and silver harness, and horses' brown and chestnut backs all glittered
blindingly in the sun. But there were even more motors than carriages,
it seemed; or else they were more conspicuous; and many were being
driven by beautiful girls in muslins such as we would wear to a garden
party, with nothing on their pretty heads except their splendid hair,
dressed everlastingly in the same way.
Now, I saw Mrs. Ess Kay and Potter in their element. There was no
suggestion that the people were not good enough for them, here. Mrs.
Ess Kay radiated smiles, bowing cordially right and left, sometimes
even more cordially than her friends bowed in return. Potter was taking
off his straw hat and waving it. There were evidently no nobodies here.
They were delighted to see everybody, for Everybody was Somebody, and
some, but not all, of the Everybodies were delighted to see them. Sally
alone remained unmoved; and I was glad to have her to keep me in
countenance, in this new act, where I knew none of the players or what
part I should be called upon to take by and by.
I had heard so much that was dazzling about Newport, which I had
imagined a great white city by the sea, that the part I saw first after
leaving the railway station was distinctly a blow. "_This_ quiet,
half-asleep village the greatest watering place of America, perhaps of
the world!" I said to myself, almost scornfully; but when we had bowled
into Bellevue Avenue, where Mrs. Ess Kay said that her cottage was, I
began to understand.
I wasn't sure at first sight what I did think of the great splendid
houses, with mere pocket-handkerchief lawns such as people would have
for suburban villas at home; but they gave me a tremendous impression
of concentrated wealth. This seemed a place where everybody was rich,
where millions were at a discount, and I thought--whatever else I did
think--that it would be a place to stop away from unless you were
happy--happy and strong and gay.
But there was one thing I was very sure of. The Avenue itself was more
full than our Park in the topmost height of the Season.
People don't look happy, driving in the Park, not even the pretty
people. I have found that, whenever I have been, and though that isn't
so very often yet, Vic says it is really and truly always the same.
The great beauties look bored, and some of them have their faces
painted and the air of wearing transformations; but not one of the
charming women driving up and down Bellevue Avenue that afternoon
looked bored, and hardly any were painted. I never saw people appear to
be so delighted with life, and so thoroughly alive, as if the glorious
sea air were frothing in their veins, like champagne.
In the Park you don't see people laughing and talking to each other in
carriages. They simply lean back on the cushions with an expression
that seems to say, "This is the only thing I can think of to do, so I'm
doing it just to kill time." Probably they don't really feel like that,
but they look it. And as for the people who sit and watch, or stand and
wait, they've usually a strained expression in their eyes, as if they
were afraid of missing somebody or something of importance.
But here in Bellevue Avenue everybody was smiling and chatting; and I
noticed that the men weren't so preternaturally alert as the men in New
York. Some had actually taken time to get fat, which, so far I'd had
reason to suppose, was a thing that never happened to American men.
And somehow the young girls had the air of being a great deal more
important than we are at home. You could tell from the very way they
sat and held up their heads in the motor cars and dog carts and other
things, that they thought the world was theirs, and they were _the_
people to know in it. One was driving a tandem, and she didn't look
more than seventeen. I was glad when she bowed to Mrs. Ess Kay, because
she was pretty and I made up my mind that I should like to know her.
"That's Cora Pitchley's step-daughter, Carolyn," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "Do
you remember Margaret Taylour telling anecdotes of Cora? She doesn't
bother much with the girl. People are talking about them both rather a
lot this year, they say."
"Carolyn," I repeated. "What a pretty name, and how American-sounding,
somehow. Fancy her driving tandem, with only that tiny groom if
anything should happen. She must be plucky. How old is she?"
"Eighteen. She was one of last October's buds."
"October's buds," I repeated. "It sounds poetical--but unseasonable."
Potter answered with a laugh.
"Yes, we like things out of season in America, so we bring out most of
our buds in October. Then they have the whole winter to bloom in, you
know, before they're grafted on another stalk."
"Here comes Cora herself, now, in Tom Doremus's Electra," said Mrs. Ess
Kay. "It must make Mrs. Van der Windt wild, his going so much with the
Pitchley lot, as she can't stand them, and would keep Cora and Carolyn
out of everything in Newport if she could."
I didn't wonder at Mr. Doremus, though, as I bowed to him and found
time to know exactly how Mrs. Pitchley looked and what she wore, in the
half second before our two motors flashed apart. I thought her
splendidly handsome, and I liked the gleam in her dark grey eyes, which
promised fun. But just then our chauffeur slowed down before a house
which seemed to cover about a quarter of a mile of ground.
"Welcome to my little cottage, dear Betty," said Mrs. Ess Kay.
If this is her idea of a cottage, I don't know what her conception of a
castle must be! And yet, when you come to analyse it, there really is
something about the place which suggests a kind of glorified, Titanic
cottage, rather too grand for a king, unless he were a fairy king, but
possibly suited to an Emperor. But I do believe rich Americans think
that what is good enough for a king is only _just_ good enough for them
at a pinch;--and I've heard Mrs. Ess Kay call Windsor dreadfully
shabby.
Her "cottage" looks as it were built of grey satinwood, but it is
really shingles; and shingles can be the loveliest material imaginable,
it seems, for the covering of a house, especially with a foundation of
granite sparkling with mica. They are soft and shimmery in their tints,
these shingles, as a dove's breast; some are dark, some light, but all
are feathery in effect; and altogether The Moorings, with its gables,
and porches, and bow windows, and balconies and wide verandahs, gives
the effect of a huge, ruffly and motherly grey bird with her wings
spread wide to shelter her birdlings.
I felt quite content to be one of the birdlings as I went in. I am
sorry to say I'm not a bit fonder of Mrs. Ess Kay than I was in the
ship; but the "cottage" looked so hospitable and jolly, and the air and
the sunshine sparkled so, that I couldn't help feeling that it was
pleasant to be young, and alive, and on the threshold of amusing new
adventures. I was happy, and I would have liked to sing. I wanted to be
very good friends with everybody, including Potter; and I fell in love
with the house, the minute I set foot on the front verandah.
The great gorgeous palace in New York is far grander, of course, and
must have cost four or five times as much; still, only very rich people
could have built and furnished The Moorings, or afford to live in it.
There is a big square hall, not to be compared to ours at Battlemead,
of course, though the Persian rugs and the pictures are fine; but the
staircase is peculiarly charming. It looks a staircase made for sitting
out dances with men you like, and evidently it knows its value as a
flirting place and lives up to it, for there are fat, bright-coloured
silk and satin cushions resting invitingly against the wall, on each
one of the shallow steps. Most of the rooms are enormous, and consist
half of quaint leaded windows, with seats underneath. But better than
anything else is the verandah, which runs all round the house, and is
not only as wide as a good-sized room, but is fitted up like a
succession of rooms. The delicate bead curtains that glitter like a
rain of green and white and rose-coloured jewels give you a feeling of
privacy, for you can see through them without being seen. The satiny
grey floor is half covered with exquisite rugs; and everywhere there
are Oriental tables and chairs, and cushiony sofas and green hammocks
with frilly pink pillows, and screens, and bowers of palms and bright
azaleas. I should like to live on that verandah swinging slowly in a
hammock, and looking through the cascade of glittering beads at the sea
and sky. I spoke this thought out aloud, but Potter said I would soon
learn that there wasn't much time in Newport for looking at the sea and
sky.
"Why, isn't that partly what you come to Newport for?" I asked.
They all laughed. "You just wait and find out," answered Potter. "And
we'll work you pretty hard doing it."
Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally took me up to show me my room and theirs, and
Potter said that he would go round and look in at the Casino, but he
would come back and have tea with us, as soon as he had seen "what
there was doing."
Each bedroom is done in a colour, and mine is the "white room." It was
almost too heavy-sweet with some powerful flower fragrance, when we
went in. For an instant I could not think what it was; but in another
moment I had seen on tables and cabinets and window shelves, great
bowls of water lilies, rising out of their dark leaves like moons out
of cloud banks.
"From Potter," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "He telegraphed for them to be here,
and sent word to the servants just how he wanted them arranged. I must
say he does think of rather pretty things when he cares to please. And
he _does_ care to please you, Betty. But you know that without my
telling you, don't you, my Lady Witch?"
It was hard-hearted of me, but all my pleasure in the gleaming white
beauties went out, like a bursting bubble. It gets on my nerves to be
grateful to Potter three or four times a day!
Nevertheless, when he came back (which he did after we had dressed, and
were having tea behind the rain of glittering glass) I had to thank him
prettily. He was pleased, but was evidently thinking about something
else.
"I didn't get to the Casino, after all," said he. "I met Mrs. Pitchley
going out to make a call (she was on her way home, it seems, when we
met her) and she offered to turn back if I'd go with her, so I did."
"Now, see here, Potter Parker," broke in Mrs. Ess Kay, "I don't wish
you to set up as another of Cora Pitchley's champions. It's all very
well for Margaret Taylour to be forever quoting her; and she is fun,
but she goes around being original in the wrong way, that nobody
admires. That is, she does what she wants and not what other people
want her to do. Margaret spends her summers at Blue Bay, and I spend
mine at Newport, and I'm not going to have Mrs. Van der Windt down on
me, or on my brother, either, if I can help it."
"Thanks for good advice," replied Potter airily. "But may be, when you
hear what Mrs. Pitchley had to say to me, you'll change your tune."
Mrs. Ess Kay raised her eyebrows, but her eyes would look curious.
"What could Cora Pitchley say that would have any particular effect on
me?" she asked.
"She knows for a fact that she isn't to be asked to the Pink Ball on
the twenty-third, and that Mrs. Van der Windt herself scratched your
name off the list before she sailed for Europe."
Mrs. Ess Kay's face went a dull, ugly red, and she laughed a loud laugh
which sounded as if it would be the same colour. "As for Cora, I can
_quite_ understand; but I don't believe the woman would have dared to
try to exclude _me_," she said in a quivery voice.
"Why shouldn't she have dared, when you come to think of it?"
"Well, anyhow--she don't dare _now_."
"No, naturally, she won't dare now. You're as smart as they make 'em,
Kath."
Then, for some reason, they both turned and gazed at me with a
"thank-goodness-here's-a-floating-spar" sort of look, while Sally
examined the grounds in her tea-cup, with that funny little
three-cornered smile of hers.
"Was that the thing you thought would change me toward Cora Pitchley?"
asked Mrs. Ess Kay.
"Yes, I thought it would give you a sort of fellow feeling."
"It doesn't," said she, shortly, "and nobody but a man could have
thought it would. It makes me feel all the more that I don't want to be
mixed up with her, for--for Betty's sake."
Potter whistled, with one thumb in a breast pocket. "For the che-ild's
sake," he remarked dramatically; and Mrs. Ess Kay looked angry.
"I shan't invite the Pitchleys to my big affair," said she; "the affair
I'm going to have for Betty."
"Oh, but you must please not put yourself out for me!" I exclaimed. "I
should be so sorry to have you do that."
Potter laughed "Don't you try to rob her of her dearest triumph, Lady
Daisy. You're the big gem for the middle of the setting. You're the
Kohinoor."
"Potter! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking to her like
that," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "But all he means, Betty, is that I shall be
very glad to do anything I can to make your visit pleasant; and it will
be no trouble at all for me to give an entertainment, you may be quite
sure."
She said this as the Queen might say that it didn't matter to her
whether there were seventy-five people or seventy-six asked to a garden
party; and I realised that I was snubbed; so I said no more.
IX
ABOUT BATHING, A DRESS, AND AN EARL
Mrs. Ess Kay had a headache next morning, and stopped in bed. She
couldn't speak or be spoken to, and so we couldn't possibly ask her
advice about going to Bailey's Beach for a dip in the sea.
Potter--whose proposal it was--said that this was perhaps Providential,
as she was almost certain to want me to stay in till I could be taken
out officially. "But you don't need to know that," he added.
I looked at Sally, and she laughed; so I knew that I was to go.
"Oh, but what about bathing clothes!" I exclaimed, on a sudden thought.
"How stupid of me not to have remembered that I would want them, before
I left home, or in New York!"
"I reckon it would have been stupid of us if _we_ hadn't remembered,"
said Sally. Then she went on,--irrelevantly, it seemed at first: "What
day of the month is to-morrow?"
"The twenty-ninth of July," said Potter, promptly, while I was
resigning myself, after a slight struggle, to the fact that I had lost
track of dates.
"Seem's to me that's somebody's birthday, isn't it?" Sally appeared to
address her remark to the ceiling.
"How _did_ you know?" I exclaimed.
"A little bird told me; the kind that builds in birthday books. It
lives on a table in Lady Victoria's 'den'."
"Fancy your keeping the date in your head all this time!"
"I've a weakness for remembering birthdays--when I'm fond of the people
who own them. You see, everybody thinks about Christmas, and I don't
want to be confused with everybody, in the minds of just those special
people. Now, the truth is, I've got a little birthday present upstairs,
which I didn't mean you should see until tomorrow, but as part of it
may come in rather handy this morning, perhaps we might run up and have
a look at it."
"Oh, Sally, you dear!" I exclaimed.
"Oh, Sally, you wretch, to have kept that birthday to yourself; I want
to be on in this act," grumbled Potter. But I hardly heard him, I was
so excited about what I was going to find upstairs.
We went to my room, Sally and I; and she rang for Louise, who was told
to fetch from what Sally called her "closet" a certain black "trunk" of
whose existence Louise was evidently already aware.
It was a good-sized box, big enough to hold two or three dresses; and
when it was opened by Sally after Louise had gone, it proved to contain
three and a half.
One of the three was a blue gauze ball gown, embroidered with patterns
of thistles in tiny sparkling things that looked like diamonds; the
second was pink tulle, with garlands of tiny roses; the third was a
white linen, made as only Americans know how to make up linens; and the
half was--well, I was not quite sure what it was at first, though I
could see that it was pretty. It was pale green and there were two
parts of it. The bigger of the two (it was not very big) was of soft
silk, and extremely fluffy. It had a low-necked and short-sleeved
bodice, and attached to that was a skirt--or something that would have
been a skirt if it had had more time to grow. The second part was silk,
too, but more difficult to describe. Perhaps I'd do best to say that it
was like long stockings, only it was in one piece and evidently meant
to fasten round the waist.
"There's also a pair of sandals and a really sweet cap, deah," Sally
explained.
"Is it a fancy dress for a little girl?" I asked puzzled.
"For a little girl about your size. Why, you funny child, it's your
_bathing_ dress. I had to get it and all the other things ready made,
for there wasn't time for anything more than having them altered to
your measurement if they were to be ready for your birthday."
"Oh, Sally, are they _all_ for me?"
"Well, they're for nobody else. It's _your_ birthday."
Of course I told her she was an angel, and so she was, quite an
exceptional kind of an angel; and I kissed her, and was saying a great
many things, when she stopped me. "So glad you like them, deah. But now
we must be moving if we're to have our bath this morning. Louise can't
leave Katherine, but we'll have one of the other maids come with our
things. It's getting late."
I felt frightfully. "It _is_ late, isn't it?" said I, hopefully,
looking at my watch. "Perhaps it's too late to go this morning, after
all."
"Not a bit of it," said Sally. "Come along."
"I'm not sure but that I'd better stop in, if Mr. Parker thinks Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox would want me to," I floundered on.
"She won't mind--not much, anyway, if we don't take you to the Casino
without her," Sally tried to reassure me. But her eyes had begun to
twinkle.
"Don't you think she might? There are a lot of letters I ought----"
"Now child, out with it. Don't you like the bathing dress?"
"Oh, I _admire_ it immensely," I stammered. "It's like a--a picture.
But--I can't see myself wearing it. That is, I can't bear to think of
anyone else seeing me wear it."
Sally went off into a fit of musical Southern laughter. "You poor baby.
I forgot the shock it might be to you, if you're accustomed only to
English bathing clothes. They certainly are the _limit_! Have you never
been to Trouville or Ostend?"
I shook my head, sad at having to seem ungrateful. But how could I help
it?
"Well, they have this kind there, and so they do here. Everybody has
it. My prettiest one is much like yours, only it's poppy-coloured.
Katherine's is cornflower blue this year, and she's got a black one and
a lilac one. When you see all the others prancing about in the same
sort of things, you won't feel a bit funny."
I was far from sure that I should attain to such a peaceful state of
mind as not to "feel funny"; but Sally had called me a baby, and I had
to redeem myself from that aspersion at any price. So I tried to
compose my countenance over a beating heart, and think about other
things on the way to the beach, as you do if you are going to the
dentist's.
Potter went with us, though I supposed that when we came to the end, he
would bid us good-bye, and trot off to the place where the men bathed,
wherever that might be. Our things had been taken on ahead by a servant
or two, and we walked, as the day was perfect, and I was thankful to
get a little exercise.
We met a great many people whom Sally and Potter knew, and just as
Potter had said, "Here we are at Bailey's Beach," that handsome Mrs.
Pitchley and her stepdaughter, with Mr. Doremus came up. They called to
us, so we stopped to speak, and I was pleased because I'd been wanting
to know them. We were introduced, and I was wondering what Mrs. Ess Kay
would do if she could see us chatting with the Pitchleys in sight of
all Newport, when a little thin man, looking perfectly furious, with a
striped bathing suit rolled up under his arm, came hopping along
towards us, as if he were a cricket ball that somebody had batted off
the beach.
His panama hat was on the back of his head; his single eyeglass on its
chain was flying out behind him in the breeze, and my first thought was
how comical he looked. My second, as he came nearer, was something
quite different.
"Why, Mohunsleigh!" I cried.
He stopped hopping so abruptly that he stumbled, and nearly fell down.
"Hullo, Betty," he growled, hauling off his hat as if he hated the
bother of doing it. "Where did you spring from?"
"Home. Where on earth did you spring from?" I echoed.
"They've sprung me off their beastly beach," said he, glaring, and
sticking in his eyeglass. Then he almost waved his hideous little
bathing suit at me. "Wouldn't let me bathe, the bounders."
"Wouldn't let you bathe?"
"No. Said, 'You can't get in here. _This_ beach is for millionaires.'
I'm blest if I don't shake the sand off my feet as soon as I can pack
up and get out."
"No, no, don't do that," I begged. "There's some mistake, perhaps."
"No, there isn't," said he. "I'm not a millionaire; but I did think I
looked as if I could afford a bathe."
"Sally dear, do let me introduce my cousin, Lord Mohunsleigh," I said
in a great hurry.
Potter opened his eyes at the thin little man, and Mrs. and Miss
Pitchley looked at him with interest.
"Do introduce us all," laughed Mrs. Pitchley, "and then we can
sympathise with Lord--Lord--oh, but I can _never_ learn to pronounce
him."
I introduced him to the mother and stepdaughter then, though I hadn't
thought of its being necessary, and explained that my cousin, though
spelled very elaborately, was pronounced Moonslee.
He had evidently abandoned all intention of immediate flight now, and
his rage was visibly cooling. He was looking at Mrs. Pitchley with
quite as much interest as she showed in him, and with even more at the
girl, although he talked to Potter Parker, and answered his questions
quite civilly. He explained that he had actually been ordered away from
the beach, bathing suit and all, by some "impertinent ass of an
official."
Potter was hospitably distressed, but Mrs. Pitchley was moved to
laughter.
"Ha, ha, won't the man be sick when he sees you coming back with us,
and hears us call you Lord Mohunsleigh?--for if you'll point him out in
time, that's what I _shall_ call you, right under his nose. You see,
this is a private beach. We all subscribe for our bath houses; but
you'll be our guest, of course, and I'll put Mr. Pitchley's box at your
service. He's gone off fishing for a few days. Only to think of the
Earl of Mohunsleigh being turned back. Delicious!"
"Can't say I thought of it that way till now," said Mohunsleigh,
pulling his wiry moustache, and condescending to grin slightly at last.
"But it's true, I'm _not_ a millionaire, you know."
"You're an earl, you can't say you're not, for I read in _The
Flashlight_ only the other day that the Earl of Mohunsleigh had sailed
for America, though it couldn't be ascertained on what ship."
"Didn't know there was any particular reason why it should be
ascertained," said Mohunsleigh. "I've run over, to visit a chap in
California,--dashed nice chap, too, but thought I'd have a shot at New
York first, and blest if I could stand it; never could stand being
grilled since a sunstroke I got when I was serving in India."
"Dear me, who and what does a lord serve?" broke in Miss Pitchley;
which surprised Mohunsleigh and me both so much that he stared, and I
blushed. But she didn't, though no girl under Vic's age at least would
think of cutting in like that with a stranger, at home. Mohunsleigh was
delighted to be spoken to by her, though, one could see. His eyes
brightened up, and he smiled, looking straight at her, as if she were a
new and absolutely desirable kind of rifle. I say rifle, because
Mohunsleigh is a great shot, and would rather spend his money (what he
has of it) on a new invention by way of a gun than anything else.