The attraction of Bar Harbor is in the union of mountain and sea; the
mountains rise in granite majesty right out of the ocean. The traveler
expects to find a repetition of Mount Athos rising six thousand feet out
of the AEgean.
The Bar-Harborers made a mistake in killing--if they did kill--the
stranger who arrived at this resort from the mainland, and said it would
be an excellent sea-and-mountain place if there were any mountains
or any sea in sight. Instead, if they had taken him in a row-boat and
pulled him out through the islands, far enough, he would have had a
glimpse of the ocean, and if then he had been taken by the cog-railway
seventeen hundred feet to the top of Green Mountain, he would not
only have found himself on firm, rising ground, but he would have been
obliged to confess that, with his feet upon a solid mountain of granite,
he saw innumerable islands and, at a distance, a considerable quantity
of ocean. He would have repented his hasty speech. In two days he would
have been a partisan of the place, and in a week he would have been an
owner of real estate there.
There is undeniably a public opinion in Bar Harbor in favor of it, and
the visitor would better coincide with it. He is anxiously asked at
every turn how he likes it, and if he does not like it he is an object
of compassion. Countless numbers of people who do not own a foot of
land there are devotees of the place. Any number of certificates to its
qualities could be obtained, as to a patent medicine, and they would all
read pretty much alike, after the well-known formula: “The first bottle
I took did, me no good, after the second I was worse, after the third I
improved, after the twelfth I walked fifty miles in one day; and now I
never do without it, I take never less than fifty bottles a year.” So it
would be: “At first I felt just as you do, shut-in place, foggy, stayed
only two days. Only came back again to accompany friends, stayed a week,
foggy, didn't like it. Can't tell how I happened to come back again,
stayed a month, and I tell you, there is no place like it in America.
Spend all my summers here.”
The genesis of Bar Harbor is curious and instructive. For many years,
like other settlements on Mount Desert Island; it had been frequented by
people who have more fondness for nature than they have money, and who
were willing to put up with wretched accommodations, and enjoyed a mild
sort of “roughing it.” But some society people in New York, who have the
reputation of setting the mode, chanced to go there; they declared in
favor of it; and instantly, by an occult law which governs fashionable
life, Bar Harbor became the fashion. Everybody could see its preeminent
attractions. The word was passed along by the Boudoir Telephone from
Boston to New Orleans, and soon it was a matter of necessity for a
debutante, or a woman of fashion, or a man of the world, or a blase
boy, to show themselves there during the season. It became the scene
of summer romances; the student of manners went there to study the
“American girl.” The notion spread that it was the finest sanitarium on
the continent for flirtations; and as trade is said to follow the flag,
so in this case real-estate speculation rioted in the wake of beauty and
fashion.
There is no doubt that the “American girl” is there, as she is at
divers other sea-and-land resorts; but the present peculiarity of
this watering-place is that the American young man is there also. Some
philosophers have tried to account for this coincidence by assuming that
the American girl is the attraction to the young man. But this seems to
me a misunderstanding of the spirit of this generation. Why are young
men quoted as “scarce” in other resorts swarming with sweet girls,
maidens who have learned the art of being agreeable, and interesting
widows in the vanishing shades of an attractive and consolable grief?
No. Is it not rather the cold, luminous truth that the American girl
found out that Bar Harbor, without her presence, was for certain
reasons, such as unconventionality, a bracing air, opportunity for
boating, etc., agreeable to the young man? But why do elderly people
go there? This question must have been suggested by a foreigner, who is
ignorant that in a republic it is the young ones who know what is best
for the elders.
Our tourists passed a weary, hot day on the coast railway of Maine.
Notwithstanding the high temperature, the country seemed cheerless,
the sunlight to fall less genially than in more fertile regions to
the south, upon a landscape stripped of its forests, naked, and
unpicturesque. Why should the little white houses of the prosperous
little villages on the line of the rail seem cold and suggest winter,
and the land seem scrimped and without an atmosphere? It chanced so, for
everybody knows that it is a lovely coast. The artist said it was the
Maine Law. But that could not be, for the only drunken man encountered
on their tour they saw at the Bangor Station, where beer was furtively
sold.
They were plunged into a cold bath on the steamer in the half-hour's
sail from the end of the rail to Bar Harbor. The wind was fresh,
white-caps enlivened the scene, the spray dashed over the huge pile of
baggage on the bow, the passengers shivered, and could little enjoy
the islands and the picturesque shore, but fixed eyes of hope upon the
electric lights which showed above the headlands, and marked the site
of the hotels and the town in the hidden harbor. Spits of rain dashed
in their faces, and in some discomfort they came to the wharf, which
was alive with vehicles and tooters for the hotels. In short, with its
lights and noise, it had every appearance of being an important place,
and when our party, holding on to their seats in a buckboard, were
whirled at a gallop up to Rodick's, and ushered into a spacious office
swarming with people, they realized that they were entering upon a
lively if somewhat haphazard life. The first confused impression was of
a bewildering number of slim, pretty girls, nonchalant young fellows in
lawn-tennis suits, and indefinite opportunities in the halls and parlors
and wide piazzas for promenade and flirtations.
Rodick's is a sort of big boarding-house, hesitating whether to be a
hotel or not, no bells in the rooms, no bills of fare (or rarely one),
no wine-list, a go-as-you-please, help-yourself sort of place, which is
popular because it has its own character, and everybody drifts into it
first or last. Some say it is an acquired taste; that people do not take
to it at first. The big office is a sort of assembly-room, where new
arrivals are scanned and discovered, and it is unblushingly called
the “fish-pond” by the young ladies who daily angle there. Of the
unconventional ways of the establishment Mr. King had an illustration
when he attempted to get some washing done. Having read a notice that
the hotel had no laundry, he was told, on applying at the office, that
if he would bring his things down there they would try to send them
out for him. Not being accustomed to carrying about soiled clothes, he
declined this proposal, and consulted a chambermaid. She told him that
ladies came to the house every day for the washing, and that she
would speak to one of them. No result following this, after a day King
consulted the proprietor, and asked him point blank, as a friend, what
course he would pursue if he were under the necessity of having washing
done in that region. The proprietor said that Mr. King's wants should
be attended to at once. Another day passed without action, when the
chambermaid was again applied to. “There's a lady just come in to the
hall I guess will do it.”
“Is she trustworthy?”
“Don't know, she washes for the woman in the room next to you.” And the
lady was at last secured.
Somebody said that those who were accustomed to luxury at home liked
Rodick's, and that those who were not grumbled. And it was true that
fashion for the moment elected to be pleased with unconventionality,
finding a great zest in freedom, and making a joke of every
inconvenience. Society will make its own rules, and although there are
several other large hotels, and good houses as watering-place hotels go,
and cottage-life here as elsewhere is drawing away its skirts from hotel
life, society understood why a person might elect to stay at Rodick's.
Bar Harbor has one of the most dainty and refined little hotels in the
world-the Malvern. Any one can stay there who is worth two millions of
dollars, or can produce a certificate from the Recorder of New York that
he is a direct descendant of Hendrick Hudson or Diedrich Knickerbocker.
It is needless to say that it was built by a Philadelphian--that is to
say one born with a genius for hotel-keeping. But though a guest at the
Malvern might not eat with a friend at Rodick's, he will meet him as a
man of the world on friendly terms.
Bar Harbor was indeed an interesting society study. Except in some of
the cottages, it might be said that society was on a lark. With all the
manners of the world and the freemasonry of fashionable life, it had
elected to be unconventional. The young ladies liked to appear in
nautical and lawn-tennis toilet, carried so far that one might refer
to the “cut of their jib,” and their minds were not much given to any
elaborate dressing for evening. As to the young gentlemen, if there were
any dress-coats on the island, they took pains not to display them,
but delighted in appearing in the evening promenade, and even in the
ballroom, in the nondescript suits that made them so conspicuous in the
morning, the favorite being a dress of stripes, with striped jockey
cap to match, that did not suggest the penitentiary uniform, because in
state-prisons the stripes run round. This neglige costume was adhered
to even in the ballroom. To be sure, the ballroom was little frequented,
only an adventurous couple now and then gliding over the floor, and
affording scant amusement to the throng gathered on the piazza and about
the open windows. Mrs. Montrose, a stately dame of the old school,
whose standard was the court in the days of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster,
disapproved of this laxity, and when a couple of young fellows in
striped array one evening whirled round the room together, with
brier-wood pipes in their mouths, she was scandalized. If the young
ladies shared her sentiments they made no resolute protests, remembering
perhaps the scarcity of young men elsewhere, and thinking that it is
better to be loved by a lawn-tennis suit than not to be loved at all.
The daughters of Mrs. Montrose thought they should draw the line on the
brier-wood pipe.
Dancing, however, is not the leading occupation at Bar Harbor, it is
rather neglected. A cynic said that the chief occupation was to wait at
the “fishpond” for new arrivals--the young ladies angling while their
mothers and chaperons--how shall we say it to complete the figure?--held
the bait. It is true that they did talk in fisherman's lingo about this,
asked each other if they had a nibble or a bite, or boasted that they
had hauled one in, or complained that it was a poor day for fishing. But
this was all chaff, born of youthful spirits and the air of the place.
If the young men took airs upon themselves under the impression they
were in much demand, they might have had their combs cut if they had
heard how they were weighed and dissected and imitated, and taken off
as to their peculiarities, and known, most of them, by sobriquets
characteristic of their appearance or pretentions. There was one young
man from the West, who would have been flattered with the appellation of
“dude,” so attractive in the fit of his clothes, the manner in which
he walked and used his cane and his eyeglass, that Mr. King wanted very
much to get him and bring him away in a cage. He had no doubt that he
was a favorite with every circle and wanted in every group, and the
young ladies did seem to get a great deal of entertainment out of him.
He was not like the young man in the Scriptures except that he was
credited with having great possessions.
No, the principal occupation at Bar Harbor was not fishing in the
house. It was outdoor exercise, incessant activity in driving, walking,
boating, rowing and sailing--bowling, tennis, and flirtation. There was
always an excursion somewhere, by land or sea, watermelon parties, races
in the harbor in which the girls took part, drives in buckboards which
they organized--indeed, the canoe and the buckboard were in constant
demand. In all this there was a pleasing freedom--of course under proper
chaperonage. And such delightful chaperons as they were, their business
being to promote and not to hinder the intercourse of the sexes!
This activity, this desire to row and walk and drive and to become
acquainted, was all due to the air. It has a peculiar quality. Even
the skeptic has to admit this. It composes his nerves to sleep, it
stimulates to unwonted exertion. The fanatics of the place declare that
the fogs are not damp as at other resorts on the coast. Fashion can
make even a fog dry. But the air is delicious. In this latitude, and by
reason of the hills, the atmosphere is pure and elastic and stimulating,
and it is softened by the presence of the sea. This union gives a
charming effect. It is better than the Maine Law. The air being like
wine, one does not need stimulants. If one is addicted to them and
is afraid to trust the air, he is put to the trouble of sneaking into
masked places, and becoming a party to petty subterfuges for evading the
law. And the wretched man adds to the misdemeanor of this evasion the
moral crime of consuming bad liquor.
“Everybody” was at Bar Harbor, or would be there in course of the
season. Mrs. Cortlandt was there, and Mrs. Pendragon of New Orleans, one
of the most brilliant, amiable, and charming of women. I remember her
as far back as the seventies. A young man like Mr. King, if he could
be called young, could not have a safer and more sympathetic social
adviser. Why are not all handsome women cordial, good-tempered,
and well-bred! And there were the Ashleys--clever mother and three
daughters, au-fait girls, racy and witty talkers; I forget whether they
were last from Paris, Washington, or San Francisco. Family motto: “Don't
be dull.” All the Van Dams from New York, and the Sleiderheifers and
Mulligrubs of New Jersey, were there for the season, some of them in
cottages. These families are intimate, even connected by marriage, with
the Bayardiers of South Carolina and the Lontoons of Louisiana. The
girls are handsome, dashing women, without much information, but
rattling talkers, and so exclusive! and the young men, with a Piccadilly
air, fancy that they belong to the “Prince of Wales set,” you know.
There is a good deal of monarchical simplicity in our heterogeneous
society.
Mrs. Cortlandt was quite in her element here as director-general of
expeditions and promoter of social activity. “I have been expecting
you,” she was kind enough to say to Mr. King the morning after his
arrival. “Kitty Van Sanford spied you last night, and exclaimed, 'There,
now, is a real reinforcement!' You see that you are mortgaged already.”
“It's very kind of you to expect me. Is there anybody else here I know?”
“Several hundreds, I should say. If you cannot find friends here, you
are a subject for an orphan-asylum. And you have not seen anybody?”
“Well, I was late at breakfast.”
“And you have not looked on the register?”
“Yes, I did run my eye over the register.”
“And you are standing right before me and trying to look as if you did
not know that Irene Benson is in the house. I didn't think, Mr. King, it
had gone that far-indeed I didn't. You know I'm in a manner responsible
for it. And I heard all about you at Newport. She's a heart of gold,
that girl.”
“Did she--did Miss Benson say anything about Newport?”
“No. Why?”
“Oh, I didn't know but she might have mentioned how she liked it.”
“I don't think she liked it as much as her mother did. Mrs. Benson talks
of nothing else. Irene said nothing special to me. I don't know what she
may have said to Mr. Meigs,” this wily woman added, in the most natural
manner.
“Who is Mr. Meigs?”
“Mr. Alfred Meigs, Boston. He is a rich widower, about forty--the most
fascinating age for a widower, you know. I think he is conceited, but
he is really a most entertaining man; has traveled all over the
world--Egypt, Persia--lived in Japan, prides himself a little on never
having been in Colorado or Florida.”
“What does he do?”
“Do? He drives Miss Benson to Otter Cliffs, and out on the Cornice Road,
about seven days in the week, and gets up sailing-parties and all that
in the intervals.”
“I mean his occupation.”
“Isn't that occupation enough? Well, he has a library and a little
archaeological museum, and prints monographs on art now and then. If he
were a New-Yorker, you know, he would have a yacht instead of a library.
There they are now.”
A carriage with a pair of spirited horses stood at the bottom of the
steps on the entrance side. Mrs. Cortlandt and King turned the corner
of the piazza and walked that way. On the back seat were Mrs. Benson and
Mrs. Simpkins. The gentleman holding the reins was just helping Irene
to the high seat in front. Mr. King was running down the long flight of
steps. Mrs. Benson saw him, bowed most cordially, and called his name.
Irene, turning quickly, also bowed--he thought there was a flush on her
face. The gentleman, in the act of starting the horses, raised his hat.
King was delighted to notice that he was bald. He had a round head,
snugly-trimmed beard slightly dashed with gray, was short and a trifle
stout--King thought dumpy. “I suppose women like that kind of man,” he
said to Mrs. Cortlandt when the carriage was out of sight.
“Why not? He has perfect manners; he knows the world--that is a great
point, I can tell you, in the imagination of a girl; he is rich; and he
is no end obliging.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Several days. They happened to come up from the Isles of Shoals
together. He is somehow related to the Simpkinses. There! I've wasted
time enough on you. I must go and see Mrs. Pendragon about a watermelon
party to Jordan Pond. You'll see, I'll arrange something.”
King had no idea what a watermelon party was, but he was pleased to
think that it was just the sort of thing that Mr. Meigs would shine
in. He said to himself that he hated dilettante snobs. His bitter
reflections were interrupted by the appearance of Miss Lamont and the
artist, and with them Mr. Benson. The men shook hands with downright
heartiness. Here is a genuine man, King was thinking.
“Yes. We are still at it,” he said, with his humorous air of
resignation. “I tell my wife that I'm beginning to understand how old
Christian felt going through Vanity Fair. We ought to be pretty near
the Heavenly Gates by this time. I reckoned she thought they opened into
Newport. She said I ought to be ashamed to ridicule the Bible. I had to
have my joke. It's queer how different the world looks to women.”
“And how does it look to men?” asked Miss Lamont.
“Well, my dear young lady, it looks like a good deal of fuss, and
tolerably large bills.”
“But what does it matter about the bills if you enjoy yourself?”
“That's just it. Folks work harder to enjoy themselves than at anything
else I know. Half of them spend more money than they can afford to, and
keep under the harrow all the time, just because they see others spend
money.”
“I saw your wife and daughter driving away just now,” said King,
shifting the conversation to a more interesting topic.
“Yes. They have gone to take a ride over what they call here the
Cornneechy. It's a pretty enough road along the bay, but Irene says
it's about as much like the road in Europe they name it from as Green
Mountain is like Mount Blanck. Our folks seem possessed to stick a
foreign name on to everything. And the road round through the scrub to
Eagle Lake they call Norway. If Norway is like that, it's pretty short
of timber. If there hadn't been so much lumbering here, I should like
it better. There is hardly a decent pine-tree left. Mr. Meigs--they have
gone riding with Mr. Meigs--says the Maine government ought to have a
Maine law that amounts to something--one that will protect the forests,
and start up some trees on the coast.”
“Is Mr. Meigs in the lumber business?” asked King.
“Only for scenery, I guess. He is great on scenery. He's a Boston man.
I tell the women that he is what I call a bric-er-brac man. But you
come to set right down with him, away from women, and he talks just as
sensible as anybody. He is shrewd enough. It beats all how men are with
men and with women.”
Mr. Benson was capable of going on in this way all day. But the artist
proposed a walk up to Newport, and Mr. King getting Mrs. Pendragon
to accompany them, the party set out. It is a very agreeable climb up
Newport, and not difficult; but if the sun is out, one feels, after
scrambling over the rocks and walking home by the dusty road, like
taking a long pull at a cup of shandygaff. The mountain is a solid mass
of granite, bare on top, and commands a noble view of islands and ocean,
of the gorge separating it from Green Mountain, and of that respectable
hill. For this reason, because it is some two or three hundred feet
lower than Green Mountain, and includes that scarred eminence in its
view, it is the most picturesque and pleasing elevation on the island.
It also has the recommendation of being nearer to the sea than its
sister mountain. On the south side, by a long slope, it comes nearly to
the water, and the longing that the visitor to Bar Harbor has to see the
ocean is moderately gratified. The prospect is at once noble and poetic.
Mrs. Pendragon informed Mr. King that he and Miss Lamont and Mr. Forbes
were included in the watermelon party that was to start that afternoon
at five o'clock. The plan was for the party to go in buckboards to Eagle
Lake, cross that in the steamer, scramble on foot over the “carry” to
Jordan Pond, take row-boats to the foot of that, and find at a farmhouse
there the watermelons and other refreshments, which would be sent by the
shorter road, and then all return by moonlight in the buckboards.
This plan was carried out. Mrs. Cortlandt, Mrs. Pendragon, and Mrs.
Simpkins were to go as chaperons, and Mr. Meigs had been invited by Mrs.
Cortlandt, King learned to his disgust, also to act as a chaperon. All
the proprieties are observed at Bar Harbor. Half a dozen long buckboards
were loaded with their merry freight. At the last Mrs. Pendragon pleaded
a headache, and could not go. Mr. King was wandering about among the
buckboards to find an eligible seat. He was not put in good humor by
finding that Mr. Meigs had ensconced himself beside Irene, and he was
about crowding in with the Ashley girls--not a bad fate--when word was
passed down the line from Mrs. Cortlandt, who was the autocrat of the
expedition, that Mr. Meigs was to come back and take a seat with Mrs.
Simpkins in the buckboard with the watermelons. She could not walk
around the “carry”; she must go by the direct road, and of course she
couldn't go alone. There was no help for it, and Mr. Meigs, looking as
cheerful as an undertaker in a healthy season, got down from his seat
and trudged back. Thus two chaperons were disposed of at a stroke, and
the young men all said that they hated to assume so much responsibility.
Mr. King didn't need prompting in this emergency; the wagons were
already moving, and before Irene knew exactly what had happened, Mr.
King was begging her pardon for the change, and seating himself beside
her. And he was thinking, “What a confoundedly clever woman Mrs.
Cortlandt is!”
There is an informality about a buckboard that communicates itself
at once to conduct. The exhilaration of the long spring-board, the
necessity of holding on to something or somebody to prevent being tossed
overboard, put occupants in a larkish mood that they might never attain
in an ordinary vehicle. All this was favorable to King, and it relieved
Irene from an embarrassment she might have felt in meeting him under
ordinary circumstances. And King had the tact to treat himself and their
meeting merely as accidents.
“The American youth seem to have invented a novel way of disposing
of chaperons,” he said. “To send them in one direction and the party
chaperoned in another is certainly original.”
“I'm not sure the chaperons like it. And I doubt if it is proper to pack
them off by themselves, especially when one is a widow and the other is
a widower.”
“It's a case of chaperon eat chaperon. I hope your friend didn't mind
it. I had nearly despaired of finding a seat.”
“Mr. Meigs? He did not say he liked it, but he is the most obliging of
men.”
“I suppose you have pretty well seen the island?”
“We have driven about a good deal. We have seen Southwest Harbor, and
Somes's Sound and Schooner Head, and the Ovens and Otter Cliffs--there's
no end of things to see; it needs a month. I suppose you have been up
Green Mountain?”
“No. I sent Mr. Forbes.”
“You ought to go. It saves buying a map. Yes, I like the place
immensely. You mustn't judge of the variety here by the table at
Rodick's. I don't suppose there's a place on the coast that compares
with it in interest; I mean variety of effects and natural beauty. If
the writers wouldn't exaggerate so, talk about 'the sublimity of the
mountains challenging the eternal grandeur of the sea'!”
“Don't use such strong language there on the back seat,” cried Miss
Lamont. “This is a pleasure party. Mr. Van Dusen wants to know why Maud
S. is like a salamander?”
“He is not to be gratified, Marion. If it is conundrums, I shall get out
and walk.”
Before the conundrum was guessed, the volatile Van Dusen broke out into,
“Here's a how d'e do!” One of the Ashley girls in the next wagon caught
up the word with, “Here's a state of things!” and the two buckboards
went rattling down the hill to Eagle Lake in a “Mikado” chorus.
“The Mikado troupe seems to have got over here in advance of Sullivan,”
said Mr. King to Irene. “I happened to see the first representation.”
“Oh, half these people were in London last spring. They give you the
impression that they just run over to the States occasionally. Mr.
Van Dusen says he keeps his apartments in whatever street it is off
Piccadilly, it's so much more convenient.”
On the steamer crossing the lake, King hoped for an opportunity to make
an explanation to Irene. But when the opportunity came he found it very
difficult to tell what it was he wanted to explain, and so blundered on
in commonplaces.
“You like Bar Harbor so well,” he said, “that I suppose your father will
be buying a cottage here?”
“Hardly. Mr. Meigs” (King thought there was too much Meigs in the
conversation) “said that he had once thought of doing so, but he likes
the place too well for that. He prefers to come here voluntarily. The
trouble about owning a cottage at a watering-place is that it makes a
duty of a pleasure. You can always rent, father says. He has noticed
that usually when a person gets comfortably established in a summer
cottage he wants to rent it.”
“And you like it better than Newport?”
“On some accounts--the air, you know, and--”
“I want to tell you,” he said breaking in most illogically--“I want to
tell you, Miss Benson, that it was all a wretched mistake at Newport
that morning. I don't suppose you care, but I'm afraid you are not quite
just to me.”
“I don't think I was unjust.” The girl's voice was low, and she spoke
slowly. “You couldn't help it. We can't any of us help it. We cannot
make the world over, you know.” And she looked up at him with a faint
little smile.
“But you didn't understand. I didn't care for any of those people. It
was just an accident. Won't you believe me? I do not ask much. But I
cannot have you think I'm a coward.”
“I never did, Mr. King. Perhaps you do not see what society is as I do.
People think they can face it when they cannot. I can't say what I mean,
and I think we'd better not talk about it.”
The boat was landing; and the party streamed up into the woods, and
with jest and laughter and feigned anxiety about danger and assistance,
picked its way over the rough, stony path. It was such a scramble as
young ladies enjoy, especially if they are city bred, for it seems to
them an achievement of more magnitude than to the country lasses who see
nothing uncommon or heroic in following a cow-path. And the young men
like it because it brings out the trusting, dependent, clinging nature
of girls. King wished it had been five miles long instead of a mile
and a half. It gave him an opportunity to show his helpful, considerate
spirit. It was necessary to take her hand to help her over the bad
spots, and either the bad spots increased as they went on, or Irene
was deceived about it. What makes a path of this sort so perilous to a
woman's heart? Is it because it is an excuse for doing what she longs to
do? Taking her hand recalled the day on the rocks at Narragansett, and
the nervous clutch of her little fingers, when the footing failed, sent
a delicious thrill through her lover. King thought himself quite in love
with Forbes--there was the warmest affection between the two--but when
he hauled the artist up a Catskill cliff there wasn't the least of this
sort of a thrill in the grip of hands. Perhaps if women had the ballot
in their hands all this nervous fluid would disappear out of the world.
At Jordan Pond boats were waiting. It is a pretty fresh-water pond
between high sloping hills, and twin peaks at the north end give it even
picturesqueness. There are a good many trout in it--at least that is the
supposition, for the visitors very seldom get them out. When the boats
with their chattering passengers had pushed out into the lake and
accomplished a third of the voyage, they were met by a skiff containing
the faithful chaperons Mrs. Simpkins and Mr. Meigs. They hailed, but
Mr. King, who was rowing his boat, did not slacken speed. “Are you much
tired, Miss Benson?” shouted Mr. Meigs. King didn't like this assumption
of protection. “I've brought you a shawl.”
“Hang his paternal impudence!” growled King, under his breath, as he
threw himself back with a jerk on the oars that nearly sent Irene over
the stern of the boat.
Evidently the boat-load, of which the Ashley girls and Mr. Van Dusen
were a part, had taken the sense of this little comedy, for immediately
they struck up:
“For he is going to marry Yum-Yum--
Yum-Yum!
For he is going to marry Yum-Yum--
Yum-Yum!”
This pleasantry passed entirely over the head of Irene, who had not
heard the “Mikado,” but King accepted it as a good omen, and forgave its
impudence. It set Mr. Meigs thinking that he had a rival.
At the landing, however, Mr. Meigs was on hand to help Irene out, and
a presentation of Mr. King followed. Mr. Meigs was polite even to
cordiality, and thanked him for taking such good care of her. Men will
make such blunders sometimes.
“Oh, we are old friends,” she said carelessly.
Mr. Meigs tried to mend matters by saying that he had promised Mrs.
Benson, you know, to look after her. There was that in Irene's manner
that said she was not to be appropriated without leave. But the
consciousness that her look betrayed this softened her at once towards
Mr. Meigs, and decidedly improved his chances for the evening. The
philosopher says that women are cruelest when they set out to be kind.
The supper was an 'al fresco' affair, the party being seated about on
rocks and logs and shawls spread upon the grass near the farmer's house.
The scene was a very pretty one, at least the artist thought so, and
Miss Lamont said it was lovely, and the Ashley girls declared it was
just divine. There was no reason why King should not enjoy the chaff and
merriment and the sunset light which touched the group, except that
the one woman he cared to serve was enveloped in the attentions of
Mr. Meigs. The drive home in the moonlight was the best part of the
excursion, or it would have been if there had not been a general change
of seats ordered, altogether, as Mr. King thought, for the accommodation
of the Boston man. It nettled him that Irene let herself fall to the
escort of Mr. Meigs, for women can always arrange these things if they
choose, and he had only a melancholy satisfaction in the college songs
and conundrums that enlivened the festive buckboard in which he was a
passenger. Not that he did not join in the hilarity, but it seemed only
a poor imitation of pleasure. Alas, that the tone of one woman's voice,
the touch of her hand, the glance of her eye, should outweigh the world!
Somehow, with all the opportunities, the suit of our friend did not
advance beyond a certain point. Irene was always cordial, always
friendly, but he tried in vain to ascertain whether the middle-aged man
from Boston had touched her imagination. There was a boating party the
next evening in Frenchman's Bay, and King had the pleasure of pulling
Miss Benson and Miss Lamont out seaward under the dark, frowning cliffs
until they felt the ocean swell, and then of making the circuit of
Porcupine Island. It was an enchanting night, full of mystery. The rock
face of the Porcupine glistened white in the moonlight as if it were
encrusted with salt, the waves beat in a continuous roar against its
base, which is honeycombed by the action of the water, and when the boat
glided into its shadow it loomed up vast and wonderful. Seaward were the
harbor lights, the phosphorescent glisten of the waves, the dim forms of
other islands; all about in the bay row-boats darted in and out of the
moonlight, voices were heard calling from boat to boat, songs floated
over the water, and the huge Portland steamer came plunging in out of
the night, a blazing, trembling monster. Not much was said in the boat,
but the impression of such a night goes far in the romance of real life.
Perhaps it was this impression that made her assent readily to a walk
next morning with Mr. King along the bay. The shore is nearly all
occupied by private cottages, with little lawns running down to the
granite edge of the water. It is a favorite place for strolling; couples
establish themselves with books and umbrellas on the rocks, children are
dabbling in the coves, sails enliven the bay, row-boats dart about, the
cawing of crows is heard in the still air. Irene declared that the scene
was idyllic. The girl was in a most gracious humor, and opened her life
more to King than she had ever done before. By such confidences usually
women invite avowals, and as the two paced along, King felt the moment
approach when there would be the most natural chance in the world for
him to tell this woman what she was to him; at the next turn in the
shore, by that rock, surely the moment would come. What is this airy
nothing by which women protect themselves in such emergencies, by a
question, by a tone, an invisible strong barrier that the most impetuous
dare not attempt to break?
King felt the subtle restraint which he could not define or explain. And
before he could speak she said: “We are going away tomorrow.” “We? And
who are we?” “Oh, the Simpkinses and our whole family, and Mr. Meigs.”
“And where?”
“Mr. Meigs has persuaded mother into the wildest scheme. It is nothing
less than to leap from, here across all the intervening States to the
White Sulphur Springs in Virginia. Father falls into the notion because
he wants to see more of the Southerners, Mrs. Simpkins and her daughter
are crazy to go, and Mr. Meigs says he has been trying to get there all
his life, and in August the season is at its height. It was all arranged
before I was consulted, but I confess I rather like it. It will be a
change.”
“Yes, I should think it would be delightful,” King replied, rather
absent-mindedly. “It's a long journey, a very long journey. I should
think it would be too long a journey for Mr. Meigs--at his time of
life.”
It was not a fortunate remark, and still it might be; for who could tell
whether Irene would not be flattered by this declaration of his jealousy
of Mr. Meigs. But she passed it over as not serious, with the remark
that the going did not seem to be beyond the strength of her father.
The introduction of Mr. Meigs in the guise of an accepted family
friend and traveling companion chilled King and cast a gloom over
the landscape. Afterwards he knew that he ought to have dashed in and
scattered this encompassing network of Meigs, disregarded the girl's
fence of reserve, and avowed his love. More women are won by a single
charge at the right moment than by a whole campaign of strategy.
On the way back to the hotel he was absorbed in thought, and he burst
into the room where Forbes was touching up one of his sketches, with a
fully-formed plan. “Old fellow, what do you say to going to Virginia?”
Forbes put in a few deliberate touches, moving his head from side to
side, and with aggravating slowness said, “What do you want to go to
Virginia for?”
“Why White Sulphur, of course; the most characteristic watering-place
in America. See the whole Southern life there in August; and there's the
Natural Bridge.”
“I've seen pictures of the Natural Bridge. I don't know as I care much”
(still contemplating the sketch from different points of view, and
softly whistling) “for the whole of Southern life.”
“See here, Forbes, you must have some deep design to make you take that
attitude.”
“Deep design!” replied Forbes, facing round. “I'll be hanged if I see
what you are driving at. I thought it was Saratoga and Richfield, and
mild things of that sort.”
“And the little Lamont. I know we talked of going there with her and her
uncle; but we can go there afterwards. I tell you what I'll do: I'll go
to Richfield, and stay till snow comes, if you will take a dip with
me down into Virginia first. You ought to do it for your art. It's
something new, picturesque--negroes, Southern belles, old-time manners.
You cannot afford to neglect it.”
“I don't see the fun of being yanked all over the United States in the
middle of August.”
“You want shaking up. You've been drawing seashores with one figure in
them till your pictures all look like--well, like Lamont and water.”
“That's better,” Forbes retorted, “than Benson and gruel.”
And the two got into a huff. The artist took his sketch-book and went
outdoors, and King went to his room to study the guide-books and the map
of Virginia. The result was that when the friends met for dinner, King
said:
“I thought you might do it for me, old boy.”
And Forbes replied: “Why didn't you say so? I don't care a rap where I
go. But it's Richfield afterwards.”