"THE HAPPY FAMILY"
The guests of the Colonial Hotel arose briskly each morning to nothing.
After a night of refreshing and untroubled sleep they dressed and
hurried to breakfast after the manner of travellers making close
connections. Then each repaired to his favourite chair placed in the
same spot on the wide veranda to wait for luncheon. The more energetic
sometimes took a wheel-chair for an hour and were pushed on the
Boardwalk or attended an auction sale of antiques and curios, but mostly
their lives were as placid and as eventful as those of the inmates of an
institution.
The greater number of the male guests of The Colonial had retired from
something--banking, wholesale drugs, the manufacture of woolens. The
families were all perfectly familiar with one another's financial rating
and histories, and although they came from diverse sections of the
country they were for two months or more like one large, supremely
contented family. In truth, they called themselves facetiously "The
Happy Family," and in this way Mr. Cone, who took an immense pride in
them and in the fact that they returned to his hospitable roof summer
after summer, always referred to them.
Strictly speaking, there were two branches of the "Family": those whose
first season antedated 1900, and the "newcomers," who had spent only
eight, or ten, or twelve summers at The Colonial. They were all on the
most friendly terms imaginable, yet each tacitly recognized the
distinction. The original "Happy Family" occupied the rocking chairs on
the right-hand side of the wide veranda, while the "newcomers" took the
left, where the view was not quite so good and there was a trifle less
breeze than on the other.
The less said of the "transients" the better. The few who stumbled in
did not stay unless by chance they were favourably known to one of the
"permanents." Of course there was no rudeness ever--merely the polite
surprise of the regular occupants when they find a stranger in the pew
on Sunday morning. Sometimes the transient stayed out his or her
vacation, but usually he confided to the chambermaid, and sometimes Mr.
Cone, that the guests were "doodledums" and "fossils" and found another
hotel where the patrons, if less solid financially, were more
interesting and sociable.
Wallace Macpherson belonged in the group of older patrons, as his aunt,
Miss Mary Macpherson, had been coming since 1897, and he himself from
the time he wore curls and ruffled collars, or after his aunt had taken
him upon the death of his parents.
"Wallie," as he was called by everybody, as the one eligible man under
sixty, was, in his way, as much of an asset to the hotel as the
notoriously wealthy Mr. Penrose. Of an amiable and obliging disposition,
he could always be relied upon to escort married women with mutinous
husbands, and ladies who had none, mutinous or otherwise. He was
twenty-four, and, in appearance, a credit to any woman he was seen with,
to say nothing of the two hundred thousand it was known he would inherit
from Aunt Mary, who now supported him.
Wallie's appearance upon the veranda was invariably in the nature of a
triumphal entry. He was received with lively acclaim and cordiality as
he flitted impartially from group to group, and that person was
difficult indeed with whom he could not find something in common, for
his range of subjects extended from the "rose pattern" in Irish crochet
to Arctic currents.
The morning on the veranda promised to be a lively one, since, in
addition to the departure of old Mr. Penrose, who had sounded as if he
was wrecking the furniture while packing his boxes, the return from the
war of Will Smith, the gardener's son, was anticipated, and the guests
as an act of patriotism meant to give him a rousing welcome. There was
bunting over the doorway and around the pillars, with red, white, and
blue ice cream for luncheon, and flags on the menu, not to mention a
purse of $17.23 collected among the guests that was to be presented in
appreciation of the valour which, it was understood from letters to his
father, Will had shown on the field of battle.
The guests were in their usual places when Wallie came from breakfast
and stood for a moment in the spacious double doorway. A cheerful chorus
welcomed him as soon as he was discovered, and Mrs. C. D. Budlong put
out her plump hand and held his. He did not speak instantly, for his eye
was roving over the veranda as if in search of somebody, and when it
rested upon Miss Spenceley sitting alone at the far end he seemed
satisfied and inquired solicitously of Mrs. Budlong: "Did you sleep
well? You are looking splendid!"
There were some points of resemblance between Mrs. Budlong and the
oleander in the green tub beside which she was sitting. Her round, fat
face had the pink of the blossoms and she was nearly as motionless as if
she had been potted. She often sat for hours with nothing save her
black, sloe-like eyes that saw everything, to show that she was not in a
state of suspended animation. Her husband called her "Honey-dumplin',"
and they were a most affectionate and congenial couple, although she was
as silent as he was voluble.
"My rest was broken." Mrs. Budlong turned her eyes significantly toward
the far end of the veranda.
"Did you hear that terrible racket?" demanded Mr. Budlong of Wallie.
"Not so loud, 'C. D.,'" admonished Mrs. Budlong. Mrs. Budlong ran the
letters together so that strangers often had the impression she was
calling her husband "Seedy," though the name was as unsuitable as well
could be, since Mr. Budlong in his neat blue serge suit, blue polka-dot
scarf, silk stockings, and polished tan oxfords was well groomed and
dapper always.
"She's driven away our oldest guest." Mr. Budlong lowered his indignant
voice a little.
"He _was_ a nuisance with his snoring," Wallie defended.
"She could have changed her room," said Mrs. Budlong, taking her hand
away from him. "She need not have been so obstinate."
"He was very rude to her," Wallie maintained stoutly. "Sleeping next
door, I heard it all--and this morning in the office."
"Anyway, I think Mr. Cone made a mistake in not insisting upon her
changing her room, and so I shall tell him." Mr. Budlong, who had made
"his" in white lead and paint and kept a chauffeur and a limousine, felt
that his disapproval would mean something to the proprietor.
"Oh, Wallie!"
Wallie felt relieved when he saw Mrs. Henry Appel beckoning him. As he
was on his way to Mrs. Appel Miss Mattie Gaskett clutched at his arm and
detained him.
"Did you see the robins this morning, Wallie?"
"Are they here?"
"Yes, a dozen of them. They do remind me so of my dear Southland." Miss
Gaskett was from Maryland.
"The summer wouldn't be the same without either of you," he replied,
gallantly.
Miss Gaskett shook a coquettish finger at him.
"You flirt! You have pretty speeches for everyone."
Wallie did not seem displeased by the accusation as he passed on to Mrs.
Appel.
The Appels were among the important families of The Colonial because the
richest next to Mr. Penrose. They were from Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Appel owned anthracite coal land and street railways, so if Mr.
Appel squeezed pennies and Mrs. Appel dressed in remnants from the
bargain counter their economies were regarded merely as eccentricities.
Mrs. Appel held up a sweater: "Won't you tell me how to turn this
shoulder? I've forgotten. Do you purl four and knit six, or purl six and
knit four, Wallie?"
Wallie laughed immoderately.
"Eight, Mrs. Appel! Purl eight and knit four--I told you yesterday.
That's a lovely piece of Battenburg, Mrs. Stott. When did you start it?"
"Last month, but I've been so busy with teas and parties--so many, many
things going on. Don't you think it will make a lovely dresser-scarf?
What would you line it with?"
"Pink, absolutely--that delicate shade like the inside of a sea-shell."
"You _are_ such an artist, Wallie! Your taste is perfect."
Wallie did not contradict her.
Strictly, Mrs. Stott did not belong in the group in which she was
seated. She had been coming to The Colonial only eleven years, so
really, she should have been on the other side of the veranda, but Mrs.
Stott had such an insidious way of getting where and what she wanted
that she was "one of them" almost before they knew it.
Mr. Stott was a rising young attorney of forty-eight, and it was
anticipated that he would one day be a leading trial lawyer because of
his aggressiveness.
Wallie's voice took on a sympathetic tone. He stopped in front of a
chair where a very thin young lady was reclining languidly.
"How's the bad heart to-day, Miss Eyester?"
"About as usual, Wallie, thank you," she replied, gratefully.
"Your lips have more colour."
Miss Eyester opened a handbag and, taking out a small, round mirror
which she carried for the purpose, inspected her lips critically.
"It does seem so," she admitted. "If I can just keep from getting
excited."
"I can't imagine a better place than The Colonial." The reply contained
a grain of irony.
"That's why I come here," Miss Eyester sighed, "though I'm _pining_ to
go somewhere livelier."
Wallie wagged his head playfully.
"Treason! Treason! Why, you've been coming here for--" Miss Eyester's
alarmed expression caused him to finish lamely--"for ever so long."
"Wallie!" It was his aunt's voice calling and he went instantly to a
tall, austere lady in a linen collar who was knitting wash-rags with the
feverish haste of a piece-worker in a factory.
He stood before her obediently.
"Don't go in to-day."
"_Why_, Auntie?" In his voice there was a world of disappointment.
"It's too rough--there must have been a storm at sea."
"But, Auntie," he protested, "I missed yesterday, taking Mrs. Appel to
the auction. It isn't very rough----"
"Look at the white-caps," she interrupted, curtly, "I don't want you to
go, Wallie."
"Oh, very well." He turned away abruptly, wondering if she realized how
keenly he was disappointed--a disappointment that was not made less by
the fact that her fears were groundless, since not only was it not
"rough" but he was an excellent swimmer.
"The girl from Wyoming," as he called Miss Spenceley to himself, had
overheard and was looking at him with an expression in her eyes which
made him redden. It was mocking; she was laughing at him for being told
not to go in bathing, as if he were a child of seven.
He sauntered past her, humming, to let her know that he did not care
what she thought about him. When he turned around she had vanished and a
few minutes after he saw her with her suit over her arm on the way to
the bath-house on the exclusive beach in front of The Colonial.