. Ess Kay said we
might go by rail to Newport, instead of by boat as she had intended.
I know it was very wrong in principle, but when we got to the Grand
Central Station, (or Depot, as perhaps I ought to call it,) I did wish
that slavery existed again, so that I could have bought two or three of
those delightful _cafe-au-lait_-coloured porters in grey livery and red
caps. There were several I would have given anything to have to take
home with me, and make pets of; but I suppose even if they had been for
sale, they would have come too expensive and I should have had to give
them up; for their eyes alone, to say nothing of their pleasant white
grins, would have been worth pounds and pounds. As for their voices,
they were the sweetest I'd heard in America, soft, and a little
throaty, with a peculiar quality, quite different from the voice of a
person who hasn't been dipped in _cafe au lait_. With their vivid red
caps, their brilliant eyes, and their lightning-flash smiles, they
looked to me more like great wonderful, tropical birds than human
beings, and they seemed so honey-luscious in their good nature that I'm
sure all the things that serious and learned people say in England
about the "dangers of the increasing coloured population in America"
must be nonsense. Serious and learned people do make such mistakes,
through never seeing the fun in anything; and every few years they find
out that they have been quite wrong in what they have taught with so
much trouble, about comets and microbes and men, and other progressive
things.
We had a number of these tropical birds that have been tamed to serve
the railway, to help us with our bags and things getting into the
train, although there were Louise and a couple of Mrs. Ess Kay's
footmen as well. I looked at their brown hands, and they were quite
pink inside, as pink as mine. I don't know why this gave me a shock,
but it did. Perhaps one had the feeling that the nice creatures were
only painted to play their parts, or that their white souls--just like
ours--were striking through their skins.
It was a beautiful train. Even the engine was different from our kind,
much fiercer, and reared its head higher, like a wild stag compared to
a stout but reliable ox. Our carriage had no compartments in it, but
was just one long wide, moving corridor, all plate glass windows and
mirrors, and painted panels, and velvet arm chairs dotted about, rather
like a hotel drawing-room on wheels.
There were a good many people in it when we got in, which annoyed Mrs.
Ess Kay so much that she wished she had borrowed a private car from a
friend who would have loved lending it. But I was glad she hadn't, for
the people were part of the fun. Mrs. Ess Kay was sure they were
nobodies, because she didn't happen to know any of their faces; but
perhaps they were thinking the same thing about her.
Anyway, they were mostly women and all pretty and perfectly dressed, as
even quite common people appear to be in America. I haven't caught
sight of a dowdy woman since I came. None of their frocks hitch up in
front and dip down behind, as you see people's doing if you are taken
to a shop in Oxford Street or even sometimes in Bond Street; and their
belts always point beautifully down at the waist, although it _isn't_
the Season in New York.
The train was a fast one, and simply hurled itself and us through
space, as if we had got onto the tail of a comet by mistake; but it
hardly waggled at all, so that we could have studied the scenery nicely
if we had been able to see it behind the advertisements.
Passing the outskirts of New York, it seemed as if every villa, even
the quite smart ones, did their own washing. The gardens--which Sally
told me to call back yards--were just as full of clean clothes as the
meadows were of advertisement hoardings, and I rather wondered why some
enterprising agents didn't go round and offer the people big prices for
painting Uneeda Biscuit on their petticoats and shirts.
We tore through such charming places with fascinating houses built of
wood, among parks of feathery green trees, that I was sure Newport
could be no prettier; but Mrs. Ess Kay spoiled the most picturesque one
for me by saying that it was practically settled by retired butchers
and tailors. According to Mrs. Ess Kay and her brother, all you have to
do to be sure of being rich in America, is to decide to be either a
tailor or a butcher, so it seems quite simple, and I'm surprised that
everybody doesn't do it. Only if you do, it appears there is no use in
your going to Newport until you've lived it down; which, of course,
must be a drawback.
Just as I had got rather giddy from looking out of the window, a boy
(exactly like the boys in melodrama who begin by selling papers and end
by saving the heroine from the villain) came into the car, piled up to
his head with novels and magazines. He scattered a lot over us, like
manna, without asking us to pay, but just as I had got passionately
interested in a short story he came back and began to gather everything
up. Seeing that I clung to my lot, Potter bought them all for me,
before I could stop him.
There were two books and four magazines, with superlatively
good-looking, well-groomed young men and divinely lovely girls for the
heroes and heroines. The story I was most interested in had a hero like
Mr. Brett; but it was disappointing in the end, because he married a
short plump girl with black eyes, and somehow it spoiled the realism,
as I couldn't fancy he would really have cared so dreadfully for a girl
like that. Anyway, it put me out of the mood for reading any more
stories and I began glancing over the advertisements. At least, I
glanced at first, but soon I was absorbed; for they were wonderful.
I had never dreamed that there were such kind, thoughtful men in
business as the ones who advertised in those fat American
magazines,--and so clever, too; they seemed to have spent their whole
past lives simply in studying things, so that eventually they could
make you happy and save you trouble.
They lived only for that, those incredibly nice men. There were
photographs of some of them with their advertisements, so that you
could know what they were really like, and have even more confidence in
them than you would if you hadn't seen their style of features. There
were two or three whose profiles I could _never_ get to feel at home
with, even if I had been born with one of them; but the majority were
brave, energetic,--oh! terribly energetic-looking men, as indeed they
would need to be, if they were really to accomplish all the things they
promised, not only for you but for the hundreds of thousands of other
people who might be inclined to put them to the test.
There were things like this in the magazines,--all the magazines:
* * * * *
"Listen to me, Miss (or Madam). I have something to say which will
interest You. Do you want a Perfect Complexion? Don't move. Sit
still in your chair. Cut out this Coupon. Slip it into a stamped
envelope, and we will give You what You want by return of post."
"Why Suffer? You have Headache. We have the Cure. We ask nothing
better than to take away the One and give you the Other."
"Let us lend you a Beautiful Diamond Ring to wear till you are
tired of it. When you are, we will take it back, and return you all
but five per cent. of your money."
"Don't come to Us. Let us come to You, and bring You Something. You
have always Wanted Health, Wealth, Wisdom."
"We would like to give You some Friendly Advice. We don't want a
Red Cent for it."
"You are going to have a Party, and you are worried. Don't worry.
Just 'phone to us, and we will arrange Everything for you better
than you could yourself, with no trouble to you and your servants."
* * * * *
There were so many splendid things to have, to wear, and to eat,
advertised in the same kind, fatherly way, that I felt as if I had
unconsciously yearned for each one of them more than for anything else
in my life, and now it had been put into my head in all its fatal
fascination, I couldn't possible exist another day without sending for
it, to one in that procession of noble, self-sacrificing, American
advertisers. I felt, too, that if anything disagreeable should happen
to me, like a railway or motor car accident, I could spend the rest of
my existence lying down, and still the splendid things would come
running to me, if I just 'phoned or flung a stamp into space.
I mentioned something of the sort to Sally. "I wonder they don't offer
to choose you a husband," said I. "I didn't know advertisements could
be so interesting."
"What about your own?" she asked. "They're a hundred times quainter."
I thought hard about the _Morning Post_ and _The Queen_, but couldn't
remember anything extraordinary in the advertising line, and said so.
"Perhaps you, being English, don't see anything extraordinary about a
clergyman's wife offering to exchange a canary bird for six months'
subscription to _Punch_; or the widow of an officer earnestly desiring
an idiot lady to board with her; or a decayed gentlewoman inviting the
public to give her five pounds; but we, being American, _do_," replied
Sally. "Why, I'd rather read the advertisements in some of your morning
papers and ladies' weeklies than I would eat."
"Talking of eating, it's lunch-time," said Potter. "There'll be a big
menagerie feeding in the dining-car, but there's no good waiting for it
to finish, as then there'll be no food left."
So we took his suggestion; and there was a crowd, but he had secured a
table for four, and we squeezed ourselves into the places.
I have travelled abroad with Mother and Vic, where there were Americans
in the dining-car, and they have been cross because they didn't get
served quickly and they have said things. But in this car going to
Newport, you forgot what you had had last before the next course came,
yet nobody seemed to mind. They were as patient as lambs, and simply
took what was given them when they could get it, although they looked
as if they were used to everything very nice at home. I suppose it must
have been because they were all Americans together, eating American
things, with American waiters to wait upon them and no foreigners who
ought to know they wouldn't stand that sort of nonsense, hanged if they
would.
Some of Mrs. Ess Kay's servants had gone on before us, and some were in
our train. Exactly how it was managed, I don't know; but things that
would worry us into grey-haired graves don't seem to bother Americans
at all; and there was the motor waiting when we arrived at the end of
our journey, with a private motor omnibus for the servants and luggage.
Sometimes it is rather a pretty sight at the station where you have to
get out for Battlemead, or for the village, when one of the best trains
from Town comes in, especially if Mother or anyone at other big places
in the neighbourhood should be having a house party. There are several
rather good victorias with nice sleek horses, a handsome brougham or
two, a motor car or two, to say nothing of dog carts and phaetons. But
it is a poor show compared to the scene at Newport. I felt suddenly as
if I were at the theatre, and the curtain had just gone up on a
brilliant new act.