The Summer Campaign Is Planned
Winter waned and spring charmed the land into blossom. The city-pent,
as we have intimated, must take this season largely on faith. If one
can find a patch of ground naked of stone or asphalt one may feel the
heart of the earth beat. But even now the shop-windows are more
inspiring. At least they copy the outer show. Tender-hued shirt-waists
first push up their sprouts of arms through the winter furs and
woollens, quite as the first violets out in the woodland thrust
themselves up through the brown carpet of leaves. Then every window
becomes a summery glade of lawn, tulle, and chiffon, more lavish of
tints, shades, and combinations, indeed, than ever nature dared to be.
Outside, where the unspoiled earth begins, the blossoms are clouding
the trees with a mist of pink and white, and the city-dweller knows it
from the bloom and foliage of these same windows.
Then it is that the spring "get away" urge is felt by each prisoner, by
those able to obey it, and by those, alike, who must wear it down in
the groomed and sophisticated wildness of the city parks.
On a morning late in May Mrs. Bines and her daughter were at breakfast.
"Isn't Percival coming?" asked his mother. "Everything will be cold."
"Can't say," Psyche answered. "I don't even know if he came in last
night. But don't worry about cold things. You can't get them too cold
for Perce at breakfast, nowadays. He takes a lot of ice-water and a
little something out of the decanter, and maybe some black coffee."
"Yes, and I'm sure it's bad for him. He doesn't look a bit healthy and
hasn't since he quit eating breakfast. He used to be such a hearty
eater at breakfast, steaks and bacon and chops and eggs and waffles. It
was a sight to see him eat; and since he's quit taking anything but
that cold stuff he's lost his colour and his eyes don't look right. I
know what he's got hold of--it's that 'no-breakfast' fad. I heard about
it from Mrs. Balldridge when we came here last fall. I never did
believe in it, either."
The object of her solicitude entered in dressing-gown and slippers.
"I'm just telling Psyche that this no-breakfast fad is hurting your
health, my son. Now do come and eat like you used to. You began to look
bad as soon as you left off your breakfast. It's a silly fad, that's
what it is. You can't tell _me!_"
The young man stared at his mother until he had mastered her meaning.
Then he put both hands to his head and turned to the sideboard as if to
conceal his emotion.
"That's it," he said, as he busied himself with a tall glass and the
cracked ice. "It's that 'no-breakfast' fad. I didn't think you knew
about it. The fact is," he continued, pouring out a measure of brandy,
and directing the butler to open a bottle of soda, "we all eat too
much. After a night of sound sleep we awaken refreshed and buoyant, all
our forces replenished; thirsty, of course, but not hungry"--he sat
down to the table and placed both hands again to his head--"and we have
no need of food. Yet such is the force of custom that we deaden
ourselves for the day by tanking up on coarse, loathsome stuff like
bacon. Ugh! Any one would think, the way you two eat so early in the
day, that you were a couple of cave-dwellers,--the kind that always
loaded up when they had a chance because it might be a week before they
got another."
He drained his glass and brightened visibly.
"Now, why not be reasonable?" he continued, pleadingly. "You know there
is plenty of food. I have observed it being brought into town in huge
wagon-loads in the early morning on many occasions. Why do you want to
eat it all at one sitting? No one's going to starve you. Why stupefy
yourselves when, by a little nervy self-denial, you can remain as fresh
and bright and clear-headed as I am at this moment? Why doesn't a fire
make its own escape, Mrs. Carstep-Jamwuddle?"
"I don't believe you feel right, either. I just know you've got an
awful headache right now. Do let the man give you a nice piece of this
steak."
"Don't, I beg of you, Lady Ashmorton! The suggestion is extremely
repugnant to me. Besides, I'm behaving this way because I arose with
the purely humourous fancy that my head was a fine large accordeon, and
that some meddler had drawn it out too far. I'm sportively pretending
that I can press it back into shape. Now you and sis never get up with
any such light poetic notion as that. You know you don't--don't attempt
to deceive me." He glanced over the table with swift disapproval.
"Strawberries, oatmeal, rolls, steak three inches thick, bacon,
omelette--oh, that I should live to see this day! It's disgraceful! And
at your age--before your own innocent woman-child, and leading her into
the same excesses. Do you know what that breakfast is? No; I'll tell
you. That breakfast is No. 78 in that book of Mrs. Rorer's, and she
expressly warns everybody that it can be eaten safely only by
steeple-climbers, piano-movers, and sea-captains. Really, Mrs.
Wrangleberry, I blush for you."
"I don't care how you go on. You ain't looked well for months."
"But think of my great big heart--a heart like an ox,"--he seemed on
the verge of tears--"and to think that you, a woman I have never
treated with anything but respect since we met in Honduras in the fall
of '93--to think _you_ should throw it up to my own face that I'm not
beautiful. Others there are, thank God, who can look into a man's heart
and prize him for what he is--not condemn him for his mere superficial
blemishes."
"And I just know you've got in with a fast set. I met Mr. Milbrey
yesterday in the corridor--"
"Did he tell you how to make a lovely asparagus short-cake or
something?"
"He told me those men you go with so much are dreadful gamblers, and
that when you all went to Palm Beach last February you played poker for
money night and day, and you told me you went for your health!"
"Oh, he did, did he? Well, I didn't get anything else. He's a dear old
soul, if you've got the copper handy. If that man was a woman he'd be a
warm neighbourhood gossip. He'd be the nice kind old lady that _starts_
things, that's what Hoddy Milbrey would be."
"And you said yourself you played poker most of the time when you went
to Aiken on the car last month."
"To be honest with you, ma, we did play poker. Say, they took it off of
me so fast I could feel myself catching cold."
"There, you see--and you really ought to wear one of those chamois-skin
chest protectors in this damp climate."
"Well, we'll see. If I can find one that an ace-full won't go through
I'll snatch it so quick the man'll think he's being robbed. Now I'll
join you ladies to the extent of some coffee, and then I want to know
what you two would rather do this summer _than_."
"Of course," said Psyche, "no one stays in town in summer."
"Exactly. And I've chartered a steam yacht as big as this hotel--all
but--But what I want to know is whether you two care to bunk on it or
whether you'd rather stay quietly at some place, Newport perhaps, and
maybe take a cruise with me now and then."
"Oh, that would be good fun. But here's ma getting so I can't do a
thing with her, on account of all those beggars and horrid people down
in the slums."
Mrs. Bines looked guilty and feebly deprecating. It was quite true that
in her own way she had achieved a reputation for prodigality not
inferior to that acquired by her children in ways of their own.
"You know it's so, ma," the daughter went on, accusingly. "One night
last winter when you were away we dined at the Balldridge's, in
Eighty-sixth Street, and the pavements were so sleety the horses
couldn't stand, so Colonel Balldridge brought us home in the Elevated,
about eleven o'clock. Well, at one of the stations a big policeman got
on with a little baby all wrapped up in red flannel. He'd found it in
an area-way, nearly covered with snow--where some one had left it, and
he was taking it down to police-headquarters, he said. Well, ma went
crazy right away. She made him undo it, and then she insisted on
holding it all the way down to Thirty-third Street. One man said it
might be President of the United States, some day; and Colonel
Balldridge said, 'Yes, it has unknown possibilities--it may even be a
President's wife'--just like that. But I thought ma would be demented.
It was all fat and so warm and sleepy it could hardly hold its eyes
open, and I believe she'd have kept it then and there if the policeman
would have let her. She made him promise to get it a bottle of warm
milk the first thing, and borrowed twenty dollars of the colonel to
give to the policeman to get it things with, and then all the way down
she talked against the authorities for allowing such things--as if they
could help it--and when we got home she cried--you _know_ you did,
ma--and you pretended it was toothache--and ever since then she's been
perfectly daft about babies. Why, whenever she sees a woman going along
with one she thinks the poor thing is going to leave it some place; and
now she's in with those charity workers and says she won't leave New
York at all this summer."
"I don't care," protested the guilty mother, "it would have frozen to
death in just a little while, and it's done so often. Why, up at the
Catholic Protectory they put out a basket at the side door, so a body
can leave their baby in it and ring the bell and run away; and they get
one twice a week sometimes; and this was such a sweet, fat little baby
with big blue eyes, and its forehead wrinkled, and it was all puckered
up around its little nose--"
"And that isn't the worst of it," the relentless daughter broke in.
"She gets begging letters by the score and gives money to all sorts of
people, and a man from the Charities Organisation, who had heard about
it, came and warned her that they were impostors--only she doesn't
care. Do you know, there was a poor old blind woman with a dismal,
wheezy organ down at Broadway and Twenty-third Street--the organ would
hardly play at all, and just one wretched tune--only the woman wasn't
blind at all we found out--and ma bought her a nice new organ that cost
seventy-five dollars and had it taken up to her. Well, she found out
through this man from the Organisation that the woman had pawned the
new organ for twenty dollars and was still playing on the old one. She
didn't want a new one because it was too cheerful; it didn't make
people sad when they heard it, like her old one did. And yesterday ma
bought an Indian--"
"A what?" asked her brother, in amazement.
"An Indian--a tobacco sign."
"You don't mean it? One of those lads that stand out in front and peer
under their hands to see what palefaces are moving into the house
across the street? Say, ma, what you going to do with him? There isn't
much room here, you know."
"I didn't buy him for myself," replied Mrs. Bines, with dignity; "I
wouldn't want such an object."
"She bought it," explained his sister, "for an Italian woman who keeps
a little tobacco-shop down in Rivington Street. A man goes around to
repaint them, you know, but hers was so battered that this man told her
it wasn't worth painting again, and she'd better get another, and the
woman said she didn't know what to do because they cost twenty-five
dollars and one doesn't last very long. The bad boys whittle him and
throw him down, and the people going along the street put their shoes
up to tie them and step on his feet, and they scratch matches on his
face, and when she goes out and says that isn't right they tell her
she's too fresh. And so ma gave her twenty-five dollars for a new one."
"But she has to support five children, and her husband hasn't been able
to work for three years, since he fell through a fire-escape where he
was sleeping one hot night," pleaded Mrs. Bines, "and I think I'd
rather stay here this summer. Just think of all those poor babies when
the weather gets hot. I never thought there were so many babies in the
world."
"Well, have your own way," said her son. "If you've started out to look
after all the babies in New York you won't have any time left to play
the races, I'll promise you that."
"Why, my son, I never--"
"But sis here would probably rather do other things."
"I think," said Psyche, "I'd like Newport--Mrs. Drelmer says I
shouldn't think of going any place else. Only, of course, I can't go
there alone. She says she would be glad to chaperone me, but her
husband hasn't had a very good year in Wall Street, and she's afraid
she won't be able to go herself."
"Maybe," began Mrs. Bines, "if you'd offer--"
"Oh! she'd be offended," exclaimed Psyche.
"I'm not so sure of that," said her brother, "not if you suggest it in
the right way--put it on the ground that you'll be quite helpless
without her, and that she'd oblige you world without end and all that.
The more I see of people here the more I think they're quite reasonable
in little matters like that. They look at them in the right light. Just
lead up to it delicately with Mrs. Drelmer and see. Then if she's
willing to go with you, your summer will be provided for; except that
we shall both have to look in upon Mrs. Juzzlebraggin here now and then
to see that she doesn't overplay the game and get sick herself, and
make sure that they don't get her vaccination mark away from her. And,
ma, you'll have to come off on the yacht once or twice, just to give it
tone."
It appeared that Percival had been right in supposing that Mrs. Drelmer
might be led to regard Psyche's proposal in a light entirely rational.
She was reluctant, at first, it is true.
"It's awfully dear of you to ask me, child, but really, I'm afraid it
will be quite impossible. Oh!--for reasons which you, of course, with
your endless bank-account, cannot at all comprehend. You see we old New
York families have a secure position _here_ by right of birth; and even
when we are forced to practice little economies in dress and household
management it doesn't count against us--so long as we _stay_ here. Now,
Newport is different. One cannot economise gracefully there--not even
one of _us_. There are quiet and very decent places for those of us
that must. But at Newport one must not fall behind in display. A sense
of loyalty to the others, a _noblesse oblige_, compels one to be as
lavish as those flamboyant outsiders who go there. One doesn't want
them to report, you know, that such and such families of our smart set
are falling behind for lack of means. So, while we of the real stock
are chummy enough here, where there is only _us_ in a position to
observe ourselves, there is a sort of tacit agreement that only those
shall go to Newport who are able to keep up the pace. One need not, for
one season or so, be a cottager; but, for example, in the matter of
dress, one must be sinfully lavish. Really, child, I could spend three
months in the Engadine for the price of one decent month at Newport;
the parasols, gloves, fans, shoes, 'frillies'--enough to stock the Rue
de la Paix, to say nothing of gowns--but why do I run on? Here am I
with a few little simple summer things, fit enough indeed for the quiet
place we shall reach for July and August, but ab-so-lute-ly impossible
for Newport--so say no more about it, dear. You're a sweet--but it's
madness to think of it."
"And I had," reported Psyche to her mother that night, "such a time
getting her to agree. At first she wouldn't listen at all. Then, after
I'd just fairly begged her, she admitted she might because she's taken
such a fancy to me and hates to leave me--but she was sensitive about
what people might say. I told her they'd never have a chance to say a
word; and she was anxious Perce shouldn't know, because she says he's
so cynical about New York people since that Milbrey girl made such a
set for him; and at last she called me a dear and consented, though
she'd been looking forward to a quiet summer. To-morrow early we start
out for the shops."
So it came that the three members of the Bines family pursued during
the summer their respective careers of diversion under conditions most
satisfactory to each.
The steam yacht _Viluca_, chartered by Percival, was put into
commission early in June. Her first cruise of ten days was a signal
triumph. His eight guests were the men with whom he had played poker so
tirelessly during the winter. Perhaps the most illuminating log of that
cruise may be found in the reply of one of them whom Percival invited
for another early in July.
"Much obliged, old man, but I haven't touched a drop now in over three
weeks. My doctor says I must let it be for at least two months, and I
mean to stick by him. Awfully kind of you, though!"