The days went by at the White Sulphur on the wings of incessant gayety.
Literally the nights were filled with music, and the only cares that
infested the day appeared in the anxious faces of the mothers as the
campaign became more intricate and uncertain. King watched this with the
double interest of spectator and player. The artist threw himself into
the melee with abandon, and pacified his conscience by an occasional
letter to Miss Lamont, in which he confessed just as many of his
conquests and defeats as he thought it would be good for her to know.
The colored people, who are a conspicuous part of the establishment,
are a source of never-failing interest and amusement. Every morning the
mammies and nurses with their charges were seated in a long, shining
row on a part of the veranda where there was most passing and repassing,
holding a sort of baby show, the social consequence of each one
depending upon the rank of the family who employed her, and the dress
of the children in her charge. High-toned conversation on these topics
occupied these dignified and faithful mammies, upon whom seemed to rest
to a considerable extent the maintenance of the aristocratic social
traditions. Forbes had heard that while the colored people of the South
had suspended several of the ten commandments, the eighth was especially
regarded as nonapplicable in the present state of society. But he was
compelled to revise this opinion as to the White Sulphur. Nobody ever
locked a door or closed a window. Cottages most remote were left for
hours open and without guard, miscellaneous articles of the toilet were
left about, trunks were not locked, waiters, chambermaids, porters,
washerwomen, were constantly coming and going, having access to the
rooms at all hours, and yet no guest ever lost so much as a hairpin or a
cigar. This fashion of trust and of honesty so impressed the artist that
he said he should make an attempt to have it introduced elsewhere. This
sort of esprit de corps among the colored people was unexpected, and
he wondered if they are not generally misunderstood by writers who
attribute to them qualities of various kinds that they do not possess.
The negro is not witty or consciously humorous, or epigrammatic. The
humor of his actions and sayings lies very much in a certain primitive
simplicity. Forbes couldn't tell, for instance, why he was amused at a
remark he heard one morning in the store. A colored girl sauntered in,
looking about vacantly. “You ain't got no cotton, is you?” “Why, of
course we have cotton.” “Well” (the girl only wanted an excuse to say
something), “I only ast, is you?”
Sports of a colonial and old English flavor that have fallen into disuse
elsewhere varied the life at the White. One day the gentlemen rode in
a mule-race, the slowest mule to win, and this feat was followed by an
exhibition of negro agility in climbing the greased pole and catching
the greased pig; another day the cavaliers contended on the green field
surrounded by a brilliant array of beauty and costume, as two Amazon
baseball nines, the one nine arrayed in yellow cambric frocks and
sun-bonnets, and the other in bright red gowns--the whiskers and big
boots and trousers adding nothing whatever to the illusion of the female
battle.
The two tables, King's and the Benson's, united in an expedition to the
Old Sweet, a drive of eighteen miles. Mrs. Farquhar arranged the affair,
and assigned the seats in the carriages. It is a very picturesque drive,
as are all the drives in this region, and if King did not enjoy it, it
was not because Mrs. Farquhar was not even more entertaining than usual.
The truth is that a young man in love is poor company for himself and
for everybody else. Even the object of his passion could not tolerate
him unless she returned it. Irene and Mr. Meigs rode in the carriage
in advance of his, and King thought the scenery about the tamest he had
ever seen, the roads bad, the horses slow. His ill-humor, however, was
concentrated on one spot; that was Mr. Meigs's back; he thought he had
never seen a more disagreeable back, a more conceited back. It ought to
have been a delightful day; in his imagination it was to be an eventful
day. Indeed, why shouldn't the opportunity come at the Old Sweet, at
the end of the drive?--there was something promising in the name. Mrs.
Farquhar was in a mocking mood all the way. She liked to go to the Old
Sweet, she said, because it was so intolerably dull; it was a sensation.
She thought, too, that it might please Miss Benson, there was such a
fitness in the thing--the old sweet to the Old Sweet. “And he is not so
very old either,” she added; “just the age young girls like. I should
think Miss Benson in danger--seriously, now--if she were three or four
years younger.”
The Old Sweet is, in fact, a delightful old-fashioned resort,
respectable and dull, with a pretty park, and a crystal pond that
stimulates the bather like a glass of champagne, and perhaps has the
property of restoring youth. King tried the spring, which he heard Mrs.
Farquhar soberly commending to Mr. Meigs; and after dinner he manoeuvred
for a half-hour alone with Irene. But the fates and the women were
against him. He had the mortification to see her stroll away with
Mr. Meigs to a distant part of the grounds, where they remained in
confidential discourse until it was time to return.
In the rearrangement of seats Mrs. Farquhar exchanged with Irene. Mrs.
Farquhar said that it was very much like going to a funeral each way. As
for Irene, she was in high, even feverish spirits, and rattled away in
a manner that convinced King that she was almost too happy to contain
herself.
Notwithstanding the general chaff, the singing, and the gayety of Irene,
the drive seemed to him intolerably long. At the half-way house, where
in the moonlight the horses drank from a shallow stream, Mr. Meigs came
forward to the carriage and inquired if Miss Benson was sufficiently
protected against the chilliness of the night. King had an impulse to
offer to change seats with him; but no, he would not surrender in the
face of the enemy. It would be more dignified to quietly leave the
Springs the next day.
It was late at night when the party returned. The carriage drove to the
Benson cottage; King helped Irene to alight, coolly bade her good-night,
and went to his barracks. But it was not a good night to sleep. He
tossed about, he counted every step of the late night birds on his
gallery; he got up and lighted a cigar, and tried dispassionately to
think the matter over. But thinking was of no use. He took pen and
paper; he would write a chill letter of farewell; he would write a manly
avowal of his passion; he would make such an appeal that no woman could
resist it. She must know, she did know--what was the use of writing? He
sat staring at the blank prospect. Great heavens! what would become
of his life if he lost the only woman in the world? Probably the world
would go on much the same. Why, listen to it! The band was playing on
the lawn at four o'clock in the morning. A party was breaking up after
a night of german and a supper, and the revelers were dispersing. The
lively tunes of “Dixie,” “Marching through Georgia,” and “Home, Sweet
Home,” awoke the echoes in all the galleries and corridors, and
filled the whole encampment with a sad gayety. Dawn was approaching.
Good-nights and farewells and laughter were heard, and the voice of a
wanderer explaining to the trees, with more or less broken melody, his
fixed purpose not to go home till morning.
Stanhope King might have had a better though still a sleepless night if
he had known that Mr. Meigs was packing his trunks at that hour to the
tune of “Home, Sweet Home,” and if he had been aware of the scene at the
Benson cottage after he bade Irene good-night. Mrs. Benson had a light
burning, and the noise of the carriage awakened her. Irene entered the
room, saw that her mother was awake, shut the door carefully, sat down
on the foot of the bed, said, “It's all over, mother,” and burst into
the tears of a long-repressed nervous excitement.
“What's over, child?” cried Mrs. Benson, sitting bolt-upright in bed.
“Mr. Meigs. I had to tell him that it couldn't be. And he is one of the
best men I ever knew.”
“You don't tell me you've gone and refused him, Irene?”
“Please don't scold me. It was no use. He ought to have seen that I did
not care for him, except as a friend. I'm so sorry!”
“You are the strangest girl I ever saw.” And Mrs. Benson dropped back on
the pillow again, crying herself now, and muttering, “I'm sure I don't
know what you do want.”
When King came out to breakfast he encountered Mr. Benson, who told
him that their friend Mr. Meigs had gone off that morning--had a sudden
business call to Boston. Mr. Benson did not seem to be depressed about
it. Irene did not appear, and King idled away the hours with his equally
industrious companion under the trees. There was no german that morning,
and the hotel band was going through its repertoire for the benefit of
a champagne party on the lawn. There was nothing melancholy about this
party; and King couldn't help saying to Mrs. Farquhar that it hardly
represented his idea of the destitution and depression resulting from
the war; but she replied that they must do something to keep up their
spirits.
“And I think,” said the artist, who had been watching, from the little
distance at which they sat, the table of the revelers, “that they will
succeed. Twenty-six bottles of champagne, and not many more guests! What
a happy people, to be able to enjoy champagne before twelve o'clock!”
“Oh, you never will understand us!” said Mrs. Farquhar; “there is
nothing spontaneous in you.”
“We do not begin to be spontaneous till after dinner,” said King.
“And then it is all calculated. Think of Mr. Forbes counting the
bottles! Such a dreadfully mercenary spirit! Oh, I have been North.
Because you are not so open as we are, you set up for being more
virtuous.”
“And you mean,” said King, “that frankness and impulse cover a multitude
of--”
“I don't mean anything of the sort. I just mean that conventionality
isn't virtue. You yourself confessed that you like the Southern openness
right much, and you like to come here, and you like the Southern people
as they are at home.”
“Well?”
“And now will you tell me, Mr. Prim, why it is that almost all Northern
people who come South to live become more Southern than the Southerners
themselves; and that almost all Southern people who go North to live
remain just as Southern as ever?”
“No. Nor do I understand any more than Dr. Johnson did why the Scotch,
who couldn't scratch a living at home, and came up to London, always
kept on bragging about their native land and abused the metropolis.”
This sort of sparring went on daily, with the result of increasing
friendship between the representatives of the two geographical sections,
and commonly ended with the declaration on Mrs. Farquhar's part that
she should never know that King was not born in the South except for
his accent; and on his part that if Mrs. Farquhar would conceal her
delightful Virginia inflection she would pass everywhere at the North
for a Northern woman.
“I hear,” she said, later, as they sat alone, “that Mr. Meigs has beat a
retreat, saving nothing but his personal baggage. I think Miss Benson
is a great goose. Such a chance for an establishment and a position! You
didn't half appreciate him.”
“I'm afraid I did not.”
“Well, it is none of my business; but I hope you understand the
responsibility of the situation. If you do not, I want to warn you about
one thing: don't go strolling off before sunset in the Lovers' Walk. It
is the most dangerous place. It is a fatal place. I suppose every turn
in it, every tree that has a knoll at the foot where two persons can
sit, has witnessed a tragedy, or, what is worse, a comedy. There are
legends enough about it to fill a book. Maybe there is not a Southern
woman living who has not been engaged there once at least. I'll tell you
a little story for a warning. Some years ago there was a famous belle
here who had the Springs at her feet, and half a dozen determined
suitors. One of them, who had been unable to make the least impression
on her heart, resolved to win her by a stratagem. Walking one evening
on the hill with her, the two stopped just at a turn in the walk--I
can show you the exact spot, with a chaperon--and he fell into earnest
discourse with her. She was as cool and repellant as usual. Just then
he heard a party approaching; his chance had come. The moment the party
came in sight he suddenly kissed her. Everybody saw it. The witnesses
discreetly turned back. The girl was indignant. But the deed was done.
In half an hour the whole Springs would know it. She was compromised.
No explanations could do away with the fact that she had been kissed in
Lovers' Walk. But the girl was game, and that evening the engagement was
announced in the drawing-room. Isn't that a pretty story?”
However much Stanhope might have been alarmed at this recital, he
betrayed nothing of his fear that evening when, after walking to the
spring with Irene, the two sauntered along and unconsciously, as it
seemed, turned up the hill into that winding path which has been trodden
by generations of lovers with loitering steps--steps easy to take and
so hard to retrace! It is a delightful forest, the walk winding about
on the edge of the hill, and giving charming prospects of intervales,
stream, and mountains. To one in the mood for a quiet hour with nature,
no scene could be more attractive.
The couple walked on, attempting little conversation, both apparently
prepossessed and constrained. The sunset was spoken of, and when Irene
at length suggested turning back, that was declared to be King's object
in ascending the hill to a particular point; but whether either of them
saw the sunset, or would have known it from a sunrise, I cannot say. The
drive to the Old Sweet was pleasant. Yes, but rather tiresome. Mr. Meigs
had gone away suddenly. Yes; Irene was sorry his business should have
called him away. Was she very sorry? She wouldn't lie awake at night
over it, but he was a good friend. The time passed very quickly here.
Yes; one couldn't tell how it went; the days just melted away; the two
weeks seemed like a day. They were going away the next day. King said he
was going also.
“And,” he added, as if with an effort, “when the season is over, Miss
Benson, I am going to settle down to work.”
“I'm glad of that,” she said, turning upon him a face glowing with
approval.
“Yes, I have arranged to go on with practice in my uncle's office. I
remember what you said about a dilettante life.”
“Why, I never said anything of the kind.”
“But you looked it. It is all the same.”
They had come to the crown of the hill, and stood looking over the
intervales to the purple mountains. Irene was deeply occupied in tying
up with grass a bunch of wild flowers. Suddenly he seized her hand.
“Irene!”
“No, no,” she cried, turning away. The flowers dropped from her hand.
“You must listen, Irene. I love you--I love you.”
She turned her face towards him; her lips trembled; her eyes were full
of tears; there was a great look of wonder and tenderness in her face.
“Is it all true?”
She was in his arms. He kissed her hair, her eyes--ah me! it is the old
story. It had always been true. He loved her from the first, at Fortress
Monroe, every minute since. And she--well, perhaps she could learn to
love him in time, if he was very good; yes, maybe she had loved him
a little at Fortress Monroe. How could he? what was there in her to
attract him? What a wonder it was that she could tolerate him! What
could she see in him?
So this impossible thing, this miracle, was explained? No, indeed!
It had to be inquired into and explained over and over again, this
absolutely new experience of two people loving each other.
She could speak now of herself, of her doubt that he could know his own
heart and be stronger than the social traditions, and would not mind, as
she thought he did at Newport--just a little bit--the opinions of other
people. I do not by any means imply that she said all this bluntly, or
that she took at all the tone of apology; but she contrived, as a woman
can without saying much, to let him see why she had distrusted, not the
sincerity, but the perseverance of his love. There would never be any
more doubt now. What a wonder it all is.
The two parted--alas! alas! till supper-time!
I don't know why scoffers make so light of these partings--at the foot
of the main stairs of the hotel gallery, just as Mrs. Farquhar was
descending. Irene's face was radiant as she ran away from Mrs. Farquhar.
“Bless you, my children! I see my warning was in vain, Mr. King. It is
a fatal walk. It always was in our family. Oh, youth! youth!” A shade of
melancholy came over her charming face as she turned alone towards the
spring.