THE LAST OF DEVON AND THE FIRST OF AMERICA.
WITH the morrow came the parting from home. "Farewell" is never an easy
word to say when seas are to separate those who love each other, but the
Young family uttered it bravely and resolutely. Lionel, who was
impatient to get to work and to his beloved High Valley, was more than
ready to go. His face, among the sober ones, looked aggressively
cheerful.
"Cheer up, mother," he said, consolingly. "You'll be coming over in a
year or two with the Pater, and Moggy and I will give you such a good
time as you never had in your lives. We'll all go up to Estes Park and
camp out for a month. I can see you now coming down the trail on a
burro,--what fun it will be."
"Who knows?" said Mrs. Young, with a smile that was half a sigh. She and
her husband had sent a good many sons and daughters out into the world
to seek their fortunes, and so far not one of them had come back. To be
sure, all were doing well in their several ways,--Cyril in India, where
he had an excellent appointment, and the second boy in the army; two
were in the navy, and Tom and Giles in Van Diemen's Land, where they
were making a very good thing out of a sheep ranch. There was no reason
why Lionel should not be equally lucky with his cattle in Colorado;
there were younger children to be considered; it was "all in the day's
work," the natural thing. Large families must separate, parents could
not expect to keep their grown boys and girls with them always. So they
dismissed the two who were now going forth cheerfully, uncomplainingly,
and with their blessing, but all the same it was not pleasant; and Mrs.
Young shed some quiet tears in the privacy of her own room, and her
husband looked very serious as he strode down the Southampton docks
after saying good-by to his children on board the steamer.
Imogen had never been on a great sea-going vessel before, and it struck
her as being very crowded and confused as well as bewilderingly big. She
stood clutching her bags and bundles nervously and feeling homesick and
astray while farewells and greetings went on about her, and the people
who were going and those who were to stay behind seemed mixed in an
inextricable tangle on the decks. Then a bell rang, and gradually the
groups separated; those who were not going formed themselves into a
black mass on the pier; there was a great fluttering of handkerchiefs, a
plunge of the screw, and the steamer was off.
Lionel, who had been seeing to the baggage, now appeared, and took
Imogen down to her stateroom, advising her to get out all her warm
things and make ready for a rough night.
"There's quite a sea on outside," he remarked. "We're in for a rolling
if not for a pitching."
"Lion!" cried Imogen, indignantly. "Do you mean to say that you suppose
I'm going to be sick,--I, a Devonshire girl born and bred, who have
lived by the sea all my life? Never!"
"Time will show," was the oracular response. "Get the rugs out, any way,
and your brushes and combs and things, and advise Miss What-d'-you-call-her
to do the same."
"Miss What-d'-you-call-her" was Imogen's room-mate, a perfectly unknown
girl, who had been to her imagination one of the chief bug-bears of the
voyage. She was curled up on the sofa in a tumbled little heap when they
entered the stateroom, had evidently been crying, and did not look at
all formidable, being no older than Imogen, very small and shy, a soft,
dark-eyed appealing creature, half English, half Belgic by extraction,
and going out, it appeared, to join a lover who for three years had been
in California making ready for her. He was to meet her in New York, with
a clergyman in his pocket, so to speak, and as soon as the marriage
ceremony was performed, they were to set out for their ranch in the San
Gabriel Valley, to raise grapes, dry raisins, and "live happily all the
days of their lives afterward," like the prince and princess of a fairy
tale.
These confidences were not made immediately or all at once, but
gradually, as the two girls became acquainted, and mutual suffering
endeared them to each other. For, in spite of Imogen's Devonshire
bringing up, the English Channel proved too much for her, and she had to
endure two pretty bad days before, promoted from gruel to dry toast, and
from dry toast to beef-tea, she was able to be helped on deck, and
seated, well wrapped up, in a reclining chair to inhale the cold, salty
wind which was the best and only medicine for her particular kind of
ailment.
The chair next hers was occupied by a pretty, dark-eyed, and very
lady-like woman, with whom Lionel had apparently made an acquaintance;
for he said, as he tucked Imogen's rugs about her, "Here's my sister at
last, you see;" which off-hand introduction the lady acknowledged with a
pleasant smile, saying she was glad to see Miss Young able to be up.
Her manner was so unaffected and cordial that Imogen's stiffness melted
under its influence, and before she knew it they were talking quite like
old acquaintances.
Imogen was struck by the sweet voice of the stranger, with its well-bred
modulations, and also by the good taste and perfection of all her little
appointments, from the down pillow at top of her chair to the
fur-trimmed shoes on a pair of particularly pretty feet at the other
end. She set her down in her own mind as a London dame of
fashion,--perhaps a countess, or a Lady Something-or-other, who was
going out to see America.
"Your brother tells me this is your first voyage," said the lady.
"Yes. He has been out before, but none of us were with him. It's all
perfectly strange to me"--with a sigh.
"Why do you sigh? Don't you expect to like it?"
"Why no, not _like it_ exactly. Of course I'm glad to be with Lionel and
of use to him, but I didn't come away from home for pleasure."
"Pleasure must come to you, then," said the lady, with a smile. "And
really I don't see why it shouldn't. In the first place you are acting
the part of a good sister; and you know the adage about duty performed
making rainbows in the soul. And then Colorado is a beautiful State,
with the finest of mountain views, a wonderful climate, and such wild
flowers as grow nowhere else. I have some friends living there who are
quite infatuated about it. They say there is no place so delightful in
the world."
"That is just the way with my brother. It's really absurd the way he
talks about it. You would think it was better than England!"
"It is sure to be very different; but all the same, you will like it, I
think."
"I hope so"--doubtfully.
Just then came an interruption in the shape of a tall girl of fifteen or
sixteen, with a sweet, childish face who came running down the deck
accompanied by a maid, and seized the strange lady's hand.
"Mamma," she began, "the first officer says that if you are willing he
will take me across to the bows to see the rainbows on the foam. May I
go? He says Anne can go too."
"Yes, certainly, if Mr. Graves will take charge of you. But first speak
to this young lady, who is the sister of Mr. Young, who was so kind
about playing ship-coil with you yesterday, and tell her you are glad
she is able to be on deck. Then you can go, Amy."
Amy turned a pair of beautiful, long-lashed, gray eyes on Imogen.
"I'm glad you're better, Miss Young. Mamma and I were sorry you were so
sick," she said, with a frank politeness that was charming. "It must be
very disagreeable."
"Haven't you been sick, then?" said Imogen, holding fast the little hand
that was put in hers.
"No, I'm never sick _now_. I was, though, the first time we came over,
and I behaved _awfully_. Do you recollect, mamma?"
"Only too well," said her mother, laughing. "You were like a caged bird,
beating yourself against the bars in desperation."
Amy lingered a moment, while a dimple played in her pink cheek as if she
were moved by some amusing remembrance.
"Ah, there's Mr. Graves," she said. "I must go. I'll come back presently
and tell you about the rainbows, mamma."
"I suppose most of these people on board are Americans," said Imogen
after a little pause. "It's always easy to tell them, don't you think?"
"Not always. Yes, I suppose a good many of them are--or call themselves
so."
"What do you mean by 'call themselves so'? That girl is one, I am sure,"
indicating a pretty, stylish young person, who was talking rather too
loudly for good taste with the ship's doctor.
"Yes, I imagine she is."
"And those people over there," pointing to a large, red-bearded man who
lay back in a sea-chair reading a novel, by the side of a fat wife who
read another, while their little boy raced up and down the deck quite
unheeded, and amused himself by pulling the rugs off the knees of the
sicker passengers. "They are Americans, I know! Did you ever see such
creatures? The idea of letting that child make a nuisance of himself
like that! No one but an American would allow it. I've always heard that
children in the States do exactly as they please, and the grown people
never interfere with them in the least."
"General rules are dangerous things," said her neighbor, with an odd
little smile. "Now, as it happens, I know all about those people. They
call themselves Americans because they have lived in Buffalo for ten
years and are naturalized; but he was born in Scotland and she in Wales,
and the child doesn't belong exactly to any country, for he happened to
be born at sea. You see you can't always tell."
"Do you mean, then, that they are English, after all?" cried Imogen,
disconcerted and surprised.
"Oh, no. Every body is an American who has taken the oath of allegiance.
Those Polish Jews over there are Americans, and that Italian couple
also, and the big party of Germans who are sitting between the boats.
The Germans have a large shop in New York, and go out every year to buy
goods and tell their relations how superior the United States are to
Breslau. They are all Americans, though you would scarcely suppose it to
look at them. America is like a pudding,--plums from one part of the
world, and spice from another, and flour and sugar and flavoring from
somewhere else, but all known by the name of pudding."
"How very, very odd. Somehow I never thought of it before in that light.
Are there no real Americans, then? Are they all foreigners who have been
naturalized?"
"Oh, no. It is not so bad as that. There are a great many 'real
Americans.' I am one, for example."
"You!" There was such a world of unfeigned surprise in Imogen's tone
that it was impossible for her new friend not to laugh.
"I. Did you not know it? What did you take me for?"
"Why, English of course, like myself. You are exactly like an English
person."
"I suppose you mean it for a compliment; thank you, therefore. I like
England very much, so I don't mind being taken for an English woman."
"Of course you don't," said Imogen, staring. "It's the height of an
American's ambition, I've always heard, to be thought English."
"There you are mistaken. There are a few foolish people who feel so no
doubt, and all of us would be glad to copy what is best and nicest in
English ways and manners, but a really good American likes his own
country best of all, and would rather seem to belong to it than any
other."
"And I was thinking how different your daughter is from the American
girls!" said Imogen, continuing her own train of thought; "and how her
manners were so pretty, and did such credit to _us_, and would surprise
people over there! How very odd. I shall never get to understand the
Americans. They're so different from each other as well as from us.
There were some ladies from New York at Bideford the other day,--a Mrs.
Page and a Comtesse de Something-or-other, her daughter, and a Miss
Opdyke from New York. _She_ was very pretty and really quite nice,
though rather queer, but all three were as unlike each other as they
could be. Do you know them in America?"
"Not Miss Opdyke; but I have met Mrs. Page once in Europe a good while
since. It was before her daughter was married. She is a relative of my
sister-in-law, Mrs. Worthington."
"Do you mean the Mrs. Worthington whose husband is in the navy? Why,
that's Mrs. Geoffrey Templestowe's sister!"
"Do you know Clover Templestowe, then?" said the lady, surprised in her
turn. "That is really curious. Was it in England that you met?"
"Yes, and we are on our way to her neighborhood now. My brother has
bought a share in Geoff's business, and we are going to live near them
at High Valley."
"I do call this an extraordinary coincidence. Amy, come here and listen.
This young lady is on her way to Colorado, to live close to Aunt Clover;
what do you think of that for a surprise? I don't wonder that you open
your eyes so wide. Isn't it just like a story-book that she should have
come and sat down in the next chair to ours?"
"It's so funny that I can't believe it, till I take time to think," said
Amy, perching herself on the arm of her mother's seat. "Just think,
you'll see Elsie and her baby, and Aunt Clover's baby, and Uncle Geoff
and Phil, and all of them. It's the beautifulest place out there that
you ever saw. There are whole droves of horses, and you ride all the
while, and when you're not riding you can pick flowers and play with the
babies. Oh, I wish I were going with you; it would be such fun!"
"But aren't you coming?" said Imogen, much taken by the frankness of the
little American maid. "Coax mamma to fetch you out this summer, and
come and make me a visit. We're going to have a little cabin of our own,
and I'd be delighted to have you. Is it far from where you live?"
"Well, it's what you would call 'a goodish bit' in England," replied
Mrs. Ashe,--"two thousand miles or so, nearly three days' journey. Amy
would be charmed to come, I am sure, but I am afraid the distance will
stand in her way. One doesn't 'step out' to Colorado every summer, but
perhaps we may be there some day, and then we shall certainly hope to
see you."
This encounter with Mrs. Ashe, who was, in a way, part of the family
with whom Imogen expected to be most intimately associated in America,
made the remainder of the voyage very pleasant. They sat together for
hours every day, talking, and reading, and gradually Imogen waked up to
the fact that American life and society was a much more complex and less
easily understood affair than she had imagined.
The weather was favorable when the first rough days were past, and after
they rounded the curve of the wide sea hemisphere and began to near the
American coast it became beautiful, with high-arching skies and very
bright sunsets. Accustomed to the low-hung grays and struggling sunbeams
of southern England, Imogen could not get used to these novelties. Her
surprise over the dazzle of the day and the clear, vivid blue of the
heavens was a continual amusement and joy to Mrs. Ashe, who took a
patriotic pride in her own climate, and, as it were, made herself
responsible for it.
Then came the eventful morning, when, rousing to the first glow of dawn,
they found the screw motionless, and the steamer lying off a green
island, with a big barrack-building on it, over which waved the American
flag. The health officer made his visit, and before long they were
steaming up the wide bay of New York, between green, flowery shores,
under the colossal Liberty, whose outstretched arm seemed to point to
the dim rich mass of roofs and towers and spires of the city which lay
beyond. Then they neared the landing-stage, where a black mass of people
stood waiting them, and Amy gave a cry of delight as she saw a
gold-banded cap among them, and recognized her Uncle Ned.
The little Anglo-Belgian had been more or less ill all the way over, and
looked pale and wan, though still very pretty, as she stood with the
rest, gazing at the crowd of faces, all of whose eyes were turned toward
the steamer. Imogen, who had helped her to dress, remained protectingly
by her side.
"What shall you do if he doesn't happen to be there?" she asked, smitten
with a sudden fear. "Something might detain him, you know."
"I--I--am not sure," turning pale. "Oh, yes, I am," rallying. "He have
aunt in Howbokken. I go there and wait. But he not fail; he will be
here." Then her eyes suddenly lit up, and she exclaimed with a little
shriek of joy, "He _are_ here! That is he standing by the big timber. My
Karl! my Karl! He are here!"
There indeed he was, foremost in the throng, a tall, brown, handsome
fellow, with a nice, strong face, and such a look of love and
expectation in his eyes that prosaic Imogen suddenly felt that it might
be worth while, after all, to cross half the world to meet a look and a
husband like that,--a fact which she had disbelieved till now, demurring
also in her private mind as to the propriety of such a thing. It was
pretty to see the tender happiness in the girl's face, and the answering
expression of her lover's. It seemed to put poetry and pathos into an
otherwise commonplace scene. The gang-plank was lowered, a crowd of
people surged ashore, to be met by a corresponding surge from the
on-lookers, and in the midst of it Lieutenant Worthington leaped aboard
and hastened to where his sister stood waiting him.
"You're coming up to Newport with me at five-thirty," were his first
words. "Katy's all ready, and means to sit up till the boat gets in at
two-thirty, keeping a little supper hot and hot for you. The Torpedo
Station is in its glory just now, and there's going to be a great
explosion on Thursday, which Amy will enjoy."
"How lovely!" cried Amy, clinging to her uncle's arm. "I love
explosions. Why didn't Tanta come too?--I'm in such a hurry to see her."
Then Mr. Worthington asked to be introduced to Imogen and Lionel, and
explained that acting on a request from Geoffrey Templestowe, he had
taken rooms for them at a hotel, and secured their tickets and sleeping
sections in the "limited" train for the next day.
"And I told them to save two seats for Rip Van Winkle to-night till you
got there," he added. "If you're not too tired I advise you to go.
Jefferson is an experience which you ought not to miss, and you may
never have another chance."
"How awfully kind your brother is," said the surprised Imogen to Mrs.
Ashe; "all this trouble, and he never saw either of us before! It's very
good of him."
"Oh, that's nothing. That's the way American men do. They _are_ perfect
dears, there's no doubt as to that, and they don't consider anything a
trouble which helps along a friend or a friend's friend. It's a matter
of course over here."
"Well, I don't consider it a matter of course at all. I think it
extraordinary, and it was so very nice in Geoff to send word to Lion."
Then they parted. Meanwhile the little room-mate had been having a
private conference with her "young man." She now joined Imogen.
"Karl says we shall be married directly, in a church, in half an hour,"
she told her. "And oh, won't you and Mr. Young come to be with us? It is
so sad not to have one friend when one is married."
It was impossible to refuse this request; so it happened that the very
first thing Imogen did in America was to attend a wedding. It took place
in an old church, pretty far down town; and she always afterward carried
in her mind the picture of it, dim and sombre in coloring, with the
afternoon sun pouring in through a rich rose window and throwing blue
and red reflections on the little group of five at the altar, while from
outside came the din of wheels and the unceasing tread of busy feet. The
service was soon over, the signatures were made, and the little bride
went down the chancel on her husband's arm, with her face appropriately
turned to the west, and with such a look of secure and unfearing
happiness upon it as was good to see. It was an unusual and typical
scene with which to begin life in a new country, and Imogen liked to
think afterward that she had been there.
Then followed a long drive up town over rough ill-laid pavements,
through dirty streets, varied by dirtier streets, and farther up, by
those that were less dirty. Imogen had never seen anything so shabby as
the poorest of the buildings that they passed, and certainly never
anything quite so fine as the best of them. Squalor and splendor jostled
each other side by side; everywhere there was the same endless throng of
hurrying people, and everywhere the same abundance of flowers for sale,
in pots, in baskets, in bunches, making the whole air of the streets
sweet. Then they came to the hotel, and were shown to their rooms,--high
up, airy, and nicely furnished, though Imogen was at first disposed to
cavil at the absence of bed-curtains.
"It looks so bare," she complained. "At home such a thing would be
considered very odd, very odd indeed. Fancy a bed without curtains!"
"After you've spent one hot night in America you'll be glad enough to
fancy it," replied her brother. "Stuffy old things. It's only in cold
weather that one could endure them over here."
The first few hours on shore after a voyage have a delightfulness all
their own. It is so pleasant to bathe and dress without having to hold
on and guard against lurches and tips. Imogen went about her toilet
well-pleased; and her pleasure was presently increased when she found on
her dressing-table a beautiful bunch of summer roses, with "Mrs.
Geoffrey Templestowe's love and welcome" on a card lying beside it.
Thoughtful Clover had written to Ned Worthington to see to this little
attention, and the pleasure it gave went even farther than she had
hoped.
"I declare," said Imogen, sitting down with the flowers before her, "I
never knew anybody so kind as they all are. I don't feel half so
home-sick as I expected. I must write mamma about these roses. Of course
Mrs. Geoff does it for Isabel's sake; but all the same it is awfully
nice of her, and I shall try not to forget it."
Then, when, after finishing her dressing, she drew the blinds up and
looked from the windows, she gave a cry of sheer pleasure, for there
beneath was spread out a beautiful wide distance of Park with feathery
trees and belts of shrubs, behind which the sun was making ready to set
in a crimson sky. There was a balcony outside the windows, and Imogen
pulled a chair out on it to enjoy the view. Carriages were rolling in at
the Park gates, looking exactly like the equipages one sees in London,
with fat coachmen, glossy horses, and jingling silvered harness. Girls
and young men were cantering along the bridle-paths, and throngs of
well-dressed people filled the walks. Beyond was a fairy lake, where
gondolas shot to and fro; a band was playing; from still farther away
came a peal of chimes from a church tower.
"And this is New York!" thought Imogen. Then her thoughts reverted to
Miss Opdyke and her tale of the Tammany Indians, and she flushed with
sudden vexation.
"What an idiot she must have considered me!" she reflected.
But her insular prejudices revived in full force as a knock was heard,
and a colored boy, entering with a tinkling pitcher, inquired, "Did you
ring for ice-water, lady?"
"No!" said Imogen sharply; "I never drink iced water. I rang for hot
water, but I got it more than an hour ago."
"Beg pardon, lady."
"Why on earth does he call me 'lady'?" she murmured--"so tiresome and
vulgar!"
Then Lionel came for her, and they went down to dinner,--a wonderful
repast, with soups and fishes and vegetables quite unknown to her; a
bewildering succession of meats and entrees, strawberries such as she
had supposed did not grow outside of England, raspberries and currants
such as England never knew, and wonderful blackberries, of great size
and sweetness, bursting with purple juice. There were ices too, served
in the shapes of apples, pears, and stalks of asparagus, which dazzled
her country eyes not a little, while the whole was a terror and
astonishment to her thrifty English mind.
"Lionel, don't keep on ordering things so," she protested. "We are
eating our heads off as it is, I am sure."
"My dear young friend, you are come to the Land of Fat Things," he
replied. "Dinner costs just the same, once you sit down to it, whether
you have a biscuit and a glass of water, or all these things."
"I call it a sinful waste, then," she retorted. "But all the same, since
it is so, I'll take another ice."
"'First endure, then pity, then embrace,'" quoted her brother. "That's
right, Moggy; pitch in, spoil the Egyptians. It doesn't hurt them, and
it will do you lots of good."
From the dinner-table they went straight to the theatre, having decided
to follow Lieut. Worthington's advice and see "Rip Van Winkle." And then
they straightway fell under the spell of a magician who has enchanted
many thousands before them, and for the space of two hours forgot
themselves, their hopes and fears and expectations, while they followed
the fortunes of the idle, lovable, unpractical Rip, up the mountain to
his sleep of years, and down again, white-haired and tottering, to find
himself forgotten by his kin and a stranger in his own home. People
about them were weeping on relays of pocket-handkerchiefs, hanging them
up one by one as they became soaked, and beginning on others. Imogen had
but one handkerchief, but she cried with that till she had to borrow
Lionel's; and he, though he professed to be very stoical, could not
quite command his voice as he tried to chaff her in a whisper on her
emotions, and begged her to "dry up" and remember that it was only a
play after all, and that presently Jefferson would discard his white
hair and wrinkles, go home to a good supper, and make a jolly end to the
evening.
It was almost too exciting for a first night on shore, and if Imogen had
not been so tired, and if her uncurtained bed had not proved so
deliciously comfortable, she would scarcely have slept as she did till
half-past seven the next morning, so that they had to scramble through
breakfast not to lose their train. Once started in the "Limited," with a
library and a lady's-maid, a bath and a bed at her disposal, and just
beyond a daintily appointed dinner-table adorned with fresh
flowers,--all at forty miles an hour,--she had leisure to review her
situation and be astonished. Bustling cities shot past them,--or seemed
to shoot,--beautifully kept country-seats, shabby suburbs where goats
and pigs mounted guard over shanties and cabbage-beds, great tracts of
wild forest, factory towns black with smoke, rivers winding between blue
hill ridges, prairie-like expanses so overgrown with wild-flowers that
they looked all pink or all blue,--everything by turns and nothing long.
It seemed the sequence of the unexpected, a succession of rapidly
changing surprises, for which it was impossible to prepare beforehand.
"I shall never learn to understand it," thought poor perplexed Imogen.