CLAM BEACH.
The Chowder House at Clam Beach is not a giant among the hotels which
line the Atlantic coast. It is designed to accommodate only a hundred
guests, and even at the height of the season it refuses to stretch its
capacity beyond a hundred and fifty. It stands upon a solitary shore,
is some miles from the nearest railway, and shows nothing from its
windows but the tumbling line of surf and the daily procession of
cloud and sunshine across a boundless stretch of sea and sand.
It is a three-storeyed building encased in wooden galleries, which
form outside corridors on the different floors; and it forms three
sides of a square, enclosing to the back a sheltered tennis-lawn for
those who would avoid the bluster of the keen sea-breeze.
The place is resorted to by families with a juvenile division, whose
nurses and small fry burrow in the sand which comes up to the very
doorsteps. It makes no pretence to fashion. The guests feel at liberty
to be happy, each in his own favourite dress and manner, without fear
of being compromised. The young bathe in the surf and walk or ride on
the sands all day; and after the Yankee supper of meats, fruit, and
tea, which takes place at seven, make themselves gay with dances and
singing: while the seniors stroll together in groups, or sit apart,
acquiescing in the American law of life, which gives the world to the
young, and places the middle-aged with the elders on the shelf. The
old may work, if so is their good pleasure, but it is only the lads
and lasses who are to play.
It was early afternoon, in the very hottest of the day. The first bell
for dinner had rung, and the guests were streaming towards the house
from every point along the shore; while the most hungry, already
arrived, loitered on the galleries, and counted the minutes till the
dining-room should be thrown open.
The omnibus from the station, jolting round the corner, and drawing up
before the door, afforded a pleasing diversion from the yearnings of
appetite. It brought the newspapers of the day; and more, it brought
new guests, who, busied in alighting and claiming their luggage,
formed a subject for observation to the idle eyes above, unintroduced
as yet, and therefore at liberty to stare their fill with all the
impertinent curiosity at their disposal.
The ladies counted the boxes on the roof, and turned away with a
sniff. Even at Clam Beach, with its freedom from dress parade, the
number of trunks is taken as a criterion of "standing," and certain
ladies of grand manner from Boston are even suspected of bringing
empty ones to support their position.
The men, toothpick in mouth, continued to stare. There were two pretty
faces visible beneath the flapping brims of broad seaside hats,--one
violet-eyed, with masses of sunny brown hair; the other blond, with
eyes like the forget-me-not,--and they could study them without
prejudice or offence just then. Later, when they met in the parlours
above, it would be different.
Presently the hotel cart trotted up with a number of trunks. A slight
"Ah!" of satisfaction spread itself on the air, and the ladies resumed
their attitude of observation. They were not going to be compromised
after all, it seemed, by the presence of fellow-guests without
ostensible movable property, and forthwith they began to note the
value and fashion of each article of the feminine newcomers' wardrobe,
and the general look of the men. One of these appeared about thirty,
available for flirtation and social uses; while the other was older,
with a suspicion of grey in the short close-cut whisker--a florid and
well-fed man, and seemingly well to do, which was a point in favour of
his female following: and a point of some sort is needed where
available men to marriageable girls stand in the proportion of only
two to five.
Two oldish ladies brought up the number of the arrivals to six; but as
they were dressed in the ordinary manner of the period, nobody noticed
them much. They were mere furniture, intended to remain in corners,
and be sat beside when younger women, finding themselves neglected,
chose to assume demureness under the wing of a chaperon.
"Two trunks. Those! Valise, handbag, rugs, and umbrellas." It was the
younger man who was addressing the porter.
"Oh, Peter!" cried the oldest lady, "have you my parrysol?--and my
book?--and my scent-bottle?--and my spectacle-case? Where can they all
be?"
"You've just left them behind you, mother, as usual. You would have
left yourself, I do believe, if I had not been at your elbow."
"What am I to do for want of my parrysol? Between the hot sun and the
sea air, every bit of colour will be eaten out of my blue ribbons, and
my face just brandered like a raw beef-steak. I wonder if the little
things can have gotten into my pockets!" And so saying, she stepped
forth upon the gravel, where elbow-room was free, shook out her
skirts, and proceeded to dive down deep into apertures she wot of in
all parts of her circumference.
"What's this?" she cried, sinking over the elbow into a pocket on the
far-off side. "What can it be?" And the eyes and eyeglasses in the
galleries were turned in her direction; while Peter, half wroth and
half amused, stood waiting the end of her search.
"It's terrible hard to grip. But there! Now! I've cornered it at last.
Can it be livin', I wonder? The way it runs about! And I canna just
lay finger on it."
"A mouse, mother, is it?" He was growing cross and sarcastic under the
observation of the loungers. "Out with it! Here's a terrier ready to
snap it up."
"Peter Wilkie, hold your peace! Would ye make fun of your own mother,
and all thae impident Yankees looking on? Think shame! Hey! here it is
at last, the bothersome thing!" And out it came, proving to be only a
large-sized peppermint-drop.
"Toot! that's not what I was looking for. Here, my dear!" and without
more ado she popped it into the open mouth of a small boy who stood by
gaping at her in her search, to his complete confusion and the
increased diversion of the gallery.
"See there, Peter! If that's no' the parrysol after all, tied up with
the umbrellies! Just where it should be! And me hunting for it
everywhere! I wonder you didn't see it! And here's the specs and the
scent-bottle all the time in the ridicule at my side! Wonders will
never cease. As for the book, it'll turn up ere I want it; and if
anybody took it, they'll be little made up, for it's just Beattie's
Lectures on the Ten Commandments, and very hard upon the sin of
stealing. And, Peter, be sure and make the landlord give us rooms upon
the first floor. I _can-not_ be climbing stairs--it brings on the
palpitations."
Meanwhile the other tenants of the omnibus had alighted and entered
the house. "A man with a sickly wife and a couple of daughters," was
the verdict upon the party, which was only rectified by reference to
the house-register after they had catalogued themselves--"Joseph
Naylor, Mrs Caleb Naylor, and the Misses Naylor, all of Jones's
Landing, Upper Canada."
"Oh, girls, I am exhausted! Open the windows and the trunks. Hartshorn
and sal-volatile! I shall faint--I am sure I shall faint. Margaret,
get ready to go down with your uncle. Lucy, my child, you must remain
with me."
"Stuff and nonsense, Maria!" said the uncle. They were being shown
their rooms up-stairs. "You have only to exert yourself. That's all
you require to set you up. And of course you must come down to dinner.
The sight of so many strangers will do you good, and we shall want
your help to make up our minds about the company."
Mrs Naylor shook her head in plaintive toleration. It was not to be
expected that coarse-fibred masculinity should comprehend the
susceptibility of her delicate nerves. She half-closed her eyes and
sank into a chair, with every appearance of taking up her quarters for
good--unless, indeed, she should have to be laid upon the adjoining
bed.
Joseph, standing impatiently without, grew uneasy, as perhaps was
intended. He was of an anxious temper, fussy as well as kind. The
responsibility of having a delicate lady on his hands oppressed him.
He had groaned under the load for years, but he had not got used to
it. It oppressed him ever the more, the longer he endured it, and he
was overridden by the whims and complaints of this relict of his
deceased brother, even more than if she had been wife of his own.
"Pray try, sister--try. It is for your health we are here, you know.
It will be distressing if you begin by taking to your bed. I feel
confident that a morsel of dinner and a glass of sparkling wine will
do you good."
I will not say that it was the suggestion of the wine which induced
Mrs Naylor to change her purpose; it may only have been willingness to
yield to entreaty. At any rate, she let herself be persuaded, though
not too easily, and eventually went downstairs with the rest.
At dinner they shared a table with their fellow-travellers of the
omnibus, and found Mr Wilkie and his mother already placed when they
entered.
"Mother," Peter had been saying, "you will have to behave here, or you
will compromise me before all those Toronto people. If they carry back
a tale of queer doings on our part, you will find it harder than ever
to get into society when we go home. There is Mrs Judge Petty with her
son and daughter, and there Colonel and Mrs Carraway, and the
Vice-Chancellor Chickenpips! Mind what you are about. This is not the
Gallowgate of Glasgow--remember that! If they see you biting your
bread or eating with your knife, you're done for; and so am I."
"Peter Wilkie, I wonder ye can have the heart to be speaking like that
to your dying mother!--bringing on the palpitations worse than ever.
Oh, my heart! it's just thumping. If I did take lodgers at one
time--ay, and turn the mangle with my own hands--whose sake was it
done for? Tell me that. I wonder where the money would have come from
to pay for your fine edication if I had chosen to sit and drink my tea
in the afternoons like a feckless leddy, as I might have done! It
wasn't your bankrupt father, danderin' about the doors hand-idle, that
could have helped you. I just slaved with that mangle and the lodgers
to bring up my boay; and now, when he is in a splendid way of doing,
this is the thanks he gives me--to cast the Gallowgate up to me! As if
it wasna you, and your father before you, that brought me down to
that! Think shame of yourself, Peter Wilkie!" And the big round tears
came rattling in a very hailstorm out of the old blue eyes, leaving
watercourses among her ribbons, and mingling with the gravy in her
plate, till the son felt like a brute--or at least he should have felt
so; and he certainly feared that he must appear like one in the eyes
of any fellow-guest who might observe him.
The entrance of the Naylors made a welcome diversion. As they took
their places the old woman's tears dried up of themselves, her eyes
being withdrawn from the inward contemplation of her own distresses to
the lace cap of Mrs Naylor and the gowns of her daughters.
Unconsciously she sat up more squarely in her chair, prinked out her
cap-strings, and wondered if Mrs Naylor's hair could be all her own;
while her son and the gentleman exchanged an observation on the
journey they had made together.
Mrs Naylor was not only of the Provinces, but provincial at that. Like
other "leading ladies" of Jones's Landing, she was wont to inform
strangers that she was "very exclusive," with the gratifying result of
taking away their breath; though perhaps, if she had but known, it was
the stupendous conceit which could imagine herself or her circle in
the smallest degree desirable, rather than the splendour of her
position which astonished them. She had no small opinion of her
"position," but, like other rural great ones, she bowed in her heart
before the superiority of dwellers in the capital. There was a
grandeur in their way of accepting her pretensions, while setting them
calmly aside, which filled her with admiring awe on her rare visits to
Toronto--made her rave about its elegance, and try to play off in
Jones's Landing some of the mannerisms she had found so impressive.
And here it may be observed that, in its way, Toronto is a capital,
even as New York is, or London, and quite as accustomed as either to
put on metropolitan airs, so far as circumstances permit; and seeing
that all mankind are made of one kind of clay, there may be less
difference in the spirit which animates the small community and the
great one than would appear. A cock-boat is built of the same
materials as a man-of-war, and it is floated and steered in accordance
with the same laws of nature.
At a distant table Mrs Naylor descried Mrs Justice Petty, Mrs
Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip, and Mrs Carraway--the very cream of
Toronto society. Ice-cream, alas! they were likely to prove to Mrs
Naylor, as she did not know them, and they made a point of not thawing
to unknown fellow-country-women whom they met in American hotels--it
being difficult to shake them off afterwards, especially the
undesirable ones. So far, indeed, did those ladies' prudence carry
them, that they would only bathe at eccentric hours and in secretly
arranged parties. The very sea should not receive them in the same
embrace with persons from Canada who were not in Society. As for
Americans, it did not matter: they might never meet them again, and
Americans are held to be a peculiar people, without social degrees or
defined lines of demarcation. Everybody among them may be anybody, and
each is expected to have a spice of everything. Among them, vulgarity,
if they have any, is overlooked. They are generally amusing, often
rich, and cannot compromise a Canadian.
Mrs Naylor's eye, surveying the company, lighted on her distinguished
compatriots. She knew them, although she had not the happiness of
being acquainted with them--a humbling thought, which made her
approach with more meekness than otherwise she might have felt, the
two people from Toronto who shared her table. If not the rose, they at
least grew near it, and might--who knew?--be woven into a link of
connection with the queen of flowers. She addressed a polite
observation to the old lady, who, accepting it as a tribute to her
clever son and her own good looks, responded affably, as not unwilling
to confer the favour of her notice, though aware that it was a thing
of value.
And so it came about that, when dinner was over, the Naylor party and
the Wilkies had coalesced, and strolled together to a shady corner of
the galleries, where broad awnings, flapping in fitful air-currents,
lent a little freshness to the languor of the hot and drowsy
afternoon.