"Have to go, child? I should think you'd like to go. I never saw such a
girl--never. Pa and me are just studying all the time to please you, and
it seems as if--" And the old lady's voice broke down.
"Why, mother dear"--and the girl, with tears in her eyes, leaned over her
and kissed her fondly, and stroked her hair--"you are just as good and
sweet as you can be; and don't mind me; you know I get in moods
sometimes."
The old lady pulled her down and kissed her, and looked in her face with
beseeching eyes.
"What an old frump the mother is!" was Mrs. Glow's comment to Stanhope,
when she next met him; "but she is immensely amusing."
"She is a kind-hearted, motherly woman," replied King, a little sharply.
"Oh, motherly! Has it come to that? I do believe you are more than half
gone. The girl is pretty; she has a beautiful figure; but my gracious!
her parents are impossible--just impossible. And don't you think she's a
little too intellectual for society? I don't mean too intellectual, of
course, but too mental, don't you know--shows that first. You know what
I mean."
"But, Penelope, I thought it was the fashion now to be intellectual--go
in for reading, and literary clubs, Dante and Shakespeare, and political
economy, and all that."
"Yes, I belong to three clubs. I'm going to one tomorrow morning. We are
going to take up the 'Disestablishment of the English Church.' That's
different; we make it fit into social life somehow, and it doesn't
interfere. I'll tell you what, Stanhope, I'll take Miss Benson to the
Town and County Club next Saturday."
"That will be too intellectual for Miss Benson. I suppose the topic will
be Transcendentalism?"
"No; we have had that. Professor Spor, of Cambridge, is going to lecture
on Bacteria--if that's the way you pronounce it--those mites that get
into everything."
"I should think it would be very improving. I'll tell Miss Benson that
if she stays in Newport she must improve her mind,
"You can make yourself as disagreeable as you like to me, but mind you
are on your good behavior at dinner tonight, for the Misses Pelham will
be here."
The five-o'clock at Mrs. Bartlett Glow's was probably an event to nobody
in Newport except Mrs. Benson. To most it was only an incident in the
afternoon round and drive, but everybody liked to go there, for it is one
of the most charming of the moderate-sized villas. The lawn is planted
in exquisite taste, and the gardener has set in the open spaces of green
the most ingenious devices of flowers and foliage plants, and nothing
could be more enchanting than the view from the wide veranda on the sea
side. In theory, the occupants lounge there, read, embroider, and swing
in hammocks; in point of fact, the breeze is usually so strong that these
occupations are carried on indoors.
The rooms were well filled with a moving, chattering crowd when the
Bensons arrived, but it could not be said that their entrance was
unnoticed, for Mr. Benson was conspicuous, as Irene had in vain hinted to
her father that he would be, in his evening suit, and Mrs. Benson's
beaming, extra-gracious manner sent a little shiver of amusement through
the polite civility of the room.
"I was afraid we should be too late," was Mrs. Benson's response to the
smiling greeting of the hostess, with a most friendly look towards the
rest of the company. "Mr. Benson is always behindhand in getting dressed
for a party, and he said he guessed the party could wait, and--"
Before the sentence was finished Mrs. Benson found herself passed on and
in charge of a certain general, who was charged by the hostess to get her
a cup of tea. Her talk went right on, however, and Irene, who was still
standing by the host, noticed that wherever her mother went there was a
lull in the general conversation, a slight pause as if to catch what this
motherly old person might be saying, and such phrases as, "It doesn't
agree with me, general; I can't eat it," "Yes, I got the rheumatiz in
New Orleans, and he did too," floated over the hum of talk.
In the introduction and movement that followed Irene became one of a
group of young ladies and gentlemen who, after the first exchange of
civilities, went on talking about matters of which she knew nothing,
leaving her wholly out of the conversation. The matters seemed to be
very important, and the conversation was animated: it was about so-and-so
who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or the last evening at the
Casino, or the new trap on the Avenue--the delightful little chit-chat by
means of which those who are in society exchange good understandings, but
which excludes one not in the circle. The young gentleman next to Irene
threw in an explanation now and then, but she was becoming thoroughly
uncomfortable. She could not be unconscious, either, that she was the
object of polite transient scrutiny by the ladies, and of glances of
interest from gentlemen who did not approach her. She began to be
annoyed by the staring (the sort of stare that a woman recognizes as
impudent admiration) of a young fellow who leaned against the mantel--a
youth in English clothes who had caught very successfully the air of an
English groom. Two girls near her, to whom she had been talking, began
speaking in lowered voices in French, but she could not help overhearing
them, and her face flushed hotly when she found that her mother and her
appearance were the subject of their foreign remarks.
Luckily at the moment Mr. King approached, and Irene extended her hand
and said, with a laugh, "Ah, monsieur," speaking in a very pretty Paris
accent, and perhaps with unnecessary distinctness, "you were quite right:
the society here is very different from Cyrusville; there they all talk
about each other."
Mr. King, who saw that something had occurred, was quick-witted enough to
reply jestingly in French, as they moved away, but he asked, as soon as
they were out of ear-shot, "What is it?"
"Nothing," said the girl, recovering her usual serenity. "I only said
something for the sake of saying something; I didn't mean to speak so
disrespectfully of my own town. But isn't it singular how local and
provincial society talk is everywhere? I must look up mother, and then I
want you to take me on the veranda for some air. What a delightful house
this is of your cousin's!"
The two young ladies who had dropped into French looked at each other for
a moment after Irene moved away, and one of them spoke for both when she
exclaimed: "Did you ever see such rudeness in a drawing-room! Who could
have dreamed that she understood?" Mrs. Benson had been established very
comfortably in a corner with Professor Slem, who was listening with great
apparent interest to her accounts of the early life in Ohio. Irene
seemed relieved to get away into the open air, but she was in a mood that
Mr. King could not account for. Upon the veranda they encountered Miss
Lamont and the artist, whose natural enjoyment of the scene somewhat
restored her equanimity. Could there be anything more refined and
charming in the world than this landscape, this hospitable, smiling
house, with the throng of easy-mannered, pleasant-speaking guests,
leisurely flowing along in the conventional stream of social comity. One
must be a churl not to enjoy it. But Irene was not sorry when,
presently, it was time to go, though she tried to extract some comfort
from her mother's enjoyment of the occasion. It was beautiful. Mr.
Benson was in a calculating mood. He thought it needed a great deal of
money to make things run so smoothly.
Why should one inquire in such a paradise if things do run smoothly?
Cannot one enjoy a rose without pulling it up by the roots? I have no
patience with those people who are always looking on the seamy side. I
agree with the commercial traveler who says that it will only be in the
millennium that all goods will be alike on both sides. Mr. King made the
acquaintance in Newport of the great but somewhat philosophical Mr.
Snodgrass, who is writing a work on "The Discomforts of the Rich," taking
a view of life which he says has been wholly overlooked. He declares that
their annoyances, sufferings, mortifications, envies, jealousies,
disappointments, dissatisfactions (and so on through the dictionary of
disagreeable emotions), are a great deal more than those of the poor, and
that they are more worthy of sympathy. Their troubles are real and
unbearable, because they are largely of the mind. All these are set
forth with so much powerful language and variety of illustration that
King said no one could read the book without tears for the rich of
Newport, and he asked Mr. Snodgrass why he did not organize a society for
their relief. But the latter declared that it was not a matter for
levity. The misery is real. An imaginary case would illustrate his
meaning. Suppose two persons quarrel about a purchase of land, and one
builds a stable on his lot so as to shut out his neighbor's view of the
sea. Would not the one suffer because he could not see the ocean, and
the other by reason of the revengeful state of his mind? He went on to
argue that the owner of a splendid villa might have, for reasons he gave,
less content in it than another person in a tiny cottage so small that it
had no spare room for his mother-in-law even, and that in fact his
satisfaction in his own place might be spoiled by the more showy place of
his neighbor. Mr. Snodgrass attempts in his book a philosophical
explanation of this. He says that if every man designed his own cottage,
or had it designed as an expression of his own ideas, and developed his
grounds and landscape according to his own tastes, working it out
himself, with the help of specialists, he would be satisfied. But when
owners have no ideas about architecture or about gardening, and their
places are the creation of some experimenting architect and a foreign
gardener, and the whole effort is not to express a person's individual
taste and character, but to make a show, then discontent as to his own
will arise whenever some new and more showy villa is built. Mr. Benson,
who was poking about a good deal, strolling along the lanes and getting
into the rears of the houses, said, when this book was discussed, that
his impression was that the real object of these fine places was to
support a lot of English gardeners, grooms, and stable-boys. They are a
kind of aristocracy. They have really made Newport (that is the summer,
transient Newport, for it is largely a transient Newport). "I've been
inquiring," continued Mr. Benson, "and you'd be surprised to know the
number of people who come here, buy or build expensive villas, splurge
out for a year or two, then fail or get tired of it, and disappear."
Mr. Snodgrass devotes a chapter to the parvenues at Newport. By the
parvenu--his definition may not be scientific--he seems to mean a person
who is vulgar, but has money, and tries to get into society on the
strength of his money alone. He is more to be pitied than any other sort
of rich man. For he not only works hard and suffers humiliation in
getting his place in society, but after he is in he works just as hard,
and with bitterness in his heart, to keep out other parvenues like
himself. And this is misery.
But our visitors did not care for the philosophizing of Mr. Snodgrass
--you can spoil almost anything by turning it wrong side out. They
thought Newport the most beautiful and finished watering-place in
America. Nature was in the loveliest mood when it was created, and art
has generally followed her suggestions of beauty and refinement. They
did not agree with the cynic who said that Newport ought to be walled in,
and have a gate with an inscription, "None but Millionaires allowed
here." It is very easy to get out of the artificial Newport and to come
into scenery that Nature has made after artistic designs which artists
are satisfied with. A favorite drive of our friends was to the Second
Beach and the Purgatory Rocks overlooking it. The photographers and the
water-color artists have exaggerated the Purgatory chasm into a Colorado
canon, but anybody can find it by help of a guide. The rock of this
locality is a curious study. It is an agglomerate made of pebbles and
cement, the pebbles being elongated as if by pressure. The rock is
sometimes found in detached fragments having the form of tree trunks.
Whenever it is fractured, the fracture is a clean cut, as if made by a
saw, and through both pebbles and cement, and the ends present the
appearance of a composite cake filled with almonds and cut with a knife.
The landscape is beautiful.
"All the lines are so simple," the artist explained. "The shore, the
sea, the gray rocks, with here and there the roof of a quaint cottage to
enliven the effect, and few trees, only just enough for contrast with the
long, sweeping lines."
"You don't like trees?" asked Miss Lamont.
"Yes, in themselves. But trees are apt to be in the way. There are too
many trees in America. It is not often you can get a broad, simple
effect like this."
It happened to be a day when the blue of the sea was that of the
Mediterranean, and the sky and sea melted into each other, so that a
distant sail-boat seemed to be climbing into the heavens. The waves
rolled in blue on the white sand beach, and broke in silver. Three young
girls on horseback galloping in a race along the hard beach at the moment
gave the needed animation to a very pretty picture.
North of this the land comes down to the sea in knolls of rock breaking
off suddenly-rocks gray with lichen, and shaded with a touch of other
vegetation. Between these knifeback ledges are plots of sea-green grass
and sedge, with little ponds, black, and mirroring the sky. Leaving this
wild bit of nature, which has got the name of Paradise (perhaps because
few people go there), the road back to town sweeps through sweet farm
land; the smell of hay is in the air, loads of hay encumber the roads,
flowers in profusion half smother the farm cottages, and the trees of the
apple-orchards are gnarled and picturesque as olives.
The younger members of the party climbed up into this paradise one day,
leaving the elders in their carriages. They came into a new world, as
unlike Newport as if they had been a thousand miles away. The spot was
wilder than it looked from a distance. The high ridges of rock lay
parallel, with bosky valleys and ponds between, and the sea shining in
the south--all in miniature. On the way to the ridges they passed clean
pasture fields, bowlders, gray rocks, aged cedars with flat tops like the
stone-pines of Italy. It was all wild but exquisite, a refined wildness
recalling the pictures of Rousseau.
Irene and Mr. King strolled along one of the ridges, and sat down on a
rock looking off upon the peaceful expanse, the silver lines of the
curving shores, and the blue sea dotted with white sails.
"Ah," said the girl, with an inspiration, "this is the sort of
five-o'clock I like."
"And I'm sure I'd rather be here with you than at the Blims' reception,
from which we ran away."
"I thought," said Irene, not looking at him, and jabbing the point of her
parasol into the ground, "I thought you liked Newport."
"So I do, or did. I thought you would like it. But, pardon me, you seem
somehow different from what you were at Fortress Monroe, or even at
lovely Atlantic City," this with a rather forced laugh.
"Do I? Well, I suppose I am; that is, different from what you thought
me. I should hate this place in a week more, beautiful as it is."
"Your mother is pleased here?"
The girl looked up quickly. "I forgot to tell you how much she thanked
you for the invitation to your cousin's. She was delighted there."
"And you were not?"
"I didn't say so; you were very kind."
"Oh, kind; I didn't mean to be kind. I was purely selfish in wanting you
to go. Cannot you believe, Miss Benson, that I had some pride in having
my friends see you and know you?"
"Well, I will be as frank as you are, Mr. King. I don't like being shown
off. There, don't look displeased. I didn't mean anything
disagreeable."
"But I hoped you understood my motives better by this time."
"I did not think about motives, but the fact is" (another jab of the
parasol), "I was made desperately uncomfortable, and always shall be
under such circumstances, and, my friend--I should like to believe you
are my friend--you may as well expect I always will be."
"I cannot do that. You under--"
"I just see things as they are," Irene went on, hastily. "You think I am
different here. Well, I don't mind saying that when I made your
acquaintance I thought you different from any man I had met." But now it
was out, she did mind saying it; and stopped, confused, as if she had
confessed something. But she continued, almost immediately: "I mean I
liked your manner to women; you didn't appear to flatter, and you didn't
talk complimentary nonsense."
"And now I do?"
"No. Not that. But everything is somehow changed here. Don't let's
talk of it. There's the carriage."
Irene arose, a little flushed, and walked towards the point. Mr. King,
picking his way along behind her over the rocks, said, with an attempt at
lightening the situation, "Well, Miss Benson, I'm going to be just as
different as ever a man was."
V